E308: Wii Fanboy tends farm in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is a big game. The first thing that I noticed was just how large the game world is. You aren't restricted to just one farm, instead able to spread many a seed across many a land. Aside from that, the game very much feels like all of the other Harvest Moon titles, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you're a fan of the series or not.

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With it being the demo build and all, many things were unlocked from the outset. The main farm my character was situated at had a large plot of various flowers planted, which looked very nice. I had lots of animals, including a goat, sheep and, yes, an ostrich. I even rode it around some. It's as awesome as it looks. There were even penguins!

Dwelling within the house was a family from the previous save. In Tree of Tranquility, once you play long enough and find a mate, eventually having some offspring, you can take all of the upgraded tools and use them with the new character, thus starting all over again. All of you Harvest Moon fanatics out there, I honestly don't know how you could do it.

One thing that was a big issue when demoing the game was the frame rate. Because there were so many flowers and everything, the game ran pretty slow. But, I was told by Graham, the helpful Natsume rep showing off the game, this was due to the game being run on a dev kit (something about an extra buffer pass being needed). Regardless of what it was that did it, Graham knew of the issue and offered a very technical and thorough explanation of the issue. Basically, I was assured that it wouldn't exist in the final build of the game.

Tree of Tranquility should provide Harvest Moon fans with loads of content. This should keep them content until next year, when another Harvest Moon game releases.