Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon

Video games are meant to be an escape from reality – a step into an unknown world where the unimaginable becomes imaginable. Be a sneaky spy, a baseball superstar, or a dual-weapon-wielding soldier. Be whatever you want to be and live out your greatest fantasies.

The funny thing is that sometimes you don’t realize what your fantasies are until they’ve been experienced in a game. Prior to the release of Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon, I had no idea that farm life was for me. I had not dreamt of picking corn and cabbage before the sun rose or of planting seeds in the afternoon. But there was something about this game that said, “Play me.” It wasn’t the cartoony box cover or the silly story, which is similar to Stanley Kubrick’s unwieldy A.I. Nor was the thought of harvesting crops as enticing as the thought of fighting slime-encrusted bosses in grimy dungeons. But I had to play it.

If you’re not experiencing those same feelings, you are likely looking at this as just a farm simulator. But if you give Innocent Life a fair shot, you will learn that it is anything but innocent. Its sneaky, never-saw-it-coming addictive traits are downright devious.

Over The Moon And Back

In its bare-bones description, Innocent Life sounds about as exciting as a part-time summer job. Go to bed early, get up before dawn, water all the crops, prepare new soil, plant new seeds, explore the secret dungeon in the southern part of the world, etc. Ok, so that last one might not appear on any job description you’ve heard of (except coalmining, but that goes without saying). The other chores – that’s what they are in the real world – are things you’d avoid doing unless you were a farmer or a lover of homegrown tomatoes.

Yet in this game those daily tasks are converted into entertaining gameplay. It’s almost hard to believe at first. The game runs on a night/day cycle (not real-time) that feels much too long during the first hour or two. Before bed the game asks if you’d like to get up earlier than usual the next day. “Get up early?” I questioned. “Why would I want to do that?”

By the third hour I was looking for a way to avoid sleeping. “It’s nighttime already!? But I have other crops that need to be planted!”

Technically the character you control, a boy whose default name is Life, should not have to sleep. Life is a robot designed by a Dr. Hope, a man who dreamt of creating a robot child that had a real child’s emotions. Every week the boy must return to his creator for maintenance, and every night he must sleep to regain energy.

 
Harvest wild crops with the Scale Pack.

Life acts like any normal boy, but his farming tools are much more advanced than anything you’ve seen in the real world. Initially all crops must be watered by hand. However, once the doctor perfects another one of his designs, you’ll be given a robot that can fly over your garden and water several crops automatically. Simple commands may be assigned to the robot, allowing Life to handle other tasks. While this might sound like it’s making the game easier, it is only saving time.

Days may have felt long in the beginning, but they are actually very short. If you have to go into town or explore a new location, expect no less than 1/4 of your day to be eliminated in the process. Seed planting can take up an entire morning – or even an entire day at the start of a new season (where the previous season’s crops die off and the new season’s crops must be planted).

Innocent Life is progressed in three ways: (1) by harvesting as many crops as possible, (2) by visiting Dr. Hope every Sunday, and (3) by exploring the woods, caves, and dungeon-like areas. Follow those rules and the game takes care of the rest.

That’s the easy way of saying it, but there are other factors involved. Life’s farm is comprised of several dozen squares, each counting as one space for a crop. His farm is very big but only a small portion of it is usable due to a curse that has been killing the island. The curse is slowly broken down by placing colored jewels around your farm. Jewels are found within caves, most of which are blocked by doors that have been sealed by a “mysterious” power. By continually harvesting crops and by meeting Dr. Hope every Sunday, the story will gradually work towards breaking these seals.

 
Fishin’ time.

Early on you’ll notice that there are indented stone blocks inside most of your farm. Four blocks are linked to form squares that surround areas where crops cannot be harvested. Collect four jewels of the same color, place them in any four connected blocks, and go to sleep. When you return to your farm the next morning, the game will announce that the seal on that area has been broken. The stone-covered area will turn to soil and any status effect tied to the jewel (such as faster crop growth or longer water retention) will be applied to that area.

This is only scratching the surface of Innocent Life’s engrossing journey. Every aspect – whether it’s the farm work at home or the exploration for new jewels – is satisfying. The game is notoriously slow, but simulation games can get away with that. Oddly enough, while the pace is never quick, you will rush more often to get things done than you do in most other games.

No Harvest Moon fan should be without this sequel, even if it means buying a handheld you don’t currently have (Innocent Life is a PSP exclusive). I also recommend it to anyone who isn’t strictly a fan of one game type or genre. If action games are all you play (and all you want to play), then you probably clicked on this review by mistake. But if you don’t mind slowing down every now and then for a different kind of video game experience, Innocent Life will make you forget that you have a life outside of this game.

Gameplay: 8.0
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon turns chores into entertaining gameplay. It doesn’t seem possible. But in the tradition of Sim City and other great, unlikely gems, Innocent Life is unbeatably addictive. I found myself clutched to my PSP in a way that was usually reserved for console games.

Graphics: 7.0
Innocent Life’s graphics are not as extravagant as other PSP titles, but they are quite detailed. Indoor and outdoor environments offer the same amenities you’d expect to find in the real world.

Sound: 6.0
A decent score that isn’t very diverse. The game is expansive but primarily sticks to the same locations (where the same music tracks are played repeatedly).

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Not nearly as difficult as other sim games, Innocent Life is a title anyone can learn to play.

Concept: 7.8
An excellent way of building on the Harvest Moon franchise, Innocent Life adds futuristic tools and technology to everyone’s favorite farm sim.

Overall: 7.9
There are no words that can perfectly convey what this game will do to you. It initially seems basic, short, and maybe a little childish. But if you stay long enough to learn how to harvest crops (which takes no more than 10 minutes), you’ll be around for another 10 hours and beyond.