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The Farm Life
Reviewer(s): Ixzion
Developer: Doyleman
Genre: Farm Sim
Release: November 2005
Rating: Everyone
Platform: RPG Maker 2
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Overview:
RPG Maker 2 is truly a wonderous piece of software when in the right hands. After
playing The Farm Life, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that one of those
sets of hands belong to Doyleman. If you were wondering why this game picked up
two RPG Maker Magazine Awards (in the "Mastiphal" and "Gameplay Guru" areas), then
this review should be able to explain it to you.
You start out as a young man who's down on his luck. When your uncle calls you,
you spill your guts out and he lets you stay at his countryside farm while he's
away. From there, you get to meet a cast of wonderfully unique characters, each
with a discernable personality. Not only that, but you get to work your uncle's
farm to earn money for yourself by taking care of chickens, cows and, of course,
your crops. Or you can search far and wide for herbs and other things to get by.
While the game does have a couple of minor flaws, this is by far one of the best
RPG Maker 2 games I have ever played. Period.
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| Positive + |
Presentation |
Negative - |
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Excellent! This game really uses RM2's power to its advantage. There are
wide, beautiful fields, serene sandy beaches, a mountain, and an entire town
to explore, crafted with great care. The music used in the game matches all
events perfectly. Non-player character (NPC) avatars are fantastic and vivid,
displaying a range of emotions from the characters they represent.
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One very minor gripe I have actually relates to the size of the game world. Not that
it's size is in any way a negative, but for some reason, there were no signs at
all to tell players what would lie ahead of them going down a path. A sign mentioning
that the town was ---> this way would have helped a lot. Another point is that one
event would keep mentioning an event that had already past. Minor, though.
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| [Final]: 24/25% |
| Positive + |
Features |
Negative - |
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There are almost too many features to list in this game, but allow me to try:
you can find girls to marry, change your house, grow crops, befriend the villagers
(and by doing so getting mail and gifts from them), watch seasons change, keep
and raise cattle and chickens, go fishing or mine for useful things. It also has
an active clock that counts down the time in the day. Yeah, it's like that.
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Every feature included is important. It really makes this game shine. I couldn't
say a bad thing about the features if I tried.
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| [Final]: 25/25% |
| Positive + |
Debugging |
Negative - |
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Very few errors in the game probably bordering at two or three, but so minor
you may not notice unless you're looking.
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As already stated, an event kept playing in one spot for one event. But it
didn't effect anything about the game.
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| [Final]: 24/25% |
| Positive + |
Fun |
Negative - |
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Holy cow, the game is all types of wonderful and fantastic. The visual design
made me almost forget that weird little slight blur that RM2 games have when
characters are moving. After a little while of playing, I actually cared about
feeding my chickens. The item bag you have is a great addition and is really
nice to use (if a little odd at first). The entire experience is the definition
of fun.
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See, the problem here is that the game would have to NOT be fun in some areas
in order for me to write something here. There is a type of calmness as you play
the game, so don't bother if you don't have the patience (or don't like) to do
something repeatedly to get a result.
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| [Final]: 25/25% |
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This is the reincarnation of Harvest Moon taking place on RPG Maker. Not only
that, it's a game that I'm glad I've had an opportunity to play. A grand, great
game. Actually, if I had to call it anything, I'd call it a masterpiece.
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| [Overall]: 98/100% |
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