Harvest Island Review – A Frightening Disappointment

Harvest Island on PC

Harvest Island pitched itself as a horror farming life-sim, which instantly grabbed my consideration. One other island farmer with some severely spooky potential this October? Signal me up, am I proper? Nicely, sadly, whereas I had excessive hopes for this sport, I’ve struggled to seek out real enjoyment in my expertise. Don’t get me mistaken, the idea is nice! I’m certain there can be folks on the market who get pleasure from this sport. Nonetheless, the execution feels a bit… missing, for me personally, particularly compared to latest rivals, which I’ll clarify additional beneath.

Harvest Island takes a story strategy, inserting you within the function of Will, a farming boy who lives along with his father and youthful sister, Samantha. Proper from the get-go I used to be excited to see these interactions of dialogue, as highly effective sibling bonds are a few of my favourite dynamics in video video games — suppose Sean and Daniel from Life is Strange 2, Yara and Lev from The Last of Us Part II, and most just lately, Carmine and Kieran from Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s Teal Mask DLC. Nonetheless, I quickly discovered myself barely irritated by the primary interplay between Will and Samantha. To be truthful, this was not by way of their dialogue, however as an alternative by way of repetitive sound results.

You see, Samantha is happy to affix her massive brother on his journey to the Island, and received’t cease leaping round as she speaks to him. However, every time she jumps round in place, a relatively loud sound impact performs. On repeat. For all the length of the scene. I suppose this implies she was actually nailing the function of the ‘annoying little sister’ if not the rest.

By the top of this primary scene, my ears felt as in the event that they had been bleeding from the noise of nails on a chalkboard, and I discovered myself skipping by way of the final sections of dialogue in a rush to simply get it over with. This will sound a bit harsh, however this isn’t precisely an effective way to kick off the narrative title that Harvest Island desires to be. That rattling leap sound goes to maintain me awake at 3 am like a sleep paralysis demon for nights to come back.

Sadly, as my development by way of Harvest Island continued, these sound results didn’t get higher, and I quickly discovered myself rising relatively sick of them. Half the time, it felt like someone was simply memeing round with Discord soundboard, and this turned such an irritation to me that I needed to dramatically decrease sound results within the menu, earlier than turning them off utterly. Actually, the expertise with out them felt significantly better after I didn’t have the aggressive noise of a hen clucking or a loud cow’s moo each time I pet or work together with a farm animal.

The soundtrack of background music for Harvest Island is definitely fairly fulfilling, which is why I discovered the sound results to be such a disgrace; they had been nearly intruding on the calming tone that the music is attempting to set.

On a extra constructive word, the graphics do have a pleasant appeal to them that’s greater than value mentioning. Whereas the pixel artwork is nothing too trendy wanting, or extraordinarily detailed or vibrant, this title takes on a barely totally different strategy. As an alternative, Harvest Island makes use of extra uninteresting tones with the vast majority of the atmosphere remaining static, bringing a well-known nostalgia to previous RPG video games from inside the GBA-NDS period.

This continues within the artwork for the character portraits, showcasing Will and Samantha in numerous poses and expressions. These portraits are very properly stylized, and admirable, nearly reminding me of elder Fireplace Emblem character portraits. I feel the character designs, although maybe a bit simplistic, are fully appropriate to the world by which Harvest Island has created, as they did appear to appear and feel proper at residence of their atmosphere.

Diving deeper into the characters, I actually wished to love Will and Samantha. Actually, I so badly tried to love them. Whereas I did discover non permanent moments of pleasure of their presence, corresponding to Will’s sleepyhead nature (relatable), or the scene the place they each yell “HELLO GOATS!” to assist Samantha recover from her worry, for probably the most half, I discovered all the household dynamic relatively dysfunctional and unbearable.

Proper from the second the story kicks off, Will appears to be below excessive stress from his father, tasked with the immense stress of delivering the Harvest Choices and finishing chores with out screwing issues up. He’s always lashing out at his little sister in imply, hurtful feedback because of this stress, as a result of he’s fearful of disappointing and angering his father. In return, this causes Samantha to retaliate with the identical remarks in the direction of her massive brother, making a relatively poisonous and unenjoyable atmosphere.

I misplaced rely of the variety of occasions they advised one another that they hated each other inside my first two hours of gameplay, and whereas I perceive that sibling relationships can undoubtedly be turbulent occasionally, I did discover this to damage the ambiance the farm gives. I got here right here to work laborious and discover a spooky island with a dynamic sibling duo, not feeling like I wanted there was a option to leap into the world to play babysitter or peacemaker between the 2.

Apart from, their father is a complete hardass. I imply severely, he simply stays inside all day, heat and comfy, whereas he throws all of his grownup tasks onto his youngsters. After which he has the nerve to get mad at them once they inevitably mess issues up occasionally? I imply, come on, Grayson; they’re children! Will is fortunate on the uncommon events he makes an effort to show him new expertise, and even then, it’s just about simply so he can tackle extra of Grayson’s work, the accountability of taking part in a caretaker for his sister being drilled into him.

Harvest Island has tried to determine itself as a spooky tackle Stardew Valley, nonetheless, I simply can’t appear to seek out the identical degree of high quality within the title that’s current in Stardew. The sport feels considerably unpolished or unfinished as if it wanted a bit of additional time and care put in the direction of fine-tuning mechanics, including in further options to tie issues collectively, and customarily wrapping issues up properly. Sadly, I don’t discover Harvest Island to fulfill the identical degree of requirements that Stardew and even different latest life-sim or pixel RPG video games have delivered, corresponding to Moonstone Island or Sea of Stars.

In Harvest Island, the farming duties grew repetitive and boring relatively shortly, and that was with me taking part in on Story Mode, which reduces the farming grind in favor of narrative. Not like Stardew Valley and Moonstone Island, Harvest Island lacks a township or group of NPCS in which you’ll be able to work together and construct relationships.

As an alternative, you’re caught on the household farm, wrapped up within the iffy relationships between your annoying little sister and intimidating father. When you do get to make use of Bless to improve your farm and craft new instruments, it simply doesn’t fairly carry the identical appeal as rival titles.

One other factor that I discovered fairly vital frustration in, was the truth that the sport will usually immediate new Quests, however give no sense of course in the place you’re supposed to go to finish stated Quest. For instance, one of many duties listed was ‘take Samantha to the Island’ — but gave no indication of the place the Island was positioned. This left me wandering across the farm for approach too lengthy, getting irritated that each pathway gave the impression to be locked.

Fifteen minutes later, and I’d lastly discovered my approach, by pure luck. Possibly I missed an apparent signal on this state of affairs, I don’t know, however I did discover it irritating that the Quests in your Journal had been relatively obscure. That is high quality for fetch quests and crop planting, as they’re pretty self-explanatory. However for important quests that push the story ahead? It begins to get a bit draining.

Harvest Island has additionally marketed itself in the direction of horror, which I feel must be mentioned. Pixel video games have confirmed on a number of events that they greater than have the potential of delivering nice horror titles which might be genuinely scary and scary to play. Nonetheless, Harvest Island doesn’t ship this similar expertise, which is a letdown.

The sport positively has delicate influences by way of a barely spooky island, with odd flashes of blood or animal elements right here and there, a demon, and some minor jumpscares. Nonetheless, it’s in no way a ‘horror’ sport. Harvest Island isn’t scary in the identical approach as different titles could be, and as an alternative, it could possible be higher off seen as a darkish thriller RPG mashup. I’ve caught glimpses of some totally different titles which have been a a lot greater success in terms of a conflict of the horror and life-sim style, with Pumpkin Panic and Graveyard Keeper instantly coming to thoughts.

Compared to these titles, Harvest Island simply falls flat, so the concept of evaluating it to Stardew Valley feels nearly a bit misleading. There’s no seasons mechanic, a scarcity of pleasant faces to converse with, and crafting appears to really feel fairly bare-bones. I can’t assist however really feel like Harvest Island was utterly mismarketed with the references to Stardew Valley, which created false expectations for my playthrough.

The sport additionally seems to nonetheless be fairly buggy, which created an enormous damaging affect on my participant expertise. I discovered occasionally the digital camera would have a slight flicker because it struggled to pan following Will and Samantha, and on a couple of event my sport froze up utterly, leaving me with no choice aside from power closing it. Harvest Island additionally doesn’t have an autosave characteristic, so each time this occurred, I misplaced a small chunk of progress. Some of these bugs make issues really feel extraordinarily irritating, and to be fairly sincere, uninteresting my intentions of wanting to select it again up.

Harvest Island was an excellent idea that had large potential. Sadly, the sport is held again by its degree of polish in sure areas, and being inaccurately marketed. In most situations, I’d honestly discover it very laborious to advocate this sport to followers of life-sims or horror video games.

Nonetheless, I feel if I’d recognized to strategy this sport with the mindset that I might be going right into a darkish thriller narrative RPG with a slight nostalgic and retro feeling, I might have discovered way more enjoyment within the title. The gameplay, dialogue, and story at first of the sport are notably painful, however as soon as issues decide up and the thriller begins unfolding, there’s fairly a little bit of intrigue to be discovered, so the title should still be a worthy contender for followers of this style.

Generally the course by which the story leads is a bit predictable, however for probably the most half, there’s a enjoyable sense of exploration, and regardless of not being notably ‘horror’ worthy, issues nonetheless get fairly twisted. Sadly, the sport takes too lengthy to interrupt into its strongest a part of the story, which all unravels close to the top of the sport. This can be a disgrace as a result of whereas I used to be not thrilled by my Harvest Island expertise, there was a enjoyable sense of delicate terror within the final moments; you simply have to pull your self by way of the worst elements of the sport to get there.

In regards to the writer

Grace Black

Grace is a author, digital artist, and character illustrator from New Zealand with a love for fiction and storytelling. Grace has been writing for Twinfinite for seven months and within the video games trade for a 12 months. She’s a horror fanatic, occasional anime enjoyer, and die-hard Ghost-Kind Pokemon fangirl. Her favourite video video games embrace Overwatch 2, Life is Unusual, The Final of Us, and Pokemon – all of which she is going to by no means tire of.