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WonderdogSoftware.Com - The latest updated Video Game Walkthrough; Game Guide

Release Date:05/11/2007
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Natsume
Developer: Natsume
 
Let's not procrastinate here. Your time is valuable, and I'm not going to make you wade through four paragraphs of concept nonsense this morning before actually telling you anything about this little mystery of a game - due to its numerous name-changes and constantly shifting release date, it's already gotten everybody confused enough. So, the facts: Innocent Life is the first Harvest Moon game not to be developed by Marvelous Interactive, and it bears no relation to the previous games in the series. It's a diversion, if you will. As you'll know if you read our Harvest Moon interview the other week, its development was handed over to a tiny, completely unknown development studio called ArtePiazza in an effort to create more innovation and variety within the series.

 

And in that, it has certainly succeeded - Innocent Life is a completely different Harvest Moon (and if you're already into the series there is a fair chance that you won't like it at all - but we'll get to that later). You play a child robot, tending a forgotten farm on an island whose inhabitants have long relied on technology for their living. Your rural existence is juxtaposed with a shiny, hi-tech town five minutes down the road and as the game progresses, you accumulate a selection of futuristic gadgetry to help with your agricultural endeavours.

 

The result is that the farming, over time, becomes more and more secondary to exploration of the island and progression of the story; it's a bit like Harvest Moon mixed with Lost in Blue. There are no expansions to buy, no potential wives to woo - hell, after you get a robot helper, there aren't even any plants to water. The farming is more a part of the setting and context as opposed to the sole focus of the gameplay, as it always was before.

 

Admitted the most important strategy for a good Shadowrun experience: Waiting for a price drop..