Harvest Moon: Animal Parade for the Wii

Released in Japan on October 30, 2008 for the Nintendo Wii and a little over a year later in the United States, on November 12, 2009, Animal Parade is a fantastic addition to the Harvest Moon series, a successful farming simulation video game.

Harvest Moon has had a long history, debuting on the Super Nintendo and appearing on many popular consoles over the years, including the Game Boy, Playstation, GameCube and finally, the Wii. Animal Parade has a story much like many of the others, which revolves around the playable character (boy or girl) who must raise a successful farm in order to help the locals and the land, and in this case, the tree of the Harvest Goddess has been weakened and the Harvest King must be found to help before the land dies.

Animal Parade features many new aspects of gameplay or more refined ideas from earlier editions. Depending on whether a player chooses a boy or girl to run the farm will later effect what non-playable characters are eligible for marriage. A player must balance a popular social life with the town, as new characters and items are introduced through good deeds, and they must also tend to and raise their own herds and crops. To ignore one of these duties would result in an unsuccessful marriage!

Animal Parade introduces many new animals to care for, including circus critters like an elephant, giraffe and lion, while more tradition livestock has become available, such as silkworms and ostriches! There are many wild animals roaming the land that, once you befriend, will become a house pet, which even includes a snake and baby boar.

The Wii game also has many more festivals, which are big events throughout each season that offer a chance to compete in games and gather with the town friends. The farmer can keep a scrapbook of photos taken at these festivals, which will grow from solo pictures to later having townspeople join in, once friendships become more solid.

An entire new island has been added for adventuring to, clothing can be purchased and attires changed and now, just as there is a rival for your farmer to compete against in terms of winning the heart of one of the townspeople, depending on your marriage to one of the bachelors or bachelorettes, your child will also grow up to have a rival of their own.

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is rated E for Everyone and can be enjoyed by people of all ages, from young children and parents to the most hardened gamer. For an even more successful farming experience, a game strategy guide has been made available by Brady Games.