Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Review (PC/PS4/Switch)
Today I'm reviewing the latest Harvest Moon title, Harvest Moon: Light of Hope (LoH).
I've been playing it for quite a while now, and I'm still working on some guides for it.
These are my impressions after playing the game. This review might change if new features get added to Harvest Moon: Light of Hope in the future.
Hopefully, it gives you a good picture of my experience with the game.
Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Review
I’ll cover a few key parts of this review: Gameplay, Features, Storyline, Controls, Graphics, and Background Music.
The Gameplay
Gameplay-wise, I think it’s pretty good for fans of farming sims, although I’m personally not a fan of PC games with a 2D top-down perspective.
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| Graphics in Summer |
I really appreciate the amount of land you get to grow crops. On top of that, there’s a new system where you not only grow crops by season, but you also have to consider soil types.
That said, here are a few things I didn’t like:
The gameplay feels a bit repetitive at first because you’re constantly repairing buildings. There’s not much variety in your main goals early on.
But if you stick with it, the gameplay gets more interesting and enjoyable.
Some cutscenes feel a little forced. A lot of events happen on rainy days, and none of them can be skipped.
If you don’t pay attention to the dialogue, it’s easy to get lost figuring out the next quest.
The camera movement also feels too stiff. A 3D character with a 2D perspective just doesn’t work well together.
Compared to Harvest Moon games made by Yasuhiro Wada and his team at Marvelous, this one falls short.
It’s nowhere near as good as Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, Hero of Leaf Valley, Animal Parade, and others.
This game honestly feels like a mix between Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories and Skytree Village.
Score: 7/10
The Features
The game includes almost all the basic Harvest Moon features, like:
- Talking and making friends with villagers
- Farming
- Crop mutations
- Raising animals
- Fishing
- Mining
- Gift system
- Foraging
- Decorating your home interiors
- Decorating your farm (like HM: BTN/FoMT, but better)
- Marriage (5 bachelors and 5 bachelorettes on PC)
- Having a child
- And more!
I’d say these are one of the game’s best parts. But honestly, Harvest Moon has been recycling the same features for years.
It really needs something new to stand out and keep up with today’s gamers.
Missing features I’d like to see:
- Collectible rare items
- More free time activities
- Part-time jobs (not just random villager requests)
- Catching Bugs and Insects
- Marriage with the Harvest Goddess (only in the Special Edition)
- More exciting contests and festivals
- Having your spouse and kids actually do something
Adding character customization, the option for multiple spouses, or a dungeon with a combat system and more exploration would definitely help bring Harvest Moon back to popularity.
Oh, and please—make villagers actually walk around. Don’t let them vanish like ghosts!
That’s been one of your biggest mistakes in some Harvest Moon games, Natsume.
Score: 7/10
The Storyline
The story in Harvest Moon: Light of Hope is about an island hit by a storm a few years ago, leaving many of Beacon Town's structures and houses destroyed.
Your job is to rebuild the bridges, houses, piers, and restore the Lighthouse so villagers will return to the island.
Most of the dialogue ties back to this main story. Unfortunately, it’s padded with a lot of pointless small talk. No voice over.
I often skipped dialogue, which made me pay less attention to villagers’ backstories.
The story is okay. Better than some Harvest Moon games that barely have one, but it’s short and nowhere near as strong as Innocent Life or Rune Factory.
Score: 6/10
The Controls
The controls are simple and easy to use, but the keyboard doesn’t do much besides walking. Using a mouse is way better.
You can do almost everything—walking, interacting, collecting, farming—with just a single mouse click. No need to keep switching tools.
Score: 6/10
The Graphics
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| Graphics in Spring |
I’m not a fan of the graphics, especially in Spring. The art style is just… bad.
The character models are decent though, and they look cute during dialogue. You’ll probably get used to the graphics after Spring is over.
Personally, I prefer pixel art like in HM: BtN and FoMT. The colors here are too bright and cartoony, almost like mobile farming games on Android.
If this were a mobile-only release, I could let the graphics slide. But since it’s also on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PS4, it really doesn’t hold up.
Score: 4/10
Background Music
Harvest Moon is usually known for its catchy, memorable music. In Light of Hope, it’s not terrible, but it just doesn’t hit the same. Maybe I’m just not used to it yet.
For me, the best Harvest Moon soundtracks are still Back to Nature, A Wonderful Life, and Innocent Life.
Score: 6/10
Closing Thoughts
After playing for days (not just a few hours), I think Harvest Moon: Light of Hope is still worth recommending based on the points I mentioned above.
The mobile on App Store and PC bundle version on Steam now costs around $12 USD, which I think is pretty cheap.
If you’re a fan of Harvest Moon or farming sims in general, I’d say give it a shot—it also helps support the developers.
But if you’re in the US or Europe, I can see why many players would give it a bad review.
Paying $29.99 USD on Steam or other shops feels overpriced, especially with Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons as competition.
Overall, the game is fun and not too bad, aside from the awful Spring graphics and the steep price in dollars.
I’d suggest not judging it just by the trailer or after only a couple of hours of gameplay.
My final score: 6/10 for PC, and 7/10 for PS4 and Switch (better controls and extra features).
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