Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is the next evolution in the Harvest Moon series. The game finds a balance between being incredibly adorable and ridiculously tedious. This is not an action-packed adventure, and it is for the faint-of-heart. You start your journey choosing whether you want to be a male or female character. Then you choose a name for yourself and you're set to awaken the harvest spirits and help the Harvest Goddess fix the eternal winter that is plaguing the mountain's valley area. It sounds like fun but in reality gameplay mainly involves planting seeds, watering them, harvesting them, selling them and starting that process all over again. It is tedious.
Sitting somewhere between Minecraft and FarmVille, The Lost Valley offers a nearly endless world that you can shape and create as you choose, digging away at mountainsides, creating water inlets, filling in rivers to enable you to explore various parts of the map, and so on. As the game continues, you come across new needy villagers who offer you tasks to complete, which in turn gives you more things to play with, like flowers, animals and buildings. The day to night time shift goes by quickly. It seems the more you work the quicker the day goes. Your health and happiness are also dictated by how much you work and sleep. If you put off resting for too long, you end up fainting or getting grumpy. In this game sleep is a good thing, it often helps progress the story through dreams and gives you more goals. One of the best parts of The Lost Valley is the cuteness of the characters and their silly facial expressions. You definitely don't play this game to be a badass. And, even though the game can be monotonous and frustrating at times, it also - once you get into it - has an addictive quality that will see you spending hours tending to your digital crops.
