Last week I picked up Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. There was a lot of hesitation in this buy since it's been getting very mediocre reviews. Metacritic has it's average score listed at 64 or so. I'm happy to say that all of the reviewers missed the mark on this, and it makes me wonder just how many actually played to completion or at least put in more than a few hours. Really it's making me question the value of modern game reviews more than ever.

The game isn't without its flaws. There's a little too much slowdown and the disc load times are just ridiculous for this point in time. But once you look past those, this is the best Harvest Moon to come out in years. It's also the first (outside of Rune Factory) to combine a real story with a solid farming system. I can't figure out why reviewers didn't pick up on that (unless of course they didn't play it). It's a pretty big deal. It'd be like if the Mario series suddenly had a plot a little more complex than just "saving the princess." Reviews would take note of that (of course they'd play that game).

Regardless of the reviews though I'm very happy that I picked up the game. I spent a good 12 hours or so with it this weekend, and for me that's huge. Best of all I'm finally enjoying a game in one of my favorite franchises that I was just about ready to write off.