Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea Review

Review code used, with many thanks to Clever Communications

Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea is the third game of the Harvest Moon series on the Switch, and I’m pleased to see that there is progress. Where Harvest Moon: One World was a first try in an open world concept that was a bit bare, but still had nice ideas to shake up the farming simulation genre, the Harvest Moon: the Winds of Anthos took a big leap. I loved that game, though it was hard to get momentum and progress at the start of the game.

Now we have Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea. It takes place many years after the Winds of Anthos, but the Tiny Harvest Goddess has gotten herself in a pickle again. Your character is raised in the quiet comfort of Bloomfield Village, which is a peaceful existence, though you can’t really go beyond the borders of the town. A mysterious mist creeps from the Forest of Echoes, wild beasts roam under the cover of night, and other villages that the old people in Bloomfield still fondly remember can’t be reached anymore.

Reviving the Spirit Trees

By chance, you free the Harvest Goddess, or at least, a chibified version of her. She’s not sure why she is so tiny; she just knows she slept a long while. Yeah, we got that, seeing the mess Anthos is in! Anyway, of course you’ll help her set things right, starting in your hometown of Bloomfield. The wolves roaming around on the outskirts are quite ferocious; it must be because their leader is also asleep and his spirit tree looks dead.

Screenshot of Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea — Quite the ferocious wolf….best give him some milk

Someone in town remembers how Lupo loved a certain kind of flavoured warm milk, and with that in hand, you try to reach his lair. Once you find him and wake him up by giving him the milk, you us a canister of Bloomfield Happilia to revive his Spirit Tree of Spring. The result is that the region around the village is safe to travel again.

Basically, every new region unlocks in this way. You have to find the Spirit tied to that region. Next after Lupo is Nera, with the Spirit Tree of Summer, which will prevent Tidewind from being constantly beaten by hurricanes and tornadoes. You have to fulfil requests of the inhabitants of the region to get Happila, and each region has another colour. Fill up the Tidewind bottle, and you’ll be able to revive the Spirit Tree of Summer and make the area more habitable again.

Exploration is Grand

All of this involves a lot of exploring, finding new storylines and areas with special crops and foragables, meeting new people and helping them with their worries. The adventure part of Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea is very important, and in this game, roaming around has been made a little bit easier. You still unlock warp statues of the goddess to get around easily.

Also, you get a horse from the start that will be by your side whenever you whistle for it. While you start with one horse, you can tame others too and register which one you want to respond to the Whistle. There are vines to crawl down or up on; there are certain places where you can jump, and by bringing light, there are plenty of caves to explore too. If they take the series further in future, I would love it, though if movement over cliffs or heights would be even more seamless.

I love the vast world you get to explore; there’s this sense of what will be beyond the horizon!

Cozy Farming is Important

You might think I’m describing an adventure game here, but the cozy essence of Harvest Moon is still there. Farming, crafting, fishing and cooking are important, and romancing is a part too, with 10 marriage candidates.

Farming is made as easy as possible, while still doing the hard work. The selection of tools is automatic. For example, you have to till the land first, and after that, the only action can be to sow. After that comes watering, and if you have fertiliser, that will be next and so on. Same goes for trees: if a tree has fruit, your action will be to pick that; if not, you can chop it down.

The shops offer a good variety of seeds and items from the start, and the little wisps are back, dotted around the landscape. When you approach them, you’ll get free seeds. There is a huge number of different crops to harvest, as well as flowers. And sometimes you’ll get a variety of the same crop, which always sells for more money.

There are several fields at your disposal from the start, and the Soilbot updates you on whether your field is healthy, the Fertiliser machine turns mature into fertiliser and the Feeder machine in the stables makes animal feed out of grass or weeds, and automatically refill all feed bins.

Animals Play a More Important Role

Early on, you find a Cockatiel in peril, and after saving it, it starts being your constant companion. After a while you’ll find out why it’s such a handy little helper when the Delivery Service opens up. Perches are dotted throughout the game, and you can pay to have an owl bring items you want to send home while you are exploring to the farm. Little Cockatiel can do the same, and for free!

Your horse is equally brilliant, and like the other animals, he can learn skills. The first one is walking faster, and after that, performing jumps is added. Other animals can learn skills too, and you can even swap them out via Betty at the Animal Center. The Animal Center is where you can buy new animals, but you can also leave animals there to be cared for.

There is no fighting in Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea, though you may meet wild animals that intimidate you, causing your health to decline and you eventually pass out. You can distract them by giving a food item, or you can approach them in stealth mode and try to tame them by petting and giving them food. As you will meet a lot of animals in the wild which can be tamed, you can choose which one you want to have follow you. After all, some skill an animal has might come in handy.

Graphics, Gameplay and Quality of Life

Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea has a very distinct graphical style, with the strong facial expressions that take a bit of getting used to. By now I am, and it’s a clear hallmark of the series. The graphics look good, the world is lush and has a good number of characters in it. In the towns, but there are also NPC’s that you meet in the wild.

There is a reasonably robust character creator with multiple hairstyles, outfits, and skin tones. You can customise and decorate your room, and there are events and festivals, like Bloomfield’s Equestrian Challenge, which you will help set up at the start of the game by bringing materials and crops. For fishing, which already has its own minigame, there are tournaments offering points and prizes.

The game takes what was good in Winds of Anthos and elaborates on it, while other elements are handled in a new way. For example, mining is much better in this new game. No need for dousing and digging through a load it dungeons to get to your silver. This time you clearly see the gemstones that you have to hack to bits. And I loved the little references to Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, showing that the developers are building an overarching storyline.

Very important to mention too: storage is accessed while cooking and crafting automatically! Plus, you get a tent so you can camp in the wild, and don’t need to go back to your original farm constantly.

A Few Niggles

I feel the menus for some frequently returning actions could be better, like how the Feeder machine works when making animal feed or when you are cooking. But you get used to it.

What I didn’t like so much is how slow the camera moves when you try to look around. And the game flow can be a bit jittery, especially on the farm.

The background music is tied to the region, and changes when you reach a new one. It can get a bit monotonous when you spend a lot of time in one place.

Conclusion for Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea

Over the years, starting with The Lost Valley on the 3DS, Harvest Moon has made a series of games that have seen progress over the years. They try not to trod the path well taken, adding new inventions to help you with farming life in One World, opening up Anthos in a big way in The Winds of Anthos and now adding the adventure element in Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea.

Farming remains at the core of this new entry too, but the world has gotten bigger. It invites you to explore, solve some little puzzles to progress and form a bond with your own farm animals and animals living in the wild. There are plenty of other things to do, like romancing and taking part in events.

If you’re more into laid-back farming without too many other things to distract you from the soil, then maybe the added exploration and puzzles feel like extra work. But if you like farming simulation games and the promise of exploration of a really big world, then this is one for you.

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up

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