Harvest Moon: DS

Harvest Moon: DS (牧場物語 コロボックルステーション, Bokujō Monogatari: Korobokkuru Sutēshon, lit. Ranch Story: Colobocle Station) was the first game in the Harvest Moon series to be released on the Nintendo DS.

The game sets in Forget-Me-Not Valley, 100 years after Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. The characters are all the descendants of those in A Wonderful Life, but they all retain the same appearances, names, and character relationship.

In the Japanese version, these characters have different names than their A Wonderful Life counterparts, but they were all changed back in the English version of the game.

Plot
Like most Harvest Moon games before it, you take control of a young man who owns a run down farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley. Your job is to build upon this farm by growing crops, milking cows and building different structures that ultimately help gain more money. While doing this you also befriend the local townsfolk and woo one of the town's girls, eventually marrying her and raising a family.

While doing all this, there is another task you have to complete. The Witch Princess has banished the Harvest Goddess to another dimension along with the valley's 101 Harvest Sprites. You must rescue the Harvest Sprites, the Harvest Goddess, and break the Witch Princess's spell.

Gameplay
Harvest Moon DS reuses character sprites from Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town for those returning characters, but includes new sprites for characters from Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and the town from said game. The game makes use of the Nintendo DS' touchscreen capabilities for accessing the backpack, diary and other handy features as well as a few minigames.

Some new features include the ability to choose where on your land you would like to build your barn, lumber shed, etc. Not only do you choose where to place the building, but what material to build it out of, a factor affecting your building's sturdiness. Buildings built out of fodder are susceptible to unprompted collapse. Buildings built out of wood can collapse after rain. Buildings built out of stone may collapse after storms bad enough that you cannot leave your house, but are quite sturdy in most cases. Buildings built out of golden lumber are indestructible.

Marriage
There are fifteen eligible bachelorettes in all. For some of the bachelorettes, certain things are required in order to meet them so you can eventually marry/befriend them. If you get the love bangle from the Harvest Sprites 'Casino', one can see how much affection points each gift is worth for your future wife.

If the player decides to marry a Mineral Town bachelorette, you may want to take into account that one will move to Mineral Town, the game will be over, and the end credits will roll. After the end credits finish rolling, you will be able to reload your save file from the last save. Because of that, you cannot have a child with Mineral Town bachelorettes. The EU version of this game does not have connection functionality, leaving you unable to marry a girl from Mineral Town.

Forget-Me-Not Valley Bachelorettes
 * Celia
 * Flora
 * Lumina
 * Muffy
 * Nami

Mineral Town Bachelorettes Special Bachelorettes
 * Ann
 * Elli
 * Karen
 * Mary
 * Popuri
 * Harvest Goddess
 * Witch Princess
 * Leia
 * Keira

Rival Marriage
Rival marriage between a potential marriage candidate and a person of the opposite sex exists in DS. There are only rival pairings between the candidates of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Special candidates and Mineral Town candidates do not have rivals.

Rival Couples


 * Carter and Flora
 * Griffin and Muffy
 * Marlin and Celia
 * Gustafa and Nami
 * Rock and Lumina

Trivia

 * In the early versions of the game, there is an exploitable glitch which can earn you lots of money. If you send a Fishing Sprite to the beach during the Winter, your gold will increase by a large amount, often in the millions. It is not guaranteed, however, and using sprites in some copies may cause save files to corrupt after saving, so the glitch can be difficult to use at times. This glitch is fixed in version 1.1. and later versions.
 * Due to a glitch preventing North America copies of the game (version 1.0 and 1.05) from recording the amount of animals that die on the player's farm accurately (meaning it occasionally will miss an animal). To marry the Witch Princess, you must view her Blue heart event, which one of the requirements is to let 50 animals die on your ranch. However, you CAN still achieve this, by killing animals beyond 50 until the event shows up.
 * The Harvest Goddess however is impossible to marry as one must fill the Shipping list with EVERY item in the game, and for unknown reasons, the game does not count the "Choker" (a necklace found in the cave). That one item prevents her affection from appearing.
 * It is possible to end the game early on by letting your dog attack the mayor of Mineral Town Thomas.
 * Donating a Level 100 Toadstool on the Harvest Festival will end the game as you poison yourself and possibly the entire village. The end credits will roll and you will be back on your last save.
 * In the Japanese version, DS is set 100 years after AWL with the characters having the same face but different names as their AWL counterparts, indicating characters in DS are the descendants of the characters in AWL. This subplot, however, is removed in the North American and the European version.