Farmers. Not your common, everyday videogame protagonists, and for very good reason. Generally seen - in modern times, anyway - piling animal corpses high and setting fire to them in a vain attempt to stem the latest outbreak of organ-melting bovine superflu, said rural journeymen are typically lacking in the sort of appeal that makes your popular fantasy hero heroic, and if that is a dark secret they're repressing, it's probably concerned with something unsavoury that took place with the carthorse that lives down in the lower east-field.

Is it possible to make an engaging game out of the cultivation of common-mud-loving vegetables? (Insert your own joke about football-management sims here.) Or pick up a copy of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, because, against all the odds, it's actually pretty good.

Where do we begin> Well, for starters, your dad is dead. But let's not dwell on it, because his weird friend Takakura has brought you to the idyllic Forget-Me-Not valley to present you with your slice of the will. Your saucer-eyed little hero - let's call him Mickey - takes the news with surprisingly good grace, and before long we're exploring our new smallholding, roaming through fields and outhouses with piqued curiosity. There's a barn and a chicken coop, a tool shed and a food-storage facility. There's also a cute dog with ridiculously oversized ears and we even get to give our cow a filthy name. Things are definitely looking up...

Mickey rises early, and after a quick glance at the farming news on TV, we're out the door to get our land shipshape. First up, we pick up the cow-milking device from the toolshed and wander over the courtyard to get a splash of the white stuff. Two pails later and the cow is getting shirty. In the first real diversion from common farming practice however, you can show affection towards your fuzzy charges by pressing Triangle. Forget racks of chooks crowbarred into cages the size of matchboxes, in Forget-Me-Not Valley, a happy farm is a productive farm. With that in mind, we open the barn door to let the cow graze in the pasture, and it's on to the next task.

Next up, it's time to do a spot of planting. We find a bit of soil, knock it about a bit with a hoe, and sow a few tomato seeds. Next up, we place a few orders. We've got our heart set on a bunch of chickens, so we order a rooster and a sack of bird seed. Takakura won't pick it up from town until tomorrow, so now seems like a good moment to have a wander around Forget-Me-Not Valley. Down on the beach we run into a red-haired chick called Nami. Her philosophical Japlish ramblings prove a little much for this dumb farmer's boy, so we make our excuses and head off elsewhere. There's a tiny shack that's run by a mad scientist called Daryl, but before we can steal any secrets from his dusty tomes, he's booted us out of the house. What-ever.

A quick glance at the clock reveals it's nearly 6pm, so it's over to the nearby inn for a glass or two of foamy punch, then it's time for the long walk home, which we like to imagine is accompanied by an off-key version of Robbie Williams' Angels and a quick slash in some mystic fairyland grove or other. Bloody good day, all told.

Bloody horrible morning. It's pissing it down outside, the TV seems to be showing a repeat of yesterday's programmes, and that punch has one hell of a morning kick. We go outside to inspect the tomatoes and stumble on our first mistake. Close inspection demonstrates this soil to be practically barren, meaning it's going to take a whole lot of tending to even eke a few browny shoots from the ground. It's the first of many, many agricultural howlers. Perhaps we wronged Alan Titchmarsh in a previous life. Let's hope so.

Off to milk the cow. Except something's the matter. Yup, we left the barn door open overnight, and the beast has gone and got itself a case of the sniffles. There's animal medicine available on the order form, but given that Takakura's not even back with yesterday's order yet, we might as well whistle for it, frankly. This farming's harder than it looks.

Harvest Moon is clearly not a game for the impatient. It took us a day's worth of play to harvest our first ripe tomato and send it off to market, and if you're an instant gratification junkie, that's going to be about a day too long. Also, there are a few niggling frustrations that start to get on your wick - why, for instance, an you only take a nap in eight-hour bursts? There's no faulting the fact, however, that this very gradual progression builds a scarily real attachment to your furry charges, and a strange pride in your agricultural achievements.

As your business - and herd - grows, there's a real sense of being sucked into this world of fretting about the availability of fertilizer and pondering the best location for your new donkey's feedbox. Impatience may get the better of you, but Harvest Moon is a genuinely good-hearted game that conceals a strategic heart under its cutesy exterior. You're unlikely to soil yourself with excitement, but believe us, it feels remarkably good to get your hands dirty.

Graphics 60%
Cutesy Manga fare.

Sound 50%
Nagging theme tune.

Gameplay 70%
Keeps the mundane engaging.

Lifespan 70%
Plenty of room for growth.

Overall 70%
Ripe with early frustration, but put in a bit of hard work and Harvest Moon does deliver a bumper crop of fun!