Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley, known in Japan as , is a video game in the farm simulation series Harvest Moon for PlayStation Portable, developed by Marvelous Interactive Inc. and published in the U.S. by Natsume. It was released on March 19, 2009 in Japan and on April 26, 2010 in North America.

The game follows along the same lines as the rest of the Story of Seasons series, in which the player takes on the role of a farmer whose only goal in the game is to make a profit from the farm he runs including producing crops and raising livestock. The game is an enhanced remake of Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland, with many major changes.

Story
The player (who is by default named Toy) travels to Leaf Valley to pick up his grandfather's things after hearing that he has died. He learns that in two years, the village will be turned into an amusement park by a company called Funland, and encounters three Harvest Sprites named Nic, Nak, and Flak and the Harvest Goddess, who ask him to stay on the farm and help them. The player then decides to take over his grandfather's farm and work hard to turn the village around. The player also meets Alice, Funland's CEO, and her henchmen, Charles and Renton, who reveal that they have the town's deed. He then makes it his goal to stop Funland's plans and increase the town's popularity to avert its destruction, all while having to deal with Alice's robotic creations. By choosing different paths, you can find up to 16 ways to save the village.

If the player is successful in saving the village before the end of the second year, Alice will give back the deed and will either leave or stay depending on the player's actions. The player will then be faced with a second challenge: earning the required amount of money before the end of the third year to convince his father (who doesn't think he can handle the farm by himself) to allow him to stay in the village.

Reception

The game received "mixed or average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. IGN said "the controls can be frustrating at times" but that "I had a hard time putting down Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley." In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one six and three sevens for a total of 27 out of 40.

References

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2009 video games
Hero of Leaf Valley
Marvelous Entertainment
Real-time strategy video games
PlayStation Portable games
PlayStation Portable-only games
Video games developed in Japan
Rising Star Games games
Single-player video games
Natsume (company) games