I’m sorry for playing "Harvest December" in any month but December.
“Petit Novel Series - Harvest December,” also known as “Shuukaku no Juunigatsu” in Japan, was originally released for PC in 2007 in Japan. The 3DS port released in 2013 and was translated in English for the first time in 2015.
The visual novel series was developed by Talestune, who has made other visual novels. The publisher, Circle Moon Entertainment, has published many games in Asian markets and around the world, such as "Shovel Knight," "Celeste," and more.
I'll release a spoiler review with more on the story next week.
The visuals of a visual novel
Harvest December is about Masaki Konno and the events that transpire with him, his group of friends, his god girlfriend, and his princess girlfriend in the small town of Tagami.
Masaki is a strange one, and that’s an understatement.
Harvest December plays out like an e-book but with visuals.
The game has a ton of dialogue on the bottom screen, while visuals accompany the top screen. There is also music and sound to set the tone/atmosphere of the scenes.
There are Cinematic Graphics (CGs); sprites/portraits; and backgrounds.
The screenshot to the right has the sprite of a character with a background of a classroom. CGs however, are unique high quality artwork.
The sprite(s) usually indicates who’s talking. Certain characters have ways of talking that make them easy to recognize when they’re talking though.
Although, the difference between the characters in their sprites and CGs can be staggering. It took a while to warm up to the sprite art style since some characters look bad in comparison to how they look in CGs.
For example, Uesugi Moyori has a great design like most of the characters, shown well in CGs, but her sprites look bad.
Another awkward thing design-wise was Masaki’s mom’s design, called Mami-Chan by others.
She looks like a child, which fits since she’s very immature but… I have so many questions for her husband.
What was never awkward though was the audio. While some songs are too frequent, the soundtrack is great. They range from action-packed, relaxing, mystical, and more. The sound effects are good too, if not often used.
As for the gameplay itself, the only real form of interaction with the game is using the touch screen on highlighted Japanese terms.
I appreciate the feature; it helps with not getting lost as someone not familiar with some Japanese terms.
There is an auto-read mode to progress dialogue automatically, a backlog to go back and read any missed dialogue, and a save & autosave feature.
I don’t recommend the auto-read though. Regardless of what text speed the game is set to, the auto-read is too fast. I’m a fast reader myself and I can’t keep up, especially with lengthy paragraphs.
There’s also a visual glitch in the game. By going to the Festive August where there is brief red and green text, exiting the chapter and going to another chapter changes the normally white text to red or green.
It’s not game breaking or anything, but it’s weird to run into a glitch in a visual novel of all things.
The novel of a visual novel
The main appeal of any visual novel is the story. The story is split into 13 chapters for each month and December twice. Each chapter has multiple sections. The chapters are split into categories on the four seasons. Each season has their own opening, with five openings in total.
All the openings are great and set the mood well for the season with their vocal songs.
Romance
There are two romance stories going on, one with Masaki, the other with Kouhei Touyama, Masaki’s male friend.
Masaki has five love interests; the two main interests are Shiro and Yuki Towada.
Shiro is the god of Tagami that appears in town commonly. She wants to mate with Masaki to cure her crippling loneliness. Despite her rude and immature demeanor most of the time, befitting of her child-like appearance, she’s wise and kind when she needs to be.
Yuki is a part of the Towada family, the most influential and powerful family in town. Although, they are quite kind mostly.
Yuki in love with Masaki and wants to have a baby with him. She has the mindset of a child as she’s very caring and honest towards Masaki but can come off as obsessed and even comedically violent.
Wait, both are child-like… Oh no.
The romance with Masaki is mixed, the romance interests vary in quality, but the problem is with Masaki himself.
Masaki has this mindset of only being with Yuki and Shiro because they’re interesting, not because he loves them.
This mindset is explained later in the story, and it makes Masaki a compelling protagonist, but one with odd/frustrating decisions.
However, the B-Side Romance with Kouhei is amazing as his inner conflict is compelling, the romantic interests are great, and his reasoning is fascinating but easy to follow.
It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s more compelling than the romance plot with Masaki.
Both romance plots are great, not perfect, but it’s easy to be invested in both.
General story
As for the rest of the plot, it’s overall great but the quality differs from chapter to chapter.
Chapters like Lovely March are phenomenal with their writing and pacing, delving into intriguing themes with compelling writing.
A few chapters are meh due to problems like being annoying/uncomfortable and uninteresting conflict(s). Festive August is the only bad chapter because most of the unique characters are boring, the pacing comes to a crawl, and the conflict is boring.
Speaking of pacing, outside of Festive August, it stays consistently balanced. It almost never feels too quick nor too slow, it feels just right. A game descriptive like this with this consistently good pacing is amazing.
Although, the game can be slow in an overall sense for the first few chapters since it spends time establishing things. Characters also take a while to receive depth too, some characters like Shiro are annoying at first because of that.
While there are some weak characters like Yuki, most characters are all around great, feeling very human. Shiro was easily my favourite and I even found her relatable. Kouhei, Masaki, Sanae, and more are also amazing characters.
All the characters are also funny. For example, it’s hilarious when Sanae out of nowhere can suplex Kouhei when he does something wrong. Now’s a good time to mention this game can be over-the-top.
The comedy can miss though, like when Masaki is molested in one chapter, which is just uncomfortable.
There are suggestive jokes too, such as characters having secret stashes of certain magazines. Which were surprisingly funny despite not usually being my type of humour.
Of course, with suggestiveness, comes fanservice. Fanservice is when characters wear suggestive/revealing clothing like swimsuits. These aren’t too frequent, usually making sense given the context. I wish it weren’t here, but it isn’t the end of the world to have it.
The final thing to note is that there are sometimes spelling errors. These aren’t too bad, but they do break immersion when they happen.
Overall (A-)
“Petit Novel Series - Harvest December,” was quite the journey that I ultimately really enjoyed. The characters were great, the romance was engaging, and the presentation was solid.
However, the story can have its low points, some characters are just bad, the romance has problems, the beginning is slow, and some of the mechanics like skipping and auto read could’ve been a lot better.
In the end, when I finished it, I felt extremely satisfied and even cried. So, I have no doubts in calling it a great game despite its flaws.
The game is quite lengthy too. For $16, it’s well worth the price as it’s over 16 hours. Although, it’s also only officially available digitally in English on the Nintendo 3DS. If you have a 3DS, it’s well worth going back to play this.
Comments