It seems like I’ve been cursed with receiving some very uninteresting DS games lately. I spent my entire Sunday playing John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland. I’m sad to say that this game has turned my regularly boring Sunday into an extremely awful one.

Let’s start out with the obvious: There is nothing at all appealing about a shit-ridden farm, let alone John Deere. This is pretty much a poorly done Harvest Moon. I would imagine that farming is a lot more fun than this game makes it out to be. I’m sure riding a John Deere lawnmower in your own front yard would be more enjoyable than waiting for your in-game farm to grow several carrots after 6 in-game days spent seeding, watering, and protecting against fungus and parasites.

You start off the game with $5,000 that you can use to buy a couple of fields with. Once you buy a field, you can plant seeds one at a time, tapping “A” about 15 times in a row while moving from plot to plot on your field. Once you plant the seeds, you water them with your watering can that can spread water on 3 plots at a time. After they’re watered, go into your home and sleep. The next day, you’ll wake up and - HOLY SHIT! - CARROT SPROUTS!

Repeat the watering process for 6 days while also protecting your plants from parasites and fungus, and you’ll have a full grown carrot field. Pick all of the carrots and sell them for about a whopping $170 each, and you’ll receive a profit from all of your hard farming work.

Do this again a couple of more times and you’ll have enough money to buy a barn or a couple of pens. You can raise cows and chickens and sell those off too for more profit. Do this even more and you’ll have enough money to buy expensive John Deere lawn mowers and tractors. Repeat the process of growing and selling and you get what we call John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland.

You’ll start noticing some very odd things about this game the more you play it. Buildings you bought will start disappearing and reappearing everywhere. The game has slow downs and frustrating loading screens that only console games should feature. The game doesn’t have that much to load at all, so why are these loading screens even here? You may also notice you’ve been playing this game more than anyone normally would if you’ve gotten to the point where you can buy a barn.

The bugs make this game even more unplayable and unappealing as it already is. There’s nothing I can say that I liked about this game. The music is terrible, the graphics are utter shit, loading screens are flooded everywhere … Farming sucked before and it sucks even more now. John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland had nothing I enjoyed (unless you consider me naming my farm “Farm Poop” and laughing uncontrollably at it for about 3 minutes enjoying the game). Harvest in the Heartland is a crapfest. I hated it. Stay away from this piece of garbage.

[Note: Destineer sent me a John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland squeezie toy along with this game. The fact sheet that was included said I can "feel free to squeeze away the stress," by using this gift.]

Before I played the game.

After.