Hometown Story Pocket

So the game is a simplified version of Hometown story which is fine, the biggest issues the game has is: 1. The game censors are off, once you get used to it it’s playable, but they could have done that better. It’s off and at an angle btw, like it’s off. 2. The “passwords” section doesn’t work, any password I found in the 3ds version didn’t work here, google didn’t help so I went to the reviews no one knows. 3. Upgrades are pay only after level 10. So it’s fun for a bit but without the upgrade it gets tedious. 4. The angle tables don’t work in corners apparently because reaching is impossible, so you can’t save space. Or place all your tables without blocking other tables 5. You have to place and price an item one at a time, and placing it can be difficult. Overall, a decent attempt, but they could’ve made a better app game with simple fixes, like just getting the character to follow our finger or allowing us to queue up items to place or something. But it’s a fun little time waster. If you liked harvest moon get the new story of seasons game. It’s by the original creators and a lot of fun.

This game has a very pick up and put down feel to it. You won’t be playing it for very long. The original game on the 3DS felt very much like a mobile game so if this was a port of the 3DS version it would have been a great game. But it is a completely watered down version of the 3DS game with not much to do. You go around and put items on tables and that’s really all there is to this game. It’s very simple and if simple is your thing then you will like this game but if you are a fan of the Harvest Moon series or even just this game on the 3DS then you will notice a scary lack of gameplay.

The game itself is fairly good, and considering it's truly free, a rarity in the iOS columns, it would normally be a 4 star game. However, the awkward controls knock this back to 2 stars for me, as it was clearly ported over from a control scheme with multiple buttons for multiple controls. The camera movement always selects something instead and the square it selects when you're trying to select is usually about 1 square away from where your finger is actually touching the screen. This frustration and removal of a plot from the original HTS makes it nothing more than a failed, buggy iOS port.