When comparing Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition vs The Escapists 2, the Slant community recommends The Escapists 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best couch/local co-op games for the Nintendo Switch?” The Escapists 2 is ranked 14th while Harvest Moon: Light of Hope Special Edition is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose The Escapists 2 is:
There is no right or wrong way to do anything, and it's entirely a risk vs reward scenario for anything you want to try. You are only limited by your creativity in escaping, as each prison has almost endless possibilities and encourages the player to make the best use of their inventory and be creative in handling every situation. Bed sheets can be used to cover cell windows from the prying eyes of guards, desks can be moved to reach out of reach vents, crafted tools can be used for various purposes such as breaking through walls or doors, and shovels can be used to dig holes. You can try to sneak around guards, or opt to hide in vents until they're out of sight. If you're feeling especially brave, you can even attempt to fight the guards and take their keys allowing easier access around the prison.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro You get to rebuild and manage a small town
As part of the main story, you find yourself in a storm-wrecked town that needs to be rebuilt. You take it upon yourself to get the farms, livestock, buildings, and economy back up and running again. Even though Harvest Moon is mainly a farming simulator, there's plenty more to do here. You have access to plots of land to farm, mines for quarrying, bodies of water for fishing, and you can prioritize which town buildings to restore, all in order to bring the residents back. Your priorities and choices make all the difference in how everything gets rebuilt.
Pro Tons of freedom to do what you want at your own pace
You can do whatever you feel like without worrying about too many restrictions. With the main story quest, you get to pick and choose your approach to rebuilding the town. This means that you can focus on fishing and mining over farming if you prefer, aside from instances where someone in the story requests a certain item that you can farm up yourself. There are no looming time restrictions or anything like that; you can go at your own speed and do whatever you choose from day to day.
Pro Farming simulator mechanics are simple to pick up and learn
Farming in Harvest Moon is easy to learn. You have a plot of land with squares of fertile soil, and then you just need seeds for whatever you'd like to plant. Caring for your your crops is only a matter of keeping up the habit of watering them, as well as making sure you pluck out any weeds that crop up from time to time. As long as you have the seeds you want and you remember to take care of your farm, you'll be successful in no time.
Pro Two-player co-op speeds up resource gathering for both players
Playing with a friend makes things go by much quicker. You and one other person can co-op to collect resources together, basically cutting your required time for quests by half. Aside from simply enjoying the game with someone else, if you have a goal you want to accomplish and you feel like it's taking a long time, co-op can help speed things along.
Pro Encourages experimentation and creativity
There is no right or wrong way to do anything, and it's entirely a risk vs reward scenario for anything you want to try. You are only limited by your creativity in escaping, as each prison has almost endless possibilities and encourages the player to make the best use of their inventory and be creative in handling every situation.
Bed sheets can be used to cover cell windows from the prying eyes of guards, desks can be moved to reach out of reach vents, crafted tools can be used for various purposes such as breaking through walls or doors, and shovels can be used to dig holes. You can try to sneak around guards, or opt to hide in vents until they're out of sight. If you're feeling especially brave, you can even attempt to fight the guards and take their keys allowing easier access around the prison.
Pro Good balance of game systems make for a rewarding simulation
Taking action in the game uses up your stamina, so you'll still have to make time for things like eating and sleeping if you want to have energy for things like digging through walls, fighting other inmates, or cutting through vents and gates.
Items such as shovels and cutters have limited durability, so they can't be used endlessly. Raw materials can be found around the prison to craft items, or you can buy items from fences using money earned by running fetch quests for other inmates. No matter how you acquire them, crafting materials and finished goods are limited so you'll have to use your items wisely.
Time is an important factor that has to be managed too, with certain activities having to be done at certain times. This limits the amount of time you have to roam the prison, since you have to show up for meal times and roll calls. Free time can be used to craft, roam the prison to determine the guard patterns, or finally put your ultimate escape plan into action.
Juggling each and every one of the various aspects of the game results in a very deep and rewarding simulation experience.
Pro Solid progression of difficulty
The difficulty increases as you progress, with each prison becoming just a little more intricate and more challenging to escape from than the previous. The prisons themselves get more complex with more obstacles to overcome such as tougher guards which results in more ways things can go wrong. The progress feels good and natural, as you're always building on what you learned in previous prisons to escape from the newest one.
Pro Great pixel art style for retro fans
If you enjoy a more retro style, then this game is pure eye candy. Simple but charming, the pixel art is colorful, with the sprites having a nice variety in animations when they're shoveling, searching, running around, fighting, or partaking in any kind of activity that would require movement. The tile sets for the game world are nicely detailed, colored and shaded. You won't get tired of looking at the same tiles over and over due to the sheer amount and variety of the art assets created for the game.
Pro Lots of replayability
No two games will play out alike. Each prison is an open sandbox, so it's definitely not a linear experience with a defined escape blueprint. Prisons can be replayed over and over to beat your previous time, measured in how many in-game days it took you to escape, which leaves plenty of room for trying new things on each successive playthrough.
Pro Co-Op multiplayer mode adds a new depth to gameplay
Working together creates a whole new experience with loads of possibilities. In co-op mode, you play with up to 3 teammates either online or locally as you work towards escaping the prison together. This adds a whole new dynamic to gameplay as working together creates experiences that just aren't possible when playing solo. Someone could distract the guards, while another searches rooms for crafting materials. One player could run around collecting items, while another scopes out the guard's patrol patterns. Some can complete quests to collect money while others are working on digging tunnels.
Pro A couple of alternative prisons add a change of scenery
Tired of bricks, cold floors, and cement cells? For those who want a change of scenery, there is a prison set in the wild west, and even a futuristic space prison. This adds a little bit of variety to the look of the game while keeping the same gameplay mechanics. It's a nice touch and gives your eyes a break from staring at the same tilesets over and over.
Cons
Con Farming is almost pointless outside of story events
Even though Harvest Moon is a farming simulator at its core, the trade is surprisingly not that useful in this game. During your main quest to restore the town and earn money, you have the option of farming, fishing, and mining; by and large, farming is the least efficient of the three, taking more time and earning you less money in the long-run. It's much more productive to either go fishing or mining if you want to rake in more cash at a faster rate, as farming just isn't worth it for the long-haul.
Con Bugs and game crashes
There are some instances where you may run into bugs or the game will outright crash. Sometimes, quests don't progress they way they should, leading you down the wrong paths or refusing to accept items that you're actually supposed to hand in. Game crashes are also unpredictable, varying in how often they happen. So until a few more patches get released, you may want to be more careful about saving often, just in case you have to redo a quest or you lose out on progress from a sudden crash.
Con Bland visuals
The graphics and presentation are nothing to write home about. They look awkward, with the 3D character sprites moving around in a 2D environment, with odd details that don't look quite right. The sprites themselves are pretty low-effort as well, and they don't at all look like they're advanced enough for a home console. Everything just looks low-effort all around and not that great to look at.
Con Not enough new characters
Most of the townspeople here are recycled from previous games in the series. It's a bit lazy to have so many of the same NPCs around without introducing many new ones. Fans of the Harvest Moon games might be happy to see their old favorites again, though they may also get bored by the lack of new faces around. New players won't notice anything wrong, though.
Con Getting caught by guards can be overly punishing
It's frustrating when you spend several hours grinding quests for other inmates, collecting items, crafting, and carefully planning your escape, only to get caught by guards and lose all your items or killed. This effectively means you have to start over, wasting hours of your own time and days of in-game time.
Con Can feel grindy at times
Running around doing fetch quests for other inmates, or searching for crafting materials for hours on end can get stale after a while.
Con Tutorial doesn't cover much
The tutorial will only walk you through the barest of basics, resulting in the player having to learn the game's various mechanics on their own.