What's your favorite Harvest Moon game?

[Packadurm]

When it comes to Harvest Moon, what's your preference? What about your favorite makes it your favorite? What do you not like about other HM games?

I recently picked up Harvest Moon 2 from the 3DS eShop, which I used to play as a kid. It was fun for awhile, but it hasn't aged well. I also had a lot of fun with a Harvest Moon game on the game cube, but I can't remember what it was called. Basically, I'm looking for help in picking which Harvest Moon game for the 3ds I should get!

 

[theSovietConnection]

If you haven't picked it up already, I rather enjoyed A New Beginning on the 3DS.

As far as favorite of all time, that is a bit tough, but I'd have to settle with Hero of Leaf Valley for PSP/PSVita. I liked Save the Homeland, particularly for the characters and the setting, but didn't like how you could only play for one year, and then the game ended. HoLV got rid of this, and also added a little more in terms of the town and the story.

EDIT: No idea why, but my reasoning for New Beginning disappeared.

The reason I liked it is because I found, for the most part, all the characters were rather enjoyable, though a couple of the guys come off as rather arrogant dickbags at times. The story is rather standard fair for Harvest Moon, help save the town your farm is located near. This time, however, you take a more direct role in saving it. You have to build and place the buildings and amenities in town, along with running your farm.

 

[ninja666]

Harvest Moon 64. A lot of people are probably gonna be surprised why I like it, when there's Back To Nature. Well, I liked HM64 more because of the atmosphere. The town, while smaller, felt more alive, the NPCs weren't just reused assets mixed up for more variety, and the game touched some not-so-family-friendly topics like alcoholism and child abuse.

 

[madwarper]

Are we including the Rune Factory series? Because, I'd say RF3. It would have been Frontier, were it not for the damn Runey system.

 

[soren7550]

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town.

I loved the town, the farm, the characters, the events, how it feels like you're actually making a difference, all that good stuff. I picked up The Lost Valley with all this in mind (and because I really needed to kill some time, and dat pre-order plush), but TLV is so dull and boring! You can never leave the farm, you can't improve your tools, the harvest sprites are next to useless, the one quest is dull as dirt (bring back the seasons so that your crops grow slightly better or something, plus it gets really long and convoluted once you try to bring Fall back) and the much touted 'you can shape the world however you wish!' is limited to you can cut down trees, and place & remove dirt.
The other touted feature (crop mutations) is so convoluted, slow, and directionless that there isn't much point to it (you have to factor in terrain elevation, terrain type, terrain location, season, fertilization & type of fertilizer, and what plants are growing next to one another).

Yeah, you can also 'interact' & 'befriend' the people from the village (that you can never visit), but there doesn't seem to be much point to it. Unlike FoMT, where your interactions determine if some villagers stay, how their arcs progress, and how they interact with others, in TLV they keep trespassing on your farm regardless, don't appear to have any arcs, and are mostly limited to one emotion and/or character trait (Brutus is dumb! Hunter is southern! Catherine is a *****! Doc is some kind of child molester!). I think they all have some sort of quest, but they all boil down to 'bring x number of y', and if you don't have it on hand when they give you the quest, you're probably looking at having an uncompleted quest in your log for weeks on end, months if they're asking for a crop that no one sells so you have to figure out how to get it with the bloody crop mutation bullshit.

It's a really bad sign when a game that over ten years older outdoes the latest one by leagues.

 

[aozgolo]

I have played:

Harvest Moon (SNES)
Friends of Mineral Town (GBA)
Back to Nature (PS1)
Save the Homeland (PS2)
A Wonderful Life (PS2)
Harvest Moon DS
Sunshine Islands (DS)
Magical Melody (GC)

Magical Melody is BY FAR my favorite one, the content in it is just insane and I love it!

First off you aren't limited in location to where your farm is. You have three starting choices to choose from (with pros and cons) and you can purchase new property as you advance in the game.

There is no arbitrary time limit on the game, you don't lose suddenly if you didn't complete all the objectives in a set time frame.

There's a grid system for buildings and furniture now. When you build/upgrade/move a building like a house or barn you choose exactly where to put it. With furniture you buy you can arrange it just like in Animal Crossing exactly where you want it to be. You can actually have 2 houses now if you want and upgrade it 5 times. For furniture there's a LARGE number of different items you can buy or unlock from townspeople.

For townspeople there's a lot of great characters to interact with, several new and several returning from other HM games. The best part is there are 10 eligible brides and 10 eligible bachelors you can marry depending on your gender, and an 11th secret one (always the opposite gender of your character), giving you LOTS of options! You can keep track of everyone's heart meters and even non-romance characters are worth getting hearts up with as they unlock new things to buy, new events, and even upgrade your equipment.

For activities, there is of course the farming which works great, and uses a grid system to plant seeds and works very similar to Back to Nature, there is mining, foraging, fishing, cooking, woodcutting, holiday events, decorating, socializing, and the cool feature is the game's narrative is tied into a sort of achievement system where you collect musical notes for doing certain activities like staying up all night, throwing away garbage into a garbage can, or reaching a certain heart level with someone. There's 100 notes in all and collecting them is how you progress the main narrative of the story.

The sheer freedom Magical Melody offers is what makes it my favorite, it lost none of the charm of other HM games and added tons of sandbox elements to give you full control over your game experience, I highly recommend it!

 

[Parasitic_Chick]

1.)Harvest Moon DS Cute if you want to just get into a routine and chill.

2.)More friends of Mineral Town if you want to chill and be challenged.

3.)Tale of Two Towns if you want to have fun while having to work hard (Also the character's are really interesting and well drawn).

These are my top three HM games for the time being. Word of advice, do yourself a favor and DO NOT GET THE LOST VALLEY!!! You will regret it if you do.

 

[NortherWolf]

Harvest Moon for the SNES, for the simple reaso nit's the only one I've played that doesn't stress me the fuck out. In that one I can take my merri little time with chopping wood at night, or expand my farm while it's dark.In all the others I've tried it's been like: "HURRY HURRY HURRY HURRY!!!!!!!!"
So every now and then I sit down and play the SNES version, but I never touch the other versions again.

 

[EHKOS]

A Wonderful Life was my favorite. I just wish the characters were more in-depth. But it looked nice for the time, I was a fan of the 3D and camera, and the atmosphere was nice. FoMT is my least favorite because of the time system. Thinking back I think AWL had one too, but not as aggressive.

I also played the futuristic one which was pretty alright. I don't really remember it but I remember not hating it, which makes it stand out in the HM series to me.

Also I tried Rune Factory, Tides of Destiny and dropped it for some reason I can't remember. It's weird because I remember thinking it sucked but it fits me so well.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I've played A Wonderful Life and Friends of Mineral Town and I can't really decide which one I like better. I'm going to say A Wonderful Life because I seem to remember the characters having more than 1 thing to say per season, although it's been a while and I never played past year 2.

Although this whole series of games is extremely tedious. Really, there I don't think that there is a popular franchise that has more foundation in dull repetition than Harvest Moon. Get up, water every plant (probably individually), groom/feed animals, go pick up crap to sell/gift, hand out presents, repeat infinitely. It doesn't help that there is just not enough dialogue in the games. Day in and day out, you hand presents to these people, but do they ever care? No, it's always the same couple lines of dialogue.

In essence, these are games about farming and interacting with villagers. The only problems with the game is that the farming is mind numbingly tedious and the villagers are dull and your interactions, meaningless. I'd say that those are pretty big problems. I've seen a couple of the newer games in let's plays also, and they aren't a whole lot different. I really don't get why they never tried to innovate with the concept. Like even if farming is always going to be a bit dull as a consequence of being farming, can't interacting with people be less of a chore than your actual chores? I don't think they've ever even attempted to mix up the farming at all really. It's not like there's nothing that can be done with the concept, they've just never bothered to try.

One last thing. In Friends of Mineral Town why can't I ride my horse into town!? What the heck is the point of having a horse if I can't ride it anywhere??

 

[Story]

To the fans of Harvest Moon I have a question:
How does this game series compare to Animal Crossing?

I love my little Animal Crossing New Leaf game but I want another life simulator like it and Fantasy Life didn't cut it for me.

 

[Lucem712]

Harvest Moon (SNES) [/hipster]

I played it as an adult, fairly recently; not when it came out. It was really enjoyable and super addicting.
Though, to be completely fair, it's the only one I've played. Lack of access to portables, or dislike of them rather.
I bought one of the versions from PSN for my PS3, but I haven't really played it.

 

[Kaimax]

Back to Nature, simply because it's my first Harvest Moon and the only one that I was patient enough to get to year 3....before Lego Island 2 NUKED the Memory card....(My Waifu Ellie T_T)

In all the others I've tried it's been like: "HURRY HURRY HURRY HURRY!!!!!!!!"

Probably another main reason why I can stick with Back to Nature longer than the newer ones.

 

[McMarbles]

Does Rune Factory count? Because that.

 

[waj9876]

I'm quite fond of Animal Parade, and it's definitely the Harvest Moon game I've played the most.

It's got an adorable style, the characters are fun, and a lot of cool features were added to this game, as well as the other HM game this game shares a lot of assets with, but I prefer Animal Parade.

Heh, I like to imagine that all of this stuff with Finn, the sprites, and the Harvest Goddess is all in the main character's head. I also like to do a little roleplaying with that. You'd think Harvest Moon would be a hard game to roleplay with, but it's surprisingly easy.

Whenever I play my character usually ends up with either Candace or the Witch. I sometimes kinda wish Mira were someone the main character could romance, but oh well.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Are we including the Rune Factory series? Because, I'd say RF3. It would have been Frontier, were it not for the damn Runey system.

I AM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU! ;_; That game broke my heart.

Frontier was the perfect harvest moon game. The farming was well implemented and felt tight and responsive. The Hack-n-slash fantasty Combat/dungeons was snappy and responsive and actually felt like an organic part of the game. Cooking and stuff was neat and highly useful for the aforementioned combat (Why buy potions when I can just cook some good food and haul it down there with me? Sure I'm vulnerable as I eat, but I heal so much more, and regain MP to boot!). The villagers were a ton of fun to listen to it was just hands down incredible. That and the mail girl was INSTANTLY likeable and immediate in-game relationship material.

And the fact I had to micromanage the fucking runeys floating overhead, with a horribly implemented vacuum cleaner that only sucks up about 4 at a time, at random freaking RUINED IT. Not to mention that you literally CAN'T ignore the system for too long. If you don't micromanage the runey food chain in each area, then they will starve themselves out and your crops will take longer and longer to grow (to the point where if ALL areas go runey free, you can barely even GROW anything, as many of your crops will literally wither on the vine!). But on the flip side, if you don't want to spend a half-hour of real-life time at a spreadsheet trying to figure out what runeys need to go where to keep things balanced, and you turn all areas "prosperous" by filling them with tons of runeys (this makes the food chain stop, and all you need to do it refill the area with Grass Runeys instead of balancing the food chain), which is a million times more manageable...Suddenly your crops grow WAY too fast and now you're stuck harvesting your ENTIRE farm every single day, because it's all regrowing so fast!

Oh, and throw in the fact that the only way to check the distribution of runeys is to go to the second floor of the observatory building and you've got a mechanic designed to enrage.

Seriously, I enjoy Harvest Moon and it's ilk because I want to farm and enjoy a semi-relaxed virtual life with fun villagers. I don't play it to micromanage a spreadsheet with the game on pause, then run around vacuuming up nature spirits to redistribute half the time!

Why yes, I AM mad bro!

--

AHEM.

*BACK ON TOPIC FOR ME*

As to the original question...That's a tough one.

I mean, I've made clear that if it weren't for one stupid game mechanic, I would crown Rune Factory Frontier as the king of Harvest Moon, even though it's a spinoff series.

But I can't.

So I'm going to say Friends of Mineral Town. Why? Excellent townsfolk, tightly designed farming, the feeling that my actions mattered to them, AND it has Karen. Who absolutely ROCKS. Badass alcoholic girl who is fun to chat with and who is also a sweet partner if you pursue her? Hell yes.

And the original SNES game gets a VERY close second place. Why? Because it's all about "Can you save this farm and make a ton of money in 2.5 years? PROVE IT!". Basically, it takes the opposite approach of the other games, which tend to let you farm at your own pace and enjoy a virtual life. You are on a time limit and you need to get your shit in gear! I liked that. Not to mention you need to be a bit creative to make money during the winter, when you literally can't grow ANYTHING, not even grass/animal feed. I was literally running a chicken mill after my first very tough winter.

As for the Rune Factory Series...

I actually really like Rune Factory 4 (3DS), even though I've kinda put it on hold for over a year for other games (Like catching up on my Etrian Odyssey). The only problem with RF4 is that the townsfolk don't seem all that interesting. I mean, they're not bad, but most characters (especially the love interests) aren't super interesting (Fussy Elf? Afraid-to-be-feminine-but-is-really-a-super-sweet-girly-girl-Knight? Boring-but-nice butler? Dwarf Rival Guy? Meh.), or they have some critical flaw that I can't stand. Like, I LOVE the super sarcastic tsundere girl, but she comes with this INSANE and irritating ghost thingy that follows her everywhere. If they were a bit more interesting and the combat felt a little more tight and snappy, it might be the best in the series. The dungeons feel serious, the plot is interesting, the farming is excellent, and it's got a freakin' pancake loving dragon ruling the town, for crying out loud! ;_;

 

[Treeberry]

It's a tie between Back to Nature and Friends of Mineral Town for me. Back to Nature has Kano and Greg - who I liked though they're probably forgettable to most people - and the Tomato Festival! I was disappointed that they didn't keep that festival in for FoMT. At least they kept in the chicken sumo wrestling, I guess. I love the characters and the festivals and the fact that you're largely left to your own devices. I can fish, mine, harvest, chat and do whatever when I want to. Not when the game wants me to.

I haven't been particularly enthralled by the series' recent entries on DS and 3DS but I love Magical Melody and Animal Parade for the Wii though I hate that they took out the option to play as a girl in MM for the Wii. Especially since in most HM games the female LIs tend to be a bit on the naff side but in Magical Melody there was a lot of choice.

I've also started playing Hero of Leaf Valley recently which I like. It lacks the do-as-you-will-ness and a lot of the charm of other HM games but it's a decent game nonetheless.

I feel like the newer games are more restrictive despite extra features. Horrific forced tutorials that feel like forced tutorials that treat you like an idiot. One after another! I managed to get through that horrible first spring in A New Beginning only to realise that I wanted to restart but I refused to sit through all of that mind-numbing crap again. I wanted to take my axe to that damn Mayor's face! I know how to walk goddamit!

The original had an optional tutorial video on the main menu and an optional-to-read handbook FFS.

I have a very big issue with games treating me like I'm an idiot and/or limiting my freedom to do things for myself and thereby have fun.

One aspect from Grand Bazaar (and A Wonderful Life) that I like is the ability to set up your own market stall. Actually I think GB had a few good ideas - the windmill, jumping, bug-catching and handfishing (I'm glad to see these were kept in as skills) - but in terms of festivals, events and characters it had less depth than the SNES game in my opinion. And that's not really meant as an insult to the SNES game.

/rambling

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

To the fans of Harvest Moon I have a question:
How does this game series compare to Animal Crossing?

I love my little Animal Crossing New Leaf game but I want another life simulator like it and Fantasy Life didn't cut it for me.

Depends.

I enjoy Harvest Moon and it's badass cousin Rune Factory even more. But I can't STAND Animal Crossing.

Essentially both are similar, but with a few key differences.

Unlike Animal Crossing, the game does NOT keep going when you're not playing, which is a HUGE plus to me. I don't like feeling like a single player game requires a dedicated commitment on my part, and that everything will fall apart if I stop playing for a week. Even an online guild doesn't fall apart that fast if a few key members don't log on for a week!

So yeah, aside from the difference that the game pauses when you shut it down, it's also more business focused. In Animal crossing, the goal is "pay off the house, then get a bigger house and pay THAT off". In Harvest Moon, it's "Make a farm, get money, make farm BIGGER, get BETTER tools to farm more efficiently, make even more money and just keep expanding!". Rune Factory takes it up a notch further by throwing combat and dungeons into the mix, so you're also earning money to spend on potions and swords and other gear (at least until you learn how to craft stuff from mining materials, etc).

Also, in most games, you can not only make friends who occasionally give you stuff, but they can become love interests, and in more recent Rune Factory games, some can become party members.

That's about all I can say between them, since I didn't stick around Animal Crossing long enough to get more of a feel than that for it.

There's still plenty of socializing you can do on the side in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory as well, if that concerns you.

I'd recommend Rune Factory 4 since you already have a 3DS, if you're fine with there being very few really "breakout" characters. Most of the NPCs are alright, and some are even fantastic, but most are just "alright".

 

[putowtin]

A wonderful life

One of the reasons I kept a hold of my gamecube (That and mario golf and mario cart)

 

[Lera00]

Well, continuing with the assumption that the rune factory series counts, i'd say my favorite one was RF3, because idk... there was some charm to the game that i didn't really fell in the last harvest moon i played (i think it was the first one for the DS), maybe because while farming is very satisfactory and entertaining, it started to get samey after a couple of in-game years. But the fighting system in RF3 really made the game stand out in my eyes, it was like the same thing i liked before, but with a 100 bucks attached to it (although the twin blades were were completely broken, to the point of making the final boss an overlong piss in the wind).

And i really enjoyed coming after a dungeon with a lot of useless crap, and could go give it all to Sofia, who would fall hopelessly in-loved over the fact that i gave her over 100 monster scrotum XD