Harvest Moon is a game about farming and dating

I fucking love Harvest Moon and (More) Friends of Mineral Town is the best one. I put so much time into it it's embarrassing. If they just released an updated FoMT every year I would still buy it.

Which is kind of the problem with Harvest Moon: all of the games are either great or terrible and you never know which they'll be until they're out. But I don't care because I got a plush yak. The 2D ones are usually great and the 3D ones are usually terrible. Oh, and fuck hunger I don't want to have to eat to be able to farm. I just turn the games that have it off and never play it again because I worry that I will run out of food and be unable to continue effectively. And besides, I want to sell and cook with my crops, not waste them on myself.

I don't care if my Harvest Moon games have a story. I don't care if they have an endpoint. All I want is to farm my crops and feed and brush my animals every day and then romance both the responsible choice (Elle) or the irresponsible choice (Karen) and be unable to choose and never marry either one. Which is fine anyway, really, because I didn't want to have a kid and have an additional responsibility every morning. Oh, and I want to throw the ball to my dog. All Harvest Moon games should have a dog and a ball to throw for him.

All Harvest Moon games should also be portable because the best way to play them is 5-10 minutes here and there while you're waiting for something.

Yesss, Harvest Moon thread!

First off: Allen is indeed a jerk and I complained about him in a quick derail a while back because his behavior pissed me off. U: He was one of the dudes I was considering back when the bachelors were first announced, but the second I met him in game he bothered me--especially when he interrupted my farm work to drag me places for heart events and he expected me to be grateful about it.

I really like A New Beginning (especially compared to other recent handheld HMs), but I'm trying to marry Sanjay and he can't show up until Winter of Year 2 at the earliest (unless you get really lucky/have a friend that's farther along and willing to help you out), so I'm getting kind of bored at this point. I love all of the festivals and I love my animals, but I'm basically doing the same thing every single day and it's driving me insane. I'm in Spring 28 of Year 2 right now. Two more seasons to go...*

The thing that makes me most upset about ANB is that your kids have a set appearance, and it's white with blonde or brown hair. :| I don't care about kids in HM (except for the AP/ToT ones), but geez! Why not at least give Sanjay and Amir the same set of kids or something?

I think Animal Parade is my favourite console Harvest Moon, though I did like Magical Melody when I was younger. I have three save files on AP--one for the Wizard, and a split file for Gil and Julius because I liked them both and couldn't choose. (: I tend to prefer HM games with a storyline of some sort, because otherwise I get bored.

* If anyone would like to play with me, I can give you Silkie Eggs (among other things--I have a decent amount of building materials hoarded) and help you brush your animals! I have an alpaca and a yak (and a sheep that gives 3 wool!), too, so if you want products from them you can milk/shear my animals. (: My Friend Code is 2406 - 5247 - 0485.

I play loads of HM. I'm awful at Magical Melody (I keep getting lost), and A Wonderful Life (Who do I marry?). I married Sanjay in ANB. I also want to marry the Witch Princess. Stupid Ancient Clay Figures.

Magical Melody was my first Harvest Moon game, and it was my favorite for a very long time (Joe and Dan make the best husbands in that one). Animal Parade has overtaken it, though - an engaging story, well-written characters, enough in-game events to keep thing interesting (I love all the other weddings/babies/kid events), and a goal to aim for beyond farming that without being intrusive or overwhelming. I'm still on my first save in that game - I married Calvin, and he is such a complete sweetheart that it'll be hard not to marry him next time. :) My next female playthrough will either be Owen or the Wizard, I think. First male playthrough will probably be Selena, although Renee is making a good case for herself.

Ah, these games always call to me like a siren to the proverbial rocks even though I never have a hammer.

That is, I play them all the time but I very very rarely finish one. I love the starting out and just scraping by aspects but once my farm is up and running and successful I usually feel satisfied with a job well done and drift away.

Also, I love playing these games with other people by taking turns with the days. Something about sharing the triumphs and tragedies of the day's work (as well as sharing the load of some of the busy work) just makes the game a lot more enjoyable for me. Plus arguing about which character is most suitable for marriage and which one is just trying to use us for our sweet farming skills will never get old for me. Just a lot of fun to sit around idly playing while bantering. Of course finding like minded people to play with isn't easy. Anyways, here are the games I've played, played co-op with someone unless otherwise noted.

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland (I think my friend and I actually finished this one, although, by finished I mean we got one of the however many endings and probably not one of the good ones)
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (The only one I played by myself. I got to the point where the elves all slaved for me on the farm and possibly to the bottom of the mine. I may have replayed this later with a friend but it all kind of blurred together if I did)
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (Played it far enough to marry Nami and have a kid. Nami seemed to change after we got married and seemed kind of mopey. The kid was neglected, and we stopped playing. I'm a terrible father.)
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (Replay with a different friend, I think we made up to the decide who to get married to point and then stopped.)
Harvest Moon: A Magical Melody (Probably my favorite out of all of them as there always seemed a lot to do. Of course I can't remember how far I got. Probably didn't get married, decisions are hard!)
Harvest Moon: Animal Parade (The lag/loading times killed this for me and I don't think we made it out of the first summer. That the Wii we were using was dying at the time probably didn't help either.)
Rune Factory: Final Frontier(I played this twice, once by myself, once with a friend. This is actually my favorite if I count it as a harvest moon game but it does feel different enough. I still don't think I got married either time and never beat the game per se. Did get rather far in the storyline with my friend and were mostly just stalling at actually finishing things, which we never did. Of course, the Runey system almost ruined everything. Gah, so annoying. It would probably be one of my favorite games ever if it didn't have that)
Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny (I liked this one a lot too but my friend moved away so I stopped playing. Of course, this one didn't feel at all like a Harvest Moon game so I really don't count it.)

I think I play these games wrong. I always focus on the farm very heavily (and sometimes the mine or fishing or something else) and neglect all social aspects of the game. I then get annoyed with the amount of gift giving I have to do to progress the game. Which I inevitably do, but by the time anyone is willing to marry me I resent them for it and so I stop playing dooming my character to live alone and unloved. And then a new game comes out and I do it all over again.

Are any of the handheld games particularly amazing (especially if they would fit how I play them more)? I have a PSP and will probably get a 3DS at some point even if I tend to play on those systems a lot less.

The best thing you can do when a Harvest Moon with a plot comes out is spoil the game for yourself and see if it will require object-hoarding. Before, I was incredibly reluctant to ever look up anything in an HM game unless I absolutely needed to, but then I would end up learning that I needed a crop from the season that is ending right now and I would scream and hate my life because goddamn you, game. THANKFULLY, ToTT trained me well; I was automatically hoarding everything I came across from the beginning, so I have an abundance of Spring/Summer items.

...really don't want to wait until Year 2 to get Yam Seeds, though. reaaaaally don't.

The lag actually evens out the further into the game you get/the more you play it. I don't know how that works, but eh.

The hell of it is, I have a strategy guide. for AP. I guess I just overlooked that part. :)

I remember the AP guide; I have it myself! It was....it was not the best guide, I have to say. There was plenty of good information, but unfortunately, there were also lots of things overlooked. :< It was also a touch disorganized when it came to presenting that information.

If you're willing to reload until it's a prize and have a good Summer crop, you can actually win 10 bags of yam seeds in the Summer Crop Festival in Year 1!

...but you'll still have to wait until at least Spring of Year 2 to get Sanjay in that case, because you have to do three Gardening Tours.

(I'd offer to give you some yam seeds myself, but I only have one bag I got from a random person on Wi-Fi and I just got into Summer a few minutes ago. But if I get into Fall before you do and you don't want to bother with the festival thing, I'd definitely be willing to give you some!)

...remember that whole "just pass the season that you need the thing from"? /screaming
Right now, I just passed the Cow Festival and took the cow instead of the item because what am i gonna do with broccoli other than turn it into seeds later i'll wait.

I love Harvest Moon. It kind of makes me sad that most people nowadays haven't been playing as long as I have though. A long time ago most people started around the same time I did, but now most fans started way later than I did. So I feel a bit of a disconnect with the fandom. I go to fogu but never met anyone there.

I have been playing Harvest Moon since I was 9 starting with GBC1. Now, I own nearly every single English release of Harvest Moon (AWL: Special Edition, and Boy&Girl are the only ones I do not have) But the games just don't hold my attention the way they used to. Maybe I'm getting old (at 22, somehow) Harvest Moon 64 is my favorite. I don't know why that one hasn't gotten a remake yet.

Oddly, I hated Rune Factory on the DS. But I love Frontier and Tides of Destiny.

Still wishing it would appear on WiiWare.

I feel like someone somewhere brought up the fact that 64 wasn't on WiiWare and the answer was "because it would be too complicated". I don't know...if that's true, but take it as you will.
My first Harvest Moon was the Harvest Moon for the GB. Not GBC, the original GameBoy. I distinctly remember saying up past bedtime to play because I was afraid of the Harvest Sprites filling up my goddamn coop with chickens again and RUINING EVERYTHING.

I started playing HM when I was eleven or twelve(The DS was my first video game system). DS Cute was my first HM. I got Friends of Mineral Town out of the bargain bin a little later on. I have most of the newer games. I don't have any of the playstation games, though. I want to get the Game Boy Color games when Natsume puts them on the 3DS Store.

Edit: From what I've heard, the reason 64 hasn't been ported is because of the way the game is coded.

I've heard that as well. Just wish it wasn't so ; _;

THEY SHOULD JUST MAKE IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
Like they sorta tried to with BTN, but this time leave the personalities alone? Please? C-can we do that???

/looks on the internet and finds that Allen is the most popular ANB bachelor.

:|

Anyways, I think I've been spoiled by RF4 and I haven't even played it yet. Now I want deep, intricate stories and interesting characters with my farming. I want to be able to take my fox-eared boyfriend on a dungeon-crawling date while riding a demon-panther.

I was so mad when I first played BtN. I was like, "What did they do? Elli, a nurse? Harris, a policeman? Jeff is Karen's father?! WHAT IS GOING ON?"

EDIT: Of course, with M/FoMT, Boy and Girl, and BtN, I can appreciate the Mineral Town incarnations as their own separate characters. But HM64 will always have a special place in my memory.

I'm gonna put friend codes on the first post, just in case they get lost in here.

HOLY SHIT PLAYING MULTIPLAYER AND
THIS GIANT SHEEP
JUST KEEPS GIVING WOOL WHEN I SHEAR IT OH MY GOD I CAN"T STOP

I first started playing harvest moon at around 13 or 14 years old. I went to go buy cooking mama at a best buy but I saw the DS Cute cover and picked it up because it looked adorable. I was a little confused at first because how is farming fun? Since then I've gotten every version released for the DS, Magical Melody, Another Wonderful Life, Harvest Moon Boy and Girl, Tree of Tranquility, and Animal parade. DS cute is still my favorite in the series. It was so much fun and I had all of the crops to the highest of qualities ;-; I can't bring myself to start it over though because I don't want to lose my perfect farm hahaha.


Also, how to input friend codes? I have no idea what I am doing ;-;

For the 3DS?
HOME Button > Happy Orange Smiley face > your Mii has your friend code on it. Up in the right-hand corner is the register a friend button. C:

Ok then, I'll just leave my code here too~
4398 - 8782 - 6907

I loved Magical Melody! I was so sad to learn that marrying Jamie would end the game. I wish HM would put in another "rival" character. Jamie was so much fun.

Harvest Moooooooooooon <3
My first game was Friends of Mineral Town and I just loved how there were things to do that did not involve murder <3 Sadly, the game got corrupted so it's unable to save... Didn't stop tiny me from starting the game and marrying Karen over and over again, though. I shipped Popuri and Kai and Doctor and Elli and didn't want to ruin Mary and Gray's beautiful marriage even though they didn't invite me to their wedding and didn't even know Cliff and Anne were a canon couple. And I was so sad to find out there was a girl version but you couldn't marry Carter. Carter's such a cutie-patootie and tells the best horror stories.
After that was A Wonderful Life, I think. Did pretty well despite starving my farmer, married Nami, abused the Ruby's Spice glitch like there was no tomorrow, and was a pretty horrible parent. Find out that you can influence your child's career path -> Disparage your son's dreams of becoming an artist to pressure him into becoming a scholar. ... I was a cruel child.
After that, Magical Melody, which wasn't really my favorite. I loved being able to buy property and build wherever I wanted and befriend animals and own an obscenely large TV and all, but I'm a bit of a greedy bastard, so I was seriously peeved at how slowly the farmer moved while carrying an item in her hands. And the villagers kept moving away and coming back. And I would appreciate knowing my baby's sex before naming it... Besides that, super cute game, and one of my favorite ask blogs on tumblr is of Jamie!
Animal Parade-- ... Okay am I right in assuming that I'm expected to type more intelligently here than on tumblr? Okay, never mind then. I married the Wizard and we have two beautiful children and I very much enjoy this game.
Then I got Island of Happiness and didn't get past Spring because hunger bar. And then traded it in for Sunshine Islands and didn't get past Spring because hunger bar. Curse this need for nourishment...! And then I bought Grand Bazaar and made it all the way to Winter before realizing "Wait... This is bull." and kept playing anyway because everyone was up to a red heart besides Amir and I needed to complete my harem. And I bought A New Beginning when it was released. It's pretty nice, I think! Great customization, good graphics. There's still the problem with not being able to access certain features until a certain date, which is frustrating if you want to rush through, but eh. I'm planning on wooing Sanjay, but I won't be able to unlock him for a long time, huh? Ahaha...
On the bright side, I made my character look vaguely like Garry so everything else is irrelevant.

So looking forward to Rune Factory 4~! I still suck at RPGs, but if it's for the sake of interesting character development and whatnot, I will keep trudging on!

I dislike RPGs so I stay away from the RF games.

Oh man am I the only one who actually enjoyed Island of happiness? I hated the mechanics but it's one of the few games that I managed to make my farm perfect. Also, the mining was wonderfur <3 Did I mention that I like to mine? Because I really do. Why did you take away my mining, Marvelous? Why??

I liked IoH, too. I had almost all the guys the red hearts, all ready to marry Shea, annnd... I lose the game D: Never did get the change to play Sunshine Islands.

Just be good at farming and buy all the best weapons. ;)

Also, here's the RF4 opening.



Also, all of this fanart is killing me. ;_;

Aw, why?

Sunshine Islands got a little tedious after a while. Collecting those sun stones wasn't nearly as fun as getting the sprites in DS Cute. And mining was annoying different too.

As far as I know, the GB version and the GBC version were exactly the same though (basically a watered down version of the snes one).

That bothers me too like you wouldn't believe. He is one of the few megane's that I seriously, seriously dislike. How about all the others huh? Why do they like him but hate all the rest?

I have minimal patience for them. I think it was the trauma of playing devil survivor and rage-quiting so hard that I haven't picked up an RPG since. I'm sorry RF. I'm sure that you're super fun and the designs are absolutely stunning but I can't.

*sigh* I wish I could tell you. Allen's just so fundamentally horrible that I naively thought that most people would dislike him.

If you like (non-Allen) meganes though, I think you'll like Arthur from RF4. He's really sweet. He's also strangely obsessed with glasses from what I gather.

Well, if it's any consolation RF4 is about as far from Devil Survivor gameplay-wise as an RPG can get. It's an action-RPG like Avalon Code or Tales.

i don't hate all the rest. :<
i don't like neil because he just rubs me the wrong way. I would not marry him. Befriend him, not marry him.
Amil and Sanjay I can't have an opinion on because fucking yamsssss.
Rod is too chipper for me.
EGORAPTOR GUY LOOKS LIKE EGORAPTORRRRRR.

Eh? No no no. By all the rest I mean the other megane's in the Harvest Moon series. Somehow Allen is the most popular in the most recent game, however the characters with glasses usually have the tendency to be the one no one likes.

MY FIRST TRUE LOVE

You

Aah he looks adorable (he looks like a girl but that somehow makes him cuter) I am curious about 4, but my concern is, I hated Rune Factory 1. I also hated Rune Factory 2. I never played 3. Yet I love love loved Frontier and Tides of Destiny. So I have no idea if I'd like 4 or not, since for some reason I can't get myself to like the handheld Rune Factories.

It's funny though, I love Strategy RPGs. Everyone complained about Devil Survivor being so ridiculously hard but I'd say it was the easiest SRPG I've ever played. I also really loved it, I even have plans to cosplay as Keisuke next convention I go to. On the other hand I don't like action rpgs, though there are few exceptions (like the tales series, though I only really 100% enjoyed Abyss and Graces)

Same <3

People always bash Mary because she's the rival for Gray :(

man gray was such a baby.
"MY GRANDPA IS SO MEAN.
WHY DOESN'T HE APPRECIATE MY SHODDY BLACKSMITHING WORK HE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING.
I AM ANGSTING AND I CAN'T STOP."

Saibara was so cool, man. That guy was like "Yeah, Gray's improving, but I know him and if I tell him so, it will go to his head and he will fuck up." I brought him ore every single day, he was like the best guy.

I'm so glad that Gray's heart events were different in boy and girl because frankly, I didn't particularly like the ones in MFoMT.

I really dislike it when the rivals get bashed on. I mean yeah I'm going after insert character name here but I have no reason to hate on whoever the rival is. I was actually BFFs with Ann when I was romancing Cliff. Good times indeed <3

Late, but I really like IoH. It's better than Grand Bazaar and Tale of Two Towns, in my opinion.