Harvest Moon is a game about farming and dating

Haven't personally played IoH, but it shares (or well, set the precedent for) Sunshine Island's finicky crop and quality system, which isn't particularly newbie-friendly - or friendly to veterans of the series, even. Controls are stylus-only too, which doesn't seem to work very well with the level of precision you need to plant crops (even in ANB, which has d-pad controls, I miss sometimes and waste half a bag of seeds asdfgjsdksdlasjd).

This is just my opinion, mind, but IoH wouldn't be one of my recommendations to a newcomer to the series - if you have access to a 3DS, I'd say ANB, but if not, I'd actually recommend picking up VBA and a copy of MFoMT before you try any of the DS titles.

Thanks guys! I shall keep an eye out for HMDS or HMDS Cute then, though at first glance they seem to be pretty rare down here in Aus. ;)

Edit: Naw, we don't own a 3DS... Man, if I was rich, I'd buy so much gaming stuff... I think I have a problem.

The DS is region-free so you can import from the US if you want.

I think the console versions of Harvest Moon are much friendlier to a new player than the portable versions. Magical Melody was my first one, and while I did have a strategy guide for things like NPC birthdays and how to unlock fertilizer, it's really newbie-friendly. The exception to this is Rune Factory 2 for the DS - it adds the combat and crafting systems, but it's still really newbie-friendly.

Eh, I don't think DS/DS Cute is a good introduction, but that's one of my least favorite Harvest Moons whereas IoH is one of my favorites, so it might just be me. I never even got far enough to get married in DS because you needed so. many. damn. Harvest. Sprites.

I'd agree that IoH is not very newbie-friendly, unfortunately. A lot of people who've played previous HMs complained about it. In my opinion, it took a little getting used to, but it was alright. The problem with DS/Cute is that it's a little monotonous. Plus, collecting sixty sprites to get married is a bit of a pain. Still, it's a good example of the old standard for HM games (they seem to be adding little things to the newer games, like dates and reverse proposals and customizing characters with outfits and whatnot). It does give you a lot of little things to play with (like changing the wallpaper/floor of your farm house) which is pretty fun.

You could try ordering a copy of Tale of Two Towns. One of the biggest complaints I've heard about that one is going from one town to another (you have to go over a mountain for about the first year ingame). The upside it that you get to forage while you're going from town to town. If you have a Wii I'd recommend Tree of Tranquility or Animal Parade. Animal Parade is like a more expansive version of Tree of Tranquility, but they're both fun games on their own. One thing you need to know about Animal Parade though: a single day can last an entire hour in realtime.

I started with DS cute so I'm pretty biased towards it. I never had a problem collecting the harvest sprites since I do extreme farming, and since Kai only appears one season out of the entire year I couldn't get married before year two anyway.

Tale of Two Towns is pretty boring most of the time, and tedious at that. You can only do upgrades once a season and sometimes you can't even complete it and have to wait until the next season to get another chance at it (or, if you suck like I do, it could take up to three seasons. How was I supposed to know that I would need those stones?). The characters are pretty bland too. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but this one is easily one of my least favorite installments in the series.

Island of Happiness introduces a ton of concepts that would intimidate/irritate a lot of new players(the sun points, hunger, freshness, etc) and while it was definitely a challenge, it isn't for everyone. My favorite feature of the game was the mining but they took it out of the subsequent games :/

Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town would probably be a great place to start. I know a number of people who started with it and loved it. Although really, it all depends on what your preference is. If you like a challenge then DS/DS Cute or Island/Sunshine is probably more up your ally. If you just want to just farm, interact with interesting characters, and not have to worry about "saving the world", then FoMT/MFoMT is going to be more to your liking.

As far as the console games go, there's a wide variety of them and it would take a whole other post for them.

So I'm hoarding everything I find like crazy, except for bugs, which I'm selling for the cash and just keeping one of each. Is this a horrifying mistake I will undoubtedly regret later?

Up till now I haven't used the bugs for anything other than making money and I'm half done with year two so I think you're safe.

So I decided to try out MFoMT, and oh my god is it addictive! I pretty much have no idea what I'm doing, though. And I keep dropping things accidentally and they immediately disappear asjfgaiw0fjaewojfoewaiNOOOOO I PAID SO MUCH FOR THAT APPLE ONLY TO DROP IT ON THE GROUND D:

HOARD BEES.
HOARD LOTS OF BEES. those skanks'll make you money, just you wait.

Otherwise, you are making the right decisions in life. Go ahead and look at your life and your choices, there will be no pain there.

Every time you drop an apple, every single person in the world hates you.
I am completely serious.
~*So remember to always be careful!*~ :D
Always

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away.

guys
GUYS I DECIDED TO GO AFTER ROD IN MY GIRL FILE
AND I DON'T REGRET IT AT ALL. He is such a sweetie pie and I love him so much oh my goddddd~ <3

I'm thinking when I start my boy file, I'll end up going after either Iroha or "woman that loves food" because I also love food and I would love to hold her while we talk about cakes and meat dishes. <3

Haha, did you give up on Sanjay? :P (I'm trying to force my way to Fall... I have one day left in Summer and I just can't make myself do it.) Rod's great, though; I almost decided to have my girl farmer marry him back in Year 1.

If you do decide on one of those two, you won't have much time to wait for them at all... and they've got super easy-to-find liked gifts, too!

Over in Tides of Destiny, I just found out from a friend that James has a Secret Shop that opens up after 6pm on the Fireworks Festival, which sells all those monster drops I can't even get from monsters yet. I am saving the heck up for allllll the drops in the world; my crafting is horribly stalled based on all sorts of things needing ridiculously difficult drops to get. (Or possibly I'm just grinding crafting a lot harder than the game assumes I will.)

I think that Animal Parade or Tree of Tranquility would be a good way to start in terms of more modern games. For handhelds, probably Tale of Two Towns.

But I think that HM64 or FOMT/MFOMT would be the best.

Basically gave up on him yeah. I rationalized that there are most likely posts with him as your husband all over the Internet already, so I'm not really missing anything. But Rod's less popular, so it'd be harder.

they're all fools.

I am incredibly angry.

So, apparently...

this makes me really mad because i didn't want to have to hoard something else.
Also, word to y'all: Save up pink diamonds.

XSEED has announced that they will release Rune Factory 4 this summer.

http://operationrainfall.com/xseed-...-knights-3-ys-celceta-and-ys-i-ii-chronicles/

On one hand, XSEED's quality of localization is generally very good; on the other hand, a series switching localizer can result in inconsistency in nomenclature, as had happened with XSEED's Rune Factory Frontier. Nonetheless, this is good news.

YES. YES. YES.

*sets cars on fire in celebration*

PRAISE THE LAAAAAWD, way to make me celebrate getting a 3DS even more.

i don't know what to do with myself right now oh wow.

I don't care if there are some odd name changes. I just want a them to do good a good job. Natsume did a pretty shitty job on ANB. If I can pick out mistakes it means they probably didn't even use spellcheck. I really hate all the random bits of coding, repeated text and spelling errors.

Despite the number of Natsume games I've played and the fact that I've played relatively few games translated by XSEED, I'm actually pretty happy to hear this. From what I've seen so far, I kind of prefer their translations.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS, GUYS. Oh god I hope Dylas doesn't get his name changed to Dylan. That would suck.

And hey, since XSEED is localizing this we might actually get some decent VAs.

TO BE FAIR, XSEED either doesn't change names at all or changes them slightly. So I'm really hyped.
man i love xseed

Its been a very, very long time since I've played a HM game. I sorta miss them now.

I first goes introduced to A Wonderful Life, I remember going after Celia.... and then I got too impatient and never really progressed past the first year.
Then I discovered Friends of Mineral Town. KAREN. BE MY WAIFU YOU ALCOHOLIC WOMAN YOU~

-coughs-

Later, the female versions of both of those games came out. I picked Gustafa, and Cliff respectively. They're just such sweetie pies, the both of them.

Then, it was Magical Melody. I guess I have a thing for the sweet, shy types, cause I picked Ray, the fisher.

Harvest Moon DS I went for Muffy. I love Muffy.
Harvest Moon DScute, I went for...crap there's just so many bachelors I couldn't decide, it was a tie between a lot of them...

Last game I played was the one for the Wii. I picked Toby. But I never completed his last thing, to find the Rock Lobster. I could not fish up that stupid fish. So I never married him. ;-;

If I ever get a 3DS, I'll make sure to get the new Rune Factory. Oh god do the monster boys look yummy.

Relevant:

I've been avoiding this thread because reading about ANB makes me a jealous turd. Why 3DS, why do I need money to have you

Of all the recent games, I'd have to say that Animal Parade was my favorite. My only gripe is that everything took so dang long, but it had all that I wanted from a HM game. All the handhelds for me have had one thing that made me really frustrated with them. I may try to go back to SI because constructing things in ToTT is inane.

Have any of you posted about Stardew Valley in the thread? It looks to be pretty much everything I've wanted from HM. And it has ~*same sex marriage*~
Go like it up on Steam Greenlight so it'll be on steam!!

I'm just... I'm just really excited for it, so sorry if it's already been mentioned. orz

Oh, I hadn't heard about that at all! I stopped going through Steam Greenlight because most of the time they wouldn't even tell me what OS the game would be for, but I will go like it on principle.

Plus it has co-op, which I don't even know how it's going to work but is pretty much a dream come true.

I know, right? I think it's going to act like one person is the "server" and 3 others can jump in your game. You can even marry other players.

Ugh, I needed this game yesterday.

HEY.
THREAD REVIVAL.

Asking if anyone would help me transfer a yam/yam seeds to my other file.

This thread is about Rune Factory again because RF4 is coming out this summer! Whooooo! I'm so hyped for this game, you guys.

Tentative release date is July 16th, which may or may not be the final one. Personally, I'm hoping it comes out a bit sooner (June-ish) but I'm just glad it's finally being released.

I can't decide whether I'm going to marry Leon or Arthur first. XSeed are on the record as saying that Leon's voice is really sexy, but Arthur looks adorable as well.

Also, summoning RopeMaidenKirie because she's played the japanese version and is a person who knows about these things.

Super hyped about this too! I'm going to marry ALL THE PEOPLE.

DID SOMEONE SAY ARTHUR?! *trips*

Thanks for summoning me here <3

You seriously can't go wrong with either of them! Arthur is my own personal bias, but Leon is a close second choice. It sounds like most of the ladies at Xseed are fans of Leon.. Tom (the translator) really likes Xiao Pai and Amber which I thought was pretty cool.

Oh and if anyone has any questions, I certainly don't mind answering them.

lol, Kirie. So predictable. ;)

Yeah, he said that Amber was incredibly moe. I haven't really heard much else about her, even though she was one of the first characters unveiled, so I'm looking forward to getting to know her.

Also, Meg seems to be an unexpected favourite with a lot of people. I thought she looked kind of boring at first, but with everything I've heard about her she's grown on me.

How important is farming this time around? Have there been any improvements over RF2 and 3 (I never played 3, myself)?

Ooh, I'm really looking forward to this one as well. A quick question, how do the RF games on the handhelds compare to two on the consoles? Rune Factory Frontier and Tides of Destiny as those are the only two I've played and they were rather different from each other.

Nebty - Yeah, Amber is the bachelorette I know the least about, so I'm really looking forward to seeing her too! She does seem rather... I don't want to say childish, but.. I guess young. There are reasons, but yeah :D

Meg is honestly one of my favorite characters. She is seriously Frey's BFF in my game. What a bro! She seemed really flat at her reveal, but I have a feeling you'll love her. She's fantastic!

Honestly, the farming hasn't really progressed... TOO much I would say. I can't honestly think of much that is new (Did RF3 have giant crops? It's been way too long since I've played that game.) I mainly focused on the characters and the town sub-events. It's still a lot of fun! And the prince/princess points system brings a lot of neat things (including the sprite swap!)

Thursday - I actually have never played the two console versions of RF, so I'm afraid I can't answer your question D: D: I'm sorry!

(urgh I can't tag people yet in posts, sorry ._.)

The handheld RF games are honestly not a whole lot different (besides the obvious stuff like no 3D graphics). It's sort of like what the console HM games are to the handheld versions. I haven't played Frontier, and I've only gotten through about half of ToD so far. I generally like the handheld ones a bit better if only because you can play them on the go.

That sounds awesome. It's rare for a game to give you a female bro.

Oh, are there slumber parties with the female characters? I heard mention of something like that a while back.

Also, what are dates like? What do you generally do?

I don't think there were in 3. There definitely weren't in 2. I heard somewhere that you could grow dungeons?

Also, Kirie, tagging is done by doing @insertusernamehere.