#probably some of the farmers from animal parade and awl

[moominsnufkin]

Going 2 later make a mashup for my cosplay goals til 2025 …. and so far I’ve only cosplayed like Pearl once… (; <;)

[acustardduckling]

I’m going to post my twitter review thread of every Harvest Moon game I’ve played here too, since maybe some of you are interested??

Bear in mind they’ve all been limited to what I can say about them in under 280 words! I’ve always wanted to do massive full reviews, but I’ve played so many that it’d take a very long time. 

Anyway, they’re all under the cut! I’d love to hear your thoughts too. 

Harvest Moon (SNES) 

I'm biased towards this 'cause it's the first I played. It's what originally got me into the Harvest Moon series! 

The few wives were oddly memorable, and I liked that people went to church on Sunday, heh. 

It's short and repetitive, though.

+QUALITY TYPOS

Harvest Moon 64 

This one ... always came off as a little odd to me, since I played Mineral Town before it. 

It's not bad, though! I mean, fishing SUCKS, but it's pretty standard for a classic Harvest Moon title. I don't feel very strongly about it -- bought it for Wii U. 

(More) Friends of Mineral Town 

 YES I PLAYED BOTH. This one's a fan favourite for good reason. I'm not sure I can describe the specific feeling you get playing it. 

Sadly, I'm NOT a fan of how small the bag is, especially with later games to compare. Looking forward to the remake.

A Wonderful Life 

I never got to play the girl version - but why would I? This game is a lot of people's favourite, but I struggled to get into it. The idea of DYING and having a story where your kid is actually important is neat, but it's slow and I hate the farming system.

HM:DS (+Cute) 

 I love this game. This was my favourite for a LONG time. Yes, it's tedious to collect the harvest sprites, but I love having so much to do. The characters are all very interesting, and it's got my favourite map to date. It's basically AWL, but done to my tastes.

Magical Melody 

 Another fan-fav. This time, I feel they got the amount of collectable items right! Apart from the fact that I'm SUPER SALTY ABOUT THE UK LOCALISATION OF THIS GAME, I like this one. And Carl. 

 It’s got a lot of cameos from previous games and I'm down for that. 

Island of Happiness

OK THERE'S NO LIE HERE I have a lot of history with this game too- I have a soft spot for the cast- highschool memories etc. 

Playing without cheating (I was a baaad farmer back in the day) is pretty rough, though. It's not a great game, but I love it anyway.

Sunshine Islands

This was a remake of IoH, essentially, with  a few things done better and a few things done worse. (CROP SYSTEM...)

Unfortunately, this one never held my attention as much as the first. I'd put it down to life situations - maybe I'll get back to it sometime.

Frantic Farming

'I CAN STILL HEAR THE NOISES IN MY BRAIN, HELP ME' the game. Puzzle spinoff. Used IoH characters. Would not recommend playing for longer than an hour. It's surprisingly difficult. I don't think I ever got to the later Pierre levels that I really wanted to see.

Grand Bazaar

This game is adorable. I love the characters and their portraits. But OH. What wasted potential. The map is so small that I feel trapped. There's nothing to do. The gimmick of the game - the Bazaar - isn't even that fun. Sorry, GB, but you could've done better.

Save the Homeland

Oh dear. I forgot I'd played this one, so it isn't in order like the others. I've only played it for about an hour tops, and it's pretty ugly. Am I shallow? It's not that I don't like the characters, they... they're just in Magical Melody, which I LIKE, so...

Tree of Tranquillity

THIS IS GOOD STUFF. GLITCHY STUFF, BUT GOOD. HARD TO COMPLETE RAINBOW RECIPES, BUT GOOD. 

I played it pretty late and still loved it -- it's another that I can't really describe the feeling that I get while playing it, but it's unique too.

Animal Parade

A 'remake' of ToT, and my favourite HM game to date.

Two kids with varied models + personality? Custom clothes? Story that you can COMPLETE? Stellar marriage candidates? Fun mines? Subplot? Events? RIDE COW? 

That's a recipe for a great Harvest Moon game, babeyyy!!

Tale of Two Towns

I liked the task system, it helped break up the monotony of farm life. And you had two homes to choose from! I never got married in this game, though, probably 'cause I was playing two game files at once. 

This was the last one that really felt 'harvest moony'.

A New Beginning 

 I'm playing this one again right now, and yikes, the first year is a drag, huh? I believe it deserves a chance, but since I married Rod last time (who I didn't really LIKE) it's clear I gave up. 

The town-crafting is nice, but when you want to unlock a husband...

Story of Seasons

This has so much going for it (twins!) but I don't think I got past Spring Year 1 in this game. It's another where it doesn't really kick off from the start. It doesn't feel like a Harvest Moon game to me, either.

Sorry Mistel. 

Maybe some other time.

Trio of Towns 

 Imagine if ANB, ToTT and SoS mixed together... and were GOOD? 

I was happily surprised after continuing. Not crazy about REGION LOCKED DLC but this game gives JUST enough to do and rewards for doing. 

I like that there's more events, and you can do some as friends...

-----

That’s all from me! I’ve also played Stardew Valley, Rune Factories 1 and 4, Cattails and ... Hometown Story ... but since this is a Harvest Moon post, I feel I should talk about those some other time.

[flute-fields]

Ooh nooo I did put animal crossing! I feel so dumb now I meant harvest moon. Sorry about that!

that’s fine! considering your mom wants one for her DS, i’m going to list the DS games available for Harvest Moon and offer my two cents on them since the DS games are the ones i have the most experience with lol so you’re in luck

to add another note, keep in mind that Harvest Moon has rebranded as Story of Seasons, so SoS is the same HM we all know and love; Natsume took the Harvest Moon title and released a bunch of horrible games to catch peoples’ interest with the familiar title, so the title shifts in this list. i only used the name Harvest Moon when discussing the games out of familiarity/force of habit; later on down this list, the title changes. i’m also adding the 3DS games.

i’ll link you to the games as well so you can go over them yourself/she can check them out herself to see what she’d prefer. i wrote a lot but not nearly enough to cover the controls/functions/story line/overall goal/townspeople in each game.

1) Harvest Moon DS/Harvest Moon DS Cute. considering one of your mom’s favorite HM games are AnWL, i think she’ll like this the best; the game is set in Forget-Me-Not-Valley with a huge amount of characters from AnWL! in DS, you can only play as Jack/Pete. in DS Cute, you can choose to play as either Claire or Pony/Jill. DS/DS Cute is probably one of my favorite title games because it’s so similar to AWL/AnWL, so i think she’d really enjoy this one. i don’t have much to say on the story/goal of the game since it’s basically AWL/AnWL for a DS. out of all the games i go over here, i think she’ll like this one the best.

2) Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness/Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands. these two are very similar to Tree of Tranquility/Animal Parade because they’re essentially the same game with major differences. in IoH, the player character is washed up on a new island during a horrible shipwreck after a violent storm/lightning strike and sea and never makes whatever their original destination was; those who survived the crash make a new life on the island they washed up on (it sounds bleak but i promise it’s not).

however, in SI, the MC sails to SI for a new life and all of the villagers have an established life there. the two games have different goals and slightly tweaked characters, but are functionally relatively the same, with SI adding in more marriage candidates. this series is also one of my favorites, but one thing to add is that the art is very chibi-fied. not sure if your mom will mind it, but it kind of bugged me at times. i personally prefer SI.

3) Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. this was one of my first HM games, and it’s very cute and charming; the art, however, is more cutesy than the previous titles, so at times it kind of feels like everyone is a baby lol. the game is a little different from usual - there’s no shipping bin, because the goal is to sell everything you produce at a bazaar that’s held once a week (or at a shop in town if you don’t want to wait that long). you don’t mine in this game either, since you buy ore in shops or find them in rocks during winter. overall, it’s a cute game, but maybe not the most memorable? i remember enjoying it a lot, but i can’t remember that much about it. >_> it’s one of the more cutesy games as opposed to the little bits of realism/somberness in AWL/AnWL

i’m skipping Puzzle de Harvest Moon/Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming because neither of them are farming simulators, they’re puzzle/matching games

4) Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns. one of my favorite games! you play as a farmer starting in one of two towns situated on either side of a mountain, with a blocked tunnel connecting them. your goal is to bring the two towns together again through cooking festivals, which will unblock the tunnel; until then, you travel between the towns by climbing the mountain, which is great for foraging but eats up some time in your day. one town is focused on farming crops, the other is focused on farming livestock; you can do both in either town, but your farm will be devoted more to main export of either town. for example, in Konohana has a lot of fields for crops and a small barn. it’s the opposite in Bluebell.

your residency in one town isn’t permanent, though; i think at the end of every season you can choose if you want to move to the other town and you can keep doing that indefinitely. another addition to the game is dating, where you go on dates with marriage candidates rather than just leveling hearts and proposing! it brings a tiny bit more realism into the romance lol. this game is available for 3DS as well.

5) the Rune Factory games. i haven’t played a lot of RF (only 4 lol ._.) but they’re all titled as fantasy Harvest Moons, meaning you have a farm and farming is a major focus, but there’s also magic and elves and fighting monsters in dungeons to get good loot! RF title games for the DS are Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon, Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon, and Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. Rune Factory 4 is a 3DS title and the only one i’ve played but i liked it a lot and intend to play the other titles!

i don’t have too much to say on the series since i haven’t played a lot, but i really enjoyed RF4! the games are much more story driven than Harvest Moon, which i found really fun since it felt like i had more of a goal than just “farm for the town”. i will add though that i loved all of the bachelorettes(minus Amber)/bachelors up until gearing toward proposing, because a lot of their Marriage Events suddenly had like...weird stuff? i won’t spoil anything but suddenly things like possessiveness/jealousy/weird unhealthy relationship stuff came up and i was like WHOA WHAT WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM O_O because it was all SO drastically different from everything else up to that point. i didn’t romance any of the bachelors but it was there for the bachelorettes so idk if it’s the same.

there are more HM games, but these next ones are for 3DS. i’m not sure if your mom has a 3DS (i know u said DS but i call my 3DS a DS all the time so idk if it’s the same thing for you or not >_>), so i’m adding these next titles because i’m on a roll, but keep that in mind! i will also add that, with your mom’s preference in her favorite games, she’d probably enjoy the games i listed above waaaaaay more than these next ones, since that’s how i feel too.

1) Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning. this is the title where things feel... very different. i didn’t really enjoy it that much, if i’m being honest, because it brought in a weird focus away from farming where you reorganize the town and build new buildings and stuff. it felt a lot like the sims, minus making characters. this is the first title where you can customize the player character though! which i love! since your mom’s favorite games are AnWL and Animal Parade and MY favorite games are AnWL and Animal Parade and i didn’t enjoy this game much, she probably won’t either. the tutorial stage is also really, REALLY, horrifically long -- it stretches over a week in-game time of just basically doing nothing. most of the characters are REAL charming though imo, and they lose the cutesy chibi art which i was really happy about. the art and characters made me stick through the gameplay since i enjoyed them. they also brought in older characters and renewed their designs; i loooooved Witch Princess and Amir in this game so much i was so stoked to unlock them. but overall yeah one of my least favorite titles in the series since it brought so much focus away from farming to me and while characters/romance are nice, a huge draw TO the HM games is the farming

2) Story of Seasons. first game to be hit with the rebrand from Harvest Moon! any game after this was released (FEB 27 2014 in Japan) with the title of Harvest Moon is NOT Harvest Moon anymore! it’s Natsume up to their dirty tricks of using a great brand and stealing the name to release bad games.

anyway, SoS was... pleasant! i enjoyed it. it didn’t stick with me like the older games, though. but i loooved the art and the town, and the villagers were charming. you compete with other farmers in town for certain fields located in different places, all of which are best suited for certain kinds of crops. i liked the rival aspect, but it is very different from older HM titles. you can also select the difficulty to play in either Veteran mode or Seedling mode; i recommend Seedling mode, both because prices aren’t as high and because HM (to me) is a game to relax and have fun farming, and Veteran mode is just stressful.

3) Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns. i love this one. (well, for the most part). this is the first game that introduces your family! you start off as a young adult still living at home with your mother, father, and younger sister, and decide to move out and become a farmer. your father is furious at this idea but you are eventually set to live in the same town as your Uncle Frank, who is a farmer, to measure your farming ability. if by the end of three years, you haven’t proven to your father than you have what it takes to be a farmer, you’re leaving the town forever. the bleakness reminded me a lot of AnWL, for some reason; i loved the aspect of your father being strict and hard on you since it felt a little bit more somber than the super cute, super peppy titles in the series of recent years.

that’s where the bleakness ends, tho. i will say that, despite loving this game and the characters, i really, REALLY hate the three-town system. you start off on your farm to three crossroads that lead to three different towns that all unlock by summer in your first year. and yes, it’s fun! the different towns yield different crops and resources. but it doesn’t feel at all like Harvest Moon to me. it feels way bigger and with way more things to do. it also makes days a LOT longer, since you run from all of the towns to complete errands in part-time jobs. it needs more of your focus than other games. i haven’t finished the game yet, and while i love it, i love it separately from other HM titles. it doesn’t hook me in the way the older titles did, which i think is because of the modernity of it with three different towns and being bigger and and having such consistently bright colors as opposed to one small town and muted color scheme of, for example, AWL. it feels, like ANB, very different from the vibe Harvest Moon usually gives you. idk how to describe it. i feel like this game exists in a separate niche.

i like how your family feels more real in it, though; they periodically send you letters and visit you. it really feels like you had a life before coming to the town(s), rather than starting off as a blank slate at the beginning of the game.

anyway i hope that helped! lmk if you need any clarification or want to go over other things or want any other recommendations. i hope ur mom finds a game she likes! ^_^