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Harvest Moon
UncleSporky
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Perhaps I am not the best person to make a Harvest Moon thread, since I only just started playing one. But here it is.
I first played the SNES Harvest Moon and despite being similar to Zelda in several ways, I couldn't get into it. Mostly I hated the idea of a one year time limit hanging over my head, and me not knowing the first thing about successful farming. I don't like getting deep into something and realizing you screwed up ages ago and now your farm is a mess.
But I understand most of the other Harvest Moons did away with that. (Yes?)
I was over at a friend's house and saw his wife playing a Harvest Moon on the Cube and I realized I wanted to play it badly. The modern ones seem like a great mixture of the Sims and Animal Crossing, both of which I love. So now I have Harvest Moon DS, and while it's lacking in many ways (terrible translation, assumes you've played other HM games), I'm really enjoying it. I especially like buying new buildings and diving into the mine for treasure.
I am using GameFAQs guides unashamedly because I could never figure out a lot of this stuff on my own, such as visiting the old couple on a clear spring Saturday at 11:00 to get the fishing pole.
Anyway I'm kind of overwhelmed by HM now. I like it and would like to play more of it but there are so many versions out there. Wiki tells me that there's at least one game for every Sony and Nintendo console since SNES, 18 in all give or take a few.
And from E3 2007, here are some of the upcoming HM games:
Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl (PSP, already out?)
Harvest Moon DS: Cute (DS)
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness (DS)
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Special Edition (PS2)
Harvest Moon Tree of Peace (Wii)
Besides that there is Rune Factory which I am interested in, but they've already announced a sequel to it.
Scan 1
Scan 2
So which Harvest Moon is the best? Which should I play next?
And finally, I read here once that there is a glitch in one of the HM games that lets you milk your wife(!). My friend doesn't believe me and I can't find any info on it (it's difficult to search for "milk your wife" safely) so was this just a horrible joke or does it actually exist? And if so,
I first played the SNES Harvest Moon and despite being similar to Zelda in several ways, I couldn't get into it. Mostly I hated the idea of a one year time limit hanging over my head, and me not knowing the first thing about successful farming. I don't like getting deep into something and realizing you screwed up ages ago and now your farm is a mess.
But I understand most of the other Harvest Moons did away with that. (Yes?)
I was over at a friend's house and saw his wife playing a Harvest Moon on the Cube and I realized I wanted to play it badly. The modern ones seem like a great mixture of the Sims and Animal Crossing, both of which I love. So now I have Harvest Moon DS, and while it's lacking in many ways (terrible translation, assumes you've played other HM games), I'm really enjoying it. I especially like buying new buildings and diving into the mine for treasure.
I am using GameFAQs guides unashamedly because I could never figure out a lot of this stuff on my own, such as visiting the old couple on a clear spring Saturday at 11:00 to get the fishing pole.
Anyway I'm kind of overwhelmed by HM now. I like it and would like to play more of it but there are so many versions out there. Wiki tells me that there's at least one game for every Sony and Nintendo console since SNES, 18 in all give or take a few.
And from E3 2007, here are some of the upcoming HM games:
Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl (PSP, already out?)
Harvest Moon DS: Cute (DS)
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness (DS)
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Special Edition (PS2)
Harvest Moon Tree of Peace (Wii)
Besides that there is Rune Factory which I am interested in, but they've already announced a sequel to it.
Scan 1
Scan 2
So which Harvest Moon is the best? Which should I play next?
And finally, I read here once that there is a glitch in one of the HM games that lets you milk your wife(!). My friend doesn't believe me and I can't find any info on it (it's difficult to search for "milk your wife" safely) so was this just a horrible joke or does it actually exist? And if so,
:winky:
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In the SNES version, you could spend the whole night clearing your farm on your (it doesn't automatically send you to bed like in the later ones). The next day you just run to the mountain, pick a berry, and throw it into the shipping box. You could get 2 or 3 berries in there before the guy comes to pick up your shipment. With this you could have enough to start you farm in 2 or 3 days.
There isn't much of a 'oh shoot I screwed up now I have to start over' in Harvest Moon. My brother upgraded his house all the way and got married in the first year on just his second play through.
He was really good at it though.
Heh, see, I don't know anything about this series.
After you play that a bit then Rune Factory's a good one.
I think the way it worked was that if you did a horrible job with the farm after the first year the town would vote you out of the farm. I could be thinking of the N64 version though.
You can go straight to the ending by holding down a certain sequence of buttons while going to sleep. Awesome and helpful for multiple plays.
I've been playing Friends of Mineral Town lately, and it's way too overwhelming. There is way too much you can do, and trying to win over someone to marry is a pain in the ass (it takes way longer). I don't know what the time limit on the game is, exactly, or the end goal aside from being successful with the farm. I know that after four years the brides to choose from end up getting married to other people in the town. So I guess that's your time limit there. But again, there's way too much to do in this one. You have to mine, you have to chop your wood, you have to tend to your crops, you have to swing into town to get people to like you. I feel like I'm half-assing everything I try to cram in.
Still, a huge step up from the SNES version. I was going to pick up the DS release, until I read this thread. Holy cow. I'll wait on the next one I guess.
I always married Karen in Friends of Mineral Town. Mostly because I hated Rick and wanted to doom him to a lonely, unloved life.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
After my first run through a Harvest Moon, the second one is almost always a marriage just to spite someone else.
True love at its finest.
I loved that game.
Harvest Moon SNES: This version is on there for nostalgia but doesn't hold up as well as it did when it first came out.
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature: It's decent as it's a souped up version of HM64 but the load times/save times really got to me so I couldn't really play it.
Harvest Moon DS: I enjoyed up until the point I realized it was an extremely hardcore grindfest. Then I found out about how buggy it was.
Save the Homeland: I bought this is as soon as it came out but never got into it. I believe it was just too far removed from the HM formula for me to like it even though I've tried multiple times over the years to play it.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life: Same as above except I tried to play it again recently with the same result.
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town: PLayed this for a bit and enjoyed it. Harkens back to the gameplay of the SNES version.
Rune Factory: Great combination of Harvest Moon and an action RPG. Having alot of fun with this right now.
I've also owned and played the original GB Harvest Moon as well as the GBC version. Don't remember too much there.
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Anyway, I've played almost all of them and I did enjoy HM64, Back to Nature, and Magical Melody the most. I need to restart Friends of Mineral Town since when I got it I didn't really have much of a chance to get into it (time crunch). You should still be able to find Magical Melody around. I'd recommend reading up on them first before you tried out Innocent Life (PSP), Rune Factory (DS), Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life (PS2 and GC), or Harvest Moon Save the Homeland (PS2) since those are all a bit different from your traditional Harvest Moon experience (some more so than others).
John Deere: Harvest in the Heartland
I think I might be looking forward to this. You might call it a more "American" Harvest Moon.
There's no indacation of any dating in this game, it's just farming. That's kind of a loss, but i'm interested in it anyway.
I've wanted better tools and equipment in Harvest Moon for awhile. Just being able to set up a sprinkler system sounds fantastic. I hope it turns out well.
The next Wii and DS Harvest Moons are set to release within days of each other in November. I really hope one of them gets pushed back.
NNID-InvisibleInk
It's not humanly possible for two HM games not to be delayed. Fuck, I'm pretty sure every single US first release of a game has missed the date by at least a week.
Also, I'm pretty sure Euroland is just getting MM this year.
Weeeiirrrrddd. At first I thought it'd be more like Sim Farm, but appearance wise it looks more like Harvest Moon. O_o I'm going to have to read up on this.
Boughted.
Also, what do the ducks do in HM DS ? Also, is there anything special about having different coloured cows ?
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is also very good.
No, most Harvest Moon games don't have an ending at all. The SNES one did and the GB ones did but the GB ones were awful anyway. The rest just have a "judgement time" where you have to truly fuck up incredibly to lose then just keep going or, more recently, have goals to finish and then the game keeps on anyway, like finding all the notes in MM or finding all the sprites in the DS game.
Ducks are just like chickens except they look like ducks and you have to build a pond to get them. Different colored cows only matter somewhat in A Wonderful Life.
My favorite has to be Friends of Mineral Town, with Back to Nature a close second, because they're almost the same game.
I couldn't get into AWL for some reason, my mother and my brothers absolutely love it (my mom even went and got herself the girl version, which, for her to buy a game for herself, is a big deal), but I couldn't get into it. It just felt clunky and slow compared to what I'm used to. My wife is currently playing Magical Melody (she inspired Sporky to make this thread), which I bought for about $15 used at GameCrazy a few months ago and never had the time to sit down and play. It was in great condition, which I'm thankful for. It was so clean and all of the inserts and manuals were totally untouched, I doubt it got two plays before the previous owner brought it back. Anyway, my wife loves it. It, apparently, is better than Animal Crossing in enough ways for her (mostly time and progress in the game are not limited by real time) to really enjoy it. I've only watched her play it so far, and it has me really wanting to play, but she has been totally bogarting my Wii with it. So I, like Sporky, popped in HM DS.
I got this the day it came out, having done no research on it, thinking it was going to be the best HM ever. Boy was I wrong. As far as I can tell, the game assumes that you're intimately familiar with A Wonderful Life, and all of the characters seem to have already established a relationship with yours. There is very little setup, and the game assumes you know where the hell to find everything already, etc. It was very frustrating from the start. Once you get past that, it does start to feel quite a bit like Friends of Mineral town. Which I can deal with.
I've really been wanting to give Rune Factory a whirl, but it has to wait for now, my wallet wouldn't like it if I blew everything that was in it right now.
Well, some endings are like that but if you try to get all 12 endings you have to do quite a bit of stuff. But it's still the weakest of all the Hm games with Innocent Life apparently giving it a run.
Yeah, the DS game is ridiculously packed with stuff to do and you start off with NOTHING except tools and a house and a dog. It's pretty different from the other HMs. I think it's the most rewarding out of all of them once you get a handle on what you need to do but the learning curve is super steep.
So awesome, why can't they just make a 3D version of that with more crops/animals and characters. But no, instead we got a Wonderful fucking Life with it's 3 inches of crop field and boring archaeology dig site.
Firstly, No the SNES one DOES go on for 3 years. I remember as it's the only one I've played to completion. I loved it to bits. It ends with you and (in my case) your wife and two kids watching the fireworks at the new years festival, then you head back to the farm. I loved the DS one, cos it was nice and simple. Grow stuff, seduce women. Two crops per season. Get chickens and feed em to get eggs. Get cow, feed and brush to get milk. Simple, but with enough to do with the super tools and lady seduction and special events to keep me interested for the length of the game.
But on your second point I have to agree. I tried playing the psx and ds versions of harvest moon, and the new Rune factory game, and I was just overwhelmed. HOW many crop types? HOW many people with their heart meters and backstorys? HOW many festivals? Caves? Ruins? Animals? DRAGONS? Fishing?
BUH?! I have NO idea what's going on. My character has a backstory? Whatever happened to 'Here is a farm, it sucks, make it not suck?'.
I really loved the SNES Harvest Moon, is there another Harvest Moon that approaches it's mellow simplicity? I don't want to be stressed all the time that I'm not going to be able to propose or that my sword isn't high enough level, I just want to chill out and grow turnips.
Oh and those little gnome things? The harvest sprites i think they're called. SCREW those guys.
No, SNES only lasted 2 1/2 years. It ends after the third summer.
The PSX, SP and DS games are as simple as you want to make them. Yeah, there's a fuckton of stuff to do and more choices then you can shake a stick at but you don't HAVE to do any of it.
Multiple tableaus would play out during the ending depending on what you managed to accomplish. Or the failure ending.
The slowdown is just atrocious, even when you are just walking around. I found the game nearly unplayable until i got my horse, because walking is beyond inconvenient. You can tell it used to be a much faster game when you are indoors and ingame time goes twice as fast as it does outside.
I struggled to chapter 4 before i gave up, and that is unheard of for me. I played for 6 months what i probably could have done in 3 on the GC. /rant
The PS2 version is abominable. It's almost nothing like the GC version. The boy GC version is ok, the girl version a little better as alaways as they fix glitches. As far as HM goes they're both pretty average and more then a little confusing.
2 crops per season would bore me stiff. What I want of Harvest Moon is more emphases on the actual farming. Building your farm is easily the most enjoyable part of the game, new buildings, new tools, upgrades, loads of crops, loads of animals, that weird machine that let you make hybrid seeds.
The social/events aspect is a big part of it and I wouldn't want to lose that, but I lose interest when there's nothing more to achieve with the farm than raking in endless money.
Also I will kill you if you ever bad mouth the Harvest Sprites again. They are awesome in FOMT. Yet another disappointment when they do absolutely nothing in Wonderful Life.
That's awful, especially considering most people usually give up on AWL around chapter 2.
The game has a bigger payoff than any other game, but man do you have to work for it.
I'm also amazed at how much MM love there is in here. It's a neat take to be sure, but I hate the lack of any festival worth a damn and how few things the characters say, which while problematic in the other games is really noticeable here. People have like two things they say at a time. Rune Factory, on the other hand, has a good four or five.
What they really need to do is add in a lot more gossip. AWL was pretty good at this, but it needs more. Like a few thousand more things people can say. Of course, if this ever did happen, It would take Natsume ten years to bring it over, so you get what you wish for.
They only say two different things but they have two different different things to say at every heart level . That's twice what the bachlorettes from the other games say and who-knows-how-much-more then the regular townfolk in the other games.
I never really liked the festivals in any of the games but MM's seemed just as good. In fact you actually DID things at two of them didn't you? Nothing can beat the Sumo Chicken matches tho.
I really enjoy Magical Melody, as does my wife. We play it avidly, and I've played several different files.
I think the biggest draw in Magical Melody is the slew of options available at any given time. There's also the lack of any kind of pressure in the game. If you sit on your bum for two years of game time, the game won't penalize you. If you dilly-dally and choose to remain a bachelor/ette no one is going to up and marry your chosen sweetheart. Its much closer to The Sims or Animal Crossing than previous HM titles, and I think that's one of the main draws to the game.
Aside from that, there wasn't a whole lot WRONG with the game. Graphical glitches are infrequent and not debilitating, there isn't a lot of engrish, and the controls are largely simple and straight-forward. Its a solid, well-loved game.
See, I hate that trend in the recent ones. I don't mind having a lot of time, but I want some kind of rating or deadline or -something- to say "hey, congraturations, you are super player." I mean, I rarely play past the third year or so just because I've done it all at that point. Everybody adores me, I have all the best tools, have caught all the best fish, etc. MM gave at least the notes to collect, but even that I think I had 95% done by the end of year two without really going out of my way.
Aroduc craves structure!
Bah, I'll dig in and try to remember, I think I'm at the point where it might be fun.