Harvest Moon Thread

[darsparx]

Figured why not another thread on this series especially since I just got the SFC one working in english with a patch(thanks r9delta if you ever come around again) and darn it I want to discuss this one a little bit. Anyone else who has this one notice how the time passes a lot quicker than in say friends of mineral town? It feels like you really don't have enough time get anything done(seriously in hm i could clear a lot more in one day especially if i got started right as my character woke up).

Also am I wrong to assume that friends of mineral town and a few others are actually ports of each other with things rearranged and such? I think I had gotten back to nature on my vita awhile back and it seemed like there was a lot of similarities...



PS: Yes I know there's other threads about this series but I don't want to ressurrect a old thread...

[Exhuminator]

Every Harvest Moon game is basically an updated remake of the same original concept. Granted they have different plots (always independent of one another AFAIK), the core mechanics do not change dramatically, only subtle alterations are made. It's important to note that the original creators behind the franchise lost the rights to it, and are now making their vision of the game franchise under the Story of Seasons moniker.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Seasons-Nin ... of+seasons

Harvest Moon always boils down to somehow you inherit a farm that is in disrepair. You work your ass off fixing up the farm and farming so you can sell produce for profit. You run about town meeting people and doing odd jobs for them. Eventually you decide on someone you want to marry, and then marry them, and then have offspring who help out on the farm. Eventually you beat the game by completing all the story related events around town. After that you sometimes have the option to continue farming on your farm ad infinitum. There are small quirks to each game, but that's what always seems to be the core concept.

But then you have the Rune Factory games.

The Rune Factory series lets you do all the stuff you do in Harvest Moon, but adds dungeon crawling to the mix with real time combat. The better Rune Factory games are balanced in such a way that you can make enough money off of dungeon crawling that you hardly have to mess with crop raising or livestock. And even better they let you grow crops in caves that protect them from bad weather and wild animals. I strongly recommend the Rune Factory series over the Harvest Moon series personally. Especially Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon on DS, and Rune Factory Frontier on Wii. And don't worry, the Rune Factory games all have independent stories so you can play any of them in whatever order you want and you're not screwing up the plot for yourself or anything like that.

Either way, Harvest Moon or Rune Factory, both series have lots to do and can easily suck you into their little worlds and keep you busy for a long time. You get a lot of bang for your buck with these games. The Rune Factory series especially is incredibly underrated and a lot of RPG lovin' folks just don't know what they are missing.

[darsparx]

Well yeah but I noticed that in at least a few of them they're more or less the same town on different platforms just a different name slapped on the game(BTN and FoMT/MFoMT seem like prime examples of this for some odd reason). I've been tempted to grab the rune factory ones but ehh haven't gotten around to it, plus it is kinda nice to have a more relaxing rpg like this that doesn't boil down to just being a farmville(yuck)...

[Exhuminator]

I've been tempted to grab the rune factory ones but ehh haven't gotten around to it, plus it is kinda nice to have a more relaxing rpg like this that doesn't boil down to just being a farmville(yuck)...

Get either Rune Factory 3 on DS, Rune Factory 4 on 3DS, or Rune Factory Frontier on Wii. I cannot imagine how you could be disheartened with any of those. And yes, these games are quite relaxing, at least when you're not fighting a boss.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, I'd recommend a later Rune Factory. I have both the first and the fourth one and the fourth one feels much better balanced. The first one requires a lot of grinding to get enough materials for things like the house expansion, and the combat isn't very good yet.

[darsparx]

Yeah guess I'll end up getting them sometime this summer...this month is actually going to be more of a shove all my loose games in custom cases month(I want all my ds and gb/c/a stored on a shelf or in the slide-out drawer under my bed))

[CFFJR]

Anyone else who has this one notice how the time passes a lot quicker than in say friends of mineral town? It feels like you really don't have enough time get anything done(seriously in hm i could clear a lot more in one day especially if i got started right as my character woke up).

In the original Harvest Moon, the clock will stop each day in the evening, 6 pm I believe.

At this point, the game will not advance to the next day unless you go to bed. So feel free to continue working at that point until you finish. Its simply a matter of maintaining your stamina.

Naturally you should still prioritize shipping.

[MrPopo]

Anyone else who has this one notice how the time passes a lot quicker than in say friends of mineral town? It feels like you really don't have enough time get anything done(seriously in hm i could clear a lot more in one day especially if i got started right as my character woke up).

In the original Harvest Moon, the clock will stop each day in the evening, 6 pm I believe.

At this point, the game will not advance to the next day unless you go to bed. So feel free to continue working at that point until you finish. Its simply a matter of maintaining your stamina.

Naturally you should still prioritize shipping.

This is a good point. In the original Harvest Moon the main prioritization is to make sure you do your shopping/courting/shipping during the day, and once all of that is taking care of you can do farming tasks/court the waitress since you can spend as much time as you want at night; you're just gated by stamina.

[darsparx]

Anyone else who has this one notice how the time passes a lot quicker than in say friends of mineral town? It feels like you really don't have enough time get anything done(seriously in hm i could clear a lot more in one day especially if i got started right as my character woke up).

In the original Harvest Moon, the clock will stop each day in the evening, 6 pm I believe.

At this point, the game will not advance to the next day unless you go to bed. So feel free to continue working at that point until you finish. Its simply a matter of maintaining your stamina.

Naturally you should still prioritize shipping.

This is a good point. In the original Harvest Moon the main prioritization is to make sure you do your shopping/courting/shipping during the day, and once all of that is taking care of you can do farming tasks/court the waitress since you can spend as much time as you want at night; you're just gated by stamina.

Well that's good to know now the quest is do I want to pick out my lady(I kinda like this game's Ann if she availible or what looks like Popuri but named Mina ). I think i still need to do a fair bit of exploring of that side path on the way to town...used to having it a little easier on what "can" be extra stuff to find to ship. Kinda odd it stops at 6 though I haven't seen him come by or even know what the actual time is I just know it passes way too quickly for what i'm used too


Also does anyone else employ the method of not doing the center in a seed thing? I've been doing that a lot in FoMT(just because that freaking sucks when you have to wait the extra days for that center one anyways and it wastes space) until I befriended the harvest sprites last time I played that one...

[Forlorn Drifter]

Well yeah but I noticed that in at least a few of them they're more or less the same town on different platforms just a different name slapped on the game(BTN and FoMT/MFoMT seem like prime examples of this for some odd reason).

FoMT is essentially a port of BTN with additions to it, and some small changes.