So what does Story of Seasons itself bring to the table? Well, it’s the first in the series to break from the ambiguously late 20th-century rural aesthetic and dip more into a turn-of-the-century look instead, but that probably doesn’t sound very sexy to most people. When the developers switched localizers, the rights to the “Harvest Moon” brand remained with localizer Natsume, who are now using it to release their own farming RPGs developed in house in an unnervingly similar style to the Bokujou Monogatari franchise, while Xseed is releasing subsequent Bokujou Monogatari games under the brand “Story of Seasons”, which was also the name of the first game released after the split from Natsume.
In a nutshell, the company who used to localize (but not develop) all of these games owned the rights to the English “Harvest Moon” brand, while in Japan the series is published as “Bukojou Monogatari” instead. Okay, lesson time: Despite the change in name, Story of Seasons is actually the most recent entry in what the western gaming market knows as Harvest Moon. It’s not the most glamourous change the series has ever made, but it was enough to make Grand Bazaar my personal favorite. The bazaar is also your only time to shop for valuable items and livestock, though, so it’s wise to duck out of your stall a bit early and peruse the other tables before closing time. In this game there’s a weekly bazaar where players sell their farm’s goods at a table, haggling over prices and such by engaging locals in a sort of conversation-based mini-game. That’s why Grand Bazaar stands out so much to me as a long-time Harvest Moony, because one of the most stable parts of gameplay got a pretty dramatic makeover. They’ve done fun spins on the watering mechanics more often than they’ve touched shipping. Harvest your goods, chuck them in the bin, get money.
Also, while I’m not going to tell you to dive deep into the world of illicit rom patches, it should be mentioned that there are fan-made mods for Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town that add same-sex relationships and marriage to the games, which is unfortunately something that no Harvest Moon games include by default.Įvery Harvest Moon game shakes some part of the standard formula up, but one of the least touched mechanics throughout is shipping. The bad news is that this game is also from a point in Harvest Moon history where female player characters weren’t available by default, so if you want to play as one you’ll need to snag More Friends of Mineral Town instead.
For a lot of Harvest Moon fans, this game represents when the series really came into its own: It’s late enough along that designers had learned plenty of lessons from its hit-and-miss predecessors (particularly the portable ones) while also being untouched by the series’ awkward polygonal puberty phase. If you’re married to the idea of starting early in the series (a common urge when entering a long-running franchise for the first time) then Friends of Mineral Town is a good compromise. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (GBA) But don’t worry, I have a few ideas of where you might want to start instead.ĥ.
Where on earth do you even begin with something like that? Well, unless you’re a hardcore retro game enthusiast who can cope with the absence of a lot of features and conveniences we take for granted today, starting at the very beginning might actually be the worst way to go about it. Regardless, the natural reaction most of us have when we find something new that we like is to try and find more of it, but Harvest Moon and its offshoots have been around for twenty years-longer than some ardent Stardew Valley fans have even been alive. Maybe you never got around to it, or they just weren’t on your radar until now. Maybe you didn’t think you’d like Harvest Moon, or maybe you tried one once and at the time you absolutely didn’t. But for a lot of players that’s exactly what’s happened, and maybe if you found your way here that player is you. For a lot of devoted Harvest Moon fans, it might seem unthinkable that someone lacking familiarity with the seminal farming RPG series could stumble into Stardew Valley and find a brand new, untapped gaming passion.