Harvest Moon

The first Harvest Moon game was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), was released by a company called Natsume in 1996. Growing from that release, the franchise wound up releasing seven games for the Game Boy consoles and one for the Nintendo 64 before releasing A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life on the Nintendo GameCube. I have always enjoyed a good story behind video games. And how Nintendo connected the Game Boy Advance game Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town to the GameCube games to the GameCube games, was astonishing to me. There was a whole aspect of gameplay that you could miss by not linking the games together. That truly was a fascinating piece towards making the GameCube one of Nintendo's best consoles.

I have always loved the video game franchise, Harvest Moon, ever since I was a child. I can still remember when I first got my copy of Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life for Christmas way back in the day. I was filled with joy when I unwrapped that gift. I grew up as a farm girl as a child and I had grown very fond of playing the farming simulation game. I grew very attached to the Forget-Me-Not-Valley story. As years passed on by, it became a game that I could play time and time again. I enjoyed figuring out the game hacks for the GameCube console game. You could get every item and seed in the game and unlimited G (currency in the game) by using the third slot on your game console. I figured this out by accident when I was a child actually. It "destroyed" my mom's game until she wound up enjoying the extra bonuses that came along with the discovery. I enjoyed that your character could die at the very end of the game, unlike many other Harvest Moon games, where you get to play for an unlimited amount of years, you actually get to watch your character age in A Wonderful Life game as well as Another Wonderful Life.

As the years passed on, and newer game consoles were released, more Harvest Moon titles made their way out. Playing through all of the Wii games, I fell back in love with the Harvest Moon stories as the game stuck to so many familiar characters with Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade. The game graphics on the Wii were utterly enchanting and grabbed my attention instantly. I fell in love with the creative story behind these Wii games as I grew up.

I was never too fond of the handheld versions of the Harvest Moon games. I tried A Tale of Two Towns and the storyline bored me to pieces. It wasn't until I played Harvest Moon: A New Beginning for the 3DS that I truly fell back in love with the game. I enjoyed every ounce of the customization and perks that this version of Harvest Moon came with. After this game was released though, Natsume sold the franchise and destroyed the remaining games. They morphed into an already pre-existing farm franchise called Story of Seasons. While the games aren't necessarily bad, they do not compare in any way shape, or form to the original Harvest Moon games. I couldn't help but take a step back and asked myself the question, "What the hell happened to this game series that I had grown up with over the years?"

I found some solace on my Nintendo Switch with Stardew Valley, another popular farming game completely nothing like Harvest Moon but still based on the same farming principles with a killer game design. (I had previously played the game on PlayStation 4 so I knew I was fond of the game already.) But I know I would much rather spend my money on that game, than waste over $40 plus dollars on another edition of a game that has been ruined with bad plotlines, shitty game design, and a company that doesn't know and love the old games well. But I mean, that just happens to be my opinion. I just wouldn't waste money on the Story of Seasons franchise at all and that just says everything to me as an adult.

What do you think? Should Natsume have sold out back in 2014?

Chloe Rose Violet

Check out one of my other reads The "True" Missing Item from Breath of the Wild :)