I first heard about Harvest Moon from an issue of Nintendo Power. The game was billed as a ‘farming RPG’ and while it did sound weird I found myself strangely intrigued. I must have re-read those same few pages a hundred times trying to extract every single detail I could about this game. Harvest Moon appeared to be a mix of The Legend of Zelda and Sim Farm which I both enjoy but would never have thought to be a good mix. This stands as one of the last titles I picked up for the by then ancient Super Nintendo, and it’s easily one of the most memorable. Today we’re going to take a look at just why this game is so great. It’s still one of the best Harvest Moon games to be honest.
You play as a young boy here whose parents leave him in charge of their farm. The place is rundown and you’re tasked with bringing it back to its former glory before they return. You’ve only got two and a half years to accomplish this, but there’s more to this game than simply farming and upgrading. Your character can marry one of five possible brides, and you can make friends with virtually anyone in the nearby village.
Harvest Moon does a fantastic job of drawing gamers in by allowing the player to shape the story how they choose. This is a game to be played at any pace you choose; you don’t have to get married, and even farming/raising animals is optional. You can play any way that you want and if you feel so inclined can simply fast forward this game to the very end. Everything is up to you, and that’s what makes this title so darn compelling.
Your best bet for earning money is farming. At the beginning of the game you are given a set of tools, and most of these are directly related to crop production. To produce fruits and vegetables you must til the soil, plant seeds, and then water them every day. Spring crops produce only one harvest, but corn and tomatoes (which grow only in Summer) allow for multiple. Unfortunately these are the only seasons in which you can farm, but that doesn’t mean you’re completely out of luck.
You can raise chickens and cows which provide eggs and milk all year round and are a very nice source of income. Maintaining animals requires you to feed them daily; you can purchase feed from the local store or use cut grass as fodder. What’s interesting is that your livestock can reproduce. Placing eggs in incubators will result in baby chicks after a few days, and you can purchase a potion to make your cows pregnant.
If you choose not to raise animals or farm crops you can also simply gather items from the mountainside. These change depending on the season (each lasts thirty in-game days) and the items can either be sold for money or given as gifts. The mountains also have stumps which you can chop with your axe; wood is used to build fences on your property which make your animals easier to manage and also for upgrades to your living quarters.
The game world isn’t particularly huge with only a mountain zone and town but the social system keeps things interesting. Wooing a potential bride and making friends is as simple as giving presents to the characters and speaking with them daily. Everyone has different preferences as far as gifts go, and if you’re not using a guide or faq you will have to find out their tastes based on conversations as well as by trial and error.
In Harvest Moon it feels like the work never ends. There’s always something to do, and you simply can’t finish it all in one day. The amount of work you can do is determined by your character’s stamina. This is drained every time he uses a tool, and can be replenished by eating food, bathing in the local hot springs, or by sleeping through the night. Furthermore every day is only a few real world minutes long, and staying out too late will cause your character to get sick and miss a full day of work. As I mentioned earlier the seasons are only thirty days apiece which makes each year only 120 days long. The town throws festivals on specific days of each season and these are a welcome change of pace. In this first game they aren’t terribly interesting, but I still enjoyed them.
For a late Super Nintendo game Harvest Moon isn’t very impressive in terms of graphics. The game is a little blocky with pronounced sprites and slight pixelation. It’s colorful and the characters are recognizable, but this just isn’t a particularly pretty game. In addition the framerate takes a serious dive when a significant number of characters are on-screen at once (mostly during festivals) and this is a little disappointing. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is surprisingly memorable. These simple compositions are extremely charming and fit the style extremely well. Each season has its own song, and my favorites were those for both Spring and Summer. The graphics leave a little to be desired, but the soundtrack is one of my favorites.
At its time of release there was nothing out there quite like Harvest Moon. The laid back gameplay and unorthodox subject material made this one of my favorite games for the system. It feels like every time I play through it again I find something I never noticed before, or I trigger an event for the first time. There’s a whole lot of content packed into this original Harvest Moon installment. It’s pretty clear that the whole thing was a labor of love with a world crafted where it feels like anything is possible. This game is pure magic, and it makes an excellent addition to any collection. I only wish it had been more popular when it was first released.
