i can't be the only one who still loves these games? AWL especially feels like a dream sequence now that i live in a concrete shithole without trees
Harvest Moon
i can't be the only one who still loves these games? AWL especially feels like a dream sequence now that i live in a concrete shithole without trees
I want to play as many games in this genre as possible especially since the companies that make them are all going to shit and square enix is the last hope. that being said, So far I only have all tge rune factory games and a few harvest moons.
Favorite one so far?
Having played all of them, despite not being as comfy of a setting I find magical melody to somehow be my favorite
I prefer rune factory to harvest moon but I really wish someone would pick up the genre and give it deeper mechanics or just more content in general, I get that they're casual comfy games but give me something more, make combat a challenge and expand farming at least a bit or alternatively if someone wants to make them less casual give me monster hunter with a farming life sim on the side
Terribly mediocre taste
>Terribly mediocre taste
wrong
I still don't get why HM/Story of Seasons and even RF quality is all over the place. Do they fire their entire staff and start over each time or what? Conceptually those games are so fricking simple. The farming part should be easy as frick to program and design. Yet they frick it up half the time. Literally just make it snappy and not such a chore to play and add a little depth. Otherwise the game just needs some interesting characters, but more importantly all the characters need tons of dialog like in RF4 so you can live in game for 2-3 years without getting bored. RF5 went right back again to barebones amounts. Story of seasons on 3DS was really gopd and olive town on swotch is shovelware garbage. I fricking hate this shitty schizo dev team.
Basically the devteam cant comprehend 3D and every time they try to make a game with 3D something goes terribly wrong, but they keep trying.
It's frustrating how inconsistent these games are.
The problem comes with the hybrid console/handheld nature of the switch and the raised expectations of consumers. These franchises have thrived in a handheld environment with small to mid budgets suddenly having to compete with AAA console games with ridiculous budgets like BoTW. A lot of these handheld franchises are struggling to make the jump to switch because they don't have the backing of a AAA company
That's no excuse. They aren't even Switch exclusives and, yet, 3DS and even PSP games has been more decent in every aspect.
They're games with the same handheld budgets suddenly competing in a console environment. All their production costs are raised to produce console quality assets without the budget to support them so costs are cut in other areas
>They aren't even Switch exclusives
You don't stop to think that this is part of the problem? Developing these games for Switch, PS4, and PC takes development time and money.
Really wish they'd go back to StH/AWL style of 3D though. That would actually look good on the big screen as opposed to the 3DS 3D style they've been dinking aroudn with.
>You don't stop to think that this is part of the problem? Developing these games for Switch, PS4, and PC takes development time and money
Not when every single version is shit. I could understand if at least some of them were bearable.
>i can't be the only one who still loves these games?
Been playing them for over 20 years now with A(nother) Wonderful Life being my favorite games in the series. I own most of them in some way as well either physically or digitally.
>pick Muffy and Nami is gone forever
>pick Nami and Muffy becomes borderline suicidal
That's what made AWL better than the rest. People felt more real in it. There was also that grandmother dying and leaving her husband who grieved a lot after that or all those duper weird people living down the hill.
>pick Muffy and Nami is gone forever
>he doesn't know
Nami can come back in Chapter 2 if you marry Muffy or Celia. It's a cutscene in the bar, if you go there one night everybody will be talking about how much they miss Nami and then viola, there's Nami. After that she stays in Forget-Me-Not forever. This even applies to the female only game as well.
I could never get that to trigger and thought it's just a glitch with the special edition. I love you anon
I tried so hard to blue flower that b***h my GOD
>Full-width huge ass text
SOUL
>half-width squished letters
SOULLESS
This is why I need romantic rivals. I always end up picking towards whatever girl I think needs it most
>PS2 version of AWL adds a new bachelorette option
>It's a barely legal rich e-girl that would NEVER settle for the local farm boy
>Not the hot archaeologist
FRICK
You're one thousand years too young for her to be interested in you.
>She sleeps in a tent with an old "researcher" with whom she only has a "professional" relationship with
I wanted to save her bros...
As a kid I pretty much went every day to her and gave her gifts and tried to marry her. Then the year ended and Celia proposed to me randomly. Felt super weird because I was zero attached to her. Then I looked it up and saw that you couldn't get the archeologist and married Celia. Stopped playing shortly after getting the kid but not because of the archeologist not being available but because I was a millionaire and I pretty much always stop playing all HM and RF games when the first child is born.
AWL is SOUL but also there is basically nothing to do. No festivals. Days are too long. Forget-me-not Valley is too small.
And then the PS2 version which has a bit more content plays like dogshit
I'm pretty sure your kid can get with Flora, but not you.
I fricked Flora in DS. She's adorable!
Sexy old hag
I never understood the differences between the three versions of AWL
AWL on GameCube
>The OG
AWL:SE
>PS2 exclusive
>Added a bunch of new features and QoL changes
>Runs like ASS
Another Wonderful life
>You play as a girl
>Have no idea if it has the changes from the PS2 version??
What's the best way to play? Special Edition seems like the obvious choice but it runs so fricking bad it's an actual slog. Does the female version have the PS2 changes?
If what I hear is true the PS4 version of Special Edition doesn't have the lag so technically it would be the best version but if you don't have a PS4 the GC version is by far the best. The female version has some improvements to the GC version but it should be obvious which version to play depending if you like girls or boys.
>The female version has some improvements to the GC version
The 'notable improvments' are that they fixed the glitch that lets you clone the ruby spice, and now you can only have the 1 and cannot fill out a complete shipping list.
I played the PS4 version recently, it still runs like shit.
The PS2 version is unplayable. It lags like shit. Everyone hated it. The remaster they made for the PS4 is the definitive version.
There is no "remaster". You get an emulated version that doesn't lag, but since the game had lag compensation built in the game runs at like 1.5x speed. It's playable but jarring.
>Does the female version have the PS2 changes?
Special Edition is basically Another Wonderful Life for boys. The only things unique to the PS2 port are Lumina, having a daughter, the music, and the ability to play forever. Even then I'd still choose the female version over it. I like being able to change my clothes whenever I want, and Gustafa plays music on my farm since I chose him to be my husband in that game.
>cannot fill out a complete shipping list
Not necessarily. If you plug your controller into the Gamecube's 3rd port and press Start you get 10k gold added to your wallet. Each time you press it adds another 10k. If you press Z while your controller is in the third slot, a shit ton of items get dumped on you, and I mean a SHIT LOAD. All the tools you can unlock, all the records, you'll get 99 of each seed, fossils, you name it, it's basically just a random assortment of everything after a while. The third generation crops you can make by fusing the 2nd gens are also there, but nameless for obvious reasons.
Really want to know how many girls married Gustafa over the other two.
He's the best husband.
>kind
>talented
>not a bum like Rock
>not an asshat like Marlin
Isn't he literally a bum? Like some kid friendly version of a weed smoking hippie. I only played the boy version though so I don't know how they changed him.
Nothing's changed between versions. Gustafa still lives in that yurt in Another, but once married he'll sit under the tree by the house and play music. That won me over, along with his color being black for some reason. Also I have reason to believe he's bald because while sleeping he wears a night cap with a flower on it.
I did.
Even as a kid I was hardcore on eugenics, so Marlon with his heart condition was a major turn off, and Rock was a useless idiot. I have to admit Gustafa creeped me out a little though. The bachelorettes were way better.
>StH
My man
PSP remake was very satisfying for a HM as well, a shame more people haven't tried it.
PSP remake pretty much fixed most of the big "problems" people had with Save the Homeland and is imo the definitive version of the game. Unfortunately, people were too busy pirating other games like GTA and Lumines II to care about it in the PSP's glory days.
while HoLV is objectively the better game, i feel like some things were butchered in the transition from STH, like the characters personalities changed for the worse, all the events felt less meaningful, taking care of animals was clunky for no reason and stuff like that.
i love the cast from STH/HoLV though, wish there was another game set in the same town.
Not the same town, but the STN cast is in MM.
i know that, but they have a HM64/BTN situation where they are pretty much entirely different characters in all except the appearance.
also MM's art-style is a huge downside for me, making a chibi art-style is one thing but making the characters look like actual toddlers is whole different story.
*Broke you*
>Outlives his friend AND his friend's son
This bit always bothered me
Yeah he "outlives" them always when he needs another financial boost.
>play AWL for the 100th time
>enable always watered cheat
I fricking love AWL but FRICK did they frick up hard with tool/upgrades. There is no water pot that does a bunch of squares, you can spend a WHOLE fricking day just watering your plots.
The farming in AWL is easily the worst in the entire series but the characters are the best. Weird how this combination came together.
The point is to force you to give up on farming as you grow der.
>give up farming the longer you play
>has a mechanic for hybrid fruits/veggies later in the game
NO
Is A wonderful Life genrally considered one of the best 3D Harvest Moon games? It's the only one I played since it came out on gamecube. I played it as a kid and tried to get with Nami since I had a crush on tomboyish red head IRL but then realized she was too hard so I settled for the blonde b***h instead. Pretty sure I didn't get any progress other than try to marry the girls and quit the game afterwards.
Overall id say its the best 3D but it has these issues
and
isnt really wrong but frick, it just WORKS.
>I had a crush on tomboyish red head IRL but then realized she was too hard so I settled for the blonde b***h instead
You probably played the game exactly as it was intended since Nami was intentionally made really hard to get and AWL is the only game in the series where the devs want the player to suffer. Moments like that feel too real.
AWL was good, but ultimately, dissapointing. We all in the HM community (at least active in GameFaqs and Fogu) were looking forward the ultimate HM experience after HM64 and Back to Nature. HM Save the Homeland was a fun experiment but no one considered it a proper HM game. HM AWL filled that void so much better, but after a while most understood the game had a lot of flaws that really kept it from being a better experience than HM BTN and 64. Some in the community argue that void was never filled. HM 64 and BTN were the pinnacle. Others argue Animal Parade in a way was the ultimate experience better than 64 or BTN. Then came Rune Factory and a lot of the community moved toward that series and forgot about HM.
The only RF that captured HM vibes was Frontier.
I dunno. RF1 on the ds was pretty similar to HM. It was literally just HM with action. Frontier just expanded in the lore and action.
Frontier was so good, why can't they make another good 3D RF?
>tomboy
literally vomit inducing
It's a shame AWL is the popular game of the series as it's pretty shit all round, certainly compaired to others that released in that era.
Pic related is my favorite, but AWL has something to it that just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The flaws are part of the experience, it's weird how AWL works.
Which ones are better from the same time period?
BTN/FOTM are the best ones.
I have a big soft spot for MM as it feels sort of like a next-gen BTN but it's really not popular for whatever reason.
Save the Homeland
>unplayable
I 100%'d it on the actual real deal PS2. This was /after/ doing the same on the GC version.
>DS ones are all pretty bad.
Natsume induced bugs aside, HM: DS is every bit as good as FoMT.
StH was such an oddball. Graphically, it went unsurpassed for an entire console generation, like, wtf. Despite having only 4 crops, the system was more enjoyable because the devs didn't fall down the fertilizer autism rabbit hole, yet. Your livestock system was just plain solid. Waifus were great.
Really, the one downside to it all was the story structure that nearly ensured you never saw fall or winter because the seasons restart everytime.
It also had one of the better cooking systems.
I would literally kill for a fan mod version of the game where you could keep living past saving the town. Even if you have to save it each year, just so long as I can enjoy the comfy setting and people.
This too, made me interested in learning to cook in real life. Some of the StH features were so great I can't get over them missing in newer installments, like picking which dog and horse color you want. Simple shit like that really adds to the experience.
Crop levels were indeed a mistake and Marvelous really needs to stuff that toothpaste back into the tube, already.
I wouldn't say its shit, but I liked Magical Melody a lot more, and I liked 64 more as well. I never played the original, but probably my least favorite among the earlier titles was Back to Nature as I hated the load times and controls coming from 64. Also the characters being remixed. I know they reused them from the original in 64, but in Back to Nature they all felt really out of place to me. Like they're designs matched their jobs in 64 really well. It was hard to buy Popuri being some chicken keeper and not a flower girl. That's actually one of the reasons I liked AWL, they finally made some new characters.
I imagine Nami sounding like Phi from Virtue's Last Reward
I like harvest moon, but it's a bummer that their best game was released over 20 years ago.
Nothing beats back to nature.
Why no indie dev try to replicate this kind of graphics?
My favorite one is still the original SNES one. I feel that the series has gotten overly complicated over the years. Back to nature is great, though.
whats this one play like? this is ps1 or n64? im a huge fan of AWL and FoMT but AWL is kind of hard to play on PC due to the way emulated analog sticks work and its hard to aim for watering and using tools kinda, and i played FoMT to death. is this any good?
FoMT is the 2D version of BTN so they play almost the same. PS1 rom works on PSP, Vita, PS3 and PC via emulation.
thanks anons, im gonna grab up one of them to play. any other pros and cons vs the ps1 to N64 game? any tiny pet peeves you guys can think of? i stopped playing the snes one on hardware due to the sound of the text breaking my ears and the old gameboy one got repetitive really quickly and was too simple. small things like that.
Elli best wife
you read my mind (I am that anon)
may you live a long and prosperous life my friend.
Thanks anon, I see you're well cultured
Of course elli is the best.
>Karen is an alcoholic b***h.
>Ann is a tomboy that's best to be a cum dumpster than a wife.
>Book worm, probably not even interested in human
>Popuri is that weird girl who eat glues in class, when she's in college.
Hoo boy, where to begin!
HM64:
>allows you view your farm from various angles using L and R
>faster load times
>wife helps you with chores (which chores those are depends on whom you marry)
>has music box exploit to cheat your way to marrying faster
>the greenhouse you can build on your farm doesn't suck and is fricking huge on the inside
>Harvest Sprites don't take as much effort to befriend
>don't have to upgrade your rucksack
BTN:
>your farm is huge
>can have a lot more cows and chickens
>can buy a special basket to place crops so you can deposit them into the shipping bin without having to make numerous trips back and forth
>music doesn't loop back to the start whenever you transition screens
>you can actually cook
>television channels have more variety to them (that's another thing that changed between BTN and FoMT, the programs are different)
>time moves slower so you can get more done
Honestly both games are worth playing! The only thing worth getting up in arms about is the fact neither of them allow you to stack items outside of seeds and chicken feed. They each give you something the other doesn't.
>old gameboy one got repetitive really quickly and was too simple
That's because it's a demake of the SNES game. Check out GBC2 and GBC3: Boy Meets Girl. The former introduced a lot of things to the series like hot houses, growing flowers, and raising sheep. Latter does a lot of things we either never saw again or wouldn't be brought back until many years later. Only drawback to these games is you NEED to trade with the opposite sex (in game avatar obviously) in order to get everything.
thanks alot anon your post means alot to me. if i had to pick one to start up tonight what would you recommend?
That's a good question.... honestly I'd say start with HM64 first. While you would be more familiar with BTN because of your history with FoMT, it's due to that familiarity where it may be a good idea to see these characters in a whole different light and perspective. Flower Bud is nothing Mineral Town. You'll see whole new relationships with the characters and some which are familiar to you. It may not have as much as BtN, but there's still a lot of personality behind HM64 that makes it regarded as one of the best in the franchise. Also there was one point I never mentioned and it's more of a warning about the game. I'll leave it as a spoiler, read at your own risk.
Ellen, Elli'es grandmother, has a chance of dying in HM64 if you talk to her during the second year. You have to pay VERY close attention to her animations during that time. If she's rocking in her chair, you're free to talk to her. If the chair is still though avoid all conversations with her.
love that pic. basically how i would play, fishing and farm work early on, some gift giving, and then a sunset thrist quenching Moon Trip along with my self insert rattling off FBI crime statistics next to his favorite barbawd.
Both are isometric, therefor both are unplayable trash. Topdown HM/SoS stays winning.
Very minor, but I liked the town layout a lot more in 64. It feels more like a town, where in Back to Nature it's just a road with buildings lining it.
that does sound a little odd, i wonder why they would do that. i really loved fomt because the entire experience felt very complete, from its farming to its town layout, character interactions, and just kind of everything. i think i'll give N64 a shot. thank you to everyone that replied to me in this thread. i wish you all a good night.
Back to Nature is on PS1 and is basically a parallel universe of Harvest Moon 64. The cast of characters is largely the same with some exclusive to each game, but the town, farm layout, and character occupations are mostly different to each other.
>and i played FoMT to death. is this any good?
This game is where FoMT came from. In fact you'll find a lot of content in the PS1 game that was flat out removed from the GBA like special character interactions and the fish farm. The characters in general are also a lot more fleshed out in BTN in comparison to FoMT. The best example I always use is going to Doug's inn during the summer when Kai's in town. Go there at a certain time of day and you'll see the other town husbands backing him into a corner telling him to stay away from their wives. It shows that now only does Rick have a problem with Kai, but the other men do as well.
The only difference I remember from both games is that in one you could grow mushrooms and in the other you couldn't. I liked the one where you could better.
There's a number of things that didn't make the transition, but FoMT did its best to make up for it. Also the mushroom growing was in the GBA game. Personally I prefer Back to Nature because I enjoy the story telling of the townsfolk and seeing their lives play out. That's mostly gone in FoMT save for a few like Cliff getting a job at Duke's vineyard. Though I also need the GBA game so I can get records in AWL so I end up having to play it anyway.
He's a tanned Japanese like Brock's supposed to. Okinawan or some shit like that.
Was Kai supposed to be black? I always thought he was just a tanned japanese guy, but one of my friends insisted he was supposed to be african.
No he is just a tanned Okinawan coastdude.
Unlike mutts, Asians doesn't worship stinking Blacks.
Back to Nature is a PS1 game and it is the original Friends of mineral town. It is literally the same game (maybe there are some changes, I dunno the details).
BTN is great but 64 is better imo. Especially since BTN and everything that came after took 64's characters and completely fricked all the character relationships and backstories
Both worth playing though
The PSP, DS and Wii games almost never get mentioned. Are they really worse than the usual name drops or did no one play them? Especially the PSP ones I never hear about.
DS ones are all pretty bad.
PSP is a mixed bag as it's mostly bad ports or spin-offs. Leaf Valley is a remake of STH so is probably good but I just never had time to play it properly.
>PSP is a mixed bag as it's mostly bad ports or spin-offs
What's with this one? I literally never people talk about.
It was stupid. I can't really explain it, but it took the "futuristic" part very seriously and ignored the "Harvest Moon" part.
For the 10th year anniversary (or maybe 20th I don't remember very well) Marvelous wanted to do something special and they made 2 spinoff of the series; One was Rune Factory, A Fantasy Harvest Moon for the DS and Innocent Life; a futuristic Harvest Moon for PSP. Innocent Life was much much experimental than Rune Factory and ultimately was way too different. Bachelorettes were gone and there was more emphasis on the story and growing your character. It almost feels like the team behind Innocent Life didn't push too much effort or they really wanted to get much farter than the original HM formula. Ultimately Rune Factory came on top and started their own series.
Damn this sound very soulful. Just making two experimental spin-offs for your anniversary and see what works out is something unheard of. And the same people made RF5 and pioneers of live town the most soulless games to exist.
The problem I see with current HM/SoS games (also kind of applicable to RF) is that they play it way too safe with their characters now. HM64 had some drama going on in Karen's side. Alcoholic dad, abused wife, a temperamental girl that hates both of them and is rude towards you at the beginning. I always felt like I reached a milestone when Karen didn't told me to shut up after talking to her. Bottom line is they had complex characters. Now it's just cutesy ones that seem to come out from a Precious Moments postcard. In HM64/BTN you felt you were in a race with the other rival bachelors (although in reality you weren't) and now it feels Marvelous makes everything too safe. Heck even in Rune Factory. In the first Rune Factory you could actually die. It's literally impossible to die in modern RF games.
My copy of Harvest Moon DS glitched and made my file unplayable. I was enjoying myself until then. Island of Happiness or whatever was annoying because you had to collect wonderfuls in order to make farming tolerable. Tale of Two Towns was ok.
PSP version of BtN was hilarious back in the day. They finally release the girl version in English and the game rolls the credits when you get married. The seethe was incredible.
Yeah. I played and got 100% on both versions.
There was a % you get by putting israeliteels on storage.
friends of mineral town is really fun
I got it back when it came out, played for a few hours, and haven't played since. But as of only a few days ago I've contemplated picking it back up. This thread and post seem to be good signs to do just that.
Years ago jp was going to
I like how the Bachelorettes in AWL fit with the 4 types of females Gankerners are usually interested in
>Celia
Trad wife
>Muffy
Giga Stacy
>Nami
Tomboy
>Lumina
e-girl
This one was really good too. Gameplay wise it was probably one of the best Harvest Moon games to ever exist.
What are the big money strats
Got it and bought the DLC but never played it
>you have to be 7 or older for 3D
What happens if your 5 or 6?
Probably worried about eye development issues. I remember reading an article about little kids having inhibited spatial awareness if they spend too much time on smartphones.
You can't fricking read the text giving you instructions
My sister once gave my then 4 years old nephew a 3DS and I could only cringe seeing him unable to do anything with it since all his games needed to be able to fricking read.
I literally gifted my nephew my hacked 2DS when he was 4 and put like 50 game requests on the thing over the years. He is now 6 and has played pretty much anything remotely good that doesn't require too much reading knowledge.
ahhh didnt think of that. Funnily I learned to read from pokemon but frick that is simple, ive heard Pokemons actually amazing to use to learn new languages, just play it in another language a few times and you can pick up on a lot of basics.(Fire, water, electricity, simple shit as well)
Seems like kids must be learning to read independently a lot later or something these days or something. I don't recall me, my siblings, or any of my friends having issues with understanding vidya games growing up.
My brother was absolutely hopeless at vidya games because he absolutely could not bring himself to read when the game was telling him what to do.
My OLDER brother.
I don't know a single kid that actually played trough Pokemon properly from start to finish reading all dialog. We all played and have seen it so often that we just knew what to do.
I read all the dialog in red and blue as a kid.
You would think the tablet exposure young would make them keen to read, but apparently not. Nephew uses voice commands instead of scrolling through a menu. It's odd to me.
My mom got me Pokemon specifically because I was proficient in reading and figured it would help me learn more.
I kicked her ass in the games, but she always won when playing cards
Yeah, this is always something that seems weird to me too. I don't remember needing to learn how to read. I was playing goonies 2 when I was like 3 years old I remember being able to understand what the words meant in the first person parts. I also was able to read the cutscenes in Wrath of the Black Manta, so even sentences and stuff weren't an issue. I can't imagine not being able to read.
I don't get how so many people apparently managed to get to the end of AWL. There's frick all to do, time moves slow as molasses and you have to go through like 10 years or something. I think the most I've managed is 3. I like some of the things the game tried and love Nami, but it gets really boring real fast.
Anyway, 64 is the best one. BTN and FoMT are good too, bit the characters aren't as interesting and FoMT adds the most batshit requirements to get some stuff I've ever seen in a game.
Magical Melody went hard
Too bad the animations are long and everything feels slow
>2 mining dungeons
>multiple secret fishing spots
>dog, horse, cow competitions
>land expansions
>has a hard to achieve true ending if you marry your rival
>can play as a male or female with 8 partners to choose from totaling 16 spouse choices, 17 if you count rival
>appearances from characters across multiple HM games
>You don't fricking die in the end and you're not in debt
>absolute banger of a soundtrack
Last good HM game that used the HM title plus everything is all chibi and smooth
>plus everything is all chibi and smooth
That's the worst aspect of it though. I don't understand to this day why marvelous always had to double down on the chibi shit. Like in their normal games everything is already cutsey and chibi but sometimes they have to go completely overboard like with the FoMT remake and Magical Melody.
I think they make the characters chibi since they're trying to capture the original HM feel, after you play AWL you hope for more detailed models but then you realize they put all that time into modeling and not game content
MM has a frick ton of content but you want AWL graphics, the company can't pull that off
>has a hard to achieve true ending if you marry your rival
I thought you just got game over?
Yes
From what I recall the game just goes on forever if you don't marry the rival, marrying the rival makes you leave the town with her to start somewhere new after you save the Fairy Goddess but its really hard to do, people think Nami was difficult, your rival straight up doesn't like you and you got a short time window
I didn't think of that as a true ending, but more like a frick you from the developers. I wanted to keep playing.
>HM is dead
>RF5 is shit
>Stardew is way too basic and easy
WHERE IS MY FARMING GAME. Should I just play HM64? I never played it. From this thread I am see very high praise of it. SELL ME ON IT ANONS.
HM64 is charming but basic, IIRC even the SNES one has more complexity.
whats the most complex/engaging HM? I really wanna do a lot of shit, I want lots of content.
I don't know about engaging but Trio of Towns has easily the most content and farming complexity.
I don't get why HM fans always criticize the gameplay of Stardew Valley when it shits over any HM game in terms of gameplay. What sucks hard in Stardew is the characters, dialog, festivals, pretty much all the things that give HM soul. I fricking hate all those aspects in Stardew Valley.
anon, you flat out explained my gripes with stardew. Its actual mechanics are good, it does a great job with what it has but it LACKS that fricking soul. Its not memorable outside your own farm imo.
Agreed. Soul can make a games most glaring flaws seem charming. Stardew always felt like the basis for a great story or world that just doesn't get there for me.
I think since its mostly 1 dude he played it safe. That "soul" shit is usually done by multiple people who focus hard on writing/scripting. They didnt have to focus on the entire game itself. Stardew has everything it should have but lacks the final ooomf to really really stand out. Its characters, while not bad, are very basic. It feels very safe.
stop shilling, this isn't a stardew thread. back to discord with you.
Yeah I feel like the genre is really under represented.
Stardew Valley is an ok game, but I feel like the immense praise it gets is unjustified when it's pretty much just a worse Friends of Mineral Town.
All modern Harvest Moon (Or Story of Seasons W/E) feel very weird to play.
It's probably the hardest one if you want to complete the photo album. Time moves fast as shit and you have to plan and micromanage like crazy.
Characters are the most charming in my opinion and there's a bunch of references to the original SNES game.
UI and other small things might feel very annoying coming from later games.
I don't usually call games "soulful", but in this case I consider it the most soulful one in the series.
64 has the best characters in the series but also the controls so fricking clunky that if you don't have nostalgia for it you probably won't play it more than 10 minutes,
Back to nature is a little more playable but more soulless
I haven't played either in more than a decade, but I remember thinking Back to Nature felt clunky coming from 64.
BtN has a better inventory system but not by much. In 64 you have to pause and select an item from the menu every time you want to equip/ship something. I'm surprised nobody has went trough the effort to make rom hacks to fix the cluckiness of both games tbh.
Ah okay, I was thinking of the movement. Back to Nature didn't have the analog controls. Maybe if you had the analog controller for PS1 it would be good, but I didn't.
This alone is why BTN is better. It was even worse on the N64 because there would be a decent load time for pausing/ unpausing. It go to the point where i would pick things and run back and forth instead. Right away with BTN you had the basket AND a button to take shit out of your pack? Instant game changer. i played the shit out of 64 but i ended up liking BTN even more. I should replay 64 but man its so hard having to pause+unpause 100 times a day
What Harvest Moon best shows off the "townsfolk grow and live their own independent lives alongside you" idea? I liked the idea of other villagers getting married, having kids, dying, or just changing their lifestyles somehow ever since I played AWL for the first time.
tbh I felt AWL did that best, even if it is LONG as frick. Holy frick AWL is so long.
AWL and Animal Parade
AWL feels like an incomplete game, I want to like it but half the characters feel like they shouldn't even exist. A bunch of system in the game are half-assed too, like the dig-site and crop hybrid system.
'Worth Life' just came out on Switch and the Harvest Moon/Rune Factory guy is behind it. (or one of the really influential ones that gets his name in stuff)
I'm about an hour into it and it's pretty nice. It's nothing like the Harvest Moon games, being a 2D action game, but the characters are kinda cute and you can definitely tell it's the same guy behind it.
This game looks like mobile shit. Why can't the veterans get it fricking right.
>tumblr nose
>mobile games animation and feel
this is not it.
My favorite one is Animal Parade.
What’s Animal Parade like?
It has a lot to do. You can have two kids, and your friends can also have their own children with other villagers. The coastal town is very comfy, and the main story feels nice with a strong elemental twist. I like the art direction too, especially the animal art, Harvest Goddess, and Fugue Forest. Mining, fishing, and farming are all well done too. I would recommend emulator because the original Wii version has long load times, which is its main issue.
I still need to check out ToT.
Somehow HM doesn't have "that one autist" that has played all games multiple times, knows all their strengths and weaknesses and has a 5 hour video or has written a lengthy article on the best games. I wonder why.
Because these games are fricking long. I spent over 100 hours on FoMT remake alone and was nowhere close to 100%'ing it. And there are dozens of these games.
Is there a HM like game with a long post game after you marry? I feel like those games have no content left after you marry and it's the most disappointing aspect. Worst is Rune Factory 3 where after you marry and have kids you have zombie children at home doing nothing and you get like maybe a cooked meal a day and that's all the married life content there is.
No, which is why you are more than welcome to do as I do and simply play these games without getting your farmer boy married. Most of the games in this series doesn't have a real ending or goal. Its basically Animal Crossing if you think about it. Make money to upgrade your home, befriend NPCs who run out of dialogue all to quickly, and once you've hit it big time you're left with... nothing.
The best one for that is Rune Factory 4. It lets you practically date everyone and do all events for them till you want to marry one.
Personally like the dialogue and town layout more in ToT than AP.
The performance and loading times aren't as bad if you run it in an emulator. On real hardware exiting your house is like a 10-12 sec loading screen (this adds up quickly when you need to enter coop/bard for animals).
On Dolphin you can knock it down to 4-6 secs with "Speed up disc transfer rate" enabled and even more if you speed up emulation (it's like 2secs if you hold tab). Started playing at like 120% speed to deal with all the obnoxiously long animations for some things but otherwise it's enjoyable. Only downside is the music is higher pitched from the speedup.
I fricking hate living in the suburbs bros I just wanna move somewhere small and quiet
It's not as nice as the games, and you live among moronic rednecks and you're stuck with shit tier internet.
I am a redneck
I just wanna shoot guns and go skinny dipping in the local pond with my cousins
Frick soccer moms and boomer morons mowing their lawns
this
I grew up in a redneck area and living in a town or suburb is attractive in comparaison.
>2022
get a starlink you mong
Are you memeing or serious? From everything I've heard its just another Elon scam. I'd love if it was real, but at this point there supposed to get me real internet soon. The line is down the road, but they haven't run it down my street. It's been there for more than a year now though, so who knows how long it'll be before I can finally play online games again.
I want to move to the midwest, have a wife and kids, and literally live in a fricking(nice) trailer. Its better than anything else life has to offer.
Remember, the literal smartest human being alive today with a 210 IQ tapped out and lives in montana fricking around with horses and is probably in bliss.
I know a guy you grew up in a trailer in the midwest. His dad makes meth for a living. I'd suggest at least aiming for owning a house.
my uncle drank himself to death. He had a trailer worth 180k which was on par with a high end cape house with insanely low rental rate. Thats my aim. There are luxary trailer parks, one that caught my eye has a fricking multi year waiting period to just RENT for a fricking summer, real rich shit.
The redneck area was in the Midwest.
>literally live in a fricking(nice) trailer
You may be moronic. People don’t generally live in trailers because they want to; they live there because they’re poor. Your neighbors are going to be absolute subhumans, assuming you live in a trailer park.
yeah but like I dont care. I dont even know my neighbors names and ive lived in this fricking moronic "community" type living area for 5 years. These people bore the frick out of me. Some homosexuals across the street from me has Ukraine flags.
Missed
I still think you’re idealizing life in the Midwest, though. If you do move there, at least move to the Upper Midwest so you have nice lakes.
yes, I would go near a lake. Im very easy and simple to please, and this fricking homosexual current life sucks wiener.
Wrong answers only, gents!
Canon that Elli is a fat cow. Enjoy your dyke haired overweight diabetes ridden prostitute. And don't let me catch you talking shit about my waifu again.
>you will never drink Elli’s sugary pee
Why even live?
>fat cow
In your dream.
She probably just have a well developed leg muscles because nurses job requires her to stand and walk around constantly, and she thought she looked plump because of that.
That's from 64 though, where she just sits around eating cakes all day.
>nurse
Elli in HM64 is a baker and pastry chef. She's very weight conscious in that game and openly gets jealous of Poppuri's figure and metabolism.
Never played HM64 but a lot of people who played the GBA FoMT/MFoMT were mad with the Switch remake designs but then reading from the dev team that they just took the designs and gave them new personalities/jobs Ran was a farmer in 64 and so was Gray but then in FoMT she was a innkeeper's daughter and he was a blacksmith so they changed the deisgns in the remake to reflect that since they didn't prior
I've been meaning to play through AWL but I just find MM to be easier to understand for my peabrain even if I like AWL's art style/graphics better. I've also wanted to do Tree of Tranquility over ever since I lost my save to it as a kid but I've been reading here and elsewhere in the past that animal parade is fantastic. Is it worth emulating over playing on original hardware? Idk why but unless performance really sucks ass on console I much prefer to play on original hardware
>
Iirc AP is literally the more finished version of ToT. Fixed QoL and expanded content, basically. You won't lose anything by emulating, I don't remember any wii motion controls and the other posts are correct that loading is faster on emulator. My personal complaint is I didn't like the art style, but the main plot is actually tied to the content access and I found it engaging to unlock rather than annoying. The gameplay itself is a little sluggish like AWL but there's plenty to do, loads of characters, and the map/areas are charming.
Now I kind of want to replay it to compare the QoL features to Stardew.
The localizers bought the rights to the name and pay pajeet interns to churn out broken games under the HM title. They're bootleg.
that's good to know. I think what happened to my ToT save as a kid is that somehow, I copied over my save slot with a really early save and lost like an in-game year. I'll probably end up playing Animal Parade on original hardware through USBLoader or something when I get some downtime in a couple weeks. Harvest Moon really just scratches this itch that I don't think I've gotten from any other game.
>The localizers bought the rights to the name and pay pajeet interns to churn out broken games under the HM title. They're bootleg.
Everyone says that, but who's actually played any of Natsumes HMs besides woke game churnalists?
You know what? It is a bit shit, but I had fun with The Lost Valley. That's one modern HM I'd take over most of the SoS games to date.
I really do believe the franchise peaked with ANB and has been in decline ever since.
loading times/performance are better on emulator. AP is a better game than ToT but it some ways it's worse. They fricked up the map and made it way to big in AP. So much more empty space compared to ToT and before you get horse/animal transportation it takes for fricking ever to walk anyway where. Also in AP time pauses when indoors which makes the days seem to last forever. ToT days go by way faster, but mostly because you have basically no stamina at the start. The characters feels slightly more soulless in AP, they stripped some personality from a lot of them. AP has faster loading screens and better QOL but really weird changes like you can only have 3 types of animals in the barn which wasn't a thing in ToT
I feel like FoMT lacked strangeness. It was kinda too polished and straight laced for my tastes.
Wish I could recommend FoMT HD but they made slight changes that just ruin it entirely.
Like what exactly, without bringing up art style and gay marriage.
anime was a mistake
Bought animals will never love you as they can only get 5/10 hearts, meaning they only ever produce M-tier products.
Through breeding, they produce a 6/10 baby and this continues until you get a 10/10 heart baby.
If you're min-maxing then obviously you sell your 5 generations of worthless animals. It sort of goes against the spirit of bringing up your own farm.
I love that art style so much. I've forgotten the name. What is it?
I feel like when artists get hired to do revamps they force change because otherwise it would feel like they did no work.
>Like what exactly, without bringing up art style and gay marriage.
They killed rival events.
THE FRICKING DOGSHIT SOUNDTRACK REMAKE
Happy Kappa to emo Kappa
The harvest goddess was always the worst wife in all the games and the witch the best one.
Hey Anon
You should be able to solve this
but im not going to.
I need an animal parade port
I miss rival marriage, I like to hook couples up
I miss that they could have their own little families
The town was so nice, I hopped into AP first didn't play ToT is the town that different? Putting aside the observatory?
The Harvest King/God was nice to see, Witch was really cute. The Wizard and H.Goddess too. How did they go backwards with future games after AP? It was nice you could have more than one child with your spouse too
>How did they go backwards with future games after AP?
It's because Yasuhiro Wada left. AP was the last game he produced.
Little Dragon's Cafe had a great story and atmosphere too, but gameplay wise, it sucks.
Also, Hometown Story had soul too, but gameplay wise, it was abysmal. Granted, the characters and environment were all very likeable.
I also forgot to mention that Yasuhiro Wada was involved in creating Little King's Story, which is probably his best work outside of Harvest Moon.
Just play it on dolphin. It runs without lag.
What the frick was up with that walk speed in save the homeland?
Honestly the franchise should be done and all resources poured into the Stardew Valley franchise since they evolved the farming/dating genre.
No one even copies Stardew Valley after the massive success. This genre is fricking cursed despite there being tons of people wanting such a game.
its fricking insane, its the same way I think of Recceteer. Do I seriously just need to make a HM/Receteer clone and make like $1,000,000? WHY ARENT PEOPLE MAKING CLONES.
>evolved
Its a fricking friends of mineral town that gets 80% of FoMT right. I enjoy it but frick conceredape needs a designated soul maker.
I don't like the characterization in Stardew Valley.
Drunk wedding sex with karen!
Any opinions on TRIPLE-A BUDGET Rune Factory?
Heard it doesn't have romance or marriage so it goes right into the trash bin.
>AWL was only really playable because it had a bunch of game-breaking bugs which allowed you to bypass how bullshit the money and time constraints were
>PS2 version fixed the bugs, but didn't address the issues they helped people circumvent
>Also, reduced the amount of time you had to get shit done
why
it also looks and runs like ass.
you have an abundance of time, streamlining it was actually for the best
I always replay Harvest Moon Back to Nature
Are the “Harvest Moon” games made after Story of Seasons came out any good?
lol no. Natsume was always the worst factor in the games, and now they're on their own.
They actually improved Two Towns, but that was a rare case for Natsume. That said, yeah, their decision to make THEIR OWN harvest moon games with blackjack and hookers is without a doubt the most boneheaded plan ever, and for some reason they keep sticking to it.
Arguably none of the SoS games are good/great either. SoS1 was a marked step down from ANB. Trio of Towns worse still. FoMT remake sucked. PoOT extremely sucked. The games became overly grindy, especially after the devs learned that "crafting" was big in vidya. Frankly, the best SoS games are the ones in which they prostituted the IP out ie: Popolocrois and Doraemon.
It's unfortunate how much nicer the soundtrack is in the PS2 version of AWL. There needs to be a true remake that joins together all the best parts of both the GC and PS2 versions, but the odds of this happening are nearly zero anymore.
HAH! I FRICKED THE VILLAINESS!
>can't put a baby inside the villainess
It's a god given law that every HM game requires one fatal flaw.
>Harvest Goddess actually moves in with you if you marry her
Why the frick was Hero of Leaf Valley the ONLY game that let's you do this?
Harvest Goddess was always the cuck choice. It was the bitter reality pill for thirsty homosexuals who wanted to tap a deity instead of marrying one of the normal girls more in your range.
Usually marrying God means being a nun/monk
>tfw I follow a female speedrunner for HM DS
>1-3 hours videos
>67 views
Pretty awesome.
>tfw follow animal crossing gc speedruns
>40 hour videos
>speedrun animal crossing
For what purpose?
autism awareness
To fulfill my autism
popuri is the one for me
Leia was also my HM DS wife.
Can't she be gone from the game forever if a hurricane happens?
That was just a dumb rumor. Even if her ponds destroyed you can rebuild and get her back.
My copy froze after I got to this point. That mermaid b***h cursed me.
I like the Doraemom game quite a bit for its simplicity. I also already like Doraemon, so I found that aspect to be tolerable, too.
> imagine the underwater sex
"Are You A Bad Enough Dude?"
>You have to poison the entire fricking town
Jesus Christ
>localization fricks up the code so bad that she becomes unmarriable (dead animals aren't counted internally)
>be me
>spanish speaker
>bought the EUR version of HM DS
>didn't knew these lazy fricks just casually REMOVED Gameboy Advance connectivity
Kek. I had to bought another copy, but USA region this time in order to marry Popuri.
Your gravestone is here.
The reincarnation stuff is some of the weirdest shit in franchise history easily
>tfw Natsume put all their 3ds games at a huge discount like a month ago
>New Beginning for damn near free
I wish I tried harder to get into this series. I played the original and Another Wonderful Life as a kid and really liked them, then was turned off by how different Magical Melody was. Didn't try it again until Rune Factory on the PS3 and at that point I was more into it for the adventuring
Harvest Moon Back to Nature Indonesia is fricking weird.
Indonesia is known for producing kino.
>paracuck
Haha.
WHY DONT DEVS MAKE CLONES OF THIS SHIT ALL THE TIME. EVERYONE WANTS THEM. THEY SELL. GIVE ME FRICKING RF4 TIER SHIT NOT RF5. GIVE ME A FRICKING FARMING COMF TIME.
/v/ros
help me pick out a HM game to play
ive only ever played Innocent Life when I was 17 back in 2009
I need gud waifus and less cancerous time mechanics with moderate-to-low control and gameplay jank. Which one would give me that and be fine to emulate?
AWL on GC with watered farm cheats on.
back to nature
Fuggg these all look fun....
I’m a big sucker for the aging mechanics in AWL, but BtN has some cool stuff going on, and MM has some many cute waifus....
they are all good. AWL is just imo the best but the sloggiest. It just has so much soul but stuff like BtN and especially FomT have very robust gameplay and you wont find anything better until RF3 or RF4. Sadly RF is teetering on Disgaea levels of cringe for me, amazing mechanics and gameplay but the inbetween is rough because its so corny. Not in a Kingdom Hearts cringe kino way either.
MM: Magical Melody
SoS:Trio of Towns
or HM: Back to Nature.
unless you wanna play stardew valley,which is a respectable option too.
dont play a wonderful life.
>dont play AWL
Anon stop
Have to agree with
AWL is an experience, telling people to not play the most depressing HM is a garbo opinion
>dont play a wonderful life
>now that i live in a concrete shithole without trees
I don't understand how people can live in places like that, I need greenery.
because they are absolutely not "people"
Anon these fricking morons spend like 300% more money drinking at a bar than at home with a group so they can post on social media they drank and went to "X" again on the weekend.
>I need greenery.
You know they sell plants in pots.
you know plants grow naturally. Some even combust and burn down california homes, fricking hilarious shit. I love nature.
I like Tree of Tranquility a lot.
Guys can you play the ps2 version of AWL without the lag on an emulator?
are there no patches or workarounds to make it play not like shit?
>ps2
Why? Its QoL is not worth the shitty graphics and garbage emulation. Seriously, I know my shit with AWL, I got like 5 full fricking playthroughs of that massive timesink. Dolphin+360 Controller+ Always watered cheat is the best experience. It lets you focus on the more robust shit like the livestock, you dont have to mass plant because its always watered so you can do whatever you want, and you can focus on all the fun side shit.
it introduces a new character and other shit.
Also whats the point of having crops if you have them watered 24/7 wouldnt that be a masive cheat?
I am genuinely asking, not trying to be a contrarian or whatever
AWL is known to be the worst farming HM
You can only water plants one at a time, no spinning around and water 3x3 area by using more stamina or noticeable tool upgrades
Most people just plant fruit trees and leave them alone since they never need to be watered after being fully grown
AWL is all about fishing, finding secrets, and archaeology with some animal care
So putting in a cheat that makes it so you don't have to spend 10 real life minutes watering plants is a huge improvement
>archaeology
Frick do I have a love/hate relationship with the dig site. It's fun to find shit but the game makes it very clear that doing so is a complete fricking waste of time and not-so-subtly makes you feel like an idiot for doing it.
Flora is part of that frustration
its because the longer the game goes, you never upgrade your watering can unlike other HM. Even the first had cans that did multiple plots at a time. AWL has multiple cans but the only major one keeps trees watered like 1 day extra, its 1 by 1 and its SLOW animation. Times this by like even 50(this is a shitload) and by the time you are done watering in AWL at that point you waste a WHOLE day. Ive done it plenty of times.
Its not really a massive cheat, the best money is from livestock, and the always watered shit lets you actually maybe plant a bunch of fun shit without worry or money, while you can focus on everything else. Its AWL biggest flaw.
How do you do the always watered thing? Is a Dolphin-only cheat?
nah it can be done gameshark or whatever. Dolphin just makes it easy, a quick google search should get you it, just make sure its NTSC or PAL.
See if you can pirate the PS4 version of AWL
Apparently its the PS2 version but fixed
a cute
AWL:SE is actually playable on the PS4 now, surprisingly. The graphics aren't such a downgrade that it's unplayable, though I miss the way the GameCube made everything brighter and prettier. The music on the PS2 version is so much better.
Save the Homeland (PS2) was the best Harvest Moon ever made. Back to Nature (PS1) is a close second. A Wonderful Life (GC) was janky as frick and the town was shit.
>Save the Homeland (PS2) was the best Harvest Moon ever made.
I'd like to see your reasoning behind that statement.
I guess you didn't own any Nintendo systems growing up?
>Save the Homeland (PS2) was the best Harvest Moon ever made.
Damn I can't find a always watered gecko cheat for the japanese version of a wonderful life.
So Animal Parade, AWL, FoMT, 64 and BTN seem to be the best games from what I gathered from this thread.
3 of those are literally the same game, dont be afraid to try out SoS:ToT, is very good, one of the most complete entries of all thee series, stardew valley is pretty good too despite what vtards say.
I love AWL (marlin was my favorite) even if I never played it since my pc can´t emulate this game and settle for a lp instead but yeah the older games felt so cozy, fun and addicting than the 3ds/switch versions (with trio of towns being the only exception) also I wish we could get alternate endings like the snes version.
>my computer cannot emulate dolphin
Are you Brazilian or african? Anon do you need a working fan?
>there will never be another friends of mineral town
But there was but they fricked up really basic shit like rival marriages
So I’ve settled that I’ll start with AWL first. Being a 30 year old frick, the slower pace of that game seems more up my alley. As anon mentioned I will make use of the “All Crops Watered” Action Replay hack on Dolphin. Unfortunately, this GameShark/ActionReplay code doesn’t exist for the AWL:Special Edition, so that sucks. But anways, PCSX2 sucks donkey dick so no big loss, but I did want to romance the new girlie they added.
After AWL, it’ll be a tossup between FoMT and Back to Nature...
Time for some farming kino Gankerros...
Have fun, anon. And expect to contemplate dying a few times. Game is is depressing and uplifting at the same time.