Harvest Moon

Greetings one and all!

Just a fore-note.
I started this blog post several months ago but never wrote anything beyond the opening and the closing which I'd just copied and pasted from the rest of my blogs.

Since then this topic has been milling around in my brain on and off and driving me nuts.
Why?
Because I overthought the issue.

I thought about how I wanted to write this blog, where to start, where to end. Which games from the Harvest Moon franchise to include, which games that I've played to mention. Any specific game mechanics or story points I wanted to go over.

Which just lead to more delays and more worrying over it all. So fresh off of writing my last blog post about my brain being weird on writing, I thought that it was about time I just got over myself and wrote this blog.

SO!
TLDR: I started it a while ago, never finished due to my brain being weird.


Harvest Moon.
For those not in the know this is a series that started off on the SNES back when that was a thing and is a farming simulator.
Anyone trying to bring the game Farming Simulator 20xx into this conversation will be slapped with a wet fish.
You boot up the game and from the cinematic you learn you are a young man sent away by his parents (mother is tearful) to run a farm. Through the help of the local townsfolk (2 screens away and one of them is very small) you learn how to turn the run down weed filled farm into a place your proud of!
You can grow crops! Raise animals! Even get married and have babies! Or not and woo all the girls into loving you and get an ending where they all chase you.
Yes. This game has an end, 2 and a half years after you start. (I'll admit I had to look this up as I'd forgotten how long and thought it was 3 years) Once that time is up your parents come back and the game is over, you get to enjoy some ending cutscenes depending on if you have achieved certain criteria in the game.
I'm not going into them, I was quite happy with the lot I could get when I played it.

So why do I ramble about this game?
I really enjoyed it.
It was short enough to keep you running around trying to get everything done in the time you had, for that money doesn't grow on trees and if you want to be able to extend your house you need the money! Want that money? Gotta grow those crops or raise those animals or both! Want that wife? Well you better make sure to give her lots of gifts and do NOT make a mess of her specific festival related activity, oh and don't dance with the wrong girl... that just makes a whole mess of things.
So yeah, sort, fun, to the point and well polished.

I've played several Harvest Moon games since then, and I've never enjoyed them anywhere NEAR as much as this first one.
I think the first problem is that they seem FAR too long and laborious, the towns you interact with are so much bigger and feel much more restrictive in what you can do, and the wilderness areas are so very big that you have to unlock certain areas by getting so far with your farm.
Now... I remember in the first Harvest Moon that there was a cave you couldn't get to until the first winter, and another area you couldn't access until you got the upgraded axe because there was a tree stump in your way.
Well. That seems so much nicer than say blocking off whole features of the game (mining) until you've upgraded the whole TOWN so many times AND by a certain point. Oh and it would help if your animals won certain competitions but we won't tell you the best way to do this despite us insisting we have a fantastic in game help feature (Seriously, this thing doesn't tell you WHAT you feed the chickens and you have to actually go to the next day before the game goes 'oh you need to feed them, here it's this, and yes they missed a days feed because we weren't gonna tell you.)

I ramble.
Again.

Because of the want to play a Harvest Moon game I nipped into town and grabbed a 2nd hand copy of Harvest Moon 3D A New Beginning. And though I've been trying to slog through it, I've basically put the game down and probably won't be picking it up again soon. The mention above regarding help function which is pretty much useless? That's from this game. I'm in autumn in that game and getting fed up with the animal festivals because I'm not winning them despite doing everything I believe I can to get the animals 'love' for me as high as possible. Also the same with the crop festivals. I mean how much sodding fertilizer do you have to pour on this stuff (100g a bag btw!) before I win a damn festival. That stuff isn't cheap!
Also the only way to open the new areas is to have a new person move into town, meaning you have to build them a home, and then you have to play hunt the song sheet. Then hit tree stumps in colour coded note relation to the song and THEN you get a brief cut scene showing something blowing up and OMG new area...
Yeah no... this isn't what I wanted from a Harvest Moon game.
I think I'm just gonna give up on the modern ones and just replay the SNES one as that seems to keep it to the point, and although smaller, I find it works.

That said.
Whilst thinking about Harvest Moon I did a couple of searches on the net for PC Harvest Moon-esque games and came across this following upcoming game:
http://stardewvalley.net/
I'm following that and fully intend to look into it when it's released.
Why?
Because I think it's gonna get that right blend between Harvest Moon, and the current love for games like Terraria. Hopefully without going over the top.

Because you know what? Some games are BETTER for being shorter.

Well, that's my ramble over with, thank you if you've managed to stick with me all the way through to the bottom.


That's all for now.
Have a lovely evening!