Harvest Moon (series)
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Harvest Moon (牧場物語 Bokujō Monogatari?, lit. "Farm Story") is the name of a series of farm simulation/role-playing video games produced by Victor Interactive Software (acquired by Marvelous Interactive in 2002). Yasuhiro Wada is considered the father of the Harvest Moon series. English translation and distribution of the game is done by Natsume (and Ubisoft on Europe). The object of the game is to maintain a farm over a period of time, tending the crops and livestock thorough the seasons, while befriending the nearby townsfolk and getting married in some games. The first game was Harvest Moon, released for the SNES in 1997. Games in the series have also been produced for Game Boy and GBA, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PlayStation 2,Dreamcast,GameCube and Nintendo DS; with new titles for PSP, Nintendo DS, and Virtual Console for the Wii.
Most Harvest Moon games are permutations of a central formula. The game generally takes place over a set period of time (generally 3 years), in which the player is charged with the task of running a successful farm, getting married, having a child, and becoming friends with the townsfolk.
Most gameplay in the Harvest Moon games consists of planting seeds to grow fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs in the spring, summer, and autumn, and collecting items, making home improvements, and building personal relationships in the winter. A successful farmer must weigh the cost, selling price, number of harvests, and growth times of the various types of produce in order to pick the best product for each of the seasons. One can also go fishing.
The player must also balance their physical resources; if players over-exert themselves, they might not have the energy to perform needed activities, or might even get sick and miss a day of farming.
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[edit] Activities
[edit] Growing produce
This is the central aspect to all the games. The player must find optimal planting, watering, and harvesting patterns. Finding the most profitable plants, clearing space for planting, and harvesting the crops before winter rolls around are key to gaining money. In the games, each season has different crops available for planting, except for winter, when crops cannot grow and the player must rely on foraging, mining and livestock for income, though in some versions, a greenhouse can be used during the winter to protect crops. Crops can be grown year round in "A Wonderful Life" and "Another Wonderful Life." Some crops, such as turnips and onions, only grow once, while other crops, such as corn and sweet potatoes, can be harvested several times, until the season ends.
Turnips, potatoes, tomatoes and corn are staple crops of the series, introduced in the first game. Since then, other games have introduced new crops, such as cabbage, carrots, onions, strawberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, rice, pineapples, cucumbers, and more.
[edit] Ranching livestock
An increasingly large part of the games is purchasing, caring for, and raising your own livestock. Livestock can bring about profits on a daily basis. Giving one's animals attention will increase their affection towards the player and after a certain amount of time, will begin producing higher quality products. On the other hand, neglecting the animals' needs can lead to sickness and even death.
The first Harvest Moon only allowed cows and chickens and provided a barn and chicken coop to house them. Milk and eggs could both be sold, as well as the animals themselves. Later titles introduced sheep and chicken feed (a new food that is used to feed chickens), as well as machines that could change milk into cheese, eggs into mayonnaise, and wool into yarn. Planting grass is also required before you purchase an animal in the old series. The more recent games allow the player to also raise ducks (which lay eggs every two days), goats (which have more profitable milk), silkworms, ostriches and different colors of cows.
Animals are also able to reproduce. Eggs can be placed in an incubator to hatch a chick in a few days, while giving a cow or sheep a miracle potion will impregnate them.
[edit] Pets and other Animals
In every Harvest Moon game a player is given a dog and horse as a pet. Later in the series, the two animals are able to attend competitions (e.g. Horse race and Dog race) to win prizes. In GBC 3 a player was allowed to choose a pet from a list of animals, all of which had different abilities (eg. the Pig increases the money a player will earn). In the newer titles, cats are given as pets. In some games, dogs and horses can be fed, and the horse is able to be ridden in town. The player is also able to keep wild animals as pets. In HM: BTN the player can raise fish and Bees.
[edit] Gathering materials
Many Harvest Moon games require the player to gather materials for home improvement, tool improvement, cooking, or simply selling. The most common resource at earlier stages of the game (in older games) is wood; the player is able to chop up tree stumps to gather wood to add buildings to his or her farm, or add fencing to keep wild dogs out of the farm. Mining has also become an important feature, and most of the minerals found while mining in caves are required to upgrade tools to better, more manageable forms, as well as craft gifts for girls or, in later versions, boys in town. Cooking has also become a side activity in some games and foraged foods, crops and livestock products can all be used to create different dishes.
[edit] Festivals
Most games in the series feature annual festivals which the player can attend. Some of these may just be simple social events, while others may be contests with prizes available to the player. Sometimes festivals are akin to real life holidays, such as Thanksgiving and the Starry Night Festival, which seems to be reminiscent of Christmas Eve. Livestock-themed festivals often take place, where the player can submit their animals to compete against other farms. Animals who win these contests often receive benefits; for example, a cow that wins might gain the ability to produce gold milk.
Players can always choose to not attend these events, but all stores also close on these days and shipped items are not picked up either, leaving few choices available outside of attendance.
[edit] Getting married
The Harvest Moon games offer many choices for potential love interests. As the player spends time with the various potential love interests, he or she learns his or her likes and dislikes, showers him or her with gifts, and eventually proposes. If a player fails to marry a character, then there are usually rival characters who will marry whoever the character didn't. Developers of the series have taken to producing both male and female versions of Harvest Moon games in recent years, allowing for different lineups of potential spouses. More recent games have begun offering a gender choice when starting a game. Only one Harvest Moon game has yet allowed players to pursue the possibility of living with someone of the same sex, the Japanese version of Harvest Moon DS Cute. The feature is rumored to have been removed from the US version and Natsume refuses to comment on the matter. A special friendship ceremony can be performed between the main character and another of the special girls instead of marriage with one of the men in the game.
[edit] Children
In many versions, it is possible to have children, but usually only a boy, with the exceptions being Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition, and Harvest Moon 3. In Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town, when a girl is played, a baby girl can be born. This event occurs usually about a month after marriage. Harvest 3 and Harvest Moon: Tree of Peace is also the only versions where the player can have multiple children. "Harvest Moon:DS", Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and their spin-offs are the only games in the series where the player can experience a child's growth from toddler to full-grown adult.
You can't have children in Harvest Moon GB, Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland, or Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon because the main character is an android.
In Harvest Moon 64 your child skips his first steps.
[edit] Features
Many Harvest Moon games fanciful content as well, such as Fairies, Harvest Sprites, a Harvest Goddess, a Kappa, a Witch, a Mermaid and various forest guardians. In some games, special events such as solar eclipse and legends about a red lake were included. In the older series players increased their stamina by eating Power Berries which are around the valley, this feature is replaced in later games by using various jewelry and clothing to reduce stamina loss.
[edit] Defeating monsters
The first time the player can fight monsters is in Harvest Moon DS, in the mines, but it is not advanced or a major part of the game. In Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon you can also fight monsters. A player could use farming tools, or swords and axes. In Harvest Moon: Back to Nature the chickens are able to compete and fight each other in a festival. Also in Back to Nature, wild dogs will attack livestock, the player must fight them off with their tools and dog.
[edit] List of Games
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Natsume - official site
- Ranch Story fansite
- Harvest Moon Farm fansite
- Ushi no Tane fansite
- Eurogamer interview with Yauhiro Wada
- Pocket Gamer interview with Yauhiro Wada
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