Retire to the country for a new challenge in Harvest Moon 64. Hard work is rewarded as you struggle to bring prosperity back to a neglected farm. Work the land, pick up odd-jobs, and get to know the neighbors. Harvest Moon 64 has all the charm of the original Super Nintendo classic, plus many new surprises. * Tons of new seasonal vegetables and fruits. * Raise cows, chickens, and sheep. * New items and gifts. Including tools that increase in power as you master them. * One of town's five eligible women may prove to be the love of your life. * Celebrate seasonal festivals with the nearby townsfolk. * Enjoy local horse and dog racing.
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Harvest Moon 64 is a nostalgic classic, but time hasn't been entirely kind. The charming visuals and simple farming gameplay offer a relaxing escape, and falling for the villagers is oddly heartwarming. But it's hard to ignore the clunky controls, repetitive tasks, and the fact that days feel painfully short. If you crave that old-school Harvest Moon charm, it's a sweet trip down memory lane, but newcomers might get frustrated with its quirks.
My first HM and one I have fond memories about, even if those memories are a little fuzzy at this point. Good cozy vibes (as with much of this series), I'm sure there's tons in this game I never saw, but enjoyed my time with it.
this ain't no cozy game or life sim, this is a strategy game. i felt like i was playing uncut gems: farming edition. there is no downtime at all, and with every choice i made i fucked up my character's life in ways i didn't even comprehend. what the hell
Immaculate mood. Karen best wife in the series.
They don't make em like they used to
Pros: The direct sequel to Harvest Moon on SNES, including several additions and improvements, but maintains the simplistic charm filled cozy farm life of the original. It also features a sense of mystery and unknown to make the experience even more captivating and immersive!
So many little details added to this entry that elevate it over its predecessor. The new pre-rendered isometric aesthetic is incredibly cute, very toy-like, as if you're playing with your plastic farm animal toys as a kid, there's so much personality in that alone, and it makes the world of Flowerbud Village and the woodsy mountain path come to life like never before. New additions like the rucksack make foraging and collecting objects so much more convenient and less monotonous too, but despite having inventory with those objects, the game still isn't bogged down by menus, stats, graphs, charts, etc, it gives you that one inventory screen to see what's in your bag, as well as the calendar and time of day, and that's essentially it! Everything else, it's all on you and your memory, or reading what's posted around town or what's said by villagers, the game does a great job of keeping you immersed in its world, and not taking you out by gamifying with percentage meters or what have you. It lets you discover and soak in the world at your own pace.
New crops, new animals (sheep!!), new marriage candidates, new festivals, better controls with eight directions of movement (watering crops at an angle is a lifesaver, heh) the game certainly adds plenty to make a revisit to this world worth doing, but what makes this world so much richer, is that it is literally the same world as HM SNES, but two generations later! The story is similar, you take over your grandfather's farm and try to build a life in this cozy little town by planting crops with new veggies like cabbage and eggplant (a fall crop!), and raising cattle, sheep, and chickens, as well as caring for your dog and horse (who now can participate in racing festivals!), go mining for gems and jewels in the cave, build up your ranch and construct new additions to your home like a kitchen and bathroom, or a greenhouse to plant crops all year round, get to know and befriend the townsfolk, and meet a special someone to eventually get married to, and start a family! Not too much different than before, right? Well, SPOILERS your grandfather in this game, just so happens to be, the protagonist of Harvest Moon on SNES!! And then you'll start to notice, several people in the town are descendants from characters in SNES as well, as you learn more and more about these characters, they reveal more of that rich history to you, and for those that put in several hours into the SNES original, it's extremely gratifying to make these discoveries! Each of the marriage candidates have key storylines and family members that connect to that original game, and one of those family members living in the town, is an elderly woman who just so happened to be a marriage candidate in HM SNES, Ellen! That discovery kind of blew my mind... Not only did it connect me to this world even more, but the storylines these characters go through deepen that connection... And especially Ellen, a character that, depending on how you play, passes away over the course of the game, and it... It hits deep. This was the woman who gave you your dog in the original game on SNES. And here she was an elderly woman who was so proud of her granddaughter, Ellie, who works at the bakery in this game, and is also one of the five marriage candidates here. To see that passage of time, in a game where you connect with these characters over several generations, for her to say goodbye, and allow us to say goodbye... And then go on to start the next generation, it's so bittersweet.
Harvest Moon was a game that took a farm simulation and brought heart to it by putting you in the shoes of a little skrunkly dude just trying to make it by in a brand new world. What turns from a farm strategy game now also becomes a 2nd life simulator, but based around a crafted world filled with people that you can interact with and make a difference in their lives, and as you affect them, they also affect you. And 64 strengthens that so much more, where now you can even befriend your male rivals to the marriage candidates in the town, where you can then set them up, bring them together and then they too can get married, and raise children with the female marriage candidates! So satisfying seeing a whole town of people grow, building new families, as you build yours, based entirely on your own choices. And as you get those and several other achievements, like winning festivals, or getting married, or having your first child, the game rewards you not with a percentage marker or meter in a menu or anything like that, no, you have a photo album by your bedside, and you can look through it, at the many memories you've created living in this humble and peaceful little village. It's the perfect way to chart your journey through the events of this game.
The sense of heart, and closeness you develop with the characters, the animals, your farm, what you've built, is so enriching, you feel a part of this world, and it's one of the most immersive games I've ever experienced as a result. Not to mention, it's a world that you can stay in as long as you desire, as there's nothing stopping you from playing indefinitely after the end credits roll... I absolutely love this game.
Cons: It is a bit rough around the edges, technically. Graphical errors here and there do occur (a major one being polygons of buildings and houses disappearing before they scroll beyond the screen...) and going into the menu every time you have to put an item into the rucksack can be a bit annoying, but still, far less annoying than in SNES where you had to run back and forth to the shipping bin or wherever you're going any time you grabbed an object! Also the music, while quite good in its own right, does start over every time you enter a new room... and that's too bad, SNES didn't have that issue. But these are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of things, nothing stopped me from being fully immersed here.
What it means to me: After discovering HM SNES and getting the Game Boy game, this was a series my brother and I were then dedicated to play every new entry of. And this was the big one we were waiting for! And when it came out, we were ADDICTED, this game was and probably still is the most I've played of any game, ever. I sunk so many in-game years into this one. I even recall once we had a storm hit, and we got a power outage while I was playing... which, resulted in an erased save file. I was devastated, but I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and got to making a brand new life all over again, and again, I put many more in-game years into it! Hah! This was the game I would grab to rescue if ever I had a housefire, I was THAT into it! That farm I built in my own way, the family I created, the animals I raised, there was a lot of love and heart put into it, and it's hard to think of another game that meant as much to me as this one did.
So many little details added to this entry that elevate it over its predecessor. The new pre-rendered isometric aesthetic is incredibly cute, very toy-like, as if you're playing with your plastic farm animal toys as a kid, there's so much personality in that alone, and it makes the world of Flowerbud Village and the woodsy mountain path come to life like never before. New additions like the rucksack make foraging and collecting objects so much more convenient and less monotonous too, but despite having inventory with those objects, the game still isn't bogged down by menus, stats, graphs, charts, etc, it gives you that one inventory screen to see what's in your bag, as well as the calendar and time of day, and that's essentially it! Everything else, it's all on you and your memory, or reading what's posted around town or what's said by villagers, the game does a great job of keeping you immersed in its world, and not taking you out by gamifying with percentage meters or what have you. It lets you discover and soak in the world at your own pace.
New crops, new animals (sheep!!), new marriage candidates, new festivals, better controls with eight directions of movement (watering crops at an angle is a lifesaver, heh) the game certainly adds plenty to make a revisit to this world worth doing, but what makes this world so much richer, is that it is literally the same world as HM SNES, but two generations later! The story is similar, you take over your grandfather's farm and try to build a life in this cozy little town by planting crops with new veggies like cabbage and eggplant (a fall crop!), and raising cattle, sheep, and chickens, as well as caring for your dog and horse (who now can participate in racing festivals!), go mining for gems and jewels in the cave, build up your ranch and construct new additions to your home like a kitchen and bathroom, or a greenhouse to plant crops all year round, get to know and befriend the townsfolk, and meet a special someone to eventually get married to, and start a family! Not too much different than before, right? Well, SPOILERS your grandfather in this game, just so happens to be, the protagonist of Harvest Moon on SNES!! And then you'll start to notice, several people in the town are descendants from characters in SNES as well, as you learn more and more about these characters, they reveal more of that rich history to you, and for those that put in several hours into the SNES original, it's extremely gratifying to make these discoveries! Each of the marriage candidates have key storylines and family members that connect to that original game, and one of those family members living in the town, is an elderly woman who just so happened to be a marriage candidate in HM SNES, Ellen! That discovery kind of blew my mind... Not only did it connect me to this world even more, but the storylines these characters go through deepen that connection... And especially Ellen, a character that, depending on how you play, passes away over the course of the game, and it... It hits deep. This was the woman who gave you your dog in the original game on SNES. And here she was an elderly woman who was so proud of her granddaughter, Ellie, who works at the bakery in this game, and is also one of the five marriage candidates here. To see that passage of time, in a game where you connect with these characters over several generations, for her to say goodbye, and allow us to say goodbye... And then go on to start the next generation, it's so bittersweet.
Harvest Moon was a game that took a farm simulation and brought heart to it by putting you in the shoes of a little skrunkly dude just trying to make it by in a brand new world. What turns from a farm strategy game now also becomes a 2nd life simulator, but based around a crafted world filled with people that you can interact with and make a difference in their lives, and as you affect them, they also affect you. And 64 strengthens that so much more, where now you can even befriend your male rivals to the marriage candidates in the town, where you can then set them up, bring them together and then they too can get married, and raise children with the female marriage candidates! So satisfying seeing a whole town of people grow, building new families, as you build yours, based entirely on your own choices. And as you get those and several other achievements, like winning festivals, or getting married, or having your first child, the game rewards you not with a percentage marker or meter in a menu or anything like that, no, you have a photo album by your bedside, and you can look through it, at the many memories you've created living in this humble and peaceful little village. It's the perfect way to chart your journey through the events of this game.
The sense of heart, and closeness you develop with the characters, the animals, your farm, what you've built, is so enriching, you feel a part of this world, and it's one of the most immersive games I've ever experienced as a result. Not to mention, it's a world that you can stay in as long as you desire, as there's nothing stopping you from playing indefinitely after the end credits roll... I absolutely love this game.
Cons: It is a bit rough around the edges, technically. Graphical errors here and there do occur (a major one being polygons of buildings and houses disappearing before they scroll beyond the screen...) and going into the menu every time you have to put an item into the rucksack can be a bit annoying, but still, far less annoying than in SNES where you had to run back and forth to the shipping bin or wherever you're going any time you grabbed an object! Also the music, while quite good in its own right, does start over every time you enter a new room... and that's too bad, SNES didn't have that issue. But these are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of things, nothing stopped me from being fully immersed here.
What it means to me: After discovering HM SNES and getting the Game Boy game, this was a series my brother and I were then dedicated to play every new entry of. And this was the big one we were waiting for! And when it came out, we were ADDICTED, this game was and probably still is the most I've played of any game, ever. I sunk so many in-game years into this one. I even recall once we had a storm hit, and we got a power outage while I was playing... which, resulted in an erased save file. I was devastated, but I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and got to making a brand new life all over again, and again, I put many more in-game years into it! Hah! This was the game I would grab to rescue if ever I had a housefire, I was THAT into it! That farm I built in my own way, the family I created, the animals I raised, there was a lot of love and heart put into it, and it's hard to think of another game that meant as much to me as this one did.