A lot of people like to rag on Natsume's Harvest Moon games, and to be fair the newer ones do really just look like mobile games, but I'd like to take you back to one game on the 3DS, one game where Natsume actually tried: Harvest Moon: Skytree Village.
This game was my second Harvest Moon-adjacent experience, after Hometown Story (I know, back-to-back homeruns here) and though I dropped Hometown Story after a bit, I got really into this one. Something I really appreciate about Skytree Village is that it has something of a plot. Most of the actual Story of Seasons games don't have one, and I was disappointed when I found this out, because even if the narrative itself is nothing special, I think it adds an extra level of engagement to the game as a whole and more of a reason to interact with the game's farming elements, some specific crops being required to progress.
Speaking of the farming, I also really enjoyed the farming aspect of this game. The hybrid crops were a fun feature (I'm not sure if the Story of Seasons games have hybrid crops? If they do, they're much more tucked away than they are here) and so was the terraforming, as even if it was obviously lifted directly from Minecraft, it still adds a fun level of customization to your farm.
Tying in with the plot, I thought the cast in this one was pretty fun too. I don't have a lot to say on them, since I played this game years ago so my memory is a bit hazy, but like I said in my Rune Factory 4 review, I rarely ever actually engage with the full cast of a farming sim, so when a game is an exception to that rule, it gains extra marks in my book.
So yeah, even if this is part of Nastume's cash-grab Harvest Moon-imitation series, I actually think it's one of the better games to carry the name? Maybe that's farming sim sacrilege, but this one will always hold a fond place in my heart.
This game was my second Harvest Moon-adjacent experience, after Hometown Story (I know, back-to-back homeruns here) and though I dropped Hometown Story after a bit, I got really into this one. Something I really appreciate about Skytree Village is that it has something of a plot. Most of the actual Story of Seasons games don't have one, and I was disappointed when I found this out, because even if the narrative itself is nothing special, I think it adds an extra level of engagement to the game as a whole and more of a reason to interact with the game's farming elements, some specific crops being required to progress.
Speaking of the farming, I also really enjoyed the farming aspect of this game. The hybrid crops were a fun feature (I'm not sure if the Story of Seasons games have hybrid crops? If they do, they're much more tucked away than they are here) and so was the terraforming, as even if it was obviously lifted directly from Minecraft, it still adds a fun level of customization to your farm.
Tying in with the plot, I thought the cast in this one was pretty fun too. I don't have a lot to say on them, since I played this game years ago so my memory is a bit hazy, but like I said in my Rune Factory 4 review, I rarely ever actually engage with the full cast of a farming sim, so when a game is an exception to that rule, it gains extra marks in my book.
So yeah, even if this is part of Nastume's cash-grab Harvest Moon-imitation series, I actually think it's one of the better games to carry the name? Maybe that's farming sim sacrilege, but this one will always hold a fond place in my heart.