Pros: More, more, more, more of everything. Taking concepts and elements, and entire characters from Harvest Moon 64, and then throwing them all together, mixing them into something somewhat recognizable but also new...
This is the first Harvest Moon game to not release on a Nintendo console, instead releasing on the Playstation, where it found a ton of success. and there's a ton in this game too. A hefty amount more vegetables to grow, more in-depth relationships with the villagers in the new village of Mineral Town, you can make mayonnaise and cheese with eggs and milk, and yarn out of wool from sheep! You can even make meals and dishes in the kitchen with recipes that you've collected, which is a big first for the series too! You can also hire the Harvest Sprites as workers on your farm, give them flour and they'll scurry about the farm and you can set chores for them, it's fun! Also, the villagers walk around the town on a schedule, you can actually see them go about their day doing different tasks in different locations, actively. Some pretty neat additions to the series here!
Cons: UGH, I did not care for how they straight up copy pasted characters from Harvest Moon 64 and brought them into this brand new town, mixing up their family trees, changing their personalities and sometimes even their names... It just all felt... disrespectful, especially considering how very intentional the Harvest Moon 64 characters were designed based on their family lineage from Harvest Moon SNES... it just, man, it all felt wrong here. It really is the sour patch for me with this game, which is otherwise pretty decent, despite some hiccups here and there like loading times, reverting back to four directions of movement after Harvest Moon 64 introduced eight (and this actually makes it even worse for four directions in an isometric viewpoint, like, when I press up on the controller, does my character move up-left or up-right? It's that sort of annoyance), and, here's a big nitpick for me, but the sound effects made when your character walks, it's a constant suction cup popping sound, and I find it rather infuriating, heh... Oh, and also, unlike HM SNES and HM 64, this game has a ton of menus and charts and such, just totally gamifying things and taking the series into a less simplified direction that I was not a fan of.
What it means to me: This game is the first Playstation game I ever purchased, as the other Playstation games I had played belonged to my older step brothers... But Harvest Moon was the series near and dear to me and my younger brother, so we just had to get this one, check it out. And so we did... and, I'm sorry, we just couldn't get into it as much as we did HM SNES and HM64, hell, even the Game Boy games were more charming and inviting for us. I will say though, this game did later receive a remake for the GBA that did improve some things a bit, and even later got another remake on Switch (I still need to play that one...). So, it did get better anyhow.
This is the first Harvest Moon game to not release on a Nintendo console, instead releasing on the Playstation, where it found a ton of success. and there's a ton in this game too. A hefty amount more vegetables to grow, more in-depth relationships with the villagers in the new village of Mineral Town, you can make mayonnaise and cheese with eggs and milk, and yarn out of wool from sheep! You can even make meals and dishes in the kitchen with recipes that you've collected, which is a big first for the series too! You can also hire the Harvest Sprites as workers on your farm, give them flour and they'll scurry about the farm and you can set chores for them, it's fun! Also, the villagers walk around the town on a schedule, you can actually see them go about their day doing different tasks in different locations, actively. Some pretty neat additions to the series here!
Cons: UGH, I did not care for how they straight up copy pasted characters from Harvest Moon 64 and brought them into this brand new town, mixing up their family trees, changing their personalities and sometimes even their names... It just all felt... disrespectful, especially considering how very intentional the Harvest Moon 64 characters were designed based on their family lineage from Harvest Moon SNES... it just, man, it all felt wrong here. It really is the sour patch for me with this game, which is otherwise pretty decent, despite some hiccups here and there like loading times, reverting back to four directions of movement after Harvest Moon 64 introduced eight (and this actually makes it even worse for four directions in an isometric viewpoint, like, when I press up on the controller, does my character move up-left or up-right? It's that sort of annoyance), and, here's a big nitpick for me, but the sound effects made when your character walks, it's a constant suction cup popping sound, and I find it rather infuriating, heh... Oh, and also, unlike HM SNES and HM 64, this game has a ton of menus and charts and such, just totally gamifying things and taking the series into a less simplified direction that I was not a fan of.
What it means to me: This game is the first Playstation game I ever purchased, as the other Playstation games I had played belonged to my older step brothers... But Harvest Moon was the series near and dear to me and my younger brother, so we just had to get this one, check it out. And so we did... and, I'm sorry, we just couldn't get into it as much as we did HM SNES and HM64, hell, even the Game Boy games were more charming and inviting for us. I will say though, this game did later receive a remake for the GBA that did improve some things a bit, and even later got another remake on Switch (I still need to play that one...). So, it did get better anyhow.