Harvest Moon better than FarmVille?

With Facebook’s popular FarmVille game seemingly growing by leaps and bounds along with the crops players can grow, it might be easy to overlook where such a game may have “grown” out of. Before FarmVille and other like online farming games, if one wanted to experience the virtual sensation of diligently tending a farm of produce or animals, and helping out fellow neighbors, one looked no further than Harvest Moon.

By Maddie Gillespie

Layout Editor

With Facebook’s popular FarmVille game seemingly growing by leaps and bounds along with the crops players can grow, it might be easy to overlook where such a game may have “grown” out of. Before FarmVille and other like online farming games, if one wanted to experience the virtual sensation of diligently tending a farm of produce or animals, and helping out fellow neighbors, one looked no further than Harvest Moon.

Harvest Moon has a long history of surviving throughout the evolution of gaming platforms from the franchise’s humble beginning in 1996 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then, players have been given the chance to make farming history on every succeeding Nintendo and Playstation platform.

Harvest Moon games put players to the test as they must seek out optimal farming conditions or land suitable to raising livestock. Most of the games keep track of each planting season on a calendar comprised of condensed days. Only certain produce or flowers may be grown within each season, so keeping track of exactly how many days are left in a season is important if you don’t want to end up losing money on crops that will never grow past a day.

Buying, selling, or raising livestock can also be a challenge, especially if seeking to produce an award winning animal to be submitted to some of the games festivals. Newer versions of Harvest Moon allow for aspiring farmers to raise sheep, cattle, chickens, horses, ducks and goats. Diligently caring for your animals is essential to ensuring a successful farm, though it may seem difficult some days to care for your crops, animals, and sell/purchase items at different market stores in the shortened days. If left unattended for too long, livestock can sicken and will eventually die unless given special medicine.

In addition to earning funds through harvesting crops or animals, players need to collect natural resources such as wood and mined minerals in the games in order to have lumber to expand houses and barns, build new structures, or improve tools such as axes, scythes, watering cans, and hoes. Adding this unofficial requirement to the game’s already short days can really put a cramp in your farming style unless planned for ahead of time. However, collecting these materials will prevent you from consistently purchasing pre-cut lumber from the town carpenter or using more energy than necessary to perform your farming upkeep with outmoded tools.

If there’s anything in this game that truly limits a player’s capacity to become the best virtual farmer that they can be, it’s the factor of how short a day is in the games. Accomplishing every task you want to do will present difficulties at times, perhaps making one appreciate the real hard working farmers who do much more than is simply played out in the game. But as each successful season passes and players become more adept at harvesting crops and raising livestock, I believe that their love for their virtual farming towns grows, with the direct result being the franchise’s continuation and further elaboration of Harvest Moon.

While collecting resources and farming constitutes a player’s general day to day activities, there are numerous opportunities in later versions of Harvest Moon for players to become married and have a family. By giving gifts, talking to, and performing special tasks for characters within the game allow for eventual marriage and even children in a season or two after the wedding.

With a spice of magic added into every game, whether a few sprites, a Harvest God or Goddess, witch or wizard, the Harvest Moon games offer players a unique virtual world in which to plant their farming dreams and succeed. So if you are searching for a bigger world with more possibilities and new horizons, do not hesitate to check out one of the Harvest Moon games for either sit down or on the go fun.

HMSI_DS_L_PackagingUS_Front