Harvest Moon is a game that intrigued me when it was released for the Super NES in 1997, but the embarrassment of riches that was the result of the RPG output of that era kept me from taking a risk on a quirky newcomer. Nearly two decades and well over a dozen sequels and spin-offs later, I finally decided to fully embrace the original Harvest Moon, and I’m happy to say that it still offers a charming and engaging experience.
Harvest Moon’s pixel art provided a fitting swan song for the Super NES console and the look has held up well over the years. While it would have been nice to have detailed character portraits for the handful of townsfolk that your farmer-in-training interacts with regularly, the 2D sprites do a respectable job of conveying emotion, and are generally well-animated.
The music is simple and can become repetitive at times, but the warbly tunes are all quite catchy. Each season has one music track each, and whether it’s Spring’s hopeful optimism or Winter’s lulling melancholy, each track fits its respective season well. The town and mountain settings each have their own quaint tune, and you’ll find yourself humming along with them often.
Harvest Moon does an excellent job of creating a simple and addictive gameplay loop early on. You’ll be scrounging for cash in the early days of the first year (the game ends halfway through your second year on the farm), but once you’re able to harvest crops on a regular basis, you can diversify your assets and invest in some livestock. Livestock is limited to cows and sheep, and while both require daily attention, you’ll appreciate the break from watering crops endlessly.
Cows will ultimately be the top moneymaker on your farm with milk bringing in a pretty penny, but their dependability also shines a light on the game’s biggest flaw by far: if you have too many cows in your barn at once, the game crawls at a snail’s pace and becomes difficult to play. Even running at full-speed, it can be difficult to keep track of your progress as you attempt to talk to, brush, and milk each cow to ensure that they remain content. Adding significant slowdown to this daily process makes the can make the game’s chores feel a little too similar to the real-life chores they are emulating in the worst way possible. This sizable technical issue can be avoided by simply limiting the number of cows in the barn, but it’s a shame that such precautions need to be taken to fully enjoy the game.
Once your farmer’s daily routines are established, you can focus more on his personal happiness. You can go sightseeing in the mountains or chat up the townsfolk, and eventually you will be able to marry one of the town’s five eligible bachelorettes. The game places much more emphasis on maintaining your agricultural exploits than on keeping your wife happy, but attention to the latter will eventually lead to having children. Your ability to interact with your farmer’s family is extremely limited, but their presence is a nice touch and adds a certain amount of flavor to an otherwise simple formula.
The game’s two-and-a-half years of farming and romancing go by quickly, but you’ll likely be ready for the game to end at that point. You can easily exploit the game’s infinite nighttime to accomplish myriad tasks early on, and efficient gameplay will lead to a fully developed farm before the end of the second year. By the time the third year rolled around, I had an excessive amount of money and only needed to farm to pad an arbitrary score that is calculated at the end of the game. In order to achieve the game’s “best” ending, you have to have crops or grass planted on literally every free spot of land, along with having a barn full of livestock. The reward is an extra vignette or two during the ending, but it is hardly worth the hours of effort required.
Despite its addictive gameplay, Harvest Moon is best enjoyed played at a leisurely pace. The game’s undeniably charming presentation gives it a timeless quality that should appeal to anyone looking for a relaxing and light take on a farming simulation. I greatly enjoyed my first experience with the series and look forward to seeing how the sequels compare.
