Harvest Moon Games Used to Be Really Amazing 

Thanks for watching. If you liked this video let me know as it helps me decide what to work on in the future! Additionally, if there's any errors or mistakes, please correct me so I can make a note of it in this comment.

Harvest Moon a wonderful life has to be one of my most treasured childhood memories. I remember waking up on a Saturday morning and immediately running to my sister's room to watch her play this game.

I cant stop thinking of "Monster Hunter: Friends of Mineral Town"

Good video! Always love seeing Harvest Moon content on RU-vid.

Story of Seasons and Rune Factory are still great. I was so confused when the "harvest moon" games just kept getting worse and worse until I learned what happened.

HM: AWL shaped who I was, and played it religiously on my gamecube as a child. I used to run 2 separate files with different spouses, and i would always accidentally save over one by mistake. Honestly this mistake gave me a reason to continue playing until I stupidly did it again. I got hundreds of hours out of it. Every one of the neighbors are my friends. I feel the most special part of the game is the time passing aspect. The town moves on without you, people change, move, die, but guess there's always a new day. This was a solid lesson to learn as a child that I honestly helped me cope with the struggles of real life as I grew. Great video, these original games can never get enough attention. They are gems so many people sleep on.

Harvest Moon is the sole reason why all of my Stardew crop plots were 3x3 but with one missing to get to the middle square. Realizing I could just trample my crops like a madman with no consequences was such a revelation. I remember Nintendo Power having a whole inset in their Harvest Moon strategy section on crop plots and their varying efficiency, it was dope as hell

My friend and I used to stay up ALL NIGHT playing a wonderful life. We’d take turns playing days - and then while one of us was playing harvest moon, the other would play Minecraft. It’s one of my favorite memories from my childhood. It’s so disappointing that the series will never be the same.

quick note: the og Friends of Mineral Town you don't have to pause to switch items and tools. I think you press L+a or L+b to switch which you'll hold and use

I had asked my parents to buy me HM a wonderful life at gamestop when it released. The employee messed up and sold me 'another wonderful life' in a 'a wonderful life' case.

I never knew you would also pass away in HM Wonderful Life... that’s kind of beautiful. I always made sure to befriend the old man and his wife (nina?) cause I knew their storyline... God they really needed to bring this title back :(

Seriously hope Story of Seasons does A wonderful life

I love Harvest Moon but I could never go back after playing Rune Factory

you should give Trio of Towns a chance. it starts slow but you'll get addicted to it.

9:17 if I remember correctly, there were button combos that cycled through our tools and items. While it still isn't ideal, it was far better than constant menuing

Harvest Moon 64 was my childhood. I still have the cartridge with a tape around it that i put there so many years ago. Super cool that there's people that love Harvest Moon.

Fomt is the only game I ever printed out sheets for recipes, heart events, etc. It was a complete iceberg that once u saw it was memorizing

When I tell you I cried when Nina passed away... omg. I was NOT ready.

my first entry into harvest moon was another wonderful life and honestly, no other HM/SoS or any other farming sim has ever come close to the love I will have for that game

Harvest moon back to nature is what got me into the series. The front case art looked simple, like a sticker slapped on a grass background. Then I read the back of the case.. “ a different kind of rpg” as I have just finished playing xenogears and legend of legaiait peaked my interest . I’m glad I made the purchase.

Hey thank you so much for including the girl version of friends of mineral town. The boy protag always deterred me from playing the older games. You’re awesome. A MonHun with farming or gardening fully fleshed our would be sick btw imagine planting a vegetable that grows to be a wyvern for you to hunt

the story of seasons friends of mineral town is a really good 1 to 1 remake, also your point on the crops growing hit boxes and the remake fixes that the only negitive would be no rival marrage cut scenes

Harvest Moon Magical Melody was my first introduction and I still absolutely love it. I didn’t get to play any of the other entries until recently (the current switch SOS aren’t as good), so I’ll give a wonderful life a try

I spent days beyond days of playing HM64. I lost myself just playing that game. I never knew about marriage option since I was like 9 or 10 but the stuff I found out on my own just made me love it to death

Wow thank you for this video! You perfectly nailed what made HM games like AWL and FoMT so groundbreaking and influential on players, while simultaneously bringing back so many memories for me and other commenters. Playing AWL with my little brother are some of my most cherished childhood memories- hands down. Sometimes we'd play into the (real life) night, and go stand at the beach at (in game) night and just watch the ocean together. So much of our time in-game wasn't even spent playing, but just being. Looking back, I almost forget that it was a single player game because I never played without him by my side. I hope we can see another farming sim with the sheer emotional depth and environmental immersion that AWL gave us- but I'm more than happy to just revisit, find new things, and relive old memories.

Wonderful Life is also what introduced me to Harvest Moon and will always hold a special place in my heart with all the childhood memories (so mad when my little sister erased my save) but the last time I tried to go back to it unfortunately felt kinda painful because I feel like nothing is explained to you and you can get yourself stuck into not seeing a lot of the game because of it. Magical Melody is a way more impressive and accessible 3D Harvest Moon, my personal favorite of the now "Story of Seasons" series

Another Wonderful Life and Animal Parade are the best games imo.

I really miss the Harvest Moon on Game Cube! I used to get a lot of games from Blockbuster too, unfortunately I never got to try the 64 version. My parents actually bought me my first Harvest Moon game because they thought it looked cute! I’ve been addicted ever since!

16:21 You had me getting all nostalgic and I literally gasped with delight at the sight of Won. It was like seeing a long lost friend I'd forgotten until that moment.

This was my first Harvest Moon game as well, and it really set the standard for this series for me. I've loved the series ever since, all the way into Story of Seasons, but nothing will ever top this game in terms of how engaging it was, the gameplay and how well it worked.

Harvest Moon GBA, now there's a game I'd stay up late to play. With no backlight, you have to be pretty quick turning your lamp off is someone comes in to check on you!

I played one of the games on 3ds vc and honestly I had no idea what I was doing but rune factory is definitely on my radar

Celia was one of my first childhood crushes, lol. I also started with AWL, and Harvest Moon/farming games have had a place in my heart ever since.

A Wonderful Life is one of my top 5 favorite games all time

Okay so I basically had the same experience as a kid, my parents didn’t have a lot of money so buying games was rarely an option, so I’d go to the video store and rent games for my GameCube constantly and I came across harvest moon it’s a wonderful life by accident too! And it’s still one of my favorite games to date. I played it for the first time in 13 years a couple months ago and it was like I was thrown all the way back to being 8 years old again ❤️

I think the creative energy of the franchise moved from the main Harvest Moon Games over to the Rune Factory Series. That's the one to play today if you want the creative progression.

Harvest Moon 64 - The cozy rainy day game you can play for 25 years straight.

I already knew about the wonders of Harvest Moon when I finally bought AWL. I was first introduced to Harvest Moon on 64 when I bought it for $15 at Walmart on discount t because nobody wanted to buy it and it’s all I could afford as a 12 yr old. Best decision of my life I was addicted to it!

This video was phenomenal. You managed to convey what made each of these entries so special, both on a mechanical and emotional level, whilst still fairly acknowledging their downfalls. As someone who has been able to think of nothing else since A Wonderful Life's remake announcement, this just made me all the more excited for what's to come and appreciative of what's come before

Harvest moon Back to Nature was my favourite! So many memories 🥰

Thank RU-vid for recommending me this video which gave me a wave of nostalgia. I still remember starting HM A Wonderful Life never played a HM game before, when asked to name the farm I named it Fun Farm not realizing they would add farm to the end of your name, making it Fun Farm Farm, really enjoyed it, getting friends of mineral town which I played to death, Magical Melody ended up being the last one I played but man was it ever a fun time, easily my favourite of the series.

Found your channel from Rurikhan and Gaijin's MH podcast. I'm liking your content so far! Harvest Moon was definitely one of those random games I picked up and fell in love with. A Wonderful Life was my first, followed by Friends of Mineral Town and Magical Melody. I think I fell off after that but the series holds a special place in my heart and seeing 2 of the 3 games I played on this list gives me such a warm feeling.

For friends of mineral town, you could quick change tools and items by pressing L and B or A depending on which you wanted to switch

My first introduction this game is HM more friends in mineral town and i spend my night on playing it.

Great video! I loved the SNES harvest moon as a kid. After trying RF4 and stardew I didn't think I'd ever need to go back to harvest moon but you definitely sold me on AWL, it sounds really neat

Liked the vid as soon as you mentioned Goemon. Friends of Mineral Town is my favorite Harvest Moon game to this day, mostly because it had a certain feeling of mystery to it. There was so much you could do that the game either didn’t tell you about or only hinted at, such as hiring the Harvest Sprites, getting the blessed tools, learning every recipe, or even getting extra houses to own. I used to keep a chart of the characters’ birthdays, and since I had A Wonderful Life and a GC to GBA cable, sometimes I’d just sit around and listen to the GBA renditions of past Harvest Moon songs on my in game record player. Getting to the bottom of the mine felt like a huge accomplishment, as well as befriending the villagers enough where they’d start letting you into their houses at the crack of dawn. Ann was always my favorite of the bachelorettes, and Cliff my favorite of the bachelors. I would always do the trick of saving the night before and checking the weather in the morning, then reloading if it predicted a storm just so my chickens wouldn’t get sick. The game really had so much to offer for a GBA title.

I got introduced to Harvest Moon via the game A new Beginning on PS2 and oh boy did my sisters and I spent our time playing the game anytime we had free time. We then discovered at Walmart A wonderful life on PS2 and we bought it without any hesitation. This game is by far the game I spent the most time on and would gladly jump back on... if it wasn't from the kind of slow frame per second that the game had on PS2. The ending of the game was so... I don't know... satisfying? Seeing your character grow older and your kid, the people from the village... Gosh. Thank you for your video and this wave of nostalgia!

Back to nature was my first harvest moon. I remember reading the description about your character spending a memorable summer with your grandpa and I can relate because I also got to experience a different lifestyle I was raising chickens and doing farm work on my grandparents ranch. 11:05 🐷

9:19 That Harvest Moon FoMT on GBA can switch items and tools by using L+A and L+B button

Harvest Moon friends of mineral town it is for me. Forever my sweet childhood memories.

I loved playing AWL… hearing my horse’s hooves clopping on the brick path, and me angling the camera around like I was in a movie! It was so good. The first one I played was Back to Nature, and I got introduced to the series from watching my older brother play the N64 version.

Oh hell yeah, another Goemon fan. That one and the sequel were my two favorite N64 games and introduced me to that awesome series. It doesnt get the love it deserves in the West.

Wonderful life was my first farming Sim as well. However, once I found Rune Factory, I could never go back. Rune Factory is truly the best of the Farming Sims in my eyes. Best Gameplay, Humor, Social, and Combat specifically is something that basically none of the others even had. I do still have fond memories of Wonderful life, and I quite enjoy Stardew, but Rune Factory is where it's at.

In case you didnt know: Story of seasons is the same series as harvest moon (bokujou monogatari) but they had to change the western name due to changing western localization teams

used to be my favorite game. finally get to play it again

remembering our childhood game surely trying to make me cry.. I think I'm gonna cry again

I bought wonderful life at GameStop but the disk was magical melody. I played that one a bit and then got the issue resolved. I liked wonderful life but eventually wanted to try magical melody again. It turned out to be my favorite farming game to this day.

I'm so glad someone else got started with A Wonderful Life. That game is my childhood.

HARVEST MOON HERO OF LEAF VALLEY IS THE MOST UNDERATED GAME IN THE SERIES.

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody was my first Harvest Moon game

I also found Harvest Moon by renting A Wonderful Life and loved the cozy, laid-back feeling of the game. A year later, when I finally got the game as a gift, l would play until I got tired, then paused and fell asleep to the farm theme playing on the TV in my room. Something I really liked in Another Wonderful Life (can’t remember if it was in the original game) was being able to sell your products to villagers. They would walk by your stand and you could sort of bargain with them. I also felt ELATED for my character when they were married. I think this was the first game I’d seen with a dating sim mechanic, so even something as simple as the give-gift- once-a-day routine was a lot of fun. For those reasons you mentioned and many others, I have to agree, AWL/AnWL are wonderful games.

for FoMT you CAN switch tools without going into menus, its just a bit hidden. you need to push the left bumper with the A or B button, one goes through the tools while the other goes through items! it makes played the game a LOOOOT easier

Awesome video! Just something about friends of mineral: holding the l button and pressing a or b switches between tools/items. It has helped me play the game like a speed run

Hell yeah, I rented Wonderful Life too and eventually bought the same rental copy years later when it went up for sale. Played the hell outta this game.

To me, the last really good Harvest Moon was Magical Melody.

SuperRAD: Explaining The Video: Chopping weeds

Fast switch item : ) L + A : Pull item out of Rucksack L + B : Cycle tool in hand from Rucksack A + B : Opens Rucksack Menu

HOly Shit. Your N64 blockbuster rental memory triggered a memory of my own blockbuster /parent / weekend trial of an N64 game hahaha. Thanks for reminding me of the name of the game man lol.

Great video, glad I was recommended this

The new Story of season : pioneers of olive town just came out and it is so good bruh.

Omg, shoutout to Goemon. I have my physical copy still.

God I remember playing Harvest Moon for hours on end on the PS2 when I was younger, I loved that game with all my tiny little heart

Harvest moon AWL was my first harvest moon as well and its was the only harvest moon that really sucked me in. I never really tried the older series but I did try some of the new one on DS and idk didn't have the same magic. But so excited fro the remake!!! Almost freak out when I saw it this morning. It was definitely a game that needed a update, it had great atmosphere but the game play itself need lot of qol which I hope we get!

Hey! this was a really enjoyable video, even though I'm not too much into farming sims

Are you like my lost brother, you keep talking about my favourite franchises :0 Love your content and being a small creator with that much quality is impressive. Sry my english is a little fked since its not my first language

in friends of mineral town you can both switch between items and tool by holding L and pressing a or b.

My first harvest moon game that i played was more friends of mineral town, and that what made me got addicted to the series- and i have been playing various titles like tales of the two town and grand bazaar- they werr my favourite after mfomt- and then one day when my sister gave me her ds cartridge(?) I found rune factory 1 and decided to play it- safe to say now i'm also addicted to it and have play rune factory 1-4, it's sad tho i lost my game's progress because one day my cartridge just stopped working, everytime i clicked a game the ds would just freeze :'D

I have a similar experience with "A wonderful life", when I first played it, I really projected myself on to my character when I was young. Starting a family, having a child, caring for the farm, and my animals, living "my" life as I progressed though each day. HOnestly, when I was finished playing, I felt an emptiness, a weird pit in my stomach, like a yearning to return to a place I was so familiar with. I can't remember another game that left me with exactly the same feeling, and hearing you described a similar experience let me know that I wasnt alone! It truly was a great game, and im glad to know it made as much of an impact on other kids back then, and not just me. Edit: For grammer.

Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is my personal all time favorite farm sim so far. The newer Pioneers of Olive Town isn't as good tho. Looking forward to Coral Island now~

harveset moon save the homeland was my most fave. even though i never found out how to beat the game and would always lose at year 2 lmao

I remember playing Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life Special Edition in my childhood and unfortunately my friends didn't know this game at that time, every morning i used to play the game in my ps2 and waste hours and hours. Now, looking at it i see how much lagged the game is in ps2 version, but as a kid it was perfect, i still have the disc with me. Since then, i searched for a game like that and never found it, until Stardew Valley was released, in 2016, i played a lot and it's a great game, but I felt that there was a lack of immersion in the personality of the characters and also in the story of the player himself, as happens in HM:AWL. I believe that no game will give me the same feelings that HM:AWL gave me, thank you for the video tho.

Harvest Moon DS was an alright title. Took place in the same location as A Wonderful Life with the same bachelorettes, plus more added in like Flora, a mermaid, and a princess at the bottom of the mine, but used effectively the same graphics as Friends of Mineral Town. The story, such as it is, is pretty dumb though. The Harvest Goddess and a character called the Witch Princess are fighting and the Witch Princess turns the Harvest Goddess to stone and then sends her away to some other dimension, also then sending the harvest sprites after her. The player builds up their farm and doing certain tasks will recover different sprites. Gives an interesting enough goal, plus you can get items which show your energy or relationship with people you talk to, plus a charm to instantly warp around the map as long as you're outside SoS FoMT remake is overall pretty good in my opinion. The chibi models aren't too bad and on the whole the character redesigns are alright (though having Doctor still be called Doctor instead of having an actual name is pretty stupid). It retains a lot from the original while making quality of life improvements, such as being able to see a stamina meter on the UI now instead of having to guess what your energy is. A fun time sink SoS Pioneers of Olive Town however is mixed for me. I like the mechanic that weapons upon upgrade start to hit areas, so you can swing your axe and chop a slew of trees at once. Definitely needed seeing as how the game relies a little too much on makers to produce ingots and lumber and such for anything and everything you do. Also the villagers are totally lifeless in the dialogue. The designs are pretty good but the lack of character sprites for dialogue and what they actually say makes them so bland

My first Harvest Moon was Tree of Tranquility, and I really enjoyed it

For me it was Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute that really takes me back. It took FoMT's art style and some of its characters and mixed it with the characters from AWL. One thing that the DS did well was the touch screen for switching tools, accessories and items and generally organising things along with controller inputs for quickly switching as well.

I never had access to any of these games, but I used to feel the same about Harvest Moon: Magical Melody and Animal Parade

Harvest moon is such an amazing series. So nice and relaxing. I own soooo many different versions lol. Snes, the 3 gbc games, 64, back to nature, AWL, fomt, and story of seasons fomt.

I remember that the last one i play was Animal Parade in the Wii, i was good, but also the wii had a remake of the first Rune Factory, and i don't know but Story of Seasons is missing something that made the old games special.

the DS games were my first harvest moon games and really stuck with me. from the original to Cute to grand bazaar and tale of two towns, all of those remind me of a time when i just got totally sucked into those worlds. it's a shame i haven't been able to feel the same when i look at the recent titles, what with them either being downright Bad or not up my valley in terms of their visual style. and the newest one even missing character portraits?? what the heck? it makes me sad but at least i'll always have those older games v_v

If they cod remake A Wonderful Life with just some QOL features, upgraded graphics, more marriage candidates and child options. Its all I want! Also I know death is sad but why so all the seniors outlive you? Doesn't make much sense.

THEY'RE MAKING A WONDERFUL LIFE REMAKE!!!

I literally came into this series the same way. I rented awl from movie gallery when I was 8

I will always love a wonderful life, it gave me one of my treasured memories Warning, wall o text ahead Me and my friend had game cubes, so I played my copy round his to show him how it played since he was curious,. Next day, he bought his own copy, I ought my own cube and TV round, and we played next to each other Then a couple days later, another friend saw us play it, and became enamoured, so bought his own copy, brought his cube round with a smaller TV, and we all played on a table in his kitchen, all making differing farms, from investing in seeds early, to me concentrating on trees and animals more. One spent his time in the archeology tent a lot more This game has a magical charm and simplicity to it, where hours can fly by and you still want to plau

Harvest moon a wonderful is such a magical game as a kid

The way this youtuber discovered harvest moon was the same way I did. 😂 I NEVER knew about farming games or HM but we were able to rent vidoegames and I took a chance to play something I haven't. Which led me to harvest moon Grand Bazaar. Which will forever be the first game in the HM series that made me discover the series. I actually forgot about it for a while but found it again and fortunately was able to play some of the old ones. ☺️

Back to Nature was my first game, and I fell in love with the genre. I tend to get REALLY into the games for a little while, and suddenly get bored and stop playing. I always wanted to get to the end of A Wonderful Life, but I could never make it past the second chapter (made worse by the animations being SO SLOW after I got used to Stardew). I've been curious about Rune Factory for a while, but I never had a console for it - but I finally have a Switch, so I'll have to make that happen. The Friends of Mineral Town remake is pretty much Friends of Mineral Town with some QoL improvements and new art, as far as I can tell. They introduced new breeding mechanics for your animals (basically the animals you buy at first top out at 5 hearts and you have to breed them to increase the heart max).

I remember sinking so many hours into Harvest Moon 64 because my mom got it for me for christmas and the moment I opened the gift box with the game in it, I put it into my family's nintendo 64 and I played it almost nonstop (when I didn't have school and wasn't playing with my friends at least XD) It's actually my first Harvest Moon game (with Harvest Moon 2 GBC for the GameBoy Color) and I think my mom got it for me because I used to wanna be a farmer when I grew up (either that I wanted to be a zookeeper xD)

Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town is really good and they are releasing Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life next year.

I found "A wonderful life" at Blockbuster XD

HM: AWL was the first game to get me hooked into gaming in general. I started playing it when I was 6 or so, a year before starting school where I live. As I grew older, I had to abandon gaming to prioritise my studies, but I suddenly came across the extended version Breeze and A Silent Winter from HM: AWL when I started high school and I remember getting chills and overwhelmed with nostalgia. I’ve dabbled in the SoS Mineral Town, whatever the towns were called in SoS: ToTT and Harmonica Town from AP, but none of them will ever compare to the experience that Forget-Me-Not Valley endowed me as a child. Also, HM: AWL was my introduction to games in general - a component of my identity and a source of comfort (and sometimes challenge) that I can’t imagine ever parting from. I’m a senior in high school now, 11 years older than when I was first introduced to Forget-Me-Not Valley. Once I finish my national exams this year, I plan to revisit the game that brought me so much joy in my childhood and actually finish the game instead of getting multiple game overs because 6-year-old me was too busy hanging out with the harvest sprites to get married and actually progress within the game.

A Wonderful Life was definitely the epitome of comfy. I liked Tree of Tranquility a lot as well, but I fell off the series after that. Are the newer releases any good?