Stardew Valley Pro Tries The Game That Inspired It For the First Time 

Harvest Moon games, especially the older ones, are about managing your limited inventory space and the limited amount of time in a day to make incremental progress over a very long period of time. The reason you have a lot of "Why does (thing doesn't make sense)???" type questions is because this game is like over a decade old, and it's just a remake of an even older game. They had a creative formula for a type of game that had barely been done before, and were still figuring out what does and doesn't work. I love Stardew Valley, and I think it really takes the life/farming sim genre and fixes a lot of the issues with the older games in this genre while adding many new features and quality. With all that being said, you have to acknowledge that the reason Stardew Valley is so good is -because- it learned from the mistakes of the games that came before it. It's really easy to dismiss an old, clunky game as bad in hindsight. But for the context of when this game was made, it's pretty amazing. Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope this might help people understand why these games are so beloved despite all of the things that Stardew Valley does better.

as a harvest mooner first it's pretty fun to watch someone who is the opposite playing it for the first time. Stardew Valley is definitely a love letter from a big fan, so he fixed the things most fans had issue with and that's probably why you are having a hard time figuring some stuff hahah

The harvest moon game I was truly addicted to Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life, but it's 3D so not quite the same visuals as stardew, and fewer things to craft, but I just played it like mad, LOVED the heart scenes for the female love interests, it never reached my country, but there's also a gender switch version where the farmer is female and has male love interests, so I really wanna try that.

That’s why the instruction guide was SO important back in the day before digital games. It would explain the buildings in the town and that you can marry one of 3 girls - Karen, Mary, and Popuri and that if you don’t marry them they will marry Rick, Cliff and Kai. Don’t give up on this game because of its limitations, think of it as a fun challenge!

Harvest Moon was my jam, but I religiously only played 3 games: Magical Melody, Tree of Tranquility, and Animal Parade

harvest moon with no instruction manual as a little kid was life in hard mode

The genre wasn’t really ever dead. If just needed to find the right people. The harvest moon spin-offs: Rune factory series is a great example. RF5 came out last week and has been a big hit ❤️

Seanie is definitely one of the Stardew players of all time

as a harvest mooner first, it’s actually pretty fun watching you struggle with some basic things. it really goes to show how well Stardew Valley fixed some of the most intuitive aspects of this game. had some fun watching :)

Petition for Seanie to become a Harvest Moon expert and make a series out of it

This was like listening to a child complain why a square block doesn't go into a circle hole

Oh, Seanie, heads up! I haven't watched the video yet but if you decide to check out more of this series, you should know that starting in 2014, the series' English name was changed from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons - The developers, Marvelous, started localizing the games themselves under their American division, Xseed Games, and in the process their old publisher, Natsume, got their hands on the rights to the Harvest Moon name, so any newer games with the Harvest Moon name (starting from The Lost Valley on the 3DS) aren't actually part of the series - When in doubt, look for games whose Japanese title is 牧場物語, or Bokujō Monogatari! I've not played any of Natsume's Harvest Moon games myself, though their reception generally seems to be... mixed to negative, and I've personally heard they're not very good, so you'll probably want to stick with the series proper going forward!

As someone who grew up playing HMfomt this was really fun to watch, I think the Story of Seasons remake is a better entry point for stardew players (also your pc is like 18-24) what with living by yourself and being able to marry Popurie or her older brother.

Harvest moon was my love as a child. I played them all, story of seasons and rune factory. I was and still am obsessed.

As someone who loves this game, for me it's perfect the way it is... But for him who played Stardew first, he should have started by the remake, would be a better experience for him.

Holy crap, the second music started to play, all the memories came back. Although I played Harvest moon back to nature, playing as a 8yo for hours and hours not even knowing English, having translations to everything written down on paper, all the pieces, how long things grow. I loved it

harvest moon was my favorite game as a kid and now i'm rethinking everything about life bc how did i work this game as a 5 year old

As someone who loved Harvest Moon, I was absolutely cackling the first 10 minutes. Especially when you threw two packs of seeds just out on the ground Edit: I take it back. I’m laughing throughout the whole thing. “BROAH, we jUsT rested aT the SPAAHH. WHADDYa mean you’re tired-we just rested at the spaaaAH.” 18:23

Honestly, this is my favorite harvest moon. So much nostalgia is in this game, I would love to get back into playing it.

The fact you named the horse goober caught me so off guard because when i was younger i used to walk to this farm across the street from my house and every day would say hi to this one horse in the pasture. His name was goober and i love him.

Harvest Goddess herself is best marriage candidate

I loved the sprite hunt in the Harvest Moon DS games. The fact that you had a list of like 70 different challenges to go around and do was fun and then being able to hire a team of whichever type to do that task for you was great (i.e. the watering team could be hired to water your entire farm).

Seeing Seanie play this just made me feel old. This feels like showing your childhood treasure to your little brother/niece lmao Also it baffled me how little people did know the Harvest Moon series in comparison to the Stardew Valley, this game is my childhood, I could tell the relation right away.

Why did people keep saying the main character is twelve, what??? The heck are they on about? The artstyle is a little chibi, but the main character (as well as all the bachelors and bachelorettes) is 20ish. This aint frickin pokemon you arent playing as a kid, you never did in ANY Harvest Moon game. And if you people think they look young in *this* game (which keep in mind was made for a low-res small-screen handheld) you should look at the remake. Everyone looks like straight up babies in that one.

While the GBA Harvest Moon games clearly had the pixel style Stardew is going for, I'd say a closer inspiration would actually be Rune Factory. You've still got the farming elements and slice of life stuff, but it adds the dungeon diving and combat. Made by the same people as Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, though the newest game has gone in a more JRPG direction. I also highly recommend later entries into this series, like Magical Melody, Animal Parade, and Trio of Towns. Also iirc there was this bonkers cheating mechanic in A Wonderful Life where you unplugged your controller, put it in port 2, and then could press buttons or something to get all farm upgrades, items, etc right at the start. 😂

The first harvest moon game I had ever played was Tale of Two Towns. I spent so much time on Cam and Kana. Especially when I started in Konohana trying to get with Cam ;-; then it just got better and better. HM A new beginning, story of seasons, then the trio of that. Now i'm constantly on stardew. Can't wait for whats next.

So painful to see the new ores hit the ground immediately after he finds them 😭 "What's this?" * crash *

Nice video idea! I loved Harvest Moon DS as a kid and fell in love with Stardew Valley as an adult.

Harvest Moon DS Cute and Harvest Moon Animal Parade are two of my favorite games of all time. They definitely fix some of the annoying things about the earlier games. It's like Stardew without combat which is my least favorite part about Stardew. I am very nostalgic for the earlier games though, Popuri was my first love

It’s so painful watching him try to figure everything out and just making the same mistakes over and over. I wish he would listen to chat more.

OMG! As someone who loves and still plays both Harvest Moon and Stardew, this was so fun to watch!! This game is quite old tho, if you're looking for other versions of Harvest Moon to play, I'd recommend Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility 🤗

Definitely wouldn’t say it was a dead genre before Stardew came out but ur right in saying that it definitely revitalized it

it's wild how just seeing the fomt sprites makes me so nostalgic

I've only played the remake of this, the Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town game (for anyone who doesn't know, there was a split and one company had the rights to the name while the ones who worked on the game went off to make their own. So modern Story of Seasons games are the ones you want.) Seeing the original is so weird and seeing just how different it is, but also I am feeling so frustrated (/lh) seeing Seanie try to figure it out haha. Either way, a fun experience :)

I was Severely addicted to this game! The soundtrack is bringing back memories

Haven't heard of Harvest Moon? Wow I'm old now... LOL glad you did this!

In case you're curious, yes, he will take the horse back if you don't take proper care of it. Iow, if the horse doesn't like you enough by the time it grows up (which I THINK is in summer?) he will take it away, possibly forever. And if you don't keep playing the game, you need to have someone explain to you the schtick with golden lumber. otherwise.... you'll figure it out on your own eventually lol.

I swear if they ever remade Harvest Moon DS I would sprint to the closest store and probably tear up, the nostalgia in that game is real

aww!!! this game always brings back so many childhood memories! i used to stayed up all weekends playing this on ps1 (and still playing it occasionally till now)! my favorites are definitely back to nature and the grand bazaar! ♡

been a fan of the harvest moon/sos games for over a decade now! im so glad you tried it out!

the 1st harvest moon I played was back to nature and gets addicted to it and starts playing harvest moon 1,2,3, then found about friends in mineral town which by far my greatest harvest moon game I ever played. stardew valley really did a great job fixing and adding lots of thing that changes the whole farming sims harvest moon started but you always go back to your first love a guess. this bring back a lot of good memories for me. playing all day during summer break.

My favorite Harvest Moon game was without a doubt Tale of Two Towns. Its so cute and charming and funny, (even if i am blinded by nostalgia)

Seeing a new player play FoMT makes me realize just how drastically disappointing the remake was. There was so many little tweaks they could have made to make it perfect, just updated what made the original so great while bringing it up to date with modern QoL standards...and instead they ruined the graphics draining the charm away and did very little else. 😞

Harvest Moon directly made CA go on to make Stardew. Personally I think DS or DS Cute are the best Harvest Moon games for beginners OR Animal Parade. (DS is very similar to Mineral Town though.) It was honestly my favorite game series growing up. It has some flaws but so does Stardew. I spent most of my time playing it and obsessing over it.

My favorite Harvest Moon game is Sunshine Islands for the DS. (Which actually has tutorials for doing stuff.) There is a frustrating mechanic where crops grow with a certain amount of sunlight and water, so if a crop requires lots of sunlight but little water and you water it every day when it's cloudy, the crops will die because you went over the water limit before hitting the min sunlight ( same will happen if you only water once per day for a crop during a heat wave and you hit the sunlight limit before the water requirement). I didn't know that for the LONGEST time and just ignored the crops that always died on me. The point of these vague mechanics is that you're supposed to experiment to find this stuff out. There's hints like that all crop descriptions in Sunshine Islands say a water and sunlight requirement, but it never tells you things like "a sunny day gives your crops 1 sun point per day and a hot day gives 2 and your crop requires 5 sun points to yield anything but it will die if you hit 10 before it gets enough water to grow" - all it says is "turnip; water: normal; sun: normal"

This video made me wanna play Harvest Moon games again 😩

I only knew about Stardew after my husband saw my Harvest Moon DS game. Got it for me straight away and said "don't say anything, just play!"

As a person who as played EVERY Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons game, I love this😂🥰❣️

Living for the chaos in this video 😂 I never played Harvest Moon either!! So many of my friends have been hyping it up because they grew up with it. It looks really cute though, despite the confusion hahaha!!

This was hilarious. But its true older harvest moon games had less instructions also its pretty simple at the same time. No crafting or community bundles so no need to hoard items. No farm customization but free coop, barn and stable. Making money pretty simple and easy.

The best Harvest Moon is Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life on Gamecube.

Finding out you can't just walk in with places are closed and the "God I hate this game" when the Blacksmith's was closed on Thursdays was great.

Much as I love the original FoMT, the quality of life improvements of the remake can't be discounted. Shauni should try the remake

Dudes all: “Wait you pick up the rocks? It doesnt do that for you?” Lol

" how do I water the one on the middle " That's the fun part, you don't.

FoMT was my favorite game as a child. I forgot how fast the intro escalated lmao.

The instruction booklet really did do a lot of the explaining for game mechanics huh... Those booklets were some of my first treasured personal items as a kid because they always had extra little character art in them. It had actually been a thing that felt a little bit off for my friend whose first farming sim was Stardew Valley bc without the wiki, they were very lost on a lot of the mechanics of the game. Some Harvest Moon Entries started you out with a bookcase that was an in-game way to look at instructions for how to do things, but iirc, this entry has the library serving that purpose, while your bookshelf is just for stored letters you're sent?

I love you Seanie but this is making 8yr old me feel REALLY smart for figuring out this game back in the day. 🤣

there is short keys to changing between tools and things you have in your backpack so you dont have to open the menu every time, it makes the game a bit easier and more enjoyable. Hold down the key you use to whistle for your dog and press a or b for it. Also if you press both a and b down at the same time you get to your backpack immediately

This is cute. I remember how addicted I was to this game on my cousin’s gameboy advance, especially the mines with the bath next to it. Stardew Valley coming out was like a second chance to experience those days again lmao and I’m glad people are recognising this game as its inspiration

As somebody who played all sort of Harvest Moon games since early childhood this was both tedious but also very, very fun to watch! Instant sub! PS: There is a Remake to Friends of Mineral Town! However in western countries the 'new Harvest Moon' parts are now called Story of Seasons!

i have a blast on Harvest Moon: Back to Nature which a 3D version of this game i played it alot when i was a kid on ps1

it feels kinda mean to laugh but it's so funny watching someone who's used to Stardew grapple with classic Harvest Moon games 😂 tbf i don't play the og Mineral Town much, the controls are too clunky compared to more recent games

I've never played the Harvest Moon games, but it looks really fun!

This is so nostalgic! I think I remember there was an in game tutorial either before every new activity or in the library??? I hope you continue playing the game because it gets better. You have to meet the harvest goddess and the kappa! And go watch the tv!

DS is so much easier to play! The items actually stack and you can manage your inventory from the bottom screen. Though, the town feels way smaller and you buy everything from the phone, so it feels a lot less immersive.

“Is the spa the only way to restore energy? Like why can’t I eat things off the ground” -Seanie

You should try Harvest Moon Back to Nature, it was on the original Playstation. It is what got me into Harvest Moon.

Man this takes me back,used to play this alot but I never got far for some reason lmao.

Wow I have the same bday as seanie dew, I feel so honored.

little pumpkin in the background is adorable, i love her so much ☺️

God this brings me back 🥰 I was 9 when I was looking through a Nintendo Power magazine and saw my first article for a Harvest Moon game. My parents got a GameCube and my mom and I would play A Wonderful Life after my younger brother went to bed. I have loved the series ever since, along with Rune Factory, and now Story of Seasons

Love your videos man!!

NOSTALGIC. Man i wish i can play this again for the first time

"...And i can do 10 consecutive pushups, and i can play mary had a little lamb on the recorder"

My first Harvest Moon Game was Harvest Moon DS and I still love that game to bits and sometimes play again. It's so old and my old DS also doesn't want to read the cartridge sometimes, but that doesn't stop me 😋 Gotta admit that I tried FOMT but didn't warm up with it too fast. It's fun watching you try it out though! :D

Seanie questioning why everyone is cool with a 12 year old living alone and even giving him a horse was the best part. 🤣

There's a remastered version for PC with better graphic and some QOL changes, but still I'm glad you tried this one too, brings back so many memories!

Harvest Moon was one of my absolute favorite games growing up. Friends of Mineral Town and Wonderful Life were my favorites and probably the reason I love Stardew as much as I do.

Mines were the best to abuse, since you can save from anywhere you save as soon as you enter a floor, then hoe til you find the stairs, load save and go down next level, save and repeat.

Oh my god this was my WHOLE childhood!! I played Harvest Moon DS with all the harvest sprites. I started playing when I was 8 and couldn't even understand the English, and later I replayed it from ages 13-16 (and enjoyed it way more because I finally could read the text lol). Stardew Valley is my way to find my childhood again where Harvest Moon laid the groundwork for ❤️

One of the coolest things about friends of mineral town gba is you could get other people in the town married.

Seanie, I've been a HM/SOS fan since before I could read. For a game that's more user friendly, you should check out Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. If you like the mechanics of Stardew Valley, try Rune Factory: Frontier (Or any of the RFs). Would love to see the way you play SV and apply it to some of the other games like it

its funny how people need to be told how to do everything these days, I think that part of the magic of older games were the learning phase were u struggle to understand every aspect of the game

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town was my childhood! I'm happy seeing Seanie play it.

Oh, yeah… “how I harvest the middle crop?!” and “No, not yet! I have things to shipppp!!” bring me the good old memories The first Harvest Moon I played was for snes. A copy in Spanish. No, I do t speak Spanish. It was quite an experience!

I DEFINITELY recommend trying Harvest Moon: DS! It's a bit more like SDV, it also takes place in the same town as Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, but with these kinds of graphics and top-down view! You're introduced to the harvest goddess, harvest sprites, and witch at the start too! Also you can marry a mermaid soooo Harvest Moon: DS is definitely an improvement on this game! I feel like it was a bit more straightforward and less confusing for some of the mechanics, but anything you might have not known it seems like you would have learned in this video! It's still nice to have a wiki or guide by you though, especially starting out, but I do that with SDV too. Harvest Moon DS feels like the ultimate version of all the 2D Harvest Moons, in my opinion. It's the game I'm always hoping I'll get out of the modern iterations, and it's what SDV delivered to me for my craving. The other games just don't scratch the itch. Going from HM to SDV was a wild ride for me since I wasn't used to how things worked in SDV at all, like planting seeds, and I didn't even touch sprinklers for my first two years in SDV because I never had them in HM! You can get harvest sprites to water crops for you at a certain point, and I was almost expecting junimos to be able to do that for me lmao Harvest Moon DS is probably the most like SDV out of all of the games in terms of polish, while still being extremely Harvest Moon still. It's also a huge improvement on this game as well. Not to knock on the others, but in terms of actually dipping your toes into Harvest Moon, I feel like Magical Melody and A Wonderful Life are bad places to start. They were AMAZING when we were kids, but they're hard to get back into without the nostalgia as an adult. I recently went back to both of these games I loved so much and saw how many Quality of Life changes were made to the future titles that were SUPER needed. A Wonderful Life is pretty complicated compared to the others by year two (if you do want to go deeper into the crop system) and you need to water things twice a day. In Magical Melody there are options for plots of land that are huge crutches for growing your farm (even if you can buy multiple plots). My only other vouches are Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade in terms of 3D games. Also Rune Factory is a great series as well! Harvest Moon DS is the game I had always came back to the most. Part of the reason might be because it was portable, and I can't deny that there is some nostalgia involved in it, but it was everything I wanted out of other titles and more. Also, Harvest Moon DS is in ConcernedApe's Top 3 (according to his redddit AMA)! So it also gets his vouch. Sorry for the super super long comment!! Thank u for reading

the reason this game so good over stardew valley imo is that it’s way harder, and you dont know everything until you try it, which will supprise you every year. all the interactions, new stuffs coming in every year, consiquences of someone leaving town if you dont get enough interaction with them. advantage of the spirits to help you with your farm. the game so realistic that makes it hard to play(if you want to check prices you gotta go to the library). so for people play something as convinience as stardew valley, they would find this anoying somehow. but if you ever play this game first, I would feel like this game better in so many aspects. but stardew vally really have a lot more contents for sure

Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town is like my favorite game. I used to play it nonstop for years. Had notes I wrote down. Still one of my favorite games.

Harvest Moon is my childhood. It brings a lot of good memories and also bad memories. Especially because I quit that game because my lil bro saved his game on my year 9 farm save 😭 I still haven't forget about that. I was so upset.

My most favorite harvest moon is the harvest moon ds. It has both huge map and changeable farm layout. The mine there contains enemies too. The main goal there is to restore the harvest goddess by bringing back all the harvest sprites(just like junimo in stardew valley). This is why I tried to play stardew valley because I love costumization especially in farm layouts. Sorry for my english....

Harvest moon: tree of tranquility and animal parade for the wii were my whole childhood. i was OBBSESSED

Watching this on your birthday coincidentally...so Happy Birthday

i used to play harvest moon as a kid so when I saw stardew valley I was thinking I know this one! but it was just another similar one. I am so happy another game like it was reelased. I have to play it. harvest moon used to be my biggest comfort game

My fav is always the OG Harvest Moon Back To Nature

Looks like Harvest Moon had the foresight to have you start playing on Spring 2nd so the intro scene in Spring makes sense.

Had this specific harvest moon on a usb and would use a gba emulator to play this RELIGIOUSLY in primary school. Even had it on multiple phones lmao. Friends of Mineral Town, More Friends of Mineral Town and Tree of Tranquillity were my JAM as a kid. Still are today

Harvest moon is my childhood and I still love it. I couldn't even get into stardew valley cause it doesn't give me the same vibe

I played so much harvest moon back to nature, absolutely adore that game, my first farm in stardew was named Mineral Farm in homenage to the game

I know your chat probably recommended this one because its a little more developed, but you absolutely HAVE to play the original Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo. It's basic, but you'll get to experience the true birth of Stardew Valley. Some of the later Harvest Moons might be quote"better"endquote than the orignal (in that there is a lot more content) but there is truly nothing like the first, in feel or gameplay.