My dad is an interesting guy. On one hand, he's a farmer to the core. Not just to say "he farms", but he's a real fuzzy-lined denim jacket with pearl snap western shirt wearin', John Deere cookie jar owning, uptick in alcoholism around harvest time type bastard. Farming is a core part of his identity - however, he's also kind of a nerd. He's read Lord of the Rings every few years since he was a teenager (obviously since long before the Peter Jackson films, mind you), we'd watch Stargate SG1 religiously together when I was a kid, and video game time with dad is high on the list of my best childhood "bonding" memories. So when he'd first seen Harvest Moon in the Epic Center section of the March 1997 issue of Nintendo Power, it was a done deal - he was intent on getting this game, and it was decided we'd pick it up later that summer when it came out.
We couldn't find the game, but we sure tried. Over a few trips into town after it released we unsuccessfully checked various stores, and this turned into calling around trying to find anyone stocking the game. It was nowhere to be found in the nearest local town, nor the nearest major city. It had turned into somewhat of an obsession at this point, and eventually dad tracked down a phone number for Natsume's California office. I don't know the logistics of it, but he found somewhere to order the game from in the states and had it shipped in the mail. After a few weeks of effort followed by a few more weeks of checking the mail regularly, we finally settled in to play - he took one of the two save slots, and I took the other.
Thankfully, it was worth it. Neither of us had played this kind of slow paced simulation style game before, and it had a pretty constant home in the SNES for a few months after. What immediately hit home was the vibe - while this game was a far stretch from actual farming (we had never harvested crops by hand with a scythe, nor did we impregnate cows with a magic potion on our farm), there was an immediate sense of caring about what was happening here. Not only do you want your farm to be maximizing production, you want it to look nice. You want it to feel homey. You take pride in it. Despite no real in-game benefits, it's important to "pet" (aka pick up and put down) your dog every day. And you genuinely want the townspeople to like you. You could absolutely play this game with the intent to ignore anything without tangible benefits, but that would be selling it short by a large margin.
Furthermore to the vibe, I think of this game as having one of the most fitting soundtracks of all time. There’s various pieces of music for different areas (all of it excellent), but you’ll spend most of your time listening to one of the four seasonal songs, and god damn do they ever nail these. Spring has a slowly bouncing optimistic and hopeful sound to it, summer sounds like you’ve hit your stride - it’s funky, it’s groovy, it feels like it gets you in the mood to buckle down and take advantage of your main crop season. Fall is kind of eclectic - it somehow nails the transition between summer and winter. And winter itself - it kind of has a desolate sense to it, but perhaps a Christmas-like warmth. These songs embody each of the four seasons perfectly, and just listening to them today can mentally take me directly to their respective seasons.
It’s not all vibe here though - there’s definitely some depth to the gameplay, and it’s impressive how much of the essence of the best parts of this series were captured early on. It walks an interesting line where there are some elements of both short and long term urgency - the shipping bin needs to have anything to be added in by a certain time of day to be sold, and of course, the seasons are only so long, so you need to plan accordingly when selecting when to plant crops to ensure they’ll be harvestable within the season. But the game also gives you plenty of room to breathe if you want it - unlike some later entries in the series, you can maximize the time spent in every in-game day as long as you want. After a certain time it’s just indefinitely “night” until you go to bed, and while you’d expect to be limited by your stamina quota, you can go up into the mountains and refill your energy in the hot springs as many times as you’d like. This can eventually feel tedious, but gives the game room to breathe and lets you do as much or as little as you want. If you want to clean up every rock and piece of wood (aside from the larger ones you need upgraded tools for) and set up all your fences on the first playable day, it’s completely doable if you want to dedicate yourself. Alternatively, you aren’t punished for not playing like this either. In retrospect, it’s highly impressive they nailed this formula so well on the first try.
I also appreciate how it feels like they went the extra mile with some of the features here. For example, the marriage system - they could have pretty easily given you a choice of multiple partners you could court that are essentially interchangeable palette swaps, but there’s some nuance here. Eve (always my wife of choice) works at the local tavern, so unlike other suitors, you can spend your time wooing her after the day’s chores are done (again with as much time as you want given the unlimited day - a big benefit). All the other ladies of the game similarly have their own schedules, their own likes and dislikes, etc. While there’s no right or wrong way to play this, this kind of effort feels rewarding to the player. These may seem like obvious requirements for a game of this style with modern sensibilities, but really, the design of a game of this style weren’t really standardized or expected in 1997.
These are only a few examples of things that really bring this game into feeling like a rewarding and cohesive experience, something I feel is completely playable to newcomers to this day. Unfortunately, I only made it about two of the two and a half in-game years required for a completed playthrough. I knew the end was in sight, but my younger sister (who had very little interest in video games, mind you) decided on a whim she wanted to give it a spin and deleted my file with dozens of hours on it to start one of her own (which was probably played for a total of 20 minutes). When I found this out, I threw a book right at her stupid face (yes, this really happened). Somehow, I was the one who got in trouble for this exchange from my mother - still seems completely justified to me. This is a sore spot to this day, and a topic that still gets regularly brought up at family get-togethers after a few drinks. Regardless, I still look back on my time with this game very affectionately.
