Harvest Moon is a series of life simulation/farm simulation/role playing
games developed by Natsume. The first game was Harvest Moon, which was
released in 1996 for the NES. The object of the game is to maintain a farm
over a period of time, tending the crops and livestock through the seasons,
while befriending the nearby townsfolk and getting married in some games. It
has pretty much been on every gaming system, expect for XBOX/XBOX 360. Most
game play in the Harvest Moon games consists of planting seeds to
grow fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs, and collecting items, making
home improvements, and building personal relationships. A successful farmer
must weigh the cost, selling price, number of harvests, and growth times of
the various types of produce in order to pick the best product for each of
the seasons. One can also go fishing and mining for extra profit.
The games were never as complex as they are now. You only really had the
basic seeds, nothing too fancy. Livestock wise, the earlier games, you could
only have cows, chickens, sheep, and a horse. Now, you have those plus
ducks, goats, silkworms and ostriches. You also now have machines that make
things for you, depending on the produce you have. You can sheer your sheep,
and use the yarn maker to make yarn, and if you have flowers, you can then
use the dye pot to color the yarn, therefore getting more money. You can use
milk from your car to make either cheese or butter (same with your goat),
you can use your eggs to make mayonaisse. A new thing they added was the
addition of a seed maker. When your crops grow, sell all your crops except
for one, and toss it in the seed maker, and it will make you a pack of seed
that fills up to 9 squares, so you wont have to spend that money, and you
spend it elsewhere.
They now have the games to where at the beginning you choose whether you want
to be a male or female. The mechanics are pretty much the same, despite the gender,
the only difference is if you are a girl, when you get married, you will still do the
normal everyday things, but a season or so in, you will be doing them pregnant. Then two
seasons later, you give birth. You then can either have the choice to end the game once your
children are born, or you select to play the game as your child. All that really does it start
the game over, but instead of having a crappy farm with no money, you start with everything you
ended with as the parent.
