Harvest the Moon

You know how the Pokémon craze worked? How once you got into one game and they made another you had to play it even though it was pretty much the exact same game? You know that loyalty you felt for the game, playing it over and over even though it didn’t really change from game to game and the same things happened over and over again? Well, that’s how it is for me with Harvest Moon.

I have two people to blame for this addiction that I have developed. The first is my brother, who made me download a visual boy advanced emulator. Yes, it was originally to play Pokémon, but once it had served that purpose I had to move on to something else. The second person I have to blame is that Josiah kid who I never see anymore. T.T. He and that Jac kid who invades my house once a week were both real big on it and thus I became curious. So, naturally I down loaded Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and thus it began. I’ve now added four other Harvest Moon games to my list of HMs I’ve played and all but one are pretty much exactly the same.

You play as a guy (usually) who has somehow come to own a farm outside of a small town. You run around talking to people, getting them to like you and whatnot and meeting pretty, young, single girls who you get to woo into marrying you. On top of that you have to manage your farm: planting crops, feeding animals and so on. All of the games are the same in this way. The people in the game, while retaining the same faces and names, sometimes change places.

So why is this game so addicting? It’s not like there’s a whole lot you can do. Every day, (which lasts generally five minutes if you spend the entire time outside) tends to be the same. You get up, throw your dog so that it will love you, go water your crops, feed your animals, throw them so they’ll love you too, brush your horse, collect whatever random stuff is growing that season for money, woo the girl of your choice, and then go to bed before you’ve used up all of your energy so that you won’t over sleep the next day. And you do this over and over again.

Well, for me it’s the wooing. I enjoy talking to the girls and seeing what they’ll say when they reached the next heart level and watching their heart events and getting them to fall in love with me. Same with the guys, in More Friends of Mineral Town, which is the girl version of Friends of Mineral town. It’s always a little different in each game, and each girl is very different. Thus far I’ve wooed all but two of the girls and was in the process of wooing another when I found a new version that offered a female character. But you’ll have to wait for a review of that one.