Harvest Moon (series)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Harvest Moon |
The Harvest Moon series logo.
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| Genres |
Life simulation
Management simulation
Role-playing game |
| Developers |
Marvelous Interactive
(formerly Victor Interactive Software) |
| Publishers |
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| Creators |
Yasuhiro Wada |
| Platforms |
Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Wii |
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Common elements
Gameplay
The player's character has primarily been male, but some games offer
the option to play as a female character. The most common story line of
the series involves the player taking over a farm that no longer has an
owner tending to it, growing crops, raising livestock, making friends
with the town's people and creating a family while running a successful
farm. Each game provides objects to collect or goals to complete,
whether it is befriending villagers, collecting musical notes, finding
sprites, making rainbows, or ringing bells.
Money is obtained by growing crops, raising livestock, fishing,
mining, and foraging. With a limited time and limited energy, the player
has to find a balance between the two in order to accomplish their work
for the day.
Growing crops
Crops are the primary source of income in
Harvest Moon. In
order for crops to grow the player must first clear the field from
weeds, rocks, boulders, branches, and stumps. Then with a clear field,
they must take their hoe and till the soil. Next, choose the seeds that
you wish to grow and sow them where the soil is tilled. The player must
continue to water the crop daily, but it isn't required on a rainy day,
and as time goes on the crop will be ready for harvesting. The player
must find optimal planting, watering and harvesting patterns. They also
must consider the cost, sell price, number of harvests and growth time
of the various produce available before planting. Each season has
different crops available for planting, though in most games nothing may
be planted in winter, and in
Harvest Moon crops could not be planted in fall. In some games, a greenhouse or basement can be used during the winter to grow crops.
Turnips, potatoes, tomatoes and
corn are staple crops of the series, introduced in the first game. Since then, other games have introduced new crops, such as
cabbage, carrots, onions,
strawberries,
sweet potatoes, pumpkins, rice,
pineapples,
cucumbers and more. Grass may also be grown and harvested as animal fodder.
Ranching livestock
The secondary source of income in the games is purchasing, caring
for, and raising your own livestock. Livestock may produce products
which may be sold on a daily basis. Giving animals attention will
increase their affection towards the player and may increase the quality
of their products. Neglecting the animals' needs may lead to sickness
and even death.
The first
Harvest Moon only had cows and chickens, which were
housed in a barn and chicken coop and fed the same fodder. Milk and eggs
could both be sold, as well as the animals themselves. Later titles
introduced sheep and a separate feed for chickens, as well as machines
that could change milk into cheese, eggs into mayonnaise, and wool into
yarn. The more recent games allow the player to also raise ducks, goats,
alpacas and differently-colored cows. In
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility
silkworms and ostriches were introduced to the series, and the new game
also enabled players to befriend wild animals and persuade them to live
on their farm.
Animals are also able to reproduce. Eggs can be placed in an
incubator to hatch a chick in a few days, while giving a cow or sheep a
Miracle Potion, the equivalent of
artificial insemination, will impregnate them. Buying and breeding multiple horses was introduced in
Harvest Moon 3 for Game Boy Color and continued in
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody,
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility and
Harvest Moon: Animal Parade
Pets and other animals
In many
Harvest Moon games the player is given the opportunity
to receive a dog and horse as a pet. A large variety of animals can be
kept as pets in the newer titles, from pigs and cats to pandas and
turtles. In some games, the pets attend competitions (e.g. horse races
and dog races) to win prizes. In
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature the player can raise fish.
Pest animals are also found in
Harvest Moon including wild
dogs, and gophers. Wild dogs visit the farm at night and harass any
livestock not kept in a barn or fenced area. Gophers in some older
titles would consume crops.
Gathering materials
Many
Harvest Moon games require the player to gather materials
for home improvement, tool improvement, cooking, or selling. The most
common building resource in
Harvest Moon is wood; other resources
can include stone and golden lumber. The player can gather wood by
chopping tree stumps and branches, and use wood to add buildings or
fencing to their farm. Mines are present in many games, and minerals
gathered can be used for upgrading tools and crafting gifts. In many
games wild plants, such as herbs and flowers, may also be gathered.
Festivals
Most games in the series feature annual festivals which the player
can attend. Some festivals are contests with prizes available, while
others are social events, some being equivalent to actual holidays, such
as
Thanksgiving,
New Year's Day, and Christmas Eve. Livestock festivals also take place,
where the player can submit their animals to compete against other
farms. Animals that win these contests often receive benefits; for
example, a cow that wins might gain the ability to produce gold milk.
Getting married
Most
Harvest Moon games offer the ability to marry. Gift
giving and interacting with the love interest may increase the love
interest's affection, and if their affection is high enough marriage may
be proposed with a Blue Feather. Most love interests have rivals, who
will marry them if the player does not. Only one
Harvest Moon game, the Japanese version of
Harvest Moon DS Cute,
has allowed players to marry someone of the same sex (termed the "Best
Friends" system). The feature was removed from the North American
version over concern its inclusion would have raised the game's
ESRB rating.
[2]
Children
In many versions, it is possible to have children, but usually only a boy.
Harvest Moon,
Harvest Moon 3, and
Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, and
Rune Factory 3 are the only versions where the player can have multiple children.
Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is the first game in the series that allows the player to have two children of either gender, and
Rune Factory 3 allows the player to have three children of either gender.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life,
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life,
Harvest Moon DS and
Harvest Moon DS Cute are the only games in the series where the player can experience a child's growth from toddler to full-grown adult.
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility expands on this by letting the player restart the game as their child after the completion of an end game event.
Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland and
Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon are the only
Harvest Moon titles in which the player cannot marry.
Rune Factory 2 is the only
Harvest Moon where the player can personify two characters, the father and his son or daughter.
Reception
In September 2011, Rising Star Games confirmed that they have sold more than 1 million units of the
Harvest Moon series across
PAL territories.
[40]
In Japan as of April 2011, the DS titles of the series alone have sold a
total of more than 948,000 units, while the PSP titles haven't been as
successful, selling only 81,498 copies.
[41] The Tale of Two Towns reached No. 4 in the Japan Software and Hardware Weekly Chart, shipping 63,610 copies in its first week on sale.
[42]
List of games
Social network games
In recent years,
Harvest Moon has inspired a large number of
social network games based around farming, most notably
Happy Farm (2008) and
FarmVille (2009).
[43][44][45] Happy Farm is considered one of the most influential games of the 2000s, while in early 2010
FarmVille had a peak audience of 84 million monthly active users.
[46][47] In 2009 Marvelous Entertainment released a version of
Harvest Moon, called
Let's All Harvest Moon (みんなで牧場物語 Minna de Bokujō Monogatari?), for the Japanese
social network site
Mixi,
[48][49] where it attracted 2.3 million users.
[50] Other similar farming social network games released in 2009 and 2010 include
Sunshine Farm,
Happy Farmer,
Happy Fishpond,
Happy Pig Farm,
[45][51] Farm Town,
Country Story,
Barn Buddy,
Sunshine Ranch, and
Happy Harvest, as well as parodies such as
Farm Villain.
[44][52]
