I was looking to play this series. Everyone seems to have a different favorite. I was thinking of trying either Magical Melody. Is there a better one and why is it better?

>Everyone seems to have a different favorite.
Probably cause everyone only plays one of them.
Mine is Harvest Moon 64
I was almost gonna play Hero of Leaf Valley until I didn't

>>11854012
>Mine is Harvest Moon 64
that was the other one I was thinking of trying.

If you want a GameCube game I'd say go for A Wonderful Life since it can connect to Friends of Mineral Town on GBA. If you can only emulate then I'd suggest Back to Nature on PS1 as that's what Friends of Mineral Town was remaking.

>>11854106
>A Wonderful Life since it can connect to Friends of Mineral Town on GBA
I love it when games do this. I only picked Magical Melody, because I think it was the one I tried ages ago, but I could be wrong. Literally the only 2 things I remember is it was on the gamecube and it was misty.

>Back to Nature
A lot of people seem to like this one

>>11854141
It's neat how the games connect, villagers can move between the games while exchanging items and information about villagers and sharing new farming tips. I say go for maximum comfy hardware style, unless there's some way to connect a GBA emulator to Dolphin via link cable compatibility?

>>11854160
Do you need to play both games at the same time or can you just have the GBA one always connected even if you never play it?

id have to go with 64.
i wish i could say snes because it is the most charming with by far the best sprite work, but the gameplay is just too unpolished.

mineral town you'll end up just min maxing with elves and its gay and annoying.

honestly, sadly, i would say just play starfew valley and don't look back. i cant get into stardew becaues i played harvest so much, but i envy people who let stardew be their harvest moon expeirence so much. its obviousl such a better game despite its tranny ugly ass bitches

bump

my personal favorite is AWL. I would say for peak gameplay tho Friends of Mineral Town or HM64 is best

>>11854003 (OP)
I have played several HM games and, personally, I think AWL has the best atmosphere. Very comfy.

>>11854175
Nah it's a double issue, running two farms can be a bit much if you want to play anything else but I've done it

>>11854216
May as well play Minecraft

I like Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and its non-retro remake, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town.

>>11854072
that game has 2 pseudo remakes with different tones
>>11854003 (OP)
favorite is AWL but I've started playing magical melody and its looking pretty solid so far. I was warded off by the art style years ago but its not nearly as babyish as I thought when I was like 16

>>11854106
>If you want a GameCube game I'd say go for A Wonderful Life since it can connect to Friends of Mineral Town on GBA. If you can only emulate then
dolphin has gba connectivity, they have a thing with mgba

64/Back To Nature (PS1) are usually babby's first. Both have roughly equal amounts of content with BTN maybe edging it out a bit. The main differences is 64 is generally a faster paced game with shorter days and less grinding for certain things like tool upgrades. They share the same characters, but the characters have different personalities and relations to each other (characters who are blood related in 64 may be completely unrelated to each other in BTN) 64 has a slightly "edgier" tone where the characters have more personal problems and sometimes more abrasive personalities. FOMT is basically a port of BTN with slightly more content but shitty GBA graphics and sound

Magical Melody is a little bit shallow I think. It's sort of a remake of the original SNES game or it least it has most of its characters, there's just not as much to see and do as some of the other games

A Wonderful Life is an interesting experiment, it's the only one where time progression matters and you actually age and the character relationships and tone are more in line with 64's than the rest of the series which generally followed in BTN's footsteps. Outside of the things it focuses on though it's kind of content-bare compared to other games. One step forward two steps back.

>>11854871
>favorite is AWL but I've started playing magical melody and its looking pretty solid so far. I was warded off by the art style years ago but its not nearly as babyish as I thought when I was like 16
I think I played AWL when it came out at a friends house, then rented MM thinking it was AWL and being really disappointed

>>11854975
What I'm getting is 64/BTN are the default experience and AWL is an attempt to focus in on one aspect of the game

I’ve played a few of them and Friends of Mineral Town (GBA) is my favorite by far

>>11854003 (OP)
I've only played the original on SNES, but it was a lot of fun.

>>11854876
That's pretty cool to know, thanks.

Found a seemingly undocumented glitch in Harvest Moon 1 for Game Boy, I was able to obtain the golden sickle while keeping the regular one

When asked about the sickle by the harvest sprite, I reset the game before continuing the conversation because I wasn't ready to give up the sickle. He didn't ask again about the sickle after that, but instead asked about the hoe a week or so later. I gave up the hoe and waited with the harvest sprites' help. I got not only the golden hoe but also the golden sickle, while still having the normal sickle in my inventory.

So far it seems like the normal sickle will replace the golden one in the tool shed if you drop both, but I haven't done much testing. I'm not sure if resetting mid-conversation or having the tool on-hand is what prompted the glitch, but I feel like the same thing could be done for the hoe.

>>11857814
I wonder why that happened. Do you really need two though?

>>11854765
I missed picking up the remake on steam sale unfortunately. I got the AWL remake about a year ago and I just can't get the gumption to play it despite still playing the original game on an emulator. To you, what are your criticisms of the remake of Friends of Mineral Town? Good and bad?

I feel like the new ones try a little TOO hard to try and be cutesy. The vibe from the original HM:AWL was IMO damn near perfect as just someone who lives in a super rural village, not in japan tho. The color tones in the new one are just way too bright. I liked the original having more of a natural color tone. Also the AWL remake I feel like makes the game a little TOO easy with it's QoL touches.

>>11863460
>To you, what are your criticisms of the remake of Friends of Mineral Town?
I don't really like the new character portraits. That's about it. Everything else, in my opinion, is just the ideal version of the best Harvest Moon game.
If you don't like cutesy, though, it may not be for you.
Also, they added strawberry cows. 10/10.

>>11863779
hell yeah.

I don't mind the cuteness as much as like, idk everything is so bright in the new SoS: AWL to the point it's almost too "dreamy" and not real to me. Not that the game needs to be rooted into realism but idk, it's like off to me for some odd reason. I will say with the AWL remake I like the character models alot more for everyone except the player model but at least now I can customize my character so there's that.

bumping with best girl

Playing Harvest Moon 64 with a guide on one half of my monitor (no i dont have shame). Kino experience. this guide is very good and in depth. I had to use an archive because strategy wiki sidebar obstructs the view when you have the browser tab on half the screen https://archive.ph/MJqwI

>>11863785
>AWL to the point it's almost too "dreamy" and not real to me.
NTA but I fucking love this vibe. It feels like we haven't had it since the 6th gen and maybe the odd 7th gen game.

>>11866402
Strategy Guides were a thing when these games were big. IMO it's not really the worst way to play the game, because usually the guide has some visuals to accompany the experience. As opposed to a black and white text document.

>>11866542
>NTA but I fucking love this vibe. It feels like we haven't had it since the 6th gen and maybe the odd 7th gen game.
I don't mind it either, it was just a bit jarring the first time playing. I felt like the river/waterfall area kind of lost its charm from the color change but fall in the new SoS is peak.

>>11866402
Don't feel bad about the strategy guide lol. Peak experience is a printed out strategy guide on your desk referencing while playing

>>11863779
>I don't really like the new character portraits.
I'm 50/50 on this one. Some of them are better than the original but others are worst, also not a fan of the two new characters you can marry.
Personally I prefer the remake because of the controls, navigating the inventory is much better now.

What do you guys think about Save the Homeland? I don't see it mentioned often in Harvest Moon threads. It was cool that it had multiple endings but some parts felt lacking, wish there were more house upgrades.