That’s a lot of milked cows and picked potatoes
The hard drive on my Macbook Pro is pretty small. With all the productivity apps I have on it, there’s very little space for entertainment. In fact, I only have two games on my computer at the moment: Deus Ex Human Revolution and Stardew Valley. The former is there because I promised to give it another shot after being bored to death by my first attempt to play it, while the later is there because my appreciation for farming games has slowly been cultivated over the years.
I wasn’t always into the simple, laid-back style of gameplay farming sims have to offer, but the ever persistent Bokujo Monogatari series, or Farm Story or Story of Seasons or whatever the hell you want to call it, kept beckoning my attention with each new release. When I first saw screenshots for Harvest Moon in an old Nintendo Power, I laughed and thought it would go nowhere. Boy, was I wrong because today is the series’ 20th anniversary.
20 years of planting crops, picking up chickens, choosing husbands and wives, and reviving the Harvest Goddess. I, unfortunately, have only been there for about eight of those years, getting into the series for the first time with Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. My fascination with farming would eventually lead me to try the Rune Factory spin-off (which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month) and this year’s Return to PoPoLoCrois. While I have enjoyed most of the time I’ve spent with my hands on a hoe, my favorite game to bear the Harvest Moon name is actually Frantic Farming.
Unlike some companies, Marvelous has set up a website commemorating the occasion. It’s all in Japanese, which makes sense because the US didn’t get the series until 1997, but you can check out screens from each entry to see how the franchise has progressed over the past two decades. The latest release in the series, Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns, just hit Japan back in June and will come west next year.
