Who would have thought a little farm simulator would turn out to be so great? When Harvest Moon first came out in March of 1997 it was one of those games people had to try. Once word got around about this game it was selling like hot cakes. After some fairly good sequels, and some bad ones, the original is finally getting re-released for people to enjoy all over again.

For my first classic game review I decided to go with Harvest Moon, one of those games that you need to play. Harvest Moon blends RPG aspects with farming into one great game. The concept of planting corn and selling it to the townspeople sounds extremely boring, but it isn’t. With the same kind of games coming out all the time Harvest Moon is a treasure and that still stands for today.

You start the game out as a young boy that is in charge of his parents abandoned farm house. Your property includes a house, a chicken coop, a barn and a lot of space to plant crops. For the next three hundred days you have to expanded your farm and make enough money to make your father happy. When time is up he’ll let you know if you did a good job or not.

The game play in Harvest Moon is simple. Each day you have so much time to do whatever you please, may it be cleaning your field or doing other farm related activities. You can do whatever you want, if you want to breed cows then go right ahead. If that isn’t your thing then just plant crops, Harvest Moon has a few to pick from in each of the games seasons.

Whenever you are doing these different activities you have to be careful though. Your character has so much energy each day. Whenever you break rocks or cut the grass you’d slowly loose energy. There is a spa in the mountain that can replenish your health or you can find some power berries. Finding these berries can be a challenge, but they will raise your energy level forever. I’ll give you a hint you better start digging around your farm just a little.

Harvest Moon can get a little annoying with the energy in the beginning of the game. If you are like me you’ll try to clean your field in one night, which is something they took out in later games, you character will just collapse after awhile. Going back and fourth to the spa is time consuming and you will do it a lot. Your jerk of a dad left the farmhouse in terrible shape. Later on it also gets annoying if you can’t sell all of your products before the five o’clock deadline. Your vegetables will get stale and if you have a lot that didn’t make it in you’re out so much money.

The game can get a little tedious too. Game play is the same thing over every day. You really have to get into this game if you want to enjoy it. If you want a different pace in Harvest Moon you can try to find the love of your life. This adds a new aspect to the game, but if you put a lot of time into this your funds will suffer. A word of advice though if you want a better ending you better pick out a cutie in the game.

Final Verdict
Harvest Moon started the whole farming simulator genre, which really hasn’t exploded even to this gay. The game is real fun and easy to play; kids and adults can pick this game up and play it with no worries. Trying to find this game for your SNES might be a little hard so your best bet is to buy it on your Virtual Console. For only eight dollars you can enjoy this game, the simple game play is really enjoyable.

Rating
8.50 out of 10