Harvest Moon

Download Harvest Moon and cultivate your own charming farm! Grow crops, raise animals, and build relationships with the townsfolk. Experience the joy of country living and play now!
a game by Pack-In-Video, and Natsume
Genres: Adventure/RPG, Simulation
Platforms: DS, SNESSNES
Editor Rating: 7.6/10, based on 4 reviews
User Rating: 7.6/10 - 27 votes
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See also: Simulator Games, RPGs, Games Like The Sims 4, Retro Games, Harvest Moon Games, Games Like Rune Factory, Games Like Farmville
Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon first hit the United States a full decade ago on the SNES, giving gamers an entertaining and decidedly different experience from games at the time. Since then the series has evolved slowly, with small additions making for a more complete package. Consequently, despite the unique opportunities of the system Harvest Moon DS just doesn't feel that much different then Friends of Mineral Town on the GBA.

Harvest Moon DS is one of the few installments in the series that doesn't follow your inheritance of the farm from your grandpa. Instead, you're tasked with saving the Harvest Goddess and her Sprites who have been unintentionally sent to another world by the Witch Princess. How do you do this? By running a successful farm of course!

There are a lot of things to do in Harvest Moon; you'll get to grow crops, care for animals, court a girl, gamble, and much more. Harvest Moon's open ended nature has always been its greatest strength, but for newer players this can lead to a problematic lack of direction. Veterans on the other hand might find it hard to shake the feeling that you've done this all before.

Further adding to the deja-vu is the fact the game looks and sounds exactly like its predecessors. With the home versions having long since made the jump to 3d, it would have been nice to see at least some change to the Harvest Moon aesthetic. Again, this is really only an issue for veterans of the series because the game never looked bad.

Many were probably hoping that the DS touch screen would offer up some new tricks for the franchise. Unfortunately the stylus implementation is half baked and you'll mostly use the stylus to navigate menus. By picking up an item cleverly entitled 'Touch Screen Glove'? you'll unlock a few minigames where you can manually pet, sheer or milk your animals. This is a fun diversion the first few times, but it's hamstrung by the fact that actually playing the minigames is far more time consuming then simply automatically petting, sheering or milking your animals with one button. Overall the implementation of the touch screen feels like an afterthought more then a fully implemented feature.

On its own merits, Harvest Moon DS is still a pretty good game. It follows the Harvest Moon formula to the letter, and that ultimately makes it just as good as previous installments in the series. If you're new to the series this is a fine place to start, but if you've already played Friends of Mineral Town you've already seen much of what this game has to offer.

Download Harvest Moon

DS

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
SNES

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
  • Pentium II (or equivalent) 266MHz (500MHz recommended), RAM: 64MB (128MB recommended), DirectX v8.0a or later must be installed

Game Reviews

From Natsume comes Harvest Moon. It is n small character RPG that is filled with an above-average story and plenty of conversation There are multiple areas to explore including many different towns and buildings both large and small inside of the walled cities. Your progress is gently guided through the adventure but not so restricted that it feels like you are just watching a movie and pressing buttons. Graphics are reminiscent of early Super NES games, but are not realty needed to be all that impressive due to the player's attention being drawn to other areas of the title, mainly the story. Sure it's not going to give FFVII for the PS a challenge, but it's a thrill to play in its own right.

Harvest Moon is a video game released in 1996 in Japan and 1997 in North America. The virtual game series was created by Natsume and a PAL version was released by Nintendo too in 1998 in Australia, France and Germany. This game is one of the rarest SNES games for these countries. Harvest Moon was later on ported to Nintendo’s Virtual Console on 4th January 2008 in Europe and 11 February 2008 In North America and it was valued at 800 Wii Points.

The gameplay consists of daily tasks and using the time wisely for the best outcome in the end of the missions. Vegetables develop over the course of the game-day and must receive water each day. The lack of water keeps the plants from growing, though it does not kill the crops. The chickens require feeding, cows must be talked to, brushed and milked in order to retain their health. Cows may become sick and even die if they do not get food for a day.

Chickens can only die if they are left outside and allowed to be blown away in a storm. They can also get eaten by wild wolves. During the night the player can only access the bar, where non-playable characters gather to drink and talk. Besides the night part of the game, this release looks very much like one of the latest hits on Facebook, called Farmville.

Each year has four seasons, each lasting for 30 days. The player has a limited time until it becomes dark. The player can stay outside as much as he wants, as long as he does not reach zero at the energy level. If the player comes home after 6 pm and is married, he will lose a few affection points with his wife, unless the wife is Eve.

Each player gets several basic tools in the beginning, such as watering can, axe, hoe, sickle and hammer. The tools can get upgrades if the player completes side quests. Not more than two different tools can be carrier in a bag in the same time by the character.

The player can gather herbs and wild fruit in the forest, and can also fish a small pond. Vegetables can be farmed only during the spring and summer, while during fall only mushrooms and the hay grass grows. Nothing grows in the winter.

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Though the game was not a huge hit, it was fairly popular and scored good feedback on most of the game reviews sites. GameRankings offered the game a 69.52%, while the release for Wii’s Virtual Console was rated with 8.5 by IGN and got praised for its graphics and addictive gameplay.

Harvest Moon is the first installment of the Harvest Moon series. It is a farming simulator/RPG game originally released for the Super Nintendo system in Japan. The game was published in the United States by Natsume in 1997. The game revolves around the player tending a farm. You must build and maintain a farm during the course of a year, while taking care of your budget and yourself.

Snapshots and Media

SNES/Super Nintendo/Super Famicom Screenshots

Discuss it on forum

3 comments total – View all
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    Andy said on Forum:

    A fantastic game grow crops bred animals and your self!, I am hooked!. Not one for the instant game fans though a few might fall for it's charms, It get's my 10/10

  • Avatar

    blocked said on Forum:

    I started the game yesterday (Harvest Moon for SNES), and got hooked on it too. I made it to late Summer, with alot alot of money, and a nice organized, clean field. I save almost every night, so when I start the game, I should be at Summer, 20-something-th. When I went to go load the game today, the next day after, the saved file was only at Spring 18, when I had CRAP. What happened? Does it not save?? Is this a glitch?? I feel really discouraged to play again, because I was so far, and I was about to expand my home.