I likes my women hard to get, with strong arms, a pretty face, and good cooking skills! Knowing how to raise livestock is a must. I spend most of my day out there in the fields, plowin’. Yeah. It’s a tough life. Especially with hurricanes and blizzards on the horizon, ready and willing to knock my houses and barns over. Did I mention my crops? They’re amazing. I mean, honestly, if you make a pie with one of my apples, you will likely fall out of your chair in ecstasy. My produce is just that good.

I bet I sound insane, don’t I? Don’t get me wrong, I am. But in this case I’m referring to my overwhelming love of the Harvest Moon series. I can pick up a Harvest Moon game and not move from that same spot for days. There’s just something so addictive about it. At first, I was ashamed of my love of the series. It stemmed from the experience I had when I first bought the n64 version of the game at a Gamestop. I plunked the box down on the counter, excited at the prospect of trying a new game. The guy working the counter looked down at it with some sort of disdain, then back up at me.

“Ew, that game sucks. It’s a girl game.”

At that moment I took a second to look down at myself. Boobs? Check. Uterus? Check. By gum, one would actually think I WAS a girl or something. But still, I hate it when people proclaim games ‘girl’ or ‘chick’ games. (And I’m not talking about the ‘Barbie’s dream hairstyle’ type games) There’s something inherently misogynistic about it, but I’m not going to soapbox about that. (It’s beating a dead horse) It’s the implication of guilt that I should dare to try such a lowly game that really ticked me off and made me feel ashamed at the same time. I want to play the games I want to play, whether they meet someone else’s approval or not. And honestly? Gender shouldn’t factor into it. But thanks, random guy at the Gamestop, for trying to embarrass me in public. That was awesome!

So for a while I was afraid to admit I played Harvest Moon games. But I got over it when I realized that it doesn’t matter what people think of a game, as long as I enjoy it. I’m honestly glad I stuck with it. The series has grown and done such amazing things.

I was addicted to Harvest Moon DS for months, honestly. The game was a challenge compared to the others. Thankfully, there wasn’t a time limit to get married or have kids. But the idea of needing to find a large amount of harvest sprites before you could even get married in the game was really daunting. It took me a good while.

I just love the whole feel of the series. I like pet sims, and Harvest Moon has that with the livestock. You can brush and milk your cows, sheer your sheep, and all without the annoying downsides that come with other pet sims. Yeah, I’m looking at you, my dead tamagotchi from 8th grade.

The farm element is fun too. It’s a fun responsibility, which feels weird to say, but it’s true. You can make your farm successful; or you can put the game down, knowing that doing so will not cause you to fail a class. The controls are always easy to master, so is the game play. It’s easy for beginners to learn, but actually mastering a game takes a lot of time and effort. You can beat it and get the credits to roll, but you can always go back and keep playing.

Rune Factory was given to me for Christmas and oh man. I got several other games as well, but I didn’t touch them for at least a month. It had all the charm of the Harvest Moon farming sim, but added in an RPG and combat element. You don’t have to do either one if you don’t want to. You also have to tame all your livestock rather than buy them. You can learn blacksmithing, cooking, armor crafting, the list goes on.

Rune Factory was the first Harvest Moon to have a solid storyline going on through the game. I won’t spoil it for anyone out there, but beating the dungeons was definitely worth it. The characters were also a lot more interesting. I ended up marrying that crazy, beautiful woman from outside the ruins. Just because I could. I was also tempted by the elf maid, though. She was pretty cute.

Yeah yeah, I’m gushing, sorry. I’m just a really big fan of the series. I rarely end up picking up the, ‘for girls’ versions that come out sometime after the originals. It’s nice that they put them out, but I already have the game. Why play through it again with a different character sprite? Meh.

I would definitely recommend that anyone who may have been on the fence about trying these games just go out and try Rune Factory. You may hate it, or you may become like me and have your soul slowly sucked out every time a new Harvest Moon comes out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 11:40 am and is filed under Nintendo DS, Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.