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The happily ever after
And the work it takes
By Sean Quast
Thats why Harvest Moon is one of my favorite games of all time. Balancing every element of the game makes it that much more rewarding at the end.
Some games require you to spend a lot of time to get a perfect happily ever after. Nothing taught me more about relationships than Harvest Moon and all the various games that have spawned from it.
In the Harvest Moon games your task is to save the small farming town you come from. The strange thing is that somehow every time you are an outsider. You know nothing about the town where you were born, most strange.
But you come back to town knowing nothing about it or any of its current troubles. So you were out to save the town by restoring your familys farm and making it better. Along the way you would always make friends with everyone in town.
Another mission to save the town is you have to find a wife (or in their latest game, a husband).
Pretty quickly the work piles on in the game. Each morning you: get up, feed your pet, chickens, cows and other barnyard animals, water your crops, collect your eggs, milk your cows, go into town, trade your goods, get some feed, pick some flowers, collect some berries, run around town giving gifts to everyone (including the special person you are pursuing) and then come back to the farm to run through all the farm chores again before you make dinner and go to bed.
All that must be done with in a 12-hour period, which is 12 minutes in game time. The game gets so chaotic and stressful that some wonder, Why play it at all?
The reason this game is so fun is that it is great in its simplicity. Just like a good relationship, a very complex situation is well worth all the troubles that come up.
Harvest Moon wouldnt be as fun if it was just a farming life or dating sim. Its the compilation of everything that completes the experience.
It reminds me so much of a relationship. So many times people have complained that their relationship is so much work, but I say thats why youre in it. If a relationship is so easy they wouldnt be fun at all. Like a video game that is too simple to beat doesnt get much play time, a relationship that requires no effort doesnt last long.
Thats why Harvest Moon is one of my favorite games of all time. Balancing every element of the game makes it that much more rewarding at the end.
You get out of the experience what you put in and that is true of so many things in life. Good video games require as much as a good relationship does. After that its all just six cannonball explosions and an ending song. (I need to stop now before Hallmark hires me.)
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