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Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 10:02 am
by LillianDulcia
Is anyone interested in playing/replaying all the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons/Rune Factory games? This is something I've been thinking about doing lately. I started playing the series with AWL/FoMT so I missed all the games that came before that. There's also a lot of games I never "beat." I own about half of the HM/SoS/RF games (excluding the Natsume developed ones which I don't enjoy) and I can play all but 2 or so of them on consoles I own (excluding some remakes).
I started playing HM1 for GB on 3DS virtual console and found it way more enjoyable than I had anticipated. This is what sparked the idea for me. I completed that game (unlocked everything) and am currently working on HM2 for GBC. My plan is to come up with a "beaten" goal and a "completed" goal for every game. To consider it beaten either I will need to obtain some ending or I will need to get married and have a child (if there are children in the game). To consider it completed I will need to meet a lot of other goals (all achievements, all endings excluding bad endings, married, child, etc etc it varies depending on the game). Some games have way too much going on that I probably won't bother "completing" them. I also plan to play as both a male and a female when possible (assuming there is a significant difference, unlike in HM1 and HM2) for completion sake which means playing most games at least twice.
Below is a list of all the games I plan on playing which I copied from my backloggery. I anticipate this taking me a very long time and there's a good chance I'll give up at some point. But for now I am finding them very relaxing to play before bed. Some of the games I already beat in the past (such as FoMT) but it was too long ago and I want to replay them so I count them as unbeaten. I also might change up the list a bit in the future, especially if I start playing a game and find it too annoying or not fun to play.
So do you think this is something you would be interested in doing? Have you actually done something like this in the past? Am I crazy for wanting to try to do this? 
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 2:23 pm
by ChaosAzerothCat
I've been replaying a lot of the old games myself. Sounds fun if you have the time.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 2:27 pm
by Kam
i've been meaning to go through and play through the first year of all the ds/3ds games, but i'm putting it off until i get married to inari in 3ot, since i know if i don't i'll never get around to marrying them
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 2:47 pm
by LillianDulcia
ChaosAzerothCat wrote:I've been replaying a lot of the old games myself. Sounds fun if you have the time.
Which game are you on right now?
Kam wrote:i've been meaning to go through and play through the first year of all the ds/3ds games, but i'm putting it off until i get married to inari in 3ot, since i know if i don't i'll never get around to marrying them
Sounds good! I want to marry Inari too but I'm waiting for the DLC. I married Siluka in my first file.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 3:33 pm
by Kam
Kam wrote:i've been meaning to go through and play through the first year of all the ds/3ds games, but i'm putting it off until i get married to inari in 3ot, since i know if i don't i'll never get around to marrying them
Sounds good! I want to marry Inari too but I'm waiting for the DLC. I married Siluka in my first file.
my goal is to marry inari before the dlc, then take a break while i play other games. i also married siluka in my first file. i love her. she makes me laugh
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 3:57 pm
by ChaosAzerothCat
I'm bouncing around a bit so Tale of Two Towns lol
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 4:00 pm
by Getaris
I just bought an used copy of FoMT so I plan to enjoy it to its fullest and play it along DS Cute and AWL too.
This time I'll try to unlock all the songs!
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 7:24 am
by Ronin19
Kam wrote:Kam wrote:i've been meaning to go through and play through the first year of all the ds/3ds games, but i'm putting it off until i get married to inari in 3ot, since i know if i don't i'll never get around to marrying them
Sounds good! I want to marry Inari too but I'm waiting for the DLC. I married Siluka in my first file.
my goal is to marry inari before the dlc, then take a break while i play other games. i also married siluka in my first file. i love her. she makes me laugh
That's actually what I did and am doing; I'm sitting on Spring 1 Year 3 for Inari's wedding event, so now I'm just waiting for the DLC.
As for the topic at hand, this is what I've currently done as I've been replaying all my Bokujou Monogatari games lately and I plan on going through my Rune Factory games again. I don't plan on getting all the achievements though; just beating the story, getting married and finding out the gender of my kid is enough for me to consider the game completed. I'll modify your chart a bit.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 9:23 am
by LillianDulcia
Ronin19 wrote:
As for the topic at hand, this is what I've currently done as I've been replaying all my Bokujou Monogatari games lately and I plan on going through my Rune Factory games again. I don't plan on getting all the achievements though; just beating the story, getting married and finding out the gender of my kid is enough for me to consider the game completed. I'll modify your chart a bit.
Dang that's some awesome progress! I noticed you added STH to the list. Is there a significant difference between that and Hero of Leaf Valley? I only briefly played STH as a kid when my friend let me borrow it and when I was researching the games to decide which to include, I found out that HoLV is basically an updated version of STH. Since I already own HoLV on Vita I decided to just not include STH in mine. But if there are different endings in STH then I might consider playing that one, too.
Some of the games you've beaten, I'm really looking forward to playing for the first time. I always hear how amazing Animal Parade is but I don't own that game yet. I thought Tree of Tranquility looked really appealing when I was looking up info for that one as well.
One thing I'm going to try to do for completion sake is getting all/most heart events. Or just all events in general. This might be a bit tricky because I want all/most rival marriages as well. Which also means I'm probably going to end up marrying the special bachelors and bachelorettes in most of the games For MFoMT I'm going to try to marry Kappa who always seemed like such a bizarre but hilarious candidate to me. For the DS game, I haven't decided between Leia and Keira yet. I tried marrying Keira as a kid but going to the bottom of the mine every day was such a pain. I could always go for both in 2 different save files.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 9:43 am
by Getaris
Leia is definitely the easiest special candidate in DS, you just need to fish a lot.
One big fish a day will get her to a red hearth in a few months. You just need to make sure you fish the bottled message in spring or else the last event will need to wait another year
You can easily marry her by year 2 if you dedicate yourself to fishing early on.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 10:26 am
by LillianDulcia
That's good to know, thanks for the tips! I don't think I even met her in any of my playthroughs so it'd be interesting to go for her and get to know her personality.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 10:49 am
by Ronin19
LillianDulcia wrote:Dang that's some awesome progress! I noticed you added STH to the list. Is there a significant difference between that and Hero of Leaf Valley? I only briefly played STH as a kid when my friend let me borrow it and when I was researching the games to decide which to include, I found out that HoLV is basically an updated version of STH. Since I already own HoLV on Vita I decided to just not include STH in mine. But if there are different endings in STH then I might consider playing that one, too. And instead of two years to finish the game, you have one year and story events aren't tied to days like in HoLV.
Some of the games you've beaten, I'm really looking forward to playing for the first time. I always hear how amazing Animal Parade is but I don't own that game yet. I thought Tree of Tranquility looked really appealing when I was looking up info for that one as well.
One thing I'm going to try to do for completion sake is getting all/most heart events. Or just all events in general. This might be a bit tricky because I want all/most rival marriages as well. Which also means I'm probably going to end up marrying the special bachelors and bachelorettes in most of the games
For MFoMT I'm going to try to marry Kappa who always seemed like such a bizarre but hilarious candidate to me. For the DS game, I haven't decided between Leia and Keira yet. I tried marrying Keira as a kid but going to the bottom of the mine every day was such a pain. I could always go for both in 2 different save files.
Thanks! HoLV is an enhanced remake of STH, so HoLV has more than STH had like playing after beating the story and marriage. There are nine routes (all of which are in HoLV) and once you beat just the one route, the game is essentially finished and you can start the game up again in a new game+ fashion with your farm and, I assume, money in tact.
Animal Parade is my favorite console game while Hero of Leaf Valley is my favorite handheld game before XSeed started translating the Bokujou Monogatari games. Animal Parade is en enhanced version of Tree of Tranquility, but I love both so much that I recommend getting both if possible as they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I found the characters to be much more interesting in ToT compared to their AP counterparts while the story in AP is better than ToT. The crop system in AP is better while ranching is better in ToT. Fishing and mining in both games are relatively the same. AP gives you a wizard, witch, Harvest Goddess and Harvest King to marry while in ToT Luna, Luke, Selena, Kathy, Owen and Gill have no rivals (Luna x Gill, Selena x Luke and Kathy x Owen marry in AP, so more rival children). Hopefully this helps a bit; both are fantastic games for the Wii.
I do agree that Leia is easier of the two to marry and I do like she has actual heart events compared to Keira. Don't forget to befriend Daryl to 100 FP and then enter the basement; that's how you meet Leia. Daryl likes herbs, so you should be able to go to the basement roughly a week after starting the game. Once he starts talking about cow cloning, he's at 100 FP.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 1:01 pm
by LillianDulcia
Ronin19 wrote:
Thanks! HoLV is an enhanced remake of STH, so HoLV has more than STH had like playing after beating the story and marriage. There are nine routes (all of which are in HoLV) and once you beat just the one route, the game is essentially finished and you can start the game up again in a new game+ fashion with your farm and, I assume, money in tact.
Animal Parade is my favorite console game while Hero of Leaf Valley is my favorite handheld game before XSeed started translating the Bokujou Monogatari games. Animal Parade is en enhanced version of Tree of Tranquility, but I love both so much that I recommend getting both if possible as they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I found the characters to be much more interesting in ToT compared to their AP counterparts while the story in AP is better than ToT. The crop system in AP is better while ranching is better in ToT. Fishing and mining in both games are relatively the same. AP gives you a wizard, witch, Harvest Goddess and Harvest King to marry while in ToT Luna, Luke, Selena, Kathy, Owen and Gill have no rivals (Luna x Gill, Selena x Luke and Kathy x Owen marry in AP, so more rival children). Hopefully this helps a bit; both are fantastic games for the Wii.
I do agree that Leia is easier of the two to marry and I do like she has actual heart events compared to Keira. Don't forget to befriend Daryl to 100 FP and then enter the basement; that's how you meet Leia. Daryl likes herbs, so you should be able to go to the basement roughly a week after starting the game. Once he starts talking about cow cloning, he's at 100 FP.
Thank you for the explanation on STH vs HoLV. I'll just stick with HoLV then
Also AP vs ToT! Would you recommend playing ToT first since AP is an advanced version of it? I was thinking of picking one of them up after I move (my Wii is packed away for now) and I wasn't sure which to start with. I was thinking of marrying the Witch and Wizard in AP since they seem pretty cool to me. Definitely Luna in ToT but I'm not sure which of the guys yet. I'll have to see them in game I think.
Also thank you for the Daryl and Leia tips :D I'm pretty sure I completely ignored Daryl when I played it before. I'm probably going to marry Gray in the girl version of the game because he's one of my favorite bachelors, although Skye is tempting too since here's the "special bachelor" for that game. I'll probably play DS or DS Cute when I'm done with HM2/HM3 because I've really been in the mood to play those ones recently. Or AP/ToT if I happen to buy one of those by then.
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 1:46 pm
by Kam
^pro tip: daryl likes your cat, so if you catch him in his house and show it to him a bunch of times in a row, you can unlock his basement on the first day
Re: Playing/Replaying ALL Harvest Moon Games
Posted: Sep 15, 2017 2:01 pm
by Ronin19
LillianDulcia wrote:Thank you for the explanation on STH vs HoLV. I'll just stick with HoLV then
Also AP vs ToT! Would you recommend playing ToT first since AP is an advanced version of it? I was thinking of picking one of them up after I move (my Wii is packed away for now) and I wasn't sure which to start with. I was thinking of marrying the Witch and Wizard in AP since they seem pretty cool to me. Definitely Luna in ToT but I'm not sure which of the guys yet. I'll have to see them in game I think..
I've done both. I played ToT first, sold it, got AP and played it. Played AP some more and got ToT again. The game has similar mechanics, crops and animals, so you can fluidly switch between the titles no problem.
For me, I had a problem choosing any of the guys in ToT as in they all interested me, but not enough for me to marry any of them. I ended up marrying Renee because I love her very much; her request event is sweet.
In AP, I married Wizard; he's my favorite bachelor out of all the Natsume translated Bokujou Monogatari games. If I had to choose a girl to marry in AP, it would be Candace, and it's not because I married Renee in ToT. Candace is still shy in AP, but not as much and is more adorable when compared to her ToT counterpart in my opinion while Renee falls flat in AP. This is just me though as I'm sure you and others have different opinions regarding these characters.
Edit: After some thought, I'm going to start RF4 over; I've been itching to play it again as I love it so much! I'm going to play it last though; going in order for the Rune Factory series seems perfect. I'm even going to woo all the people in 1, 2, Frontier and Tides of Destiny. (I already did so in 3 and 4, so they're ready to go with Raven and Dylas respectively)