Ushi No Tane Forum

The series doesn't get advertised much, if at all, so how did you get into it?

I remember I first came across HM while watching G4tv. Judgement Day, iirc, reviewed AWL and my mind was blown. Animals? Farming? Dating? It seemed too good to be true, so a few weeks later I got my parents to buy it. However, I would have likely remained oblivious to the rest of the series if not for a Gamefly commericial. I saw what looked to be a split second of AWL... But with a girl! So, I brought that too. I think I spent 1 or 2 years with just AWL and ANWL, but then I got a computer. I have HM Farm, Ushi, and Ranch Story to thank for getting me into HM as a whole. I spent so much time on those websites ten years ago. I miss ol' Ranch Story back when it had a fanfic section. I was disappointed to see that some of the HMFarm domains are down (like the fanfic section). 'Tis a shams, but that happens to many fansites eventually.

I ended up getting my friend into MM as a kid but I don't think she brought any other games. HM seems like one of those series you only hear about from word of mouth. It doesn't have cool ads like Sonic or Halo or whatever. From what I've seen, most of its ads are either paper or online based.

i borrowed a copy of the first rune factory from one of my younger siblings, got hooked, and bought ds cute cause i wanted more. i didn't like ds cute and ended up taking it back because i found it overwhelming, but a few months later i found a copy of boy & girl in the cheapo bin at game stop and decided to get it. that one i did much better with, and after i finished it i returned to ds cute with a better idea of what the hell i was doing and had a much better time with it (in a hilarious twist, the copy i bought from game crazy at this time was the same one i'd brought to them months earlier)

You know, I don't specifically remember. I think I may have tried Grand Bazaar first, but I didn't like it. But ANB looked much better to me when it came out, and I come from generations of farmers. When I was growing up and customers saw me, they always asked my mother 'what are you feeding them, FERTILIZER?' (everyone tells the same 'joke' and thinks they made it up themselves, lol...my sisters and I heard that one hundreds of times) but the truth is that I really did grow up in a greenhouse, and I have, in fact, drank fertilizer. (It was blue and in a big steel barrel, and I was five years old and wondered if it would taste like Kool Aid. Btw: it does not.)

Anyway, I just love, love, love things that grow out of the earth...things that bloom, and leaf, and etc. Seeing a game about growing things just appealed to me. Though to this day I am still annoyed by having to keep animals, lol...I'm only in it for the plants! (And the story/goals.) Fell head over heels with ANB and have been following the series since. Tried older games but have only been able to enjoy Animal Parade.

EDIT: I also played the first Rune Factory and liked it quite a bit. I can't remember if I did that before any of the rest. If I did, that may have been what made me notice the series first. I really can't remember, though.

EDIT 2: Yep. Checked my amazon order history and the original RF was what I was drawn to first, probably because it had some of the RPG aspects I was used to in a game, and after I played it I wanted more farming. Didn't like GB but loved ANB and that's the order of events for me.

My dad saw HM 64 and traded Panzer Dragoon Saga for the Sega Saturn for it (at the time Saga was going for roughly $225 a pop actually) because he thought I'd like it. Really enjoyed growing crops, taking care of animals, the festivals, and making friends and stuff.

Next played the PS1 game, and when they came to GBA in the form of FoMT and got to play a similar game in handheld that was that.

It still amazes me how out of the loop I was with gaming early on. I had no way of knowing what was out there really, aside from occasionally browsing Nintendo Power magazines I borrowed from the library. So sometimes I would go to the local gamestop or mom and pop store (back when we had those around here lol) and grab what looked interesting. I saw HM Back to Nature on the shelf and it looked so unique compared with the usual things I would find. I can't even remember exactly what interested me about it, other than it was just... different.
And I was fascinated with that game. I played it all the time and the funny thing is despite that I don't remember getting much farther than year one. I kept restarting it for whatever reason.
I eventually decided I wanted to marry Mary, but the disc had a scratch on it that locked up the game whenever I entered the library hahah.
So I sold it back to Gamestop for four bucks. I still feel guilty to this day, thinking about some poor person buying it and finding out it locks up like that.

Anyway from then on, I bought any and every HM game I could find, pretty much. There are still a handful I've never played though.

Thanks for the fun thread! It's cool to read about the different ways and points in the series people were introduced by.
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By chance. My mom told me I could pick out a game in the store. I saw A Wonderful Life's box art and had to play it. Loved the series ever since.

My little sister rented HM64 and I kind of... hogged it all week lol and got addicted.

I had a few friends with HM64 and they let me try it out when I would go over to their houses. My sister was also friends with those kids and bought BTN for us since we had a PS2 and couldn't find a copy of HM64 for ourselves. So while technically I was introduced to the series with HM64, BTN got me hooked on the series and I've been playing since then.

I remember reading Harvest Moon was a recommended game in a forum I frequented. Then, I came across a copy of MFoMT in a game store at the next city (because my hometown didn't have its own lol) and I bought it and I'm very glad I did <3

I saw an ad for Friends of Mineral Town in a Toys R Us flyer. At this point in my life, I just played whatever game was hand-me-downed or just watched my brother play. One day, he decided to get rid of all our game consoles while I was at school. For some reason he thought it'd make him better at our religion to just get rid of everything. I was unsterstandibly pissed, some of the games were mine, and he legit took my stuff to a thrift store without my consent.

To cool my anger, he bought me a GBA along with Sword of Mana. I begrudgingly played it, too young to fully get across my emotions of anger and betrayal, and I'm pretty sure my brother knew that I resented him for not only getting rid of my escape, but the fact that my possessions were also in the mix added more fuel to the fire.

He bought me Friend of Mineral Town at Christmas that year for my gift. I finally had another game to play, and I ate it up.

After that I got a paper route (the only job a child could legally have) and started saving and buying my own games, no longer relying on others to get them for me (parents would never buy me one unless it was in a bargain bin - and that's where a lot of shovelware goes). I remember eagerly awaiting More Friends of Mineral Town and paying for it with my own money. I've bought almost every handheld entry since.

P.S. - I don't hate my brother. He regrets that day a lot, and I tease him about it every once in awhile. It's all good.

I got interested in it after reading an article with tips in Nintendo Power, but the article was for AWL and we didn't have a GameCube, so I was stuck just reading that for a long time. I also remember there being in ad for AnWL and MFoMT in one issue, but I think it was in an issue after I had already started playing HM:DS, which was after we had moved to Austria, and although I had a GBA, I don't believe the games were ever available here.

Either way, I forget why, but I ended up buying HM:DS at Toys 'R' Us and being instantly hooked. It was actually somewhat popular here, there was a commercial for it, and a lot of other people I knew had it, even though they only played it casually (I judged them all for not clearing their entire farm, lol).

My mother was the one who got me hooked. I’m not sure why or how she bought the game but the first HM game I ever played was SNES. I THINK she’s told me once that she read reviews or heard from word of mouth or something; anyway she bought it and played it. Back then I’d play any game that was in front of me and I really liked the game. When the game boy version came out, she bought her own copy which I kept stealing to play so she eventually got my own copy lol. Same with HM2 and 3, she’d buy us both copies of it.

She has known about this website (Fogu) long before I did and when she didn’t get her info from here, she’d get it from gamefaqs. I can’t remember for sure but I think I started frequenting Fogu around the time Friends of Mineral town came out. Played the « Puppy Doodoo » out of that game By the time More Friends of Mineral came out, I nearly lost my mind because I was so excited for it to get into my tiny childish grubby hands.

We’d sometimes argue who got to play the PS2 HM games and wed get upset when we accidentally wrote over each other’s save files ^^’ I’ve picked up the habit to save on the last file since then (even when I’m the sole owner of a game) so it has a less likely chance of being saved over XD

I still own almost every single copy of HM/SoS to this date. I still have my original SNES game somewhere. I refuse to get the puzzle HM games though. Have no interest in them

Don’t own a PSP either so I missed out on those ones but I believe I have the close copy of them on other systems (minus Harvest Moon Boy and Girl). I really would like to someday get my ADULT grubby hands on it lol.

I used to get nintendo power magazines and i remember seeing friends of mineral town in one of those as a kid. It looked amazing to me so i traded in my nintendo console and all my nintendo games just so i could buy it, which in hindsight i wish i didnt get rid of all that stuff now that im older but i completely loved friends of mineral town. i let my little sister try it out too on the second save slot and she also loved it, so both of us to this day have bought every harvest moon/story of seasons game to come out since then. My dad liked to spoil us as kids and i remember how excited i would always get when he would hand me the newest version of the games

Mom bought me HM64 for no particular reason.

You know, the idea that this family-owned electronics store, basically the only one in this backwater « Harvest Goddess »-forsaken town (back then), had exactly one copy of this niche, mostly unknown game (at the time), and that my mother, a woman who doesn't like spending money on useless things (still true), decided to buy it for no real reason... Even after I didn't looked that interested in it.

It was like destiny.

ChaosAzerothCat wrote:My dad saw HM 64 and traded Panzer Dragoon Saga for the Sega Saturn for it (at the time Saga was going for roughly $225 a pop actually) because he thought I'd like it.

Oh man, that seems like a bad thing in hindsight. Panzer Dragoon costs so much now.