sickness and rabbit holes
I've spent the last few weeks feeling very unwell, having had COVID then a chest infection very soon after, and it's given me a lot of time to think.
Strangely enough, what's been on my mind is Harvest Moon, and how many spinoffs it has, so while I'm currently unable to do much critical thinking, let's talk about it.
Harvest Moon is an interesting series, the first real farming sim and the prototype of cosy games everywhere, even Stardew Valley. It began in 1996, originally created by Amccus but quickly passed onto Victor Interactive Software.
But Victor Interactive Software also had another series similar to Harvest Moon, River King/Harvest Fishing.
It wasn't officially a spinoff of Harvest Moon, just a parallel series that actually came first (1990), but given the similarities in the gameplay and general vibes, I'm counting it.
River King actually has its own Japanese-only spinoffs, called "Fishing Legend of the Sea" or Sea King.
As an aside, I absolutely love River King, I am a fiend for fishing games. Do I have a reason for that? Nope, but even so, I love them.
Next, in 2006, a PSP spinoff was released called Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon. As the name suggests, it was the usual Harvest Moon gameplay but with a futuristic setting, where you play as a robot trying to learn to be human.
Yes, a major oversimplification, but I highly recommend playing this one for yourself, it's so worth it.
It was actually developed by ArtePiazza and distributed by Victor/Marvelous, so it doesn't suffer from the repetition creep that Harvest Moon was starting to deal with (looking at you, DS Harvest Moons), and since ArtePiazza are the developers of Dragon Quest, you know you're in for a good time.
Then, again in 2006, we got Rune Factory. It's such a successful spinoff that it became a franchise in its own right and now, most people don't even know its original subtitle was "A Fantasy Harvest Moon".
I have played Rune Factory 1-4, sadly haven't played 5 but if I had to recommend a favourite, I recommend 4. It is originally for the 3DS and I can't recommend the original enough, but it's also available on the Switch if that's more accessible to you.
It's got farming, it's got dungeon crawling, it's got really nice romance options and considering it started on the DS, its art-style has always been absolutely gorgeous to me.
It also has its own spinoffs, Rune Factory Frontier for the Wii, Rune Factory Oceans for the Wii and PS3, and Guardians of Azuma for the Switch, which is the most recent game and looks very cool.
I hope you've realised by now that this is mostly an excuse for me to gush about my Harvest Moon special interest.
Now, the next ones I don't actually have personal experience with, since I haven't really played Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons past the split between Marvelous and Natsume (which is obvious since I call it Harvest Moon still and not Story of Seasons), but from what I've heard and seen, Hometown Story is a super cute spinoff from 2013 for the 3DS.
It's a shop management game, where you inherit a shop from your grandmother and run it, building it up, befriending your customers.
I haven't played it, but I did play the hell out of Tamagotchi Connexions: Corner Shop 3 as a kid, so a shop management Harvest Moon sounds really relaxing to me. It's definitely on my list of games to try at least once.
And finally, the most recent 'spin-off', which isn't really a spin-off. Return to PopoloCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale.
It's a crossover between PopoloCrois and Story of Seasons released for the 3DS in 2015. I haven't played this or any PopoloCrois game before, but I had to research it for completeness.
It started as a fantasy manga in 1977, receiving its first game in 1996. It's owned by Sony, which makes it very surprising that Return to PopoloCrois only appeared on a Nintendo console - Harvest Moon also has a long history with PlayStation releases.
PopoloCrois is a turn-based RPG, which makes it a very interesting choice to crossover with Harvest Moon, but it does seem very cute and we've seen Harvest Moon and RPG elements work with Rune Factory.
So, this is the rabbit hole I've been going down for the last week. I always knew about the first three, my first 'Harvest Moon' games were Innocent Life and Rune Factory 3, but finding out about all of this, finding entire new series and spinoffs to try has been very exciting.
Sometimes when you're feeling rough, you just need to go on a deep dive and find something fun or cute or silly to focus on, especially since I now have new games to play once I'm well enough to play them.
This post was last edited 1 week, 2 days ago.