#harvest moon ds cute lets play

[rinqueen6]

I SPENT OVER A YEAR FULFILLING MY CHILDHOOD DREAM IN HM DS CUTE

go watch this video (because it took many hours and over a year to put together) or the mayor will steal your ball 🤨

[sobeesknees]

Story of Seasons Needs to go Back to its Roots with its Art Style: A War Against 3D

My first Harvest Moon game was Harvest Moon DS Cute, and ever since I’ve been smitten. I adored the gameplay. Farming, mining, taking care of animals, cooking, getting cute ass romance scenes and getting married?? Love it. Can’t get enough of it.

However, ever since the series started embracing/incorporating 3D into their art direction and art style, the games just haven’t been appealing for me to pick up. To put it bluntly, they can’t create a 3D art style that isn’t ugly. Every single fucking time they release a game, they shoot for the heavens with 3D and it’s just not done well. So to me, all the new games that insist on this art direction are just

u g l y.

Usually, the concept art looks fantastic. The character drawings and the box art are charming and stylized beautifully, as seen below:

from SoS: Friends of Mineral Town

But the game itself? The world/environment you’re supposed to stare at? They’re consistently literally ugly to me now. Take SoS: Friends of Mineral Town, I can understand the previous games that were like released in the 2010s as being janky ugly 3D models but this FoMT was released in 2019, and it still has the same issues with the art style that I just can’t get behind.

The characters’s 3d models. Making them look like chibis was a choice alright. The character drawings are cute but they just don’t translate well into the 3d models they chose for them. They look like toys.

The proportions are ridiculous. I don’t think its appealing, I don’t think its a good look design wise. The animals look like sentient plushies. The crops are as big as your character model.

It’s 3D but everything is just so FLAT. If you look at the grass its like one solid color, if you look at your dirt plot its one color. There’s not enough detail so it ends up looking flat and bland. If you see a vast of green land that’s all you’re getting. Might as well been a green carpet. What minuscule detailing they do have it’s just not enough to break and beautify the monotony of the landscape. 

Now compare that with their old style: Pixel art/Sprites. Admittedly, after Harvest Moon DS Cute, the only other game from the series I found appealing enough to play was Tale of Two Towns.

I much prefer the art direction they went with in those games. It was so incredibly detailed. The trees look dense. You can see the detail in the grass, you can see an abundance of weeds, flowers, whatever. The houses were pretty and the colors were charming. ToTT’s art style was an amazing elevation of pixel art. It was even more detailed and even more charming. Say what you will about these games, but the art style was definitely not bland and flat. 

Comparisons

Harvest Moon DS/Cute: look at the grass, look at the pathways, look at the dense trees, look at that house and the brick!

SoS Tale of Two Towns: Look at the water!!! Look at the grass, look at the random plants, the flowers dotted everywhere, the patchiness and the irregular pathways, look at how even denser the trees look

Sos Friends of Mineral Town: You cannot tell me this is prettier than the others. Grass looks like it was spray painted on. The water is ‘okay'.

I just wish, with my entire being, that the developers of story of seasons would just give up on the 3D. They can’t do it well. They’re not charming, they’re not pleasing to look at, and you kinda want games to be nice to look at considering you’re gonna be staring at that thing for hours to play the game??

And before you fucking try to come at me about FoMT not being their most recent release:

This is SoS: Pioneers of Olive Town (release: 2021)

yeah fuck that

I don’t think I’m old school for preferring the art styles and art direction of the older games, I just think they’re objectively prettier and the 3D whatever the developers are consistently clinging to is just plain ugly. 

Please. Let. Go.

This message doesn’t just go out to the creators of story of seasons. Every time I see a ‘cozy’ game with an interesting concept and gameplay but with that same shitty 3d bland-ass flat-ass art style I get so disappointed. And there are so many of them.

I think I can bet money on if Stardew Valley didn’t go the pixel art route it wouldn’t be as acclaimed as it is. Stardew Valley’s art style is charming and is actually appealing. I think it’s a big factor as to why so many people love it.

This is literally just a rant/tantrum because I see so many interesting games but with shit art styles and it’s such a turn off. Like. Please. Expand your horizons. 3d models can’t be the end all be all.

[burningfestivalpersona]

Grand Bazaar is a bit of a weird game. It's great, because I like it when things are weird every once in a while. One of my favorite games is one where the best solution for certain fetch quests is cheating, and in one place that still takes longer than two-thirds of that game's introductory quests. (One hundred Bird Feathers...)

In that sense, Grand Bazaar is a satisfactorily weird game, but in a way that doesn't... you know... delete every NPC because you saved with too many of them on screen. Or in the wrong place. Or during the wrong phase of the moon. Which is good, because you can't use your second save slot as a backup.

Some bits of interesting weirdness that you may notice during the game's first week:

The controls. No DS Harvest Moon game has exactly the same control setup, excepting DS and DS Cute because they're basically the same game with different romance options. Island of Happiness had the worst, this one has the weirdest.

The B button is used to pick stuff up, talk to people, and use tools. This is a perfectly legitimate use for the B button! I play Rune Factory, I own a Playstation Vita, this is something people are entirely capable of getting used to. If it were just that. But besides being used to jump, the A button is also used to navigate menus and make selections. For some reason. You will close so many menus completely on accident because the people designing the controls couldn't be bothered to go all the way with them.

Saving. This game created a lot of the foundation for how Tale of Two Towns' gameplay worked, including only being able to save when you go to bed for the night. It works in Stardew because that's a game that can turn multiplayer at any time, and having a set save point is a good way of handling that. I'm... not sure it worked as well for Grand Bazaar.

The freshness system. Remember the vagueness of freshness in ToTT? That comes from here, too. Honestly, I think it's a strange choice to have any sort of freshness system in a game that encourages you to do all your selling once a week rather than daily, but at least I don't have to watch a bunch of dots on the top screen slowly shrink away.

Selling and buying in general. This game is less about your farm, and more about the titular bazaar, which happens once a week. You're encouraged to do all your selling there, as you have no shipping bin. You're also encouraged to do all your buying there, as the local shops... don't really have much of a selection. It's actually a fun system, it's just really obviously emphasized if you look at how the game is structured for like five seconds.

Time passes in menus, but not when talking to people. Usually, when it comes to games, it's the other way around.

This is, again, the weirdness discovered in the first week. It gets weirder in more interesting ways that are less likely to be a dealbreaker for anyone who's gotten that far, but you have to make it past that first week.

Let me be the first to say that there isn't much to do in the first week, so if you get past that, you'll probably make it through the rest of the game. In both strangeness and playability, there's nowhere to go but up.

[mossfeathers]

Thanks again for responding and sharing. I'm glad these asks make you happy ^^

(You don't have to look further into Harvest Moon but If you do look for a lets play of sorts or something Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute & Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town (Gameboy) are the ones that from my knowledge look the most visually similar to Stardew Valley. But Harvest Moon Animal Parade takes place in a coastal/island-like town.)

The dynamics seem like they'll be really fun! It was also nice to hear the reasoning behind it all. You've put a lot of thought into how they interact. I'm excited for future scenarios ^^ I really enjoyed reading all of it. Also thanks for talking about them as siblings. You don't have to apologize for not answering tho, you can always not answer, I'll understand.

Addionally, I think it's really cool how the lionfish worked out ^^

Okay so for BigB's tail, I wanted to give proper ideas, I only came up with three sorta suggestions so I’ll also share my thought process a bit so that maybe that instead will help you further decide what you do or don’t want. So my first thought was a shark. I’m not entirely sure that’s, like, equivalent to Scar being a lionfish but I think that the reason I considered the idea is that sharks can be dangerous but, like, also they’re not as dangerous to humans as they're portrayed? Ya know what I mean, like I think it’s gotten better but like they were more feared than need be. Like I’m struggling with the words but do you get what I’m saying and the correlation? Idk. If not that's okay. I wasn’t really sure about sharks anyway. Next,

I searched for fish that burrowed. And I did this because I was thinking about why canary!BigB and rabbit!BigB exist and if I recall correctly him being in the mines/underground alot were overlapping points. (I woulda considered satyr!BigB but I know nothing about that. And thinking about it now dogs like to dig too and sometimes he’s got dog ears because double life so I think this is an okay hole I went down). I’m too indecisive and picky  and wasn't sure what kind of fish you'd like though so I only have three fish to present to you as options so hopefully if none of these strike a chord with you. This whole thing helps somehow:

1, The Bonnethead Shark. Yea I found a shark that burrows. So even though I wasn’t entirely sure about sharks and I gave up on finding small sharks, I thought I’d share this one. Besides sharks are cool even if many fear them & Jimmy & Grian come to think BigB's cool right? So maybe that lines up?

(Also did you know that sharks used to be called "sea dogs" and that there is a Dogfish Shark, I didn't do much research so I can't give it as a suggestion but I just looked it up while typing this so I thought I'd mention it.)

2, The Yellow Headed Jawfish, this fish was honestly just too pretty for me not to recommend. It’s got a bit of blue in its fins (and that’s really all I can give you on blue fish). Plus on a site that sells fish they were described as “playful and like to people watch” so I thought it might be fitting. Note though, if you look up this fish, you might come across images of it carrying lots of eggs in its mouth. That’s something they do, carry their eggs in their mouth. I did see a term for it but I forgot what it was. But if that’s gonna be too disturbing you might wanna be cautious(wasn't the first few images when I looked it up) or maybe not look it up just in case. But it is really pretty in my opinion if you do.

And lastly there's the Southern Stargazer. I guess it is considered an ugly fish so heads up on that? Personally, I do think looking at a close up of it's face while it's buried can be a bit spooky but also I think otherwise it's a bit fun to look at & its tail is neat. And it turns out they're also venomous, not enough to kill, but it's still painful, can cause swelling and induce shock. ("also" because Scar's a lionfish)

Speaking of, this fish is the closest one I found in terms of size to Lionfish not sure that matters to you but yea

I did attempt looking for, like, actually blue fish but like the Cichlid is a freshwater fish and Idk if it's a funny or cruel irony to suggest a damselfish when they are actually seen as food to lionfish if in a tank together. Especially when I don't know if it's true for all damselfish or just the yellow tailed ones. (Plus they don't do great in solitude which kept being a thing for blue fish but I think I mainly found, like, river fish.) But I guess this difficulty is probably part of the reason you said it didn't have to be a blue fish lol

Thanks for sharing what you do have so far for the side characters :3 Question: For the pub, does it include the arcade area and/or would the stage be in that general area?

Also it seems like a cool idea to include more creatures. Besides the spirits are there any you're thinking of but haven't decided who it could be? Or alternatively, any others you think you'd want to be something supernatural but haven't decided what yet?

And if it's not too much to ask, do you think that on an events timeline the potential Pearl arc would be closer to the beginning or further down the line.

And yea it's totally fine for you to leave it in the ask box, I'm glad you find it's something you'd want to look back at at all ^^ Thank you for your time and thanks again for sharing your thoughts/ideas.

anon i love you so much. genuinely you are the BEST. im so sorry for letting this rot in the inbox for so long, i both forgot about it and just didn't even know how to respond since this is so good (and also wanted to get some more polished drawings of all 3 possible fish, but my motivation just wasn't having it so just a couple doodles im sorry). genuinely so sorry about how long this took, time just got away from me.

I absolutely LOVE your idea for bigb as a shark, when I first read that I think I genuinely yelled out in excitement. You're a GENIUS. That's such a good idea, I really enjoy it and you got your point across well! I love canary/rabbit!bigb (my design for him is a bunny so this is RIGHT up my alley) and I love the idea of a burrowing fish and bonnethead shark is absolutely GENIUS. He was really fun to draw too!! Thank you SO much for the suggestion! I think I want a scaled fish design, though, but I still appreciate this one so much since it was SUCH an interesting idea. Sharks are sea puppies, dogs dig, rabbits also dig, so burrowing. Very logical line of thought from me.

Oh this guy is GORGEOUS!!!!! So pretty and so lovely. I think fish and the ocean is so cool so I thought the egg carrying is actually so fascinating so don't worry, both of the little warnings you gave about weird fish weren't necessary fish are awesome and cool forever. I don't know what to say, just a very pretty fish and fun to draw!!

The stargazer is SO HANDSOME!!! I can't believe its considered ugly :( I love that little connection to Scar's lionfish-ness, this is such a cool fish (the fins are gorgeous)

Thank you SO much for the fish suggestions! I really liked the yellow headed jawfish, the colors were just so gorgeous, so I think i'm gonna go with that one! Genuinely can't thank you enough for this, I was losing my mind over that.

Answering questions time! Here's a little doodle of what the saloon looks like! (names still pending but probably something moon or dogwarts related) Theres a kitchen and backstage area somewhere but that doesnt matter right now :)

Man, I had one draft of this response where I had everything written out for other creatures but my computer restarted and didn't save it but I will try my best to write it out again!

I like the idea of fae or some kind of land-based creature, but I feel like fae are a really complex species and just in general such a large world to also incorporate if I do go for any land-based creatures, so I don't think I will sadly. Trying to think about this in terms of how I would tell the story in an actual piece of writing instead of these posts of loads of exposition, yknow? So, final verdict, no cool land creatures (except maybe werewolf because i am a sucker for some rendog werewolf fun) . I love avian stuff though so a very high likelihood of birds coming into play in at least some form? Birds are just so cool to me. Also, there are probably gonna be a decent variety in sea creature species! Like there are sirens, standard merfolk, and selkies so far but if I can think of another type of sea creature then i'll probably add them in. On the topic of sea creatures, an updated list on all the merfolk! (also if you want to see some other hermit mermaids, or mermits, check out jalo-parker's art from the past few weeks! we thought up some fish designs just for his own use and they're really cute, and if some of the humans were mermaids they would 100% be those) Scar lionfish, Bigb yellowheaded jawfish, Bub whale shark, Cleo sea nettle jellyfish, Etho AND Bdubs selkies, Joe Hills leaf sheep nudibranch, and even though Martyn is a human if he was a mermaid he would be a mimic octopus! These aren't all of the merfolk, they're just the ones i've decided on and assigned a fish (or selkie) to :)

Also don't worry! I actually already have a barebones timeline for what I think is going to happen with the plot points I know so far! Jimmy and Grian move, hang out for like 4 days, then the whole siren plotline starts and ends, since everyone is now happy they have a good few months of just bonding with the merfolk and the townsfolk which I can't wait to think about more, then Pearl's whole arc starts! I think that's the natural progression of the plot as the stakes in Pearl's arc is the actual apocalypse bringing the end of the universe which is just a little bit more intense. I don't know a whole lot of the details about that quite yet though.

Thank you so much for the ask again! I genuinely can't apologize enough for how long this took to answer, and I hope it doesn't discourage you from sending another one in. I absolutely love seeing your opinions and ideas :) Thanks for listening to my rambling about my ideas again :D

[agirlinsearchof]

I just realized another thing regarding the Forget-Me-Not Valley/Mineral Town connection.

If they’re so close they know about each other, to the point that Van and Ruby can easily visit Mineral Town (by connecting AWL to FOMT), then no wonder Harvest Moon DS features characters from both places living in Forget-Me-Not! Obviously, over the century between AWL and DS, Mineral Town folks moved in and had descendants!

Sadly, only DS Cute goes as far as to give you a choice between the AnWL or MFOMT protagonists. DS only lets you play as Pete, not Mark. (At least, not unless there’s a mod. Seems like it should be a simple sprite-swap, though I don’t know if Mark has any sprites to pull from or if the modder would have to make the sprites themselves.)

[jill-but-with-devil-horns]

hey, i decided to make a little update to the harvest moon ds/ds cute sprite swap mods that also change the script!

the original ds mod used the 1.0 rom as a base, while i decided to use a 1.1 rom as the base, so the harvest goddess and witch princess would be marriageable! if you have previously used the sprite swap mod, and you want to keep your previous save, i don't think a 1.0 is compatible with the 1.1 rom. it may depend on what you play it on (i found that playing it on an r4 card loaded the save apparently fine, but an emulator like desmume would crash if a 1.0 save was loaded on a 1.1 rom). because i want everyone to be able to play this, i also included patches that will just add the script to the original mod, without changing it to a 1.1 rom. this means the harvest goddess and witch princess won't be marriageable, though. if you want to try using your old save on the 1.1 rom, go ahead and try, but please, PLEASE backup your save file first!

as for the hmds cute file, I have plans to eventually, and i DO mean eventually, replace jill with hand drawn sprites of mark from ioh/si. this is WAY off in the future though, so this is not implemented. however, the opening quiz script is edited to reflect this eventual change. id recommend you play as pete now, because if i can put mark in the games, it will take a very very long time. to make sure you play as pete, pick the first answer to every question. that being said, if you have played this mod before, your previous save is almost definitely compatible with this version! I'd back it up anyway just in case, but i can't think of a reason why the save wouldn't be compatible, as there was only ever one version of cute.

so here are links to the files! please let me know if you can't access them for whatever reason

hmds for claire and jill:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hymYim3ydHzXdft05yETntnrU-eXTSEB

hmds cute for pete:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1b8r2nXtTDL_uXeNhak2ptDnlZTa7wPSa

[izukuwus]

assuming they'll keep remaking the older harvest moon games, which would you want to see next? also which of the games on steam would you recommend to a newbie, including rune factory?

Ohhh man. Logically, their next remake will almost definitely be Magical Melody, as the next release and least intensive remake, and I think it'd actually be the best suited to the kind of remake treatment they've been giving the older games! The more recent, cutesy, doll-like style would take only a little adapting for a Magical Melody remake while also being the shortest departure from the original.

BUT the one I want to see? Honestly, I'd like to see remakes of any of the DS games. DS and DS Cute hold super fond memories for me (in general Forget-Me-Not Valley, which the DS games are also set in as in the Wonderful Life line, was my second home as a child), and Island of Happiness was a personal favorite. BUT more keyly, I want to see how they contend with remaking the DS games, all of which made notable use of the DS touchscreen. For that reason I also think they'll probably skip those games for a while, but I Would Like To See It.

For someone new to farm sims, I cannot stress enough:

1. Don't touch any games on steam called "harvest moon" for the time being. All of these are post-schism (more on that in another post) which long story short means they're not what any longtime fan of the genre is talking about when they say Harvest Moon. Some are still decent games, but if you only ever play one game in the genre, it shouldn't be any of those. (ESPECIALLY NOT HARVEST MOON: ONE WORLD OH MY GOD I NEED A SEPARATE POST IF I WANT TO GO INTO HARVEST MOON: ONE WORLD I HAVE A LOT OF VERY STRONG OPINIONS ON HARVEST MOON: ONE WORLD BUT UNTIL YOU KNOW WHETHER YOU LIKE THE GENRE DO NOT PLAY IT.)

2. That being said, I'm approaching the question of which to start with that way: if for some reason you only ever end up playing one game in the genre, which do I think it should be? And THAT is a super super easy question.

If you can bear the wait until September, start with Rune Factory 3: Special.

Generally speaking, I think everyone should play rune factory at least once. The rune factory games were a spinoff to the original Harvest Moon line, adding more RPG elements but most importantly creating this love letter to farm sims in a more fantasy-inspired setting than you'll see in mainline Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon. There is so much care not only in the mechanics, but in creating interesting, lively characters who you actually feel like you're having an impact on in tangible ways. I have been playing and loving and being consumed by farm sims as a genre since I could read, and I've always believed that at their core, they are never about the farm: they're about community, and Rune Factory does that gorgeously.

Why Rune Factory 3: Special over Rune Factory 4: Special or Rune Factory 5, even though RF3S isn't actually out yet?

Simple.

Rune Factory 4 is everyone's favorite. When people say they've played Rune Factory, they almost always mean 4, especially if they only mean ONE game. RF3 is routinely overlooked, even by longstanding fans of the series: not because it's less good (I would argue that the story of RF3 is very close to the core of the genre and generally better than rf4, although both are very good) but because RF4 was the first rune factory game to let you pick between genders for your protagonist. (Tides of Destiny complicates this sentence kind of, which is keyly why I didn't say "the first rune factory where you can play as a girl".)

The big reason is that I think everyone should play Rune Factory 3, and Rune Factory in general is best enjoyed moving forwards, chronologically speaking, as each game is slightly more refined on mechanics and if you move back you're liable to get slightly frustrated with loss of QOL.

If you're wanting to play a farm sim for the first time right now, though, go with RF4. It is the darling of the Rune Factory series, and Rune Factory is the star of the genre. Rune Factory 5 is a good game, but Rune Factory 4 is a great game. You have the option of masc or femme protagonists, a story that (while I prefer rf3's story for many reasons) is absolutely beautiful, and refined mechanics which will absolutely fucking butter your biscuit. Rune factory 5 IS worth playing eventually, but it's not the ideal starting point.

If you're looking for a more laid-back, less combat-oriented farming experience, however, don't go to Rune Factory just yet, as much as that hurts to say. In that case, start with A Wonderful Life. If you must save money, Friends of Mineral Town is a great choice, too, although I think it doesn't work as well as an entry point to the genre. It's a very good core game, but both FOMT and AWL are basic in specific, different ways, and I think AWL is basic in a specific way that better lends itself to new players.

[tsukikoayanosuke]

Tsuki vs Harvest Moon 64: Let's get the legendary Party Picture!

So, two weeks ago (around Ramadan break), after watching someone attempting to getting married the secret bachelor in Harvest Moon DS Cute and succeeded, fulfilling their childhood dream, I decided to pick up Harvest Moon 64 once again.

So, back story, I have a soft spot for Harvest Moon 64. It was in the Project 64 emulator my dad got me when I still had my rusty computer. I remember waking up at 6 on a Sunday morning just to play one more Mario Party game before church because after that it is back to studying (I could only play at weekend night).

Harvest Moon 64 was an interesting game because the first time I played it, I reached year 6th maybe and still don't have any progress (I think I got sick during evaluation day and that's why it got extended, I don't remember) ! My farm is still dirty and I didn't even know where the beach is!

As I grew, I made some attempts and actually got married to Popuri (in year 1! it was love at first sight) and had a kid! But I was still missing some things because my goal is to make a decent progress. I was pretty happy, especially compared to the horrendous first attempt (I as in elementary school okay?! I don't have (and still don't) the right thinking skill).

So, now, I decided to try again. This time I will try to get the Party Picture!

But because I'm not confident in my skill, I used some guides and cheats XD The only cheat in the emulator I'm using is Max stamina, infinite watering can, infinite fodder, and infinite chicken feed. No max money or lumber or relationship with the girls.

So, I decided to make like some sort of record of how far I've come. This will either be my life history in the making or another embarrassment in an attempt in getting the Party Picture.

According to the guide, I will need:

Eat 6 (of the 10) red power nuts. The blue power nut does not count toward this total!

Must have 250 happiness.

Your dog’s affection must be 200 or higher.

Must be married and have a child.

Wife’s affection is 250 or higher.

Combined affection between all villagers is 2,494 or higher.

One non-starved adult chicken.

Have all 6 home extensions.

Have 80% of farmland be grass in any stage (384 squares of outdoor farmland).

Well, let's make another attempt. Hope for the best!

[screechingestella]

🌸 If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog. 🌸

Hello yes sorry this took 12 years, I had it sitting in my drafts and lost track of time. Thank you for sending this in, though! I don't usually get tagged in stuff so when I got this, it made my day a little bit brighter <3 Have some facts!

I’m a Barbie girl. I was OBSESSED with Barbie growing up. I had a big plastic bin full of them. I played with them so much that limbs permanently broke. My favorite doll lost a leg and arm, then one of my sister’s friends ripped off her head. Did that stop me? Hell no. I just held everything in place when I played with them. I treated my dolls like action figures - they were superheros, magical girls, and very very gay. Needless to say I ADORED the Barbie movie and almost cried at That Scene near the end. I need to rewatch it at some point. 

I’m a serial crafter and can never finish projects. I tried to teach myself to cross-stitch and that didn’t end well. I have a ton of resin stuff, but wound up putting the hobby down because of the amount of cleanup (and it kept clogging my sink). I was ready to devote my life to diamond paintings, but I’ve got one reasonably sized piece I haven’t finished and I’ve had it for at *least* a year. I almost went ham on felting. Now I want to get into knitting, because that will go so well??? I’m talking myself out of it 

I’m that basic bitch that plays a lot of farming games. I grew up playing Harvest Moon titles. My first was Friends of Mineral town, and then More Friends of Mineral town. But I really put Big Time hours into Harvest Moon DS / DS Cute. So naturally, in the new age that is Steam Games, I’ve no-lifed many indie sims. I’ve got 325 hours in Stardew Valley - modding and multiplayer def contributed to this. I’ve really enjoyed Roots of Pacha so far, but put it down because My Time at Sandrock came out. I put in 138 hours into My time at Portia so I’m expecting this to be another time sink. 

I call the Korok’s wearing backpacks in Tears of the Kingdom Leaf Nuggets

[gaygamesstarringmary]

the two genders: cute and cool

There were two editions of Harvest Moon DS: Cute and Cool. In both games, you were able to grow crops, raise animals, and bond with villagers. However, the gender of your character was determined by which edition you bought. In Cute, you were forced to be a girl. In Cool, you were forced to be a boy.

I played Cool first. This was back in the day of video rental stores, many of which included a small section for video games. My parents took me occasionally and allowed me to pick out a game to play for a night or two. I had a Nintendo DS and, although I can’t remember if I had the Wii yet, I regularly got games for both.

Cool was the only edition of Harvest Moon: DS available at the rental shop. So that’s what I got.

I fell in love with this game, although it was incredibly mediocre in hindsight. For one, that game doesn’t allow same-sex relationships. A lot of spiritual successors, such as the Rune Factory series still don’t allow you to date girls as a girl. And of course, I always date girls in the Harvest Moon-esque game (except in Stardew Valley, where my savior complex fought my love for women and won). I dated the rich girl in Cool. She was easy to impress. Her favorite gifts were common in the mines: jewelry and gems.

Although I grew attached to the game, my parents made me return it. But a few weeks later, as I was still bugging them about it, they brought me to Gamestop for the purpose of buying Harvest Moon: DS. I hopped and skipped the way there and waltzed to the Nintendo DS section of Gamestop. 

But Cool was not there. In its place, a single copy of Cute. But goddammit I didn’t want to play as a girl. My mom called over an employee, who broke the horrible news to me that they didn’t have Cool. He was a white teenage boy and looked at me like white teenage boys looked at gay and gender-non-conforming folk. 

My parents wouldn’t let me return to Gamestop later when they did get Cool. Either I was a girl or I couldn’t buy the game at all. 

I enjoyed playing as a girl, even if all the male romantic interests sucked complete ass. It was fun dressing up. But, fuck man, I wanted to be a boy and date the rich girl.

While I was playing the game, a wave of melancholy overcame me and I was compelled to visit the rich girl. But she called me a frumpy country girl and I, very offended for my character, never visited her again.

[alissaming]

Story of Seasons: Trio Of Towns Review

So if it's not obvious by now, I should probably just say it, but aside from maybe Harvest Moon Lost Valley, which needs a redo as far as I'm concerned, there are no bad Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons games. Are some better than others? Absolutely, but they're all playable, fun, and engaging if you're into this style of game.

This time, the game follows your character as you convince your father to let you become a farmer. You used to go to a nearby farm a lot. He refuses, saying it's harder that you think it is, but eventually gives in, and sends you to your uncle, who will teach you how your farm works. As you play, you'll eventually open the other two of the three towns, each of which have 2-3 marriage candidates. They all have their own crops and flowers you can purchase seeds for your farm (before you get the seed maker) and you usually have enough space for a coop and barn in each area (there are 4, but I usually only get 3 open) and still have space for farming and other things that you'll need. Oh, and up to 4 pet houses. I try to have 2 herding pets and the other two be gatherers of some kind, in each area.

Other awesome benefits are that you will eventually get access to all the different hairstyles, all the different outfits. So if you want to play as a guy who marries a guy...well, you can't. They hadn't implimented the system to marry the same gender as you are playing yet. But with the ability to choose from various different outfits and hairstyles, you can make your female character look more masculine to try to get the feeling of playing as a guy marrying a guy. Same for the girl characters. Playing as a guy, you aren't restricted to the gender specific stuff.

Another thing I like about this game is it furthers the lore of both Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon. Why? Well, have you ever wondered why there's a Harvest Goddess and Witch Princess in almost every game? I mean, don't get me wrong, they aren't literally in every game. But why is there a Witch Princess in Island of Happiness/Sunshine Islands, and why does she look so different from the Witch Princess in Animal Parade, or even DS/DS Cute? The same goes for Harvest Goddess. Why does she ususally look different in the various different games. Sometimes she has wings, other times she doesn't. Sometimes her eyes are purple, sometimes blue. Sometimes her hairstyle is different. I assumed they were all just the same character. After all, across the board, Witch Princess has always hated frogs, and that's pretty consistent no matter how she looks at the time. How about Skytree Village or Beacon of Hope, in which there are two Wizards? Well, this is actually explained. Well, the Wizard thing is explained by the original Wizard, when he mentions he had a mentor and that his study of magic extended his life. So it's something that can be taught, at least to a point. As for Witch and Harvest Goddess? Well, Dessie being a Harvest Goddess in training tells us there are more than one, and this is further confirmed in this game. When Inari awakens, it's explained that the fox god family, Harvest Goddess family and Witch family decided to just let Inari sleep to teach him a lesson. So we have confirmation there's more than one Harvest Goddess, Witch/Witch Princess, and even fox god. Each land has their own, which each has their own rules and relationships. Just so cool.

Sorry about the tangent, I just thought it was cool. Anyway, moving on. You can participate in competitions. And complete quests from your dad, including winning certain competitions at certain levels. This is when you meet the mysterious Mr. D who is...not your dad, I guess. Beat him, and you beat a requirement of your dad. Anytime you complete all the requests send by dad in certain quests, you'll open other areas of your farm. You can upgrade your tools and house. You'll need the wool you can get from your alpacas, sheep, etc, as well as grown fiber and cotton to get the clothes you can change into. You cannot just change your hair whenever, you have to wait for the stylist in Tsuyukusa to open up. Oh, and you will get town specific quests as you level them up to make them better. Things like fixing or finishing items by providing money or items, or people asking for ingredients to make new dishes, that kind of thing. Upgrading the towns gives you new recipies, outfits, and I believe new seeds as well.

This game is fun, and there is a lot to explore. I give it a solid 4/5.

[sobeesknees]

bro old school harvest moon games (cant speak for the new ones) were so goddamn hard for dumb kid me

specifically talking about harvest moon ds (cute)

it was one of my first games ever, so i didnt even know that wikis existed for that thing and i never even thought about googling it bec ive never had to do that before??

i was consistently broke, there was never enough stone or wood, i didnt know jack shit about anything

i reached probably year 3 or 4 with less than a hundred sprites, still less than 30k to my name and man it was such an experience bec my first ever heart event was from Sky and it left me gobsmacked. I didnt know that was a thing?? Kid me kept returning to that fountain at night trying to trigger another cut scene bec i had absolutely no idea

I WAS SO DUMB BUT THAT GAME SO WAS HARD

It was a min-maxer's wet dream, seeds that could go up to level 99???? tools that went to level 99???? motherfucking milk that went up to level 99?? OH YOU WANT LARGE MILK?? literally spend your days destroying your DS screen with the milking mini game. You want to win the animal festival?? EASY just destroy your screen with the petting mini game daily and dont let your cows die without making offspring or youll have to buy one and start with zero hearts again 🫶

and it was like so emotionally devastating. i think my save file was cursed. i remember my animals dying because of a horrible storm that destroyed my STONE barn (that i specifically saved up for because it was less likely to get destroyed) and it got me so fucked up i stopped playing for months since stone was so hard to come by and i used everything i had for that fairly new barn.

my sister and i were so traumatized from all the destroyed buildings and wasted money and resources we started storing chickens in the stable. we wouldve pushed all 4 cows in there if we could.

and i was so dumb, in an earlier save i managed to not stockpile hay or was way too fucking broke to buy some hay so my chickens actually died from starvation.

anyway yeah im a filthy rich motherfucker in year 2 in stardew valley now and id like to thank all my dead cows and chickens from harvest moon, your sacrifice made me who i am today

also i dont remember which harvest moon game this was but i remember finding out that if you dont get married to your chosen npc of choice some bitch will steal your man so yeah

[livewiregoth]

Weird phone idea

I found a game on Steam called “Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim“, from what I get it’s a dating sim were everyone’s head is replaced with a phone whether it be a rotary, one of those Nokia looking ones or in one guy’s case a British phone booth.

Some how finding that reminded me of a game idea I had long ago that I some how based on a bit in Harvest Moon DS Cute were your character can some how interact with one shop keeper(that you never see the talking sprite of) over the phone & eventually some how through this get his affection up enough over time that he asks you to leave the town you’re in & move in with him as his wife.(This also causes your game to end) Also weirdly based off this(LINK) video for some reason.

So the idea was your character is kinda just living in this town after the opening cutscene shows the character & their friends traveling by car when things go badly. It’s implied your character was brought to town by someone that ended up running back into the woods to probably go look for the rest of your friends. Your starts off in your house like in Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town/More Friends of Mineral Town after the opening cutscene.

I guess it’s just a life/possible farming sim that has you living on the outskirts of a town next to the woods. It seems kinda nice ignoring the backstory of how you ended up there. You can either get with one of the date-able townsfolk, just be friends, wait some or interact with your house’s phone.(Come into play later)

At some point(want to say at the start or into year two) another person shows up. They seem to know you some & as you befriend them you find out they’re the person/friend that got the player character to town before leaving you at a house someone allowed your character to stay at before searching for the rest off the friends. The others were unable to be found but it implied whatever caused this incident is gone. So you & this friend just go about your new lives in this town. There was an idea that not only are they bonus marriage candidate but there’s an idea of them getting with the rival character if you get with one of the characters that can get married to each other.

-

 So here’s were the phone part comes into play. There is a final extra marriage candidate that I guess in a sense is like the witch/wizard from Harvest Moon Animal Parade.(As in special marriage candidate & altered wedding scene) You interact with the phone & find an option to call that leads to a faceless character you can interact with. At some point you’re given the ability to leave gifts in the mail box while the character does the same.

You never see the character but can interact with them over the phone & some other characters might make a comment here or there about it. This character is a mystery but shows care for the player character as you continue the relationship. Any chances to actually see them(including the wedding) leads to the player character barely remembering their face & it’s night time. The character is I think(from what I remember) some entity that communicates using the phone & leaving gifts in the mail box since they can’t exactly interact like a normal person.

-

Like I said this was an odd game idea I had that while you can choose any of the date-able characters & the rival candidate the main idea was mostly player character being with the phone being.

I kinda wish I could make this but I don’t know how to code(let alone enough to make this work) & haven’t thought things out enough to actually setup other characters backstories & heart events. Despite the opening scene/backstory for your character there’s not really much of a main story past that(and the friend that returns & tells extra info) so in a sense you could say it’s like Friend of Mineral Town were there’s a story for why you’re living on the farm now(along with learning backstory at times from characters) then just left to play for as long as you want until you choose to restart your save file.

There’s not exactly an explanation for what attacked you & your friends in the woods, how it let you escape & what happened to your remaining friends. Just that after waking in your house for the first time you’re safe & it’s gone. You can even go foraging/collect resources in the woods(though can’t go too far cause game map limits/don’t need an infinite forest) with the returning friend just confirming it’s safe when they reunite with you.

I’m not sure why I came up with this, this was an idea I had for a while then kind of just forgot about it cause it’s never happening.

[pommeplays]

Henlo and welcome to the smol tumblr of a smol potato.

With this free time in my hands due to quarantine, I feel like I should do my text!LP of the games I wanted to play~

I'll be adding some footage and screenshots of the games I play, as well as some commentary.

Games in line are:

1. Harvest moon DS Cute (DS, duh)

2. Pokemon SoulSilver (DS)

3. Fire Emblem (more research; first time ever considering playing this)

4. Final Fantasy: Crisis Core (PSP)

5. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (PSP)

I've had a headstart in HM:DS Cute and will be posting once I have enough content for a week lol

Anywho, hope u enjoy your time here 😊😊

[yelhigh]

with return to mineral town coming out i want you all to know that my version of claire is the coolest and i wanna kiss her

[princesspeachsuperstar]

Talking about Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons with people who have never played it is fun because they assume it’s a cute, innocent farming game, and for the most part it is, but also in HMDS

-you can let your dog attack the mayor at the beginning of the game and presumably kill him (the credits roll immediately afterwards and the screen fades to red in the European version)

-you can poison the entire town at the Harvest Festival (again with the potential for an immediate game over if you submit a level 100 poison mushroom)

-you can fight the girls behind your dog house at 4:44 AM

-one of the bachelorettes requires you to kill 50 animals to marry her

-depending on where you pass out, the villagers can steal up to half of your money

-the mines are filled with dark creatures you have to fight, including a dark version of yourself

-this one's FoMT and not DS, but if you pass out while the hospital bed is being used by another character, you get a cutscene of the doctor shoving him and then the nurse dragging him away so you can use the bed

And half of that sounds like rumors you’d read on game forums, but nope, that’s just Harvest Moon baby!