It was weird. It reassigned who was related to whom in N64 then became the mold for FoMT from then on Elli was always a nurse, Popuri a chicken farmer, Karen's dad became nice etc
I think the funniest thing they removed in the SoS remake in modern day is the stuff with the golden lumber! I’m reliving my mineral town memories with my partner and I was telling her about how the townspeople used to come bully you for your show of opulence if you put the golden limber out 😂
Friends of Mineral Town was not only my first Harvest Moon title, it was also my introduction to fandom. I found fanart and fanfiction through it, and I've made many life-long online friendships because of the series.
@@EmberCitrine HM64 was the best home console HM ever for me but I knew Friends of Mineral Town for GBA was the favorite for most fans (which itself is a remake of Back to Nature which itself is sort of a HM64 remake) and guess what we did get a FoMT remake recently and…… I was underwhelmed. I couldn’t get past how mediocre its graphics and artstyle looked. I swear an indie studio could’ve made it look better. Not even the character portraits looks good 😕 What I’m trying to say is that even if they do make a faithful HM64 remake I have little faith it’ll be good judging by how mediocre the FoMT remake was.
Hm64 was my first. It holds a special place. If they were to remake it I'd love the QOL improvements back to nature had but with the same art direction and setting of 64. Would be great to add more areas and more events. Don't remove anything just add ❤
@@820krose in many ways HM64 has had 3 remakes of sorts already: 1) Back to Nature on PS1 2) Friends of Mineral Town GBA 3) Friends of Mineral Town modern remake All three started with HM64 as the base and built upon it. I just wish the latest remake wasn’t so mediocre and ugly looking.
I just couldn’t really get into the remake and it was sad because the “original” (FoMT, not really the true original) is probably a top 20 game of all time for me.
I played FoMT and MFoMT growing up, so I miss catching the tv ads and ordering stuff, figuring out how to water the inner plants, rival events, etc. in SoSFoMT. I miss the litte things. Also, I was never aware of the family switching. Wild. Nice to learn the history.
One thing I am disappointed they removed is that you could choose which ingredients you used. I assumed that if you added unecessary ingredients for the recipes, but still made a legal recipes, it boosted the stamina recovery.
I never realized the differences between 64 and BtN! My entry point was Save the Homeland and Friends of Mineral Town. Very informative video, and the history behind the changes is so fascinating. That diagram that shows the bigger differences between 64 and BtN made me chuckle. Also, I think the animation on Dia at the end is so charming. The way she tilts her head and leans forward before rudely turning her head away really sells the character. Save the Homeland is a hot mess, but I still have a soft spot for it since it introduced me to one of my favorite game series.
Rival marriages is something I want any new company or game to do! It’s such an amazing mechanic. And if people aren’t crazy about it, make it a setting to turn off and on!
I adore BTN, has a special place in my heart 💖 Thank you. I think everyone should watch this video. After finding out they were supposed to be entirely different characters suddenly their designs made so much sense, like Ran’s farmer-like overalls, Gray’s outfit, Harris’s outfit always made me think of a postman etc etc their designs are very strong. its why they redesigned them for sosfomt. I definitely consider those removals/changed in sosfomt to be mostly negative, it lost the quality of life the game used to have, i especially hated how they removed rival marriages and after i found out its only because the players are insecure their bachelor would get stolen away. What kind of loser excuse is this. Sosfomt could’ve taken some stuff from btn too, like some of the festivals. Wait BTN is available for ps4/5? Well i don’t have any consoles currently but i’m glad new generations can still play this old ass game
I grew up with 64, so I've never been able to fully connect with the Mineral Town games. I just prefer everyone's original characterizations more. Not to mention I miss the element of time management that 64's short days provided. That said, the FoMT remake on Switch was what reignited my love for the series. May not be my favorite entry, but I still appreciate it! Also, I don't know if the little 12pm pause happens on the original system, but I've been playing the PS5 release of Back to Nature for the last year, and yeah, that happens every single day when the bell rings.
My first exposure to HM was a guide from a Nintendo magazine featuring Harvest Moon 64. I wasn't actually able to play the game but I was mesmerized by it. I wanted to play it but I didn't have a game console. After a few years in high school, I got myself a PS1 and got to play BtN. It was my first HM and it was a blast. I do remember wondering why the character relationships were not as I remembered in the guide despite being the same ones. I spent lots of hours on that game and it was technically my first HM experience. I got to play FoMT later and it was also nice. I wanted to play the other HM games too back then but I didn't have any other game consoles to play back then. Recently I have picked up the remake again and was a bit disappointed that there's no rival marriages. I have a backlog of great HM games that I didn't get to play so I think I'll get to those once I start to chill in my elder years.
I played BTN first, and it was the reason I fell in love with the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series and Farm-Sims in general. I never got a chance to play HM64 in its entirety and really wish they'd rerelease/remaster it.
For me, the first two Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games were A Wonderful Life on Gamecube and Friends of Mineral Town on GBA. Both of which I discovered through my babysitter's son, who had both games, and since you're gonna hang with people that play games as a kid, you're gonna want them to play along and talk about them with. I still have both copies, and I even have my manual for A Wonderful Life, which I keep handy for me to read through and use the seed prices to plan out what I wanna grow first on a new playthrough. I'm surprised that HM64, Back to Nature, FOMT, MFOMT, AND Boy & Girl are all the same game. I knew that HM64 and FOMT had the same characters, just used differently. I just never knew that there was a correct family and townie pairings. I guess that makes sense why Rick always looked out of place with Popuri and their Mom. Then again, I haven't really played the older games, so I guess I'm missing out.
hi josh, i found your channel about a month ago and i really have to thank you for all your nostalgic and thoughtful content! i started this series with harvest moon 64 like you so seeing how much you love it really connects with me ❤ i’ve also learned a lot about the behind the scenes production of these games from you like in this video! i played harvest moon back to nature on the ps1 second and adored it as a kid. i’ve restarted that one more than 64 because it was easier to access on the ps store whereas my 64 broke. hearing your opinions on these games is so interesting to me! i appreciate how honest you are and you are right about many things, always give me lots of things to think about. i found your channel because of fields of mistria which brings back so many happy memories and creates new ones for me✨ i had to stop playing that game because i injured my wrist so i found your channel at just the right time! you’ve been such lovely company while i take a break from playing games! you are so kind and authentic and welcoming 💚 i hope your channel keeps growing because you truly deserve it! i also love your accent and am so impressed you know japanese!! im going to japan on vacation in november for the first time and im struggling learning the very basics 😅 im so glad this series has stuck around and continued to change and grow! few games can compare to the old ones for me but then games like fields of mistria come out and my inner child delights in it! thanks for all you do!! sending love from texas!
Hi Alicia! What a beautiful comment to start my day, thank you!! 😭 There are definitely very few games that can replicate the feeling of old ones as well as Fields of Mistria. I can't wait for it to receive more updates, and hopefully by that time your wrist has healed! 💚 Take care and have fun in Japan!
Friends of Mineral Town was my entrance to the series and I still adore it and hold it as a standard for the genre. I was so excited for the SoS remake, and played so much of it, but I was GUTTED rival marriages were removed. The idea that, yeah, the people in this town have lived that DO NOT revolve around me made the game feel alive to me. I was also so sad to lose to lose sick animals, weirdly, but it created consequences and that mattered so much to me. I also miss going to the inn for mail order appliances. I liked slow rolling the progression of my kitchen.
Always praying for a HM64 remake, as long as they don't ruin it by removing rival marriage again. It may be small, but Flowerbud Village and its cast will always feel like home to me.
Unfortunately they won't do rival marriages anymore because the Japanese fanbase don't like it bacause one of the characters will stay single forever as you married their love interest.
I'd honestly love a video talking about all the other family changes. I played either Back to Nature or Friends of Mineral Town first, so the families in 64 seem weird to me. You had a really good point about the ones you did mention though, it doesn't make that much sense changing Popuri's family in the ways they did lol
I jumped straight from the original Harvest Moon to Back to Nature, so it's absolutely wild to hear about HM64. So I was comparing Nina to Popuri, Maria to Mary, Ellen to Elli, etc. I liked the controls and UI - I could tell that they had done a lot of quality of life improvements, which I really enjoyed. (The first Harvest Moon was brutal.) By the way, on the PS2, there was no pause at 12 noon, so I think that was a PSP thing. We made spreadsheets and tracked the reaction to every gift we gave. ("Have I cheesed Anna yet?") I spent way too much time on that game. I might look into getting the switch remake you mentioned, just for the nostalgia factor. I think I did play some of the GameBoy versions - hard to remember at this point. I do remember that once I planted so many watermelons that when they all ripened, I was unable to harvest them all before the day ended.
18:31 mine was n64, but it’s so fun to know that friends of mineral town is basically an AU version of 64, and that’s why so many characters are similar lol
BTN was my second Harvest Moon game, so I had the opposite problem when I started HM64: I had a hard time remembering how everyone in HM64 was related. 😅
"roommate" Oh my god as a child I always wondered why the Photographer was staying with Mayor, I thought he was related to Policeman(maybe a cousin or smt) lmao. This humorous speculation is WILD and I am in for it.
BTN is probably the game I've put the most hours into, it's the reason I love farming games so much. I just wish SOS:FoMT wasn't such a 1:1 remake of the GBA game but instead a mix of it and the BTN removed content, as it has the more fun festivals for example (goddess festival, swimming race, tomato fight, etc).
I'm always so impressed with your knowledge of the series, I didn't even know some of these games existed even though I've been playing the game series since HM64. Super interesting video, would love to see more like this!
I was introduced to the series through GBA Friends of Mineral town and loved it to bits. I've played the switch version, but I find it sometimes "too easy" if that makes sense. It might just be the nostalgia talking though! Great video!
I think I mentioned this before in the past somewhere but Harvest Moon Friend of Mineral Town was what made me give the series a second chance. My first game was Harvest Moon DS which I think I saw on commercials but I got it as a young kid who only understood playing Pokemon Sapphire/Ruby, Pokemon Diamond, Nintendogs & Animal Crossing Wild World. I had no idea what I was doing & actually managed to forget I was suppose to save the Harvest Goddess, I also didn't like that I couldn't choose a girl since other games gave the option & wasn't happy about being the husband.(In present day I identify as male now but I still wouldn't play Harvest Moon DS because I'm attracted to men) Years later I think after high school I later found an LP of Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town & it led to a better understanding of how to play leading to giving the series a second chance. I went on to get a physical copy of More Friends of Mineral Town & also having a rom of the game that has a modded patch that replaces Claire with Pete & fixes the text as well on a few devices, I also ended up getting Harvest Moon DS Cute but have yet to play it.(Also obviously have the Switch remake too) Ignoring Harvest Moon DS(didn't get very far in it), Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town was my first Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game. I didn't know much about past games until finding a video series were someone tried working on a fan game using RPG Maker(and assets/character sprites from HM FoMT) that uses the Harvest Moon 64 version of characters. It's interesting to learn about the game that led to Friends of Mineral Town & it also feels really unfortunate that the girl versions up until More Friends of Mineral Town would have the game end when you get married. Feels a little ironic that DS has the same thing happen if you marry any of the Mineral Town girls cause you chose to move back to their town but on DS Cute the guys move in with you if you marry one.(With the only one leading to ending the game like in DS if you marry Mason/May's grandson) Makes me wonder if there's a way to mod it so you can keep going in the games were marriage is were the game ends? Also makes me curious what it'd be like if we got some games were it has the Harvest Moon 64 version of characters would be like.
Loved back to nature. It's crazy how this game got the same amount of playtime out of me as Final Fantasy X. I'd wake up 2-3 hours before school, play back to nature; then play final fantasy X when I got home from school and that was my schedule for the entirety of 8th grade (yeah I'm showing my age with that one)
BtN is my favorite: greenhouse, animal mortality, rival marriage. I like the new remake a lot, but they removed many things I enjoyed. Also not found of the house with no rooms.
I was introduced to the series through Back to Nature, and then through Friends of Mineral Town, so I have a lot of nostalgia and love for those games, particularly BtN. I never played HM64 growing up so I naturally prefer the characters how I remember them vs how they were originally imagined, but it's neat to get a breakdown of the differences. They handled Kai incredibly sketchy in 64 too, and given that BtN was more popular/inspired more games, I think Flowerbud is the alternative universe compared to Mineral Town. 64's controls are just too janky for me to truly get into it but I might give it a shot again now that it's on Switch. Awesome video!
Great video Josh! My first entry to the series was More Friends of Mineral Town, so I never knew the characters initially had different backgrounds. Popuri's original concept made a lot more sense (I had no idea that her name was related to flowers lol); it was weird to learn though because I've always known her as a chicken farmer! I once did a project on the differences between boy and girl versions of HM/SOS, though I missed the girl version of Back to Nature. What an interesting example of how girls were treated in games. I think it's kind of crazy that, after learning that 30-50% of players were female, and enjoyed the game already as it was, they decided to change so much. I do like that they changed the dialogue and events to be from the girl's perspective, but ending the game after marriage? That's wild to think about...as if the girls didn't already play the boy version exactly how it was. 😅 At least in future girl versions, they ended up getting the quality of life updates. The trade off was that they came out months or years later; with greater waiting times for English speaking players who had to wait for them to be translated (not sure about other languages). In my mind it would have made sense to wait and release boy and girl versions at the same time, but perhaps they didn't have a large enough team to do that. Thankfully now they're not separate!
This game introduced me to the Harvest Moon series and farming simulators in general. I love it to death. I put A LOT of hours into this game as a kid. I'm happy to see you talk about it.
Back to Nature is my favorite Harvest Moon game and probably one of my top 5 games in general. The Switch remake looks nice and I intend to play it some day but the art style of the original looks so much nicer in my opinion.
Wiki says about Kano: "Thomas does mention him randomly in Friends of Mineral Town. He mentions that he disappeared and left a letter for the Mayor, but has yet to come back." "Kano also never appeared in the remake of Friends of Mineral Town, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. He is once again mentioned by Thomas, but his name is incorrectly spelled as Kanno." The "roommate" reminded me of Nigel and Ralph in Olive Town until someone corrected me. Nigel is actually Ralph's father! Iori and Dotetsu on the other hand though 🤭 I don't think they are related.
I'm heavily conflicted, because I spent my youth indulging myself rotten on HM64 and FoMT, so I constantly finding myself bouncing back and forth on the structure, the relationships, the maps, etc, of everything in both games. I love them both though. I too want an HM64 remaster/remake, and I've been finding myself thinking about it more and more as I've finally gotten a means to revisit my FoMT cartridge within recent months.
Playing MFOMT as a kid, I accidentally made every bachelor fall in love with my character, and then after I got married, they would look angry all the time! 🤣 Rick’s dialogue became Japanese too at certain points lol.
For me, Harvest Moon 64 was the first one I played. I was like 13 and I'm from a poor country so I was emulating on an old computer that lagged out with any game I put except N64 games and older. Buying a PS1 was out of the question but I used the school computers to browse harvest moon games. That's how I got introduced to the original harvest moon game, the gameboy color ports and the, then, newer ones. I never played the play station games because 700MB back then was too much to download, and even when I got internet in my house, the lower camera angle and the fact that you can't rotate it to have 90 degree angles to match with the controller made me not want to play the game. When I found out there was a gameboy advance game I downloaded it and played until year 5 and loved it, and I even bought the newer remake for the nintendo switch, which I loved because it staid simple and kept the essence of the original game.
I actually was introduced to Harvest moon with the Game Boy Advance! I bought the DS version purely by accident years later while in costco, lol. After that there was no going back. I actually really enjoyed the Future set Harvest Moon for the PsP.
I played HM boy and girl before any of its remakes so it's actually my favorite version, even though the game ends after marriage. I just don't like how they took out some of the events in the GBA version. The vibe of the game is also really different and I feel like the heart events weren't as good, but that could be the nostalgia talking lol Didn't love the switch remake, it was fun to play but I was disappointed that they didn't do a lot more with the characters. Great video! I've never played HM64 so I had no idea that they changed so many things, I can see why it's frustrating that the "wrong" game was the one that they've continuously made remakes of!
I didn't play Harvest Moon until PlayStation came out, so I first played FoMT. I loved the game so much that I ended up buying every game after branded as HM, even if it wasn't HM anymore.
My first HM game was 64 back when I was in middle school. I played Friends of Mineral Town on GBA a ton in high school, but it never occurred to me until watching this video that it and the PS1 game was supposed to be a remake of 64. I knew all of the characters were the same, but I just figured that reusing characters was just a thing that all/most HM games did. I think a complete reimagining of this game more along the lines of Stardew Valley would be amazing. Anyway, thanks for the video! Super entertaining and nostalgic. Subbing for more! =)
I've played Back to Nature first. But after playing HM64, I find it hard to go back to games that came after it. It's stressful gameplay feels more rewarding I guess. But what's important is NPCs doesn't look out of place anymore and a little more interesting to interact with. It's a shame that BtN killed original timeline.
Friends of Mineral Town on GameBoy was so good :) i would say its the beginning of my casual game journey. i loved it. i still have it with a functioning handheld and played it not long ago for a bit but now its difficult to sit down with a handheld when i am more of a pc person. The controls and the pace costs a bit of nerves :( so sad. I would love to experience the joy again like i was 11 or 12 years old again.
Back to Nature was my first HM/SoS game and it also the game that introduced me to farming sim genre. I had so much good and sweet memories in this game. It definetely has special place in my heart 🥲 Also this game was very popular in my neighbourhood during my childhood. At that time PS1 was booming in my country and many of my friends bought it, including me. Thanks to that we got introduced to HM BTN. It was that one game that everyone love, not only for kids like us, but also for the adult. I still remember when all of my friends in my neighbourhood came to my house just to witness my character married Karen because I was the first kid who successfuly marry in the game lol 😂😂 what a nice memory
I liked the challenge of rival marriages and having to make friends with the town before the end of 3 years. I was always worried about the game ending if the villagers didn't like me.
I grew up with the BTN/Mineral Town timeline so that made more sense to me. That timeline is canon in my head. 😆 Also as a queer individual, I miss rival marriages. I belive HM/SoS could still do that whilst being inclusive. It's so sad that the remaining candidates will be single forever after your character gets married.
I got real mad they took away Rival Marriages. It felt really stale that only the MC's life changes. The other townspeople are in basically limbo. It doesnt help in the remakes, the characters are written to eventually supposedly fall in love with the rivals but they took the final heart events away so theyre just stuck in perpetuity.
I didnt have n64 back then. We only had playstation. But at least in that it made me appreciate the game as it was instead of conparing it from its predecessor.
My first game was Save the Homeland, which got me to pick up the PS2 version of A Wonderful Life, which almost made me stop being a fan of the series entirely. XD It's only thanks to a friend who insisted there are other *better* entries beside Save the Homeland that made me give the series another shot, and my third HM game ended up being Friends of Mineral Town. I still preferred Save the Homeland over FoMT, but I still enjoyed my time with it a lot. Harvest Moon DS was the next game I jumped into since then, and I've kept up with the series ever since.
I love this game SO much. I think my only complaint was the controls, the way they are on a diagonal always confused my brain/hand coordination. I loved cooking in this game so much. I carefully organized and hoarded all my ingredients in my upgraded kitchen. I loved fishing every evening. I absolutely love the music. I loved going to the mines. I actually never used the sprites for anything. I'd befriend them and gift them, but never hired them. I guess I never trusted them to do the job right, I wanted to just do it myself.
It's a quite interesting video. I came to know the series by Back to Nature on de PS1. One of my friends had it and we spent so much time playing that game and trying to understand English (not my mother tongue). At the time I didn't have a ps1, so I had to relay on my friend to play it. Later I discovered the emulation world and I could play Mineral Town on GBA, and boy, I played so many times. Boy and girl versions, different marriages, so nice. When I discovered the N64 one, it was so strange, all the characters mess up and less quality of life in the gameplay, so I never played for too long. I ended up discovering the N64 version was the original one, but in the end the PS1 got more popularity. Anyway, greats games. Thanks for the video.
Back to Nature was my first Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game. There are pros and cons to the GBA demake, but while I think the modern game is objectively better, subjectively, it doesn't do it for me, especially with a good chunk of the town being replaced with impostors. I've never played the N64 game but would love to one day. Regardless, Back to Nature to me is one of my favourite games of all time, and that game and that version will always be my favourite in the series.
Ask anybody in my country what their first and (probably) best harvest Moon in the series, they will answer Back to Nature! PS1 and this game was super popular back then, even now people still playing, making contents and streaming it. Personally I didn't know any other games in the series like 64 or the GB/GBA until maybe mid 2000's
I only had access to HMFoMT and now SoSFoMT (in that part of the series) so it’s interesting to learn about the differences between the games. I didn’t know BtN was on PSN and I’ve really wanted to try it so I’ll have to give it a go! 🥰 We never got the for girls editions in the UK and I was super excited when Magical Melody came out to find out we got the Wii version only that had a lot of things removed and I’m still salty about it. I just wanted to play as a girl! I’m happy that they are more inclusive now but I wish they wouldn’t remove the rival marriage and children growing up as I really enjoy that aspect and it gives more content to enjoy after completing the main aspects of the game. (FoMT was my first game in the series, I forgot to mention that.)
i've never seen u playing HM Hero of Leaf Valley PSP, i think thats better than Save the Homeland with more endings and marriage, although some events are time gated, u could fix that by guide and u wont miss anything in the game
I first played the GBA FOMT version, I recently played the NSW remake, and I wish they would ask which type of marriage you want at the start, because OH boy the awkwardness and pain of accidentally triggering heart events with guys was just, stomach churning, thankfully once you're married you can live your life without the fear of accidentally triggering an event and having the response to me turning them down is so awkward. Had to basically avoid speaking to guys for the first year and a half 😆. Other than that it's a great remake, but I wish they had left in the consequences of neglecting your animals.
I played fomt and mfomt growing up and loved them dearly. I'm happy to hear there's no rival marriages in the sos remake tho because I was just never a fan of the mechanic or the pairings they did lol. I never knew that 64 was so different, that's pretty funny 🤣 and to think the btn became the mold for the other remakes...rip 64's og story lol
The family changes always bothered me to the point of not making me enjoy BtN and FoMT as much. Would love a faithful remake of HM64, but I know that's impossible so we should just hope some group of fans decompiles the game so people can easily add improvements it and/or make a direct PC port.
I loved HM64 to bits and played it for hundreds of hours so of course I jumped at the chance of buying Back to Nature. By all accounts it was HM64 but with remixed and much more content so I was ready to lose myself in that game… what’s not to like? Turns out a lot. I’ve never gone from total hype to total deflation with any videogame as fast as I was with BtN. 10 seconds into the gameplay when I saw you could only move in 4 directions (coming from HM64 and it’s free form analog control) was devastating. And to add insult to injury it was made more confusing due to the isometric angle because you’d move in an “X” form but the Dpad was in a “+” shape. For a late PS1 game in 2000, way after the introduction of the analog sticks via the DualShock controller, was unforgivable. The 10 second or so loading screen everytime you entered or exit your farm screen certainly didn’t help things. After that I kept for years trying to get that next drug kick on a home console I got from HM64 which sadly never came (at least not from this series). I gave Save the Homeland on PS2 a try but incredibly it was even worse than BtN but for very different reasons. Then came A Wonderful Life for GC which did fix many of StH problems but still lacked much of what made HM64 so special. And I know I wasn’t the only one feeling this way because apparently the guy that did Stardew Valley made it because he felt the same way I did. He, like me, knew there was a market for a game like this which Marvelous refused to satisfy but unlike me he did something about it.
I played the heck out of MFoMT and was disappointed by the SoS remake. As a kid I really liked how snappy the pixel sprite movement was. The new game made everything feel slower and like it took much longer, and the size of the maps were so much bigger... I feel like a lot of people see 3D as inherently better than 2D pixel art, but I don't like it when swapping to 3D means slow movement and large empty-feeling maps.
XSeed is Marvelous USA. Marvelous fully acquired XSeed in 2011, their corporate name is Marvelous USA Inc. but they still used the XSeed branding to publish recent games. In August 2024, they announced that going forward, first-party titles like SoS and RF will be branded under Marvelous USA and third party titles will be branded under XSeed to avoid confusion, but they're effectively the same company.
i got into hm really late so my entrances into the series were the ds games. I LOVED ds cute lol it was SO CUTE lmao. i wanna see THAT version adapted lol justice for syke. lol otherwise hes gonna be locked on the ds forever haha. or just find a way to bring him into the normal remakes. basically, just give skye a second chance at life lol
"Has a 'roomate'" Oh my Gosh they were roomates~ But also I love the Quotations around roomates implying that Thomas is in a gay relationship~ You have the shipping brain too.
I wish for a remake for HM64 with modern QOL, but since we got FOMT instead it will probably never happen. I like SOS FOMT a lot but I dislike the reliance on breeding animals. Rival marriages need to come back in every game, too.
I actually didn't know there were that many changes from 64, I played back to nature as my first harvest moon game, and then the Game Cube one, but my favorite was the PSP version Hero of Leaf Valley, Back to Nature beign my first still makes it go to spot 2 though, I personally couldn't really stand the gamecube one much, everything wasn't well explained, I missed all the festivals, I had a miserable time there.
Satisfactory is one of my favorite! I absolutely love automation games, but too much automation in a game that is NOT about automation tends to remove the fun in my opinion.
I played BtN, FoMT, and the SoS:FoMT. I gotta say, I'm disappointed that they remake FoMT instead of BtN. Don't get me wrong. I also understand that FoMT is a BtN remake itself, so it makes sense that they made a remake of a remake instead of another remake of BtN. But what I don't like is that FoMT actually felt more like a downgrade from BtN because of its platform limit. Like for example the graphic: town isn't isometric anymore, or the Harvest Goddess isn't from the back of waterfall anymore, and the SoS remake follows that. Also the festival isn't as fun.... And I just don't really like events on the FoMT... Maybe I'm just too biased on BtN 😔
Totally disagree on the automation system, especially in modern games you'd have no time to actually explore the rest of the game without automation, watering takes too much time this used to work on older games that had no content but nowadays things are different.
I grew up with PS1 BTN and it will always be my most fav game. However, I don't like the characters sprites and portraits in the new SoS FOMT, everything looks too clean and childish, mechanisms are the same, nothing new to see, so I skipped. Now there are many indie games with innovative gameplay and fresh storyline, different perspectives to explore.
There are a 2 things currently I hate about the remake of Friends of Mineral town for switch 1]THEY RUINED GRAY....THEY REMOVED HIS ICONIC HAT...GRAY IS NOT GRAY WITHOUT HIS ICONIC HAT. THEY MIGHT AS WELL HAVE REMOVED HIM FROM THE GAME & REPLACED HIM WITH SOMEONE NEW. YOU CAN'T JUST REMOVE GRAY'S ICONIC HAT & THINK IT'S OKAY. Gray was my favorite bachelor, now I can't even bare to look at him. I feel so sorry for Gray. 2]The ruined a number of other characters as well, I feel sorry for them having the wrong names given to them for the English dub of this game. Elli, Ann, Doug, Barley, May, Stu, Ruby, all there names are incorrect & it bugs the hell outta me seeing the wrong names in the English dub game, I wish they would fix it. If I didn't need to talk to Barley to get animals I wouldn't bother talking to him in the remake at all just cause his name is wrong for the English dub. They even screwed up the names of the harvest sprites. They got 1 right outta 7 & that 1 was the blue sprite named Aqua. All the rest Chef, Nappy, Hoggy, Timid, Staid, Bold they got their names wrong for the English dub. I actually avoid talking to the people mentioned above as much as possible just to avoid seeing the incorrect names as it really pisses me off.
I completely agree that they should have kept Gray's hat! For the other characters though, they changed the names to make them closer to their original names in the Japanese version. Natsume changed a lot of things when translating the first games, so as much as it is a bit unsettling at first, I like that they're now using the actual proper names.
@@JoshGamingGarden I get why they changed them it still doesn't make it right in my eyes. It just feels wrong seeing those names in the Eng dub of the game & I'm still gonna avoid talking to them as I can't stand seeing those names even though I have played quite a bit of the remake. They feel wrong and out of place in the Eng dub of the game. I wish there were an option to choose which variant of the names you see in the game for those of us who want the other names.
It was weird. It reassigned who was related to whom in N64 then became the mold for FoMT from then on Elli was always a nurse, Popuri a chicken farmer, Karen's dad became nice etc
I think the funniest thing they removed in the SoS remake in modern day is the stuff with the golden lumber! I’m reliving my mineral town memories with my partner and I was telling her about how the townspeople used to come bully you for your show of opulence if you put the golden limber out 😂
Friends of Mineral Town was not only my first Harvest Moon title, it was also my introduction to fandom. I found fanart and fanfiction through it, and I've made many life-long online friendships because of the series.
"As real as grass could be *25 YEARS AGO*"
...I'm being emotionally attacked!
All I want in life is a remake faithful to Harvest Moon 64.
@@EmberCitrine HM64 was the best home console HM ever for me but I knew Friends of Mineral Town for GBA was the favorite for most fans (which itself is a remake of Back to Nature which itself is sort of a HM64 remake) and guess what we did get a FoMT remake recently and…… I was underwhelmed. I couldn’t get past how mediocre its graphics and artstyle looked. I swear an indie studio could’ve made it look better. Not even the character portraits looks good 😕
What I’m trying to say is that even if they do make a faithful HM64 remake I have little faith it’ll be good judging by how mediocre the FoMT remake was.
HM64 was the first for me
HM64 will always be my favorite xP
Hm64 was my first. It holds a special place. If they were to remake it I'd love the QOL improvements back to nature had but with the same art direction and setting of 64. Would be great to add more areas and more events. Don't remove anything just add ❤
@@820krose in many ways HM64 has had 3 remakes of sorts already:
1) Back to Nature on PS1
2) Friends of Mineral Town GBA
3) Friends of Mineral Town modern remake
All three started with HM64 as the base and built upon it. I just wish the latest remake wasn’t so mediocre and ugly looking.
i grow up playing fomt on GBA and seeing SOS FOMT no rival events was devastating T_T plus the life quality improvement made the game easier ..
I agree, it's definitely a lot easier 😢
I dont like Ann's new design either. GBA one was just so iconic to me.
I just couldn’t really get into the remake and it was sad because the “original” (FoMT, not really the true original) is probably a top 20 game of all time for me.
I played FoMT and MFoMT growing up, so I miss catching the tv ads and ordering stuff, figuring out how to water the inner plants, rival events, etc. in SoSFoMT. I miss the litte things.
Also, I was never aware of the family switching. Wild. Nice to learn the history.
One thing I am disappointed they removed is that you could choose which ingredients you used. I assumed that if you added unecessary ingredients for the recipes, but still made a legal recipes, it boosted the stamina recovery.
i was reaaaaally sad when they removed rival marriage :(
I spat my water when you said "roommate" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I never realized the differences between 64 and BtN! My entry point was Save the Homeland and Friends of Mineral Town. Very informative video, and the history behind the changes is so fascinating.
That diagram that shows the bigger differences between 64 and BtN made me chuckle.
Also, I think the animation on Dia at the end is so charming. The way she tilts her head and leans forward before rudely turning her head away really sells the character. Save the Homeland is a hot mess, but I still have a soft spot for it since it introduced me to one of my favorite game series.
Rival marriages is something I want any new company or game to do! It’s such an amazing mechanic. And if people aren’t crazy about it, make it a setting to turn off and on!
Friends of mineral town was my first harvest moon, so it's weirder to me that Popuri wasn't always a poultry farmer. 😂
I adore BTN, has a special place in my heart 💖
Thank you. I think everyone should watch this video. After finding out they were supposed to be entirely different characters suddenly their designs made so much sense, like Ran’s farmer-like overalls, Gray’s outfit, Harris’s outfit always made me think of a postman etc etc their designs are very strong. its why they redesigned them for sosfomt.
I definitely consider those removals/changed in sosfomt to be mostly negative, it lost the quality of life the game used to have, i especially hated how they removed rival marriages and after i found out its only because the players are insecure their bachelor would get stolen away. What kind of loser excuse is this. Sosfomt could’ve taken some stuff from btn too, like some of the festivals.
Wait BTN is available for ps4/5? Well i don’t have any consoles currently but i’m glad new generations can still play this old ass game
I grew up with 64, so I've never been able to fully connect with the Mineral Town games. I just prefer everyone's original characterizations more. Not to mention I miss the element of time management that 64's short days provided. That said, the FoMT remake on Switch was what reignited my love for the series. May not be my favorite entry, but I still appreciate it!
Also, I don't know if the little 12pm pause happens on the original system, but I've been playing the PS5 release of Back to Nature for the last year, and yeah, that happens every single day when the bell rings.
My first exposure to HM was a guide from a Nintendo magazine featuring Harvest Moon 64. I wasn't actually able to play the game but I was mesmerized by it. I wanted to play it but I didn't have a game console.
After a few years in high school, I got myself a PS1 and got to play BtN. It was my first HM and it was a blast. I do remember wondering why the character relationships were not as I remembered in the guide despite being the same ones. I spent lots of hours on that game and it was technically my first HM experience. I got to play FoMT later and it was also nice. I wanted to play the other HM games too back then but I didn't have any other game consoles to play back then. Recently I have picked up the remake again and was a bit disappointed that there's no rival marriages.
I have a backlog of great HM games that I didn't get to play so I think I'll get to those once I start to chill in my elder years.
The PS1 definitely did not have that noon stutter - this was my first HM and holds a special spot! Great video.
Yes it did, I remember always being confused when it would happen
@@PixelmugYTit did yes
I've never had this issue either. Weird.
I played BTN first, and it was the reason I fell in love with the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series and Farm-Sims in general. I never got a chance to play HM64 in its entirety and really wish they'd rerelease/remaster it.
For me, the first two Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games were A Wonderful Life on Gamecube and Friends of Mineral Town on GBA. Both of which I discovered through my babysitter's son, who had both games, and since you're gonna hang with people that play games as a kid, you're gonna want them to play along and talk about them with. I still have both copies, and I even have my manual for A Wonderful Life, which I keep handy for me to read through and use the seed prices to plan out what I wanna grow first on a new playthrough.
I'm surprised that HM64, Back to Nature, FOMT, MFOMT, AND Boy & Girl are all the same game. I knew that HM64 and FOMT had the same characters, just used differently. I just never knew that there was a correct family and townie pairings. I guess that makes sense why Rick always looked out of place with Popuri and their Mom. Then again, I haven't really played the older games, so I guess I'm missing out.
My first time playing Friends of Mineral Town. I was a bit confused and finding it odd they changed relationship of characters. Now I know why!
hi josh, i found your channel about a month ago and i really have to thank you for all your nostalgic and thoughtful content! i started this series with harvest moon 64 like you so seeing how much you love it really connects with me ❤ i’ve also learned a lot about the behind the scenes production of these games from you like in this video! i played harvest moon back to nature on the ps1 second and adored it as a kid. i’ve restarted that one more than 64 because it was easier to access on the ps store whereas my 64 broke.
hearing your opinions on these games is so interesting to me! i appreciate how honest you are and you are right about many things, always give me lots of things to think about.
i found your channel because of fields of mistria which brings back so many happy memories and creates new ones for me✨ i had to stop playing that game because i injured my wrist so i found your channel at just the right time! you’ve been such lovely company while i take a break from playing games! you are so kind and authentic and welcoming 💚 i hope your channel keeps growing because you truly deserve it! i also love your accent and am so impressed you know japanese!! im going to japan on vacation in november for the first time and im struggling learning the very basics 😅
im so glad this series has stuck around and continued to change and grow! few games can compare to the old ones for me but then games like fields of mistria come out and my inner child delights in it!
thanks for all you do!! sending love from texas!
Hi Alicia! What a beautiful comment to start my day, thank you!! 😭
There are definitely very few games that can replicate the feeling of old ones as well as Fields of Mistria. I can't wait for it to receive more updates, and hopefully by that time your wrist has healed! 💚
Take care and have fun in Japan!
Friends of Mineral Town was my entrance to the series and I still adore it and hold it as a standard for the genre. I was so excited for the SoS remake, and played so much of it, but I was GUTTED rival marriages were removed. The idea that, yeah, the people in this town have lived that DO NOT revolve around me made the game feel alive to me. I was also so sad to lose to lose sick animals, weirdly, but it created consequences and that mattered so much to me.
I also miss going to the inn for mail order appliances. I liked slow rolling the progression of my kitchen.
Always praying for a HM64 remake, as long as they don't ruin it by removing rival marriage again. It may be small, but Flowerbud Village and its cast will always feel like home to me.
Unfortunately they won't do rival marriages anymore because the Japanese fanbase don't like it bacause one of the characters will stay single forever as you married their love interest.
Didn't they keep it for the wonderful life remake? @@Mari_Izu
I'd honestly love a video talking about all the other family changes. I played either Back to Nature or Friends of Mineral Town first, so the families in 64 seem weird to me. You had a really good point about the ones you did mention though, it doesn't make that much sense changing Popuri's family in the ways they did lol
I jumped straight from the original Harvest Moon to Back to Nature, so it's absolutely wild to hear about HM64. So I was comparing Nina to Popuri, Maria to Mary, Ellen to Elli, etc. I liked the controls and UI - I could tell that they had done a lot of quality of life improvements, which I really enjoyed. (The first Harvest Moon was brutal.) By the way, on the PS2, there was no pause at 12 noon, so I think that was a PSP thing.
We made spreadsheets and tracked the reaction to every gift we gave. ("Have I cheesed Anna yet?") I spent way too much time on that game. I might look into getting the switch remake you mentioned, just for the nostalgia factor.
I think I did play some of the GameBoy versions - hard to remember at this point. I do remember that once I planted so many watermelons that when they all ripened, I was unable to harvest them all before the day ended.
18:31 mine was n64, but it’s so fun to know that friends of mineral town is basically an AU version of 64, and that’s why so many characters are similar lol
BTN was my second Harvest Moon game, so I had the opposite problem when I started HM64: I had a hard time remembering how everyone in HM64 was related. 😅
"roommate"
Oh my god as a child I always wondered why the Photographer was staying with Mayor, I thought he was related to Policeman(maybe a cousin or smt) lmao. This humorous speculation is WILD and I am in for it.
11:27 "He has a roommate. "ROOMMATE."" That REALLY got me LOLOL
BTN is probably the game I've put the most hours into, it's the reason I love farming games so much. I just wish SOS:FoMT wasn't such a 1:1 remake of the GBA game but instead a mix of it and the BTN removed content, as it has the more fun festivals for example (goddess festival, swimming race, tomato fight, etc).
I agree, it would have been amazing if they had put the missing content of BTN back into it!
"Roommate"
Lol. That emphasis on "roommate" was priceless!
I'm always so impressed with your knowledge of the series, I didn't even know some of these games existed even though I've been playing the game series since HM64. Super interesting video, would love to see more like this!
I was introduced to the series through GBA Friends of Mineral town and loved it to bits. I've played the switch version, but I find it sometimes "too easy" if that makes sense. It might just be the nostalgia talking though! Great video!
I think I mentioned this before in the past somewhere but Harvest Moon Friend of Mineral Town was what made me give the series a second chance. My first game was Harvest Moon DS which I think I saw on commercials but I got it as a young kid who only understood playing Pokemon Sapphire/Ruby, Pokemon Diamond, Nintendogs & Animal Crossing Wild World. I had no idea what I was doing & actually managed to forget I was suppose to save the Harvest Goddess, I also didn't like that I couldn't choose a girl since other games gave the option & wasn't happy about being the husband.(In present day I identify as male now but I still wouldn't play Harvest Moon DS because I'm attracted to men) Years later I think after high school I later found an LP of Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town & it led to a better understanding of how to play leading to giving the series a second chance. I went on to get a physical copy of More Friends of Mineral Town & also having a rom of the game that has a modded patch that replaces Claire with Pete & fixes the text as well on a few devices, I also ended up getting Harvest Moon DS Cute but have yet to play it.(Also obviously have the Switch remake too)
Ignoring Harvest Moon DS(didn't get very far in it), Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town was my first Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game. I didn't know much about past games until finding a video series were someone tried working on a fan game using RPG Maker(and assets/character sprites from HM FoMT) that uses the Harvest Moon 64 version of characters.
It's interesting to learn about the game that led to Friends of Mineral Town & it also feels really unfortunate that the girl versions up until More Friends of Mineral Town would have the game end when you get married. Feels a little ironic that DS has the same thing happen if you marry any of the Mineral Town girls cause you chose to move back to their town but on DS Cute the guys move in with you if you marry one.(With the only one leading to ending the game like in DS if you marry Mason/May's grandson) Makes me wonder if there's a way to mod it so you can keep going in the games were marriage is were the game ends? Also makes me curious what it'd be like if we got some games were it has the Harvest Moon 64 version of characters would be like.
Loved back to nature. It's crazy how this game got the same amount of playtime out of me as Final Fantasy X. I'd wake up 2-3 hours before school, play back to nature; then play final fantasy X when I got home from school and that was my schedule for the entirety of 8th grade (yeah I'm showing my age with that one)
My introduction was back to nature and HM wonderful life
BtN is my favorite: greenhouse, animal mortality, rival marriage. I like the new remake a lot, but they removed many things I enjoyed. Also not found of the house with no rooms.
I was introduced to the series through Back to Nature, and then through Friends of Mineral Town, so I have a lot of nostalgia and love for those games, particularly BtN. I never played HM64 growing up so I naturally prefer the characters how I remember them vs how they were originally imagined, but it's neat to get a breakdown of the differences. They handled Kai incredibly sketchy in 64 too, and given that BtN was more popular/inspired more games, I think Flowerbud is the alternative universe compared to Mineral Town. 64's controls are just too janky for me to truly get into it but I might give it a shot again now that it's on Switch. Awesome video!
BTN is clearly the most iconic. Even more than 64.
Great video Josh! My first entry to the series was More Friends of Mineral Town, so I never knew the characters initially had different backgrounds. Popuri's original concept made a lot more sense (I had no idea that her name was related to flowers lol); it was weird to learn though because I've always known her as a chicken farmer! I once did a project on the differences between boy and girl versions of HM/SOS, though I missed the girl version of Back to Nature. What an interesting example of how girls were treated in games. I think it's kind of crazy that, after learning that 30-50% of players were female, and enjoyed the game already as it was, they decided to change so much. I do like that they changed the dialogue and events to be from the girl's perspective, but ending the game after marriage? That's wild to think about...as if the girls didn't already play the boy version exactly how it was. 😅
At least in future girl versions, they ended up getting the quality of life updates. The trade off was that they came out months or years later; with greater waiting times for English speaking players who had to wait for them to be translated (not sure about other languages). In my mind it would have made sense to wait and release boy and girl versions at the same time, but perhaps they didn't have a large enough team to do that. Thankfully now they're not separate!
This game introduced me to the Harvest Moon series and farming simulators in general. I love it to death. I put A LOT of hours into this game as a kid. I'm happy to see you talk about it.
Back to Nature is my favorite Harvest Moon game and probably one of my top 5 games in general. The Switch remake looks nice and I intend to play it some day but the art style of the original looks so much nicer in my opinion.
my first harvest moon/farming game was the gameboy advance version. learning all this history is pretty cool!
Wiki says about Kano:
"Thomas does mention him randomly in Friends of Mineral Town. He mentions that he disappeared and left a letter for the Mayor, but has yet to come back."
"Kano also never appeared in the remake of Friends of Mineral Town, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. He is once again mentioned by Thomas, but his name is incorrectly spelled as Kanno."
The "roommate" reminded me of Nigel and Ralph in Olive Town until someone corrected me. Nigel is actually Ralph's father! Iori and Dotetsu on the other hand though 🤭 I don't think they are related.
I'm heavily conflicted, because I spent my youth indulging myself rotten on HM64 and FoMT, so I constantly finding myself bouncing back and forth on the structure, the relationships, the maps, etc, of everything in both games.
I love them both though. I too want an HM64 remaster/remake, and I've been finding myself thinking about it more and more as I've finally gotten a means to revisit my FoMT cartridge within recent months.
I’d actually love a remake of Magical Melody. Expanding your farm by buying more plots was a lot of fun!
I played a lot BTN on PS1 and it never had these freezes. I think it is an issue on the PSP this is literally news for me.
Playing MFOMT as a kid, I accidentally made every bachelor fall in love with my character, and then after I got married, they would look angry all the time! 🤣 Rick’s dialogue became Japanese too at certain points lol.
For me, Harvest Moon 64 was the first one I played. I was like 13 and I'm from a poor country so I was emulating on an old computer that lagged out with any game I put except N64 games and older. Buying a PS1 was out of the question but I used the school computers to browse harvest moon games. That's how I got introduced to the original harvest moon game, the gameboy color ports and the, then, newer ones.
I never played the play station games because 700MB back then was too much to download, and even when I got internet in my house, the lower camera angle and the fact that you can't rotate it to have 90 degree angles to match with the controller made me not want to play the game. When I found out there was a gameboy advance game I downloaded it and played until year 5 and loved it, and I even bought the newer remake for the nintendo switch, which I loved because it staid simple and kept the essence of the original game.
it's midnight in my timezone but HEY NEW JOSH VIDEO
It's late for me too, the video took me a lot longer than expected! Hi!
I actually was introduced to Harvest moon with the Game Boy Advance! I bought the DS version purely by accident years later while in costco, lol. After that there was no going back. I actually really enjoyed the Future set Harvest Moon for the PsP.
I played HM boy and girl before any of its remakes so it's actually my favorite version, even though the game ends after marriage. I just don't like how they took out some of the events in the GBA version. The vibe of the game is also really different and I feel like the heart events weren't as good, but that could be the nostalgia talking lol
Didn't love the switch remake, it was fun to play but I was disappointed that they didn't do a lot more with the characters. Great video! I've never played HM64 so I had no idea that they changed so many things, I can see why it's frustrating that the "wrong" game was the one that they've continuously made remakes of!
I didn't play Harvest Moon until PlayStation came out, so I first played FoMT. I loved the game so much that I ended up buying every game after branded as HM, even if it wasn't HM anymore.
My first HM game was 64 back when I was in middle school. I played Friends of Mineral Town on GBA a ton in high school, but it never occurred to me until watching this video that it and the PS1 game was supposed to be a remake of 64. I knew all of the characters were the same, but I just figured that reusing characters was just a thing that all/most HM games did.
I think a complete reimagining of this game more along the lines of Stardew Valley would be amazing.
Anyway, thanks for the video! Super entertaining and nostalgic. Subbing for more! =)
I've played Back to Nature first. But after playing HM64, I find it hard to go back to games that came after it. It's stressful gameplay feels more rewarding I guess. But what's important is NPCs doesn't look out of place anymore and a little more interesting to interact with. It's a shame that BtN killed original timeline.
Friends of Mineral Town on GameBoy was so good :) i would say its the beginning of my casual game journey. i loved it. i still have it with a functioning handheld and played it not long ago for a bit but now its difficult to sit down with a handheld when i am more of a pc person. The controls and the pace costs a bit of nerves :( so sad. I would love to experience the joy again like i was 11 or 12 years old again.
Back to Nature was my first HM/SoS game and it also the game that introduced me to farming sim genre. I had so much good and sweet memories in this game. It definetely has special place in my heart 🥲 Also this game was very popular in my neighbourhood during my childhood. At that time PS1 was booming in my country and many of my friends bought it, including me. Thanks to that we got introduced to HM BTN. It was that one game that everyone love, not only for kids like us, but also for the adult. I still remember when all of my friends in my neighbourhood came to my house just to witness my character married Karen because I was the first kid who successfuly marry in the game lol 😂😂 what a nice memory
I liked the challenge of rival marriages and having to make friends with the town before the end of 3 years. I was always worried about the game ending if the villagers didn't like me.
I grew up with the BTN/Mineral Town timeline so that made more sense to me. That timeline is canon in my head. 😆 Also as a queer individual, I miss rival marriages. I belive HM/SoS could still do that whilst being inclusive. It's so sad that the remaining candidates will be single forever after your character gets married.
Yeah. I miss that too. I remember things like Popuri leaving the town with Kai after getting married. Or even in 64, that they would have babies too.
I got real mad they took away Rival Marriages. It felt really stale that only the MC's life changes. The other townspeople are in basically limbo. It doesnt help in the remakes, the characters are written to eventually supposedly fall in love with the rivals but they took the final heart events away so theyre just stuck in perpetuity.
I didnt have n64 back then. We only had playstation. But at least in that it made me appreciate the game as it was instead of conparing it from its predecessor.
My first game was Save the Homeland, which got me to pick up the PS2 version of A Wonderful Life, which almost made me stop being a fan of the series entirely. XD It's only thanks to a friend who insisted there are other *better* entries beside Save the Homeland that made me give the series another shot, and my third HM game ended up being Friends of Mineral Town. I still preferred Save the Homeland over FoMT, but I still enjoyed my time with it a lot. Harvest Moon DS was the next game I jumped into since then, and I've kept up with the series ever since.
I love this game SO much. I think my only complaint was the controls, the way they are on a diagonal always confused my brain/hand coordination.
I loved cooking in this game so much. I carefully organized and hoarded all my ingredients in my upgraded kitchen. I loved fishing every evening. I absolutely love the music. I loved going to the mines.
I actually never used the sprites for anything. I'd befriend them and gift them, but never hired them. I guess I never trusted them to do the job right, I wanted to just do it myself.
The controls are certainly confusing! 😅
The sprites in your town were probably a lot happier than in mine, I always make them work a lot. 😆
BTN was the shii! That was my first Harvest Moon game, and i will nvr get tired of the soundtrack ❤
BtN was my first farming game ever...literally core memory shit.
It's a quite interesting video. I came to know the series by Back to Nature on de PS1. One of my friends had it and we spent so much time playing that game and trying to understand English (not my mother tongue). At the time I didn't have a ps1, so I had to relay on my friend to play it. Later I discovered the emulation world and I could play Mineral Town on GBA, and boy, I played so many times. Boy and girl versions, different marriages, so nice. When I discovered the N64 one, it was so strange, all the characters mess up and less quality of life in the gameplay, so I never played for too long. I ended up discovering the N64 version was the original one, but in the end the PS1 got more popularity. Anyway, greats games. Thanks for the video.
Back to Nature was my first Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game. There are pros and cons to the GBA demake, but while I think the modern game is objectively better, subjectively, it doesn't do it for me, especially with a good chunk of the town being replaced with impostors. I've never played the N64 game but would love to one day. Regardless, Back to Nature to me is one of my favourite games of all time, and that game and that version will always be my favourite in the series.
The reason why i like friends of mineral town more than wonderful life..... The cows
Ask anybody in my country what their first and (probably) best harvest Moon in the series, they will answer Back to Nature! PS1 and this game was super popular back then, even now people still playing, making contents and streaming it. Personally I didn't know any other games in the series like 64 or the GB/GBA until maybe mid 2000's
I only had access to HMFoMT and now SoSFoMT (in that part of the series) so it’s interesting to learn about the differences between the games. I didn’t know BtN was on PSN and I’ve really wanted to try it so I’ll have to give it a go! 🥰 We never got the for girls editions in the UK and I was super excited when Magical Melody came out to find out we got the Wii version only that had a lot of things removed and I’m still salty about it. I just wanted to play as a girl! I’m happy that they are more inclusive now but I wish they wouldn’t remove the rival marriage and children growing up as I really enjoy that aspect and it gives more content to enjoy after completing the main aspects of the game. (FoMT was my first game in the series, I forgot to mention that.)
i've never seen u playing HM Hero of Leaf Valley PSP, i think thats better than Save the Homeland with more endings and marriage, although some events are time gated, u could fix that by guide and u wont miss anything in the game
Yes, Hero of Leaf Valley has a lot more content! I'll probably cover it in the future but I'm trying to play the games in order!
I first played the GBA FOMT version, I recently played the NSW remake, and I wish they would ask which type of marriage you want at the start, because OH boy the awkwardness and pain of accidentally triggering heart events with guys was just, stomach churning, thankfully once you're married you can live your life without the fear of accidentally triggering an event and having the response to me turning them down is so awkward. Had to basically avoid speaking to guys for the first year and a half 😆. Other than that it's a great remake, but I wish they had left in the consequences of neglecting your animals.
I played fomt and mfomt growing up and loved them dearly. I'm happy to hear there's no rival marriages in the sos remake tho because I was just never a fan of the mechanic or the pairings they did lol.
I never knew that 64 was so different, that's pretty funny 🤣 and to think the btn became the mold for the other remakes...rip 64's og story lol
The family changes always bothered me to the point of not making me enjoy BtN and FoMT as much.
Would love a faithful remake of HM64, but I know that's impossible so we should just hope some group of fans decompiles the game so people can easily add improvements it and/or make a direct PC port.
I loved HM64 to bits and played it for hundreds of hours so of course I jumped at the chance of buying Back to Nature. By all accounts it was HM64 but with remixed and much more content so I was ready to lose myself in that game… what’s not to like? Turns out a lot. I’ve never gone from total hype to total deflation with any videogame as fast as I was with BtN. 10 seconds into the gameplay when I saw you could only move in 4 directions (coming from HM64 and it’s free form analog control) was devastating. And to add insult to injury it was made more confusing due to the isometric angle because you’d move in an “X” form but the Dpad was in a “+” shape. For a late PS1 game in 2000, way after the introduction of the analog sticks via the DualShock controller, was unforgivable. The 10 second or so loading screen everytime you entered or exit your farm screen certainly didn’t help things.
After that I kept for years trying to get that next drug kick on a home console I got from HM64 which sadly never came (at least not from this series). I gave Save the Homeland on PS2 a try but incredibly it was even worse than BtN but for very different reasons. Then came A Wonderful Life for GC which did fix many of StH problems but still lacked much of what made HM64 so special. And I know I wasn’t the only one feeling this way because apparently the guy that did Stardew Valley made it because he felt the same way I did. He, like me, knew there was a market for a game like this which Marvelous refused to satisfy but unlike me he did something about it.
If i made a remake of HM64, i'll call it Story of Seasons: Pastel Pasture
Hi hello Josh, no link to your 64 review/play through in the description?
I really loved BTN, played many hours with it. The only thing i hated was the full barn. Couldnt move between the animals and were anoying.
I played the heck out of MFoMT and was disappointed by the SoS remake. As a kid I really liked how snappy the pixel sprite movement was. The new game made everything feel slower and like it took much longer, and the size of the maps were so much bigger... I feel like a lot of people see 3D as inherently better than 2D pixel art, but I don't like it when swapping to 3D means slow movement and large empty-feeling maps.
Roomate 😂😂😂
Just one correction- Marvelous doesn't do the translations now. XSeed does.
XSeed is Marvelous USA. Marvelous fully acquired XSeed in 2011, their corporate name is Marvelous USA Inc. but they still used the XSeed branding to publish recent games.
In August 2024, they announced that going forward, first-party titles like SoS and RF will be branded under Marvelous USA and third party titles will be branded under XSeed to avoid confusion, but they're effectively the same company.
BtN is by far the best of them all. Everything in this game... perfection!
BTN was my favorite in the series.
L’arbre généalogique m’a tué hahaha trop drole
I just bought a used Wii to play animal parade and omg the lag is making me feel like buying a pc would have been easier
i got into hm really late so my entrances into the series were the ds games. I LOVED ds cute lol it was SO CUTE lmao. i wanna see THAT version adapted lol justice for syke. lol otherwise hes gonna be locked on the ds forever haha. or just find a way to bring him into the normal remakes. basically, just give skye a second chance at life lol
Bring back more festivals and interactive festivals 😢
"Has a 'roomate'" Oh my Gosh they were roomates~
But also I love the Quotations around roomates implying that Thomas is in a gay relationship~ You have the shipping brain too.
I wish for a remake for HM64 with modern QOL, but since we got FOMT instead it will probably never happen. I like SOS FOMT a lot but I dislike the reliance on breeding animals. Rival marriages need to come back in every game, too.
I actually didn't know there were that many changes from 64, I played back to nature as my first harvest moon game, and then the Game Cube one, but my favorite was the PSP version Hero of Leaf Valley, Back to Nature beign my first still makes it go to spot 2 though, I personally couldn't really stand the gamecube one much, everything wasn't well explained, I missed all the festivals, I had a miserable time there.
Wish I could increase my Beauty Stars rating IRL 😢
If life was a farming sim, everything would be so much easier. 😭
My favorite one ever
I grew up with BtN and remember signing the petition to get for girl, we had an entire girl forum for it. 😂 glad we finally got it with boy and girl.
I would pay to play if they release it on mobile
You don't like automation in general? Have you played Factorio or Satisfactory?
Satisfactory is one of my favorite! I absolutely love automation games, but too much automation in a game that is NOT about automation tends to remove the fun in my opinion.
I played BtN, FoMT, and the SoS:FoMT. I gotta say, I'm disappointed that they remake FoMT instead of BtN. Don't get me wrong. I also understand that FoMT is a BtN remake itself, so it makes sense that they made a remake of a remake instead of another remake of BtN. But what I don't like is that FoMT actually felt more like a downgrade from BtN because of its platform limit. Like for example the graphic: town isn't isometric anymore, or the Harvest Goddess isn't from the back of waterfall anymore, and the SoS remake follows that. Also the festival isn't as fun.... And I just don't really like events on the FoMT... Maybe I'm just too biased on BtN 😔
Totally disagree on the automation system, especially in modern games you'd have no time to actually explore the rest of the game without automation, watering takes too much time this used to work on older games that had no content but nowadays things are different.
❤
I grew up with PS1 BTN and it will always be my most fav game. However, I don't like the characters sprites and portraits in the new SoS FOMT, everything looks too clean and childish, mechanisms are the same, nothing new to see, so I skipped. Now there are many indie games with innovative gameplay and fresh storyline, different perspectives to explore.
There are a 2 things currently I hate about the remake of Friends of Mineral town for switch
1]THEY RUINED GRAY....THEY REMOVED HIS ICONIC HAT...GRAY IS NOT GRAY WITHOUT HIS ICONIC HAT. THEY MIGHT AS WELL HAVE REMOVED HIM FROM THE GAME & REPLACED HIM WITH SOMEONE NEW. YOU CAN'T JUST REMOVE GRAY'S ICONIC HAT & THINK IT'S OKAY. Gray was my favorite bachelor, now I can't even bare to look at him. I feel so sorry for Gray.
2]The ruined a number of other characters as well, I feel sorry for them having the wrong names given to them for the English dub of this game. Elli, Ann, Doug, Barley, May, Stu, Ruby, all there names are incorrect & it bugs the hell outta me seeing the wrong names in the English dub game, I wish they would fix it. If I didn't need to talk to Barley to get animals I wouldn't bother talking to him in the remake at all just cause his name is wrong for the English dub.
They even screwed up the names of the harvest sprites. They got 1 right outta 7 & that 1 was the blue sprite named Aqua. All the rest Chef, Nappy, Hoggy, Timid, Staid, Bold they got their names wrong for the English dub.
I actually avoid talking to the people mentioned above as much as possible just to avoid seeing the incorrect names as it really pisses me off.
I completely agree that they should have kept Gray's hat!
For the other characters though, they changed the names to make them closer to their original names in the Japanese version. Natsume changed a lot of things when translating the first games, so as much as it is a bit unsettling at first, I like that they're now using the actual proper names.
@@JoshGamingGarden I get why they changed them it still doesn't make it right in my eyes. It just feels wrong seeing those names in the Eng dub of the game & I'm still gonna avoid talking to them as I can't stand seeing those names even though I have played quite a bit of the remake. They feel wrong and out of place in the Eng dub of the game. I wish there were an option to choose which variant of the names you see in the game for those of us who want the other names.
@@starhealer1 its not really a dub if its not voiced acted, translation is the word you're looking for.
BtN is not a remake, it's a sequel, imo.