Reader Ramblings: Harvest Moon Hot Takes

Early on into my exploration of the video games and Harvest Moon can be a touch repetitive. Maddeningly so if played for too long at a time. This is a franchise best played with frequent breaks between play sessions. The early entries suffer from trying to over compensate for this repetition by adding stakes to keep gamers invested. The problem is this whole franchise never needed any stakes and the similar Animal Crossing franchise knew this from the outset if your purpose is to make people relax do not try to build tension with a deadline that potentially ends with the need to restart the entire game. Either your goal is to make me relax or you are holding everything I build up hostage for three years.  At the bare minimum, you don’t need to have an ending where the dog barks sadly while its owner is dragged off from their home forever in your feel good games.