Reader Ramblings: Harvest Moon SNES Hot Takes

As I continue to gradually work my way through the incredibly dense, rich worlds of Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda, Kunihiko Ikuhara, Masaaki Yuasa, and Harvest Moon I thought I would take some breaks to do some more casual writing. Harvest Moon SNES, the first entry in the Story of Seasons franchise, ends on a rather bizarrely abrupt note. Your father really only appears on the title screen and the final cutscene along with your mother who is even less of an entity in the game. He will send someone else entirely an in-game year prior to send a message that they’re going to appear in the third summer of your life on the farm a flurry of unconnected cutscenes plays and that’s it you can no longer continue the game with a random starry night sky staying on screen, after they tell you how all your hard work amounted to nothing, forcing you to turn your game offf and back on again.