I dedicate this article to Robin Williams, who passed during its creation.
Harvest Moon 64: Fact, Opinion, Recollection
First, a little background in case you aren't familiar. Harvest Moon 64 is the second game in the Harvest Moon series. It was released on the Nintendo 64 platform in February of 1999 for Japan and December of that same year for North America. It was published and translated by Natsume but mostly the work of Victor Entertainment Software (before they merged with numerous companies and ended up somewhere in Marvelous Entertainment). It's described as a farming simulator, but I see it more as a “slice of life” game with farming elements. The basic story is that Jack inherits the farm of his grandfather who recently died. Instead of selling his grandfather's property, Jack wants to revive the farm and make a life for himself there.
Before we dive in I want to make clear my intentions. This is the abridged version what that doesn't go over the whole game with a fine tooth comb. I could go over the entire game, but almost everything has been covered by Walkthroughs and FAQs on the internet. The goal of this article is to share a little overview of the game and its mechanics, a little bit of criticism so the article doesn't feel biased and one sided toward the positive aspects, and I'll also share some personal experiences.
Chapter 1: The Game Who Wasn't There
Those old enough to remember the late 1990's may wonder why they can't recall any commercials or advertisements for the game. Well you can cancel that CT scan, there's nothing wrong with your brain. The problem is that the game had no television advertisements and very little in the way of magazine coverage outside of Japan. The only English magazine spread I was able to find is this. So you were not the only one who may have missed it. On the off chance you caught a glimpse, you probably weren't impressed anyway. When I first heard of a “farming simulator” I thought it was some sort of joke. I had no idea it even existed until a good friend of mine told me how great it was. Even the savviest gamers I knew at the time (disregarding the fact they were all mostly 10 years old) also hadn't heard of it. Natsume probably assumed the game would be hard to pitch given the subject matter so they sold the game in small quantities and kept advertisement expenses to a minimum to try and squeeze out some profit. Honestly, I'm surprised it was released outside of Japan but they must have felt confident it was worth the risk. The success of its predecessor in North America probably helped, being very well received. So perhaps Natsume were gambling on fans of the first game would latch on to another title. Whatever their strategy had been, it has helped to create a cult following as the series is still very much alive:
Spoiler
Every Harvest Moon game released after Harvest Moon 64. Yeah, the series doesn’t seem to be dying soon.
Chapter 2: “Farming Simulator”
At the time of its release there were few games centered on farming. Compounded by the fact the Nintendo 64 had a small library to begin with, it's pretty safe to say Harvest Moon 64 does hold the monopoly on raising animals and growing crops in a rural setting on the N64. You can choose from many crops to grow, a handful of animals to raise, and many upgrades for your farm are obtainable if you have the money and materials required. At your disposal are a plethora of tools. There’s a hoe for tilling, an axe for chopping wood, a watering can for watering your plants, and much more. Indeed, you have many things to do in regards to farming, and you'll be spending much time doing that if you so desire. You can also forage for flora growing in the wild and this is especially important during the early game to get the materials and money I mentioned earlier.
This sure does sound like a lot of work to keep you busy huh? Well it is, but it becomes tedious. Much like real farm work, it becomes boring if there is no break in-between. This is where the human element comes into play. You will usually have enough time to get all your work done and spend the rest of your time getting to know your neighbors. This, to me, is where the game truly shines. You'll find that most everyone here is very friendly toward the main character, Jack, because his grandfather was liked and well respected. It's also very important you get these people to like you, because if they don't like you after 2 and 1/4 years Jack won’t get to stay and the game is over. Seems like a lot of pressure huh? Well don't worry. Unless you go out of your way to talk to no one and ignore festival activities you're almost guaranteed the right to stay. My first play through I messed up A LOT and I was still given a pass. In fact, the game itself isn't very hard to beat. Jack literally cannot die under any circumstances. Getting a perfect ending, however, is probably one of the most difficult things I've succeeded in doing in a video game. Basically, the game is easy to pick up but difficult to perfect. All of this is the reason I hesitate to really consider the game a “farming simulator”. There is way, way too much to do in regards to socializing with the townspeople and other activities. Later on, unless you really enjoy the tediousness of farm work, you will be focusing much more on these other activities. This leads into the meat of the game...
Chapter 3: The Love of Your Life
That's right! What would any slice of life be without romantic relationships? There are 5 available spinsters for Jack to swoon and eventually marry:
(From left to right) – Anne, Elli, Karen, Maria, and Popuri.
So as you can see, we have a wide variety of hair colors to choose from! Seriously though, each girl is fairly different and varies in both interests and personality. They all have certain favorite foods, events, and birthdays that are unique to each. Anne is very outgoing while Elli is shy and reserved. Karen hates when you show her bugs, but Maria loves those tiny creatures. So as you experiment, or simply read up on a guide like the cheater you are, you figure out what she's into and Jack can focus his efforts in order to attract her. It also helps to get in good with her family. For example, Karen's father is kind of a grumpy guy who is in a bad mood most of the time worrying about his vineyard's success. If you warm him up to you, Karen will notice. Then you'll get a small boost to the affection mechanic. Normally, you can get all the girls up to a friendly level, but you have to eventually choose a single girl to marry. There's no pressure to get married but it opens up a lot more dialogue options and some special events. Part of the beauty of this mechanic is that it adds a lot of re playability. In truth, marriage is mostly the same among the girls with dialogue making the big difference. Oh, and you can have a kid, though to be honest that's one of the more disappointing aspects I'll get into later. The point is, 5 girls to marry means you'll have to play 5 different game files in order to experience all of their special dialogue and stories in that alone.
What a gripping revelation!
It's interesting to note that each girl has a possible suitor who can be considered a rival love interest. These guys will often marry the girl if you don't, but only if you are friends with the girl in question. Now before I spiral into an eternally growing wall of text about all the details of how people in the game are affected by Jack's actions, let's just say there is a lot to do in this area alone. There’s so much to do that not every event and conversation seems to be documented. I myself have witnessed seemingly random conversations that aren't documented anywhere on the internet (that I've found).
Chapter 4: Crop Failure
The game is not without its flaws. I've not found one game that has zero flaws and due to that funny little thing called “opinion” I don't think there is or ever will ever be a perfect game. Harvest Moon 64 is no exception to this rule. There are some things that are definitely not opinion and are objectively wrong. Take for example an infamous example for Natsume games:
Good old “Natume”.
The game is riddled with spelling mistakes and awful grammar. Some sentences read very awkwardly, like Yoda was the translator. This is a minor flaw and it didn't make the game unplayable, if anything it just made me laugh most of the time. Though I remember one of the girls you can marry has a piece of dialogue at night with a glaring spelling mistake. That means you'll see it every single time you talk to her at the end of the day. So that was kind of annoying. I don't believe there is an official reason given by Natsume for all the translation issues, but given the release date is December it can be surmised they were in a rush to release the game for the gifting holidays. It doesn't excuse them but it seems the most likely reason the polish was missing.
Oh, okay then.
So you're wife has been feeling funny for awhile now and suddenly you get news of a child. Congratulations! It's a boy! Not only that, but he will remain a toddler for the rest of time. He will never grow past roughly 4 years of physical age. Yes, when you have a child in Harvest Moon 64 it's always a boy and there really isn't much to him. He has a few stages, starting as a baby in a crib. You can carry him around and let people see your offspring. Then he becomes a crawling baby who... crawls around and starts spouting some basic words. Finally, he becomes a walking toddler who has about the same vocabulary. It takes 1 year to get to the 3rd stage and there he remains for eternity. He's got some special little events, but ultimately his biggest role to play is making your wife change her dialogue to more motherly topics. She'll ask Jack to not feed his son sweets, use real words to boost his vocabulary, and she'll ask if Jack thinks she's raising him right. So yeah, the first time Jack had a child in the game I was so excited about Jack's son maybe growing up and having him help out on the farm or whatever else could have happened. It was not to be, however. The most years I've hit in a single file was 10, and after 7 years of no development I became very disappointed in the baby mechanic. I guess it's better than having no child options, but it's kind of a big part of most people's lives that becomes irrelevant rather quickly. They could and should have done more in my opinion. Maybe they planned more but didn't have the time or budget for it. So in the long run it's not detracting from the game's quality, it just felt like a potentially great mechanic that was squandered. It's also worth noting the game is built around 3 really solid years of content, and everything after is pretty superfluous. I still think it's irking that your son never becomes someone looking for advice from his dad or anything more than a conversation piece.
Chapter 5: It's The Little Things
There are so many little things that make this game special to me. Take for example a completely unexplained and somewhat cryptic element that serves no purpose other than being a cool extra feature. This feature is called, drinking tolerance. I know, it sounds crazy but bear with me. During a certain festival you can drink with the townspeople to see who can out-drink who. Well normally you will lose pretty much every year. However, you can “practice” by drinking a bunch at the bar, or take the super cheap option of drinking at the Vineyard for free. Either way, you drink enough and soon you'll be drinking everyone under the table at the festival. There's no tutorial to tell you about this, there's no stats to signify it either, it's just completely hidden from view but there to discover. This is really what makes the game special to me. There is so much to find and though most things are small and insignificant overall, they make the game deeper and worth exploring.
You mean that's not an apple?
Now as I said earlier, Jack can never die. Without spoiling who it is, there's only one person who will (unless you take certain precautions) die as intended. So obviously I wasn't really concerned about the mortality of things in the game and this lead to a disaster when I first started playing and didn't understand how to feed animals. I just figured the livestock might put out mediocre milk, eggs, wool, etc. Well, I was severely mistaken. I went and bought a calf because I wanted to get out of the crop game for a bit. The game allows you to name the animals so I called her “CHOCO” for a reason I can't recall. So as I said, I was confused but not very worried about feeding CHOCO. After a few days I got a visit from Anne's father who sold me the calf. He said my animal was getting sick and I needed to feed it more. Still not worried and preoccupied by other things I just let it go. After a week I had Jack go to bed as usual and instead of waking up in his house I get an event where it was Jack, Anne’s father, and the pastor at the graveyard. The pastor said some nice words about CHOCO. Anne's father said, “It's an animal, so it can't escape from death. But was it a death that could have been avoided? Think about it well. Never forget that you're in charge of the animals' lives.” So when this happened I was dumfounded and rife with guilt. My animals got fed every day after that little event. Anytime they got sick I rushed to buy medicine at the store. I never lost another animal after that and it always sort of stuck with me how fragile and important life is. It may seem silly in that some digital cow died in a video game as being very important, but as a kid it gave me a taste of failure to be responsible that resulted in an irreversible consequence. I still remember it some 15 years later, so the fact it left this lasting impression on me says something. There are a few instances where the game hit me with things like this, but that was the strongest example.
Finale
This game is very special to me. As I said previously, it's not difficult to play through but I got a lot out of it. You meet people and places in the game that at first seem very simple and quaint, but as you get to know the NPC's and the in-game world you start to discover how much there is to this niche title. I'm not going to give this game a numbered rating because that's not the point of the article. However, if you have even the slightest interest of playing it then I implore you to give the game a try sometime. I cannot personally comment on the newer titles in the Harvest Moon series, but I hear good things about the Rune Factory titles if you don't have access to a Nintendo 64 or have trouble with emulation.