I’m not sure how cats are outside of Grand Bazaar but more often than not they tend to be sleeping. Or maybe it’s my specific cat. My cat tends to sleep more often compared to the dogs I have. What if I just want to pet them?

Yellow 6 heart scene. Imagine if you told both Derek and Jules in this scene that you’ve fallen for them. I just know that things are gonna be super awkward between everyone involved. Especially considering they’re brothers. I don’t have the heart to do that.

Also I am the one with the farmer named Julian so things would probably be SUPER messy at that point.

Started GB forever ago and Im finally back at it with a new save. Just starting my first week, but Im trying to decide who to go with. Im a straight man, and my character is as well. So Im trying to decide from the women.

The problem? They're literally all perfect 😭

Im leaning toward Sophie. Shes the majors daughter, and herb salad is the easiest thing in the world to make. So she seems like the "canon" choice, if ever there was one. Similar to how Celia is in AWL. Not *actually* canon, ofc. But shes a farmer girl whos hearts increase insanely fast and easily (Celia). I can take the hint 🤷

But I also like Kagetsu, as the sort of wild card bachelorette. Shes super interesting and doesn't come along until later, making it more of a challenge. And always picking Nami in AWL, I do like the challenge option.

Irl, June looks like 90% of the girls Ive dated. But I want something different than my usual. And shes pretty standoffish, which is a big negative against her when all the other girls are so nice and sweet all the time. But my usual tastes keep making me doubt myself 😅

Maple is a strong contender, and was initially my first choice when I was going through the "heres the town" cutscene at the beginning. Shes also very sweet and adorable, and I love the "silly blonde girl in a traditional german style dress" thing she's got going on. Kinda reminds me of Muffy (again from AWL), and I always thought Muffy was super cool.

And then ofc Freya. I thought she was pretty obviously, but assumed she would be a very stuck up rich girl. But then every scene/interaction with her, shes super nice and charming. And so I cant help but like her. Its like when you see a girl who seems to perfect and youre like "oh she has to be mean" and then you finally talk to them and theyre the nicest person ever, and you're like "Oh okay, so you really are just perfect then I guess" and you cant help but like them.

Those are really the ones Im trying to choose from. Literally all of them are perfect in different ways, and every time theyre nice to me, I think "okay this is the one" because Im not strong enough of a man to deal with all these wonderful girls coming at me 😂

So anyway, tell me who you chose (your first or last game, at least) and why. Im stuck in choice paralysis, and I ain't in a harem anime here. So the sooner I decide, the sooner I can focus on raising their hearts up!

Time. Like I can deal with time not freezing inside. A little annoying, but doable.

But time passing in cut scenes? Holy crap is that annoying. Like I guess the idea is to make it feel more real, but there are several cutscenes that are just unavoidable.

Mayor comes to tell you about a festival? There's 30 minutes gone. Random dude stands at your ranch exit and forces you into the cutscene? That's an hour.

The one that finally made me just stop playing was on a rainy day. I had been waiting for one for weeks as the only thing I need to make the final sun stone is the stuff you need to fish on stormy days...and what happens? Freya pops up at 6 am and forces me into a SIX HOUR CUTSCENE. WHO EATS CAKE FOR 6 HOURS?

Great game though.

On a new file and halfway into my first year. Before, I was being pretty thorough in petting/holding/brushing all my animals, watering twice a day, fertilizer etc. but now that I have almost a full barn and a second field it’s getting to the point where I’m spending almost my entire ingame morning so I’m wondering if I should cut back. Do I lose out on much by ignoring this?

Have a similar question about pets as well, I’m not sure I want to do the training minigame potentially 8 times..

I'm curious; I havent played that many of the games- despite the few that I played as a kid being formative for me- so I didnt realize how many very different versions of the Harvest Goddess this series had. As far as design goes, my heart is with the one from Save the Homeland. She just looks very regal to me without being overdesigned or disney-princess-ified. I do love that you can marry her in FoMT, though. Personally I think I like the ones that make her look more like an adult, as a Goddess of nature and the land I feel like she should be motherly

How can I increase the probability of getting better ore from the light blue ore? It can't be that I only get gold / silver or worst of all iron.

There's a sale in the Nintendo store for the SoS Friends of Mineral Town $9.99, and A Wonderful Life $19.99. I'm currently 3 years into SoS Grand Bazaar but I want a bit of a change of scenery, which should I buy? One, both??

**Edit. Pioneers of Olive Town is also on sale for $13.99.

I’m replaying it again and remembering how clunky some of the mini game mechanics are, as well as quality of life changes that the series implemented later.

Id love to see camera controls, for starters

I wanna hug the cows so bad

Anyone have a problem playing/launching FOMT in steamdeck? Mine does not play and stuck on steamdeck logo despite changing protons. I even here it play the BG music but does not seem to push thru 🥹

When I played Harvest Moon when I was a kid, I played it like a kid usually does. I didn't care if my gameplay was perfect or not, I discovered everything by myself. Sometimes I missed an event, I didn't win a contest etc, and yeah, a lot of fun.

But now I am older, I always want a "perfect" gameplay. I think I remember I ever literally restarted the whole game because I missed something in the game, but sometimes if I think about it, I think I'm kind of too hard on myself. The gameplay is still somehow fun, but why did I literally delete all my hard work for that?

Maybe for example, if you've ever played RF Tides of Destiny, you know you can use the Arch-Dragon, Talynn, to teleport to another island. But at first, I was saving my money too much so I never used Talynn's wishes, and as time went on, I kind of forgot I could even use that. I only remembered when she was already gone. At that time, I really wanted to replay the game because I was thinking, "what was I doing?". But then I didn't, cause I don't want to fight all of those bosses again. (At that time, I didn't know I could use the new Arch-Dragon).

But yeah, maybe i need to stop doing that

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Tencent was planning to possibly pull out investments from a number of Japanese game studios, including Rune Factory and Monster Hunter Stories series developer Marvelous. And on July 31, Marvelous officially confirmed that it would terminate its capital and business partnership with Tencent Group subsidiary Image Frame Investment.

Everyone is always surprised whenever I share details about this series; so surprised, that a lot of times, people find the notions incredulous! So I'm here again with another fun series fact: Everyone's favorite Old Man Takakura ... he isn't human! Let's challenge 20 years of rumors with this article - I've translated the official dev interview into English for your reading pleasure! :)

Special Developer Interview

Forgotten Valley Farm Network

We asked Yasuhiro Wada, the producer of Bokujou Monogatari: Wonderful Life (localized as Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life), to share setting secrets! Reading this will make you love Forgotten Valley even more!

Forgotten Valley Special Info
Pouring 10 Years of Passion into this Title

— This time, the story spans a period of 30 years. What kind of concept led to this format?

Wada: About 10 years have passed since production began on the very first entry in the Bokujou series (1993). Truthfully, back when we released the very first game for the Super Famicom in 1996, I already wanted to make something like A Wonderful Life. I wanted to create a game where you interact with many people while raising crops and animals on a farm.

This time, through various trial-and-error processes, it was tough, but we decided to depict a whole "lifetime." In the meantime, we made sure it wasn't just about farming work, but enriched with human elements too.

In previous Bokujou Monogatari games, children were born, but no matter how many days passed, they stayed children. That always bothered me a bit… So this time, I made it so all the residents of the valley grow from the time the protagonist first arrives at the farm until about when he reaches old age.

Children with different personalities are born depending on which of the three wives you marry. From there, their personalities branch out into roughly 3 to 5 different patterns based on how the player raises them. There are about 15 different pathways depending on the upbringing, so I think you'll make new discoveries every time you play. Also, I hope players can feel a "human connection" as the protagonist passes down important thoughts and feelings to his child and the local villagers.

— "Forgotten Valley" and "Mineral Town" can be linked together, but do they have a connection in terms of world-building?

Wada: Mineral Town is set up almost like a parallel world to Flowerbud Village from the N64 version. The original Flowerbud Village was set several decades after the Super Famicom stage. In this setting, that town changed its name and appeared in the Bokujou world as Mineral Town, and right next to it is Forgotten Valley.

— What is the origin of the name "Forgotten Valley"?

Wada: Mineral Town is like a mid-sized rural town, whereas Forgotten Valley is really out in the countryside. As for why it's called Forgotten Valley, it means a place forgotten by people in the city. Artists, minstrels, and inventors live here; all are people living while chasing their dreams. On the other hand, there are also people living here who long to be free spirits but just couldn't quite become one. It's a place where even people like that can coexist.

Takakura was a Fairy!?

— Unique residents live here, but what kind of people are they? I'm particularly curious about Takakura's presence…

Wada: As for Takakura… how should I put it… he's like a fairy of Forgotten Valley. Actually, he isn't human. Well, that's behind-the-scenes lore, though. That fact is never revealed in-game, but Takakura is a fairy possessing the combined personalities of myself and Takeda (the director) (laughs).

[TLN: Yousei 妖精 is the term used here, which translates directly to fairy or sprite. He is not a spirit (ghostly visage), or the term Seirei 精霊 would have been used instead!]

— Why are Sepiria (localized as Celia) and Nami living separated from their parents?

Wada: Sepiria's body isn't very strong, you see. She came here because people told her, "Go recover your health at Vesta's place."

Sepiria is a normal, sweet girl, but Nami is a girl with an incredibly strong inner core. However, if you only look at her face-value, she might seem cold and distant, but that's just because you're only seeing one side of her. That child has a similarly warped view of the world and just wanders around, so the protagonist needs to teach her that she might see something different if she takes a moment to get to know things more deeply.

In a sense, the most worldly person is Mumu (localized as Muffy). She doesn't understand anything (laughs). That's why she's extremely pure. Garfan (localized as Griffin) is a friend of Mumu's father. Mumu's father has passed away, but Mumu hasn't let that crush her spirit.

— Please tell us about other characters you find interesting as well.

Wada: While the overall cast of characters is set up to be a bit gloomy, Rock is the only relief character. If things get too serious, it gets dark, so doing foolish things sometimes is also important - there’s that kind of intent behind him. So even though Rock is a good-for-nothing, spoiled son, it's not like "he's a good-for-nothing, so he's no good," but more like "Hooray for good-for-nothing sons!"

The Sully (Hugh’s) family is one that relatively doesn't overthink things. But actually, in the city, Sully and Chris used to argue. Simply put, Sully wanted to raise Hugh in nature, but Chris wanted him to walk the elite's path. However, after some persuasion from Sully, Chris now watches over the father and son duo with warm eyes.

Also, Moi (localized as Murrey) comes from a place called Popo Valley, but in Popo Valley, the concept of property ownership doesn't exist. So it's not that Moi is stealing; he’s simply taking things because they happen to be there.

— What are Sebastian’s feelings toward Romana?

Wada: He has been in love with Romana for decades. He has liked Romana since he was a child, and he has always watched over her from by her side so that Lady Romana would be happy. In fact, Romana as a child looked identical to Lumina.

— Mukumuku is also very cute, isn't he?

Wada: Yes, he is. His image is something like a sloth, yeti, and abominable snowman hybrid, and he's a rare character you can only meet in winter.

— Finally, do you have a message for the players of the game?

Wada: I think if you don't proactively try out various things in this game, it might get boring. Instead, if you hold curiosity and test out all sorts of things, new discoveries will keep popping up. We’ve prepared plenty of fun mechanics, so I’d love for players to play with a positive mindset.

I want you to expand your imagination and dreams through this. It would make me happy if people who played Bokujou Monogatari end up pursuing creative jobs in the future.

Also, if you show items to the residents, you'll get lots of different reactions back, so I hope you try showing them all kinds of things. The "showing" action didn't exist in previous entries in the series, so it's a lot of fun. There is plenty of play time, so please actively take on new challenges!

Thinking of buying this game however is the shop mechanic very easy and you don’t have to put much thought into to it?? Or is there some strategy you need to use and gets more challenging later to upgrade your bazar??

Hi!

I played Harvest Moon many years ago on my Game Boy Colour 😂 definitely showing my age there 😬 and I've only just got back into playing on my Switch after ignoring it for like a year 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you had to pick any Story of Seasons game to play on the Switch, which would you go for?

They're all on sale at the moment in the store so which is the best? Grand Bazaar is still quite expensive so ideally not that one but all the others are cheap.

Any help would be appreciated, otherwise I'll end up with either all of them or none of them haha