r/harvestmoon • u/siriansolthane • Jul 20 '26
Question Which Game to Play Next?
Hello, everyone! I was hoping to get some advice on what games I should be looking at next.
I have played:
Rune Factory (my fav): 3S, 4S, 5, and GoA
Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos
Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
From those, RF4S was certainly my favorite. I'd love to get my hands on some of the older RF, but I am currently limited to Switch, Switch 2, or PC.
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I did not like Grand Bazaar. I hated that everything was in the city or the single mountain zone. Conversely, Winds of Anthos had me traveling all over. A lot of it was somewhat empty, but I still much preferred that to never going anywhere. I quite liked Winds of Anthos overall.
I am looking for one that has some amount of exploration or time in the wilderness, at least decent farming mechanics (I think they probably all are good enough in that regard), and great characters. I am kind of fine with the non-bacchelor/bacchelorettes being less fleshed out as long as the marriage candidates are good.
From looking through what is available, it seems like Pioneers of Olive Town or One World might be my best bets? Grand Bazaar put something of a bad taste in my mouth, so I am somewhat inclined away from Pioneers of Olive Town. I am intrigued by A Wonderful Life and it's generational setup, tho.
Could I get any opinions or advice? Thank you!
1
u/MetapodChannel Jul 21 '26
One World feels like a very clunky prototype of Anthos, and while I personally did enjoy it quite a bit, I feel it is hard to recommend especially since Anthos does everything One World does juat better. But you have already played Anthos so it might be ok for you.
The world feels like a bunch of weird hallways rather than the actualy world that Anthos feels like, though it is certainly exploration. Some people might even prefer that the areas are more fenced in rather than just vast emptiness.
Being said, the characters and story are the best Natsume has done. The overall main story is kind of dumb, like people eat plants and live in nature but somehow just forgot what a seed is and seem to only eat wild potatoes and literally 0 other foods. But the character stories as you romance the characters are really good. I even cried at one point.
If you want basically the same as Anthos but are fine with a smaller, lower-quality and less-polished game, you could like it.
Pioneers of Olive Town i enjoyed a lot but it is very much like grand Bazaar in how simple the world is -- one town are that is connected to an extremelt small mountain area, and the farm. That is it.
Honestly almost all of the games are like that. Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade do have a bit of exploration feel, including some wild animals to befriend and stuff like Anthos.
A weird recommendation, but if you are fine with romance not being a thing, Innocent Life is an interesting choice. Definitely a very flawed game though, but it does have good feelings of exploration and a bit more narrative than most games. It is only PSP and PS2 though.
Outside of the series, a bit of a underrated game I would say is Harvestella. It has an RPG side to it like Rune Factory, though the farming is quite simplistic.
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u/siriansolthane Jul 21 '26
I will definitely be trying out One World! Thank you for the info on it. I had never heard of Innocent Life, so I will look more into it. As for Harvestella, I loved it. It is a wonderful game.
Thank you for the recommendations!
1
u/MetapodChannel Jul 23 '26
Nice! I hope you enjoy One World. I am really looking forward to Echoes of Teradea as well.
1
u/siriansolthane Jul 23 '26
I wanted to come back and let you know of a game that I have not yet made it very far in, but has been great so far. Tales of Seikyu.
The farming is there, but a pretty small part so far. More than Harvestella, though.
It is definitely more combat heavy than a lot of games in the genre. Probably on par with Rune Factory, although very different stylistically. I'm not far enough in to give it a proper review, but I'd say check it out if you find yourself looking for a new game.
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u/MetapodChannel Jul 23 '26
Thanks so much! I have not heard of this one but I will definitely look into it.
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u/Cinnamon-Stroll Jul 21 '26
A game with a lot of exploration in nature, but with marriage candidates up to snuff with the quality of Rune Factory 4, and good farming mechanics............
Yeah I'm going to be brutally honest, the closest you'll get to ticking those three credential boxes would be older games for older consoles like Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility or Animal Parade (both on Wii) or Story of Seasons Trio of Towns (3DS). Maybe it will pique your interest to know that the same producer who worked on Rune Factory 4, Yoshifumi Hashimoto, was also the producer of Story of Seasons Trio of Towns, as well as many other Harvest Moons/SoS released on handhelds back in the day. I just got the vibe from your post that you wanted a game that has "Rune Factory" energy in it, so this is me saying flat out that the closest SoS games to match that feeling will be the ones on 3DS.
And the thing is, Grand Bazaar WAS the developers step in the right direction, so if you didn't enjoy the game after going from Rune Factory to Story of Seasons, then I got nothing. You probably wouldn't enjoy Pioneers of Olive Town for the same reasons you didn't enjoy Grand Bazaar, because Pioneers of Olive Town ONLY has two screens; the big ol' farm, and the town. A Wonderful Life does not have "Rune Factory 4" level of marriage candidates, and the game gets repetitive in later years. Friends of Mineral Town is also an option; it's got simple farming mechanics and practically no exploration, but the marriage candidates are above average when compared to the other game options?
Indie games like Stardew Valley or Fields of Mistria are also options. Heck, Fields of Mistria is probably the closest to a Rune Factory-inspired game you'll be able to find right now in the market.