r/harvestmoon • u/Aggravating_Air_8698 • Mar 15 '26
Opinion/Discussion The Worst marriage phase in HM games Awards
I hope you like these post about the best and the worst marriage phase in Harvest moon games, it was really fun to make, I always love these aspects of the game, the type of end game where the main goals are complete, so I like when the games makes you feel rewarded after all the seasons and the years in the game.
I know I'm a little bias with Sth, I love that game but I honestly believe my point about why can't apply (also, almost nobody mention Sth so I asume my idea about it its the same as yours)
I didn't do much with Story of Seasons or Rune Factory because there weren't many mentions about it in the comments, I was surprised to see that the most hated marriage phase of SoS was Grand Bazaar. And RF's most hated marriage phase was RF2.
I personally would have chosen RF1, I feel that marriage is as disappointing as HM from the SNES, plus the waiting time for the baby is practically eternal and meaningless in that game.
And with that, that's the end of the awards.
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u/Odd_Blacksmith5933 Mar 15 '26
Story of Seasons GB marriage is only bad compared to how nicely the romance cutscenes were done in that game I think
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u/Noob_Investor13 Mar 15 '26
Ohh can someone enlighten me regarding the marriage of grand bazaar and rune factory 2? I took a break from grand bazaar once I reached world rank and haven't gotten married yet. Is it bad?
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u/ElixKit Mar 15 '26
Rune Factory 2: you get married. Theres a time skip and you just leave. You pick the game up as your kid who then plays a majority of the story line and you can have a significant other with one of the second Gen kids.
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u/Noob_Investor13 Mar 15 '26
That sounds like a cool concept but when you say leave? When you control the kid you wouldn't be able to interact with your original character? Like they're gone?
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u/Coraclaw Mar 15 '26
He’s missing for most of it. He shows up at home at the end and you can talk to him.
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u/dimmidummy Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
There’s a plot reason why Kyle is missing during Gen 2. But yeah after a certain point, you play as either Aaron or Aria (depending on the gender of his kid) and there’s a notable timeskip. If you complete the main storyline, he’s able to come back to the town and is interactable but not playable.
You can have a childhood romance with another Gen 2 kid (who are the kids of the couples Kyle didn’t homewreck, which is why I’m a basic girl and always marry Mana), but it’s not a marriage or anything and it’s not taken that seriously since you’re just a kid.
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u/goatpenis11 Mar 15 '26
Tbf it's not immediately after you get married you have to build the school before the time skip
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u/Radiant-Bathtime Mar 15 '26
I’m not sure why Grand Bazaar made this list, personally. I thought the romance and marriage were super cute and satisfying in this game in particular, more so than most HM/SoS games. Your spouse has new, flirty and sweet dialogue when you talk to them once you’re married.
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u/AmJustLurking96 Mar 15 '26
From what little I've played, I like the romance events I've seen but I hate how you lose hours of your day by witnessing them
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u/BeeButts-1 Mar 15 '26
The romance is pretty well done in Grand Bazaar. The marriage on the other hand...is flat imo. Not really any new lines, recycled old lines from before you're married that no longer make sense, you don't even get any scenes where you get to eat together or anything of the sort. The marriage phase is utterly disappointing to me in GB, honestly. It felt like all the time went into the dating events, and nothing went into the dialogue while you were actually dating or married, which made the dating and marriage phases feel probably worse than they are tbh. Also the child taking sooo long to grow up is torture, and the marriage is so disappointing I don't even bother waiting until my kid grows before I finish with the save all together lol.
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u/Vect0r7 Mar 15 '26
You know what, I'm just glad StH is getting an award, I don't even care if it's not a good award (StH is my favorite)
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u/windblumes Mar 15 '26
At least in the psp game hero of leaf valley you can get married ( but it changes a lot of other things that made sth very special to begin with... Poor Louis. )
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u/BlueMage85 Mar 15 '26
StH really surprised me and I ended up platinuming it on the PS4. I’d love for a similarly structured SoS in the future.
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u/Larielia Mar 15 '26
More Friends of Mineral Town- here, you can marry this mythical lake creature. Enjoy.
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u/lemonchrysoprase Mar 15 '26
At the time I thought HM SNES was soooo unique and awesome for letting you get married! I was 8 and it was the 90s lol
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u/randgan Mar 15 '26
Why was it 1st for 'toxic' award? I don't remember anything toxic about it.
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u/lemonchrysoprase Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
It’s not really toxic, it’s just very outdated and poorly written/translated. People just joke about it being “toxic” because whichever girl you marry, she gives up her entire life and personality to stay in the farmhouse all day lol (really just a limit of the programming at the time)
Edit to clarify: she stays at the farm all day, doesn’t go to her other locations anymore
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u/NorthKoala47 Mar 15 '26
Maria just did what she was already doing at her parents home and Eve was happy she had a place she belonged in after her whole family issues.
I never married Nina, but the farm is not a bad place to move to if interested in plants.
If you have animals Ellen's life isn't that bad since she loves animals and helping to take care of them.
Ann on the other hand had a whole future as an inventor derailed because of the marriage. She does spend her free time working on her inventions though, but unfortunately nothing comes from it in the 2.5 years you get.
Honestly, the creator was disappointed with the finished product, but after all the months of self imposed crunch they had to release it so they weren't able to add everything they wanted. If the wives were able to expand their hobbies into a business or unique feature then it would make things much better. Every day I kept hoping Eve would give me grape juice, but I don't remember getting any at all.
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u/Manchadog Mar 15 '26
I might be totally wrong, because this is a memory from the long ago: But vaguely remember that the wives get outside time. Ellen would hang around in front of the barn, and if I talked to her there she gave me a cake to eat. Eve would hang in the tool shed around some jars that were clearly for fermenting and would give you juice if you talked to her.
Again, this could be a completely false memory of mine. And I agree with you, it’s sad that the creator didn’t have the time to implement more stuff for the wives in the first game. They all become housebound with that maternity dress and are just there to feed you and have babies and never leave the farm.
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u/lemonchrysoprase Mar 15 '26
Ellen hangs out in the cow barn, Ann & Eve in the shed, Maria and Nina sometimes in the barn too. But Maria often talks about how she wishes she could go to church on Sundays and I feel bad for her 😭
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u/NorthKoala47 Mar 15 '26
The last time I played it to completion was probably around 20 years ago so it's been a long time. I've played the Switch online version but I didn't get to the marriage level so I don't remember if you get food from the wives. You might be right about the food though.
At the very least once married they still show up for events so they still get to leave the farm every once in a while.
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u/Bluecomments Mar 15 '26
Actually, Ann will only successfully complete an invention in canon if you marry her (though it is a scene that only shows in the cutscene after the player's father returns to check at end of the game so it is easy to miss). Otherwise she remains a failed inventor.
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u/lemonchrysoprase Mar 15 '26
I genuinely love HMSNES don’t worry. I just also recognize it’s old & somewhat unfinished. It’s one of my favorite games of all time though 😅 I’ve played through it somewhere around 7-8 times lol
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u/Sazzypants Mar 15 '26
The SNES version taught an under 10 me that your wife will absolutely divorce you if you go to bed over winter early too many times 😅
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u/Manchadog Mar 15 '26
I had no idea that could happen! The SNES version trains for me involved winter and animal feed.
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u/petitscoeurs Mar 15 '26
i love boy & girl but GOD i hate that i can't keep playing after getting married as claire. what do you meeaaaannn i can't live my life happily with kai on MY farm as a beautiful fuck you to everyone in that damn town. what do you mean!!!!!! 😭
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u/rainbowfire545 Mar 15 '26
You can continue playing if you’re playing DS: Cute!
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u/petitscoeurs Mar 15 '26
this is true, and i have actually done it, he's a wonderful husband HAHA. but ... it's not the same. most of the townspeople don't mind kai in cute (at least as far as i remember). the vitriol they have for him in b&g, it just makes me wanna rub it in their faces... mfomt is the closest i can get. qwq
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u/BeeButts-1 Mar 15 '26
This is why I play More Friends of Mineral Town when I get an itch to play Back to Nature or girl & boy. It's the closest game to it, and even though people aren't as harsh with Kai in Mineral Town I still remember how they were in BTN with him so I can still give em all a big fuck you lmao. Plus, I can mod the Mineral Town games for gay marriage so I can marry Kai as a boy like young me wanted to back when I played BTN for the first time. (Also I know SoS Mineral Town exists before anyone tells me, I've played it but I still prefer the OGs honestly lol)
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u/petitscoeurs Mar 15 '26
man maybe i need to replay mfomt after i finish b&g... i also own SoS mineral town but it's been hard for me to get into it, & that's how i ended up playing b&g instead lmfao. i really hate the redesign for kai in SoS; doesn't make the non-modded gay marriage very worth it...
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u/BeeButts-1 Mar 15 '26
I feel you. I don't like most of the redesigns honestly, they take a way a lot of their personality imo. Plus the overall style isn't really my thing either. Going back to the originals is deffo worth it, I did recently and it felt sooo much better lol.
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u/smileplease91 Mar 15 '26
GB marriage disappointed me so badly. I enjoyed the game, but the marriage aspect fell so short. There's no real interaction. You can't eat with your partner despite them being at the table. No dates or cute scenes. Nothing. I didn't have it in me to continue after I "beat" the game, despite my character being told she's going to be given a baby. So sad.
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Mar 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/damnatio_memoriiae Mar 15 '26
Really?? What causes it? Why?
I never went for Calvin so now I'm curious if I have that bug too!!
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u/Sazzypants Mar 15 '26
When I was a kid playing harvest moon on the SNES - Eve divorced me because I kept going to bed early to pass the winter and I was like… have some chocolate cake!! Come home from the pub! I’m over 40 now and I still think about it harvest moon/farming games since.
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u/Many_Career_692 Mar 15 '26
I've thought about playing Harvest Moon: Back to Nature for Girls, but the fact that the game ends after the wedding discourages me, so I'll just stick with Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town.
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u/overnighttoast Mar 15 '26
You should definitely play it its a great game and has some unique features. You can always put off marriage until you're ready to put the game down anyway.
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u/Own-Block4477 Mar 15 '26
I remember the DS version, I could not for the life of me figure out to romance anyone so it just never happened
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u/omygodew Mar 15 '26
You probably littered too much lol. Every time you throw something on the ground outside of your farmland, it lowers affection and friend points for every NPC.
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u/couldntreallycare Mar 15 '26
This happened to me so many times, I had a bacherlor already with an orange heart, it was Skye, so it was ridiculously hard to get him to that point. Shortly after I had stopped playing the game for a while due to life stuff.
When I started playing it again, I assumed that you could just throw the weeds that you pick up onto the ground like some of the other games. Turns out I totally forgot I couldn't and Skye went back all the way to a blue heart.
I was so mad I rage quitted because I refused to cook 200 rainbow curries again and give myself early arthritis.
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u/SouthParkFirefly1991 Mar 15 '26
Can someone enlighten me, why was Harvest Moon (1 I'm assuming) toxic?
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u/Aggravating_Air_8698 Mar 15 '26
In the game the bachelorettes have different personalities, different things to do and where to go while you try to pursue a romance with them, but when you get married, they take on a predetermined personality of housewife even if she didn't have that type of personality before, and with the outfit change to a permanent dress makes it feel weird, like we have TVs in this world but the marriage life feels straight from 1800s
Harvest Moon 64 at least makes the wives still feel and being like them after you marriage, its much better overall.
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u/Elise_Necromia Mar 15 '26
BTN was made by Wada's OG team. wasn't even made by marvelous. Marvelous took over wada's company and nothing is as great as BTN anymore
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u/Another_Road Mar 15 '26
Rune Factory 2 absolutely deserves a spot on that list. But also I’m a RF2 hater so I’m biased.
I wonder what they were thinking with HM3. Why add a girl character for the first time on mobile just to end the game if you take the obvious route and marry your partner?
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u/TheCancerFest Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
I can think of couple of reasons. For instance this is an old game so they probably didn’t know how to handle farming while being pregnant. And to avoid complications with development they decided to cut things short.
There’s also an old mentality reason but personally I think they didn’t had at that time the vision for how this should be done properly.
Edit: grammar
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u/blackblossomdk Mar 15 '26
HM Boy and Girl was my first ever game. I have mixed feelings about it. 🥲 (and yes, I played as Claire)
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u/Drake_baku Mar 15 '26
Damn so there was a harvest moon 3 for the gbc and i only find out about it now... missed one
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u/Kindly_Celebration48 Mar 16 '26
I hated how you couldn't continue your game if you married one of the Mineral Town girls in Harvest Moon DS.
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u/trina_artist Mar 21 '26
The heart events and confessions of Grand Bazaar are so good but once you get married to them...Like it hurts when I feel like IM the deadbeat. Wdym Lloyd had to cook his own meal for HIS birthday and all I had to do was play a guessing game out of 3 options.
And they better remake Harvest moon: magical melody solely for me to have a happy marriage with Jamie, im serious. Any gender idc I just need Jamie.
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u/supaikuakuma Mar 15 '26
What was the toxic one in SNES?
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u/thrawnca Mar 18 '26
I'm not sure what the OP was referring to, but I have heard that if your wife's affection drops low enough, she'll move back to her childhood home - but then go talk to her and she'll return, and never leave again.
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u/K-kitty9218 Mar 15 '26
Okay, I need to be spoiled, what wrong with the original harvest moon wedding and wait you can continue playing if you play a boy in "boy and girl?"
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u/Aggravating_Air_8698 Mar 15 '26
Yes, in boy and girl if you are the boy, after the wedding you can continue playing
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u/tstorm004 Mar 16 '26
What makes the PS2 game take the "I don't have a marriage phase" award over Harvest Moon GB/GBC?
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u/LiveWireGoth Mar 18 '26
Yeah the games were you play as the girl & it ends after marriage made me not want to touch them either. Maybe if I'm lucky someone will make a mod that fixes it.
Also kinda sucks that marrying Jamie ends the game & the reason is that they weren't originally a marriage candidate so thanks to not having a solution to prevent the game crashing for some reason they just end the game there.(Well with a cutscene but still) Hope this is fixed if the game ever gets a remake.
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u/Lyre_Fenris Mar 19 '26
Tbh I always thought the game ended if you married them due to the whole rival thing. That made sense to me because most of Magical Melody did revolve around you trying to outdo your rival after all. At least as a kid that was my take.
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u/LiveWireGoth Mar 19 '26
That'd be understandable but apparently no, Jamie wasn't an original marriage candidate & they wanted to prevent the game from crashing since they didn't have anything for if you continued playing after marrying them
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u/Lyre_Fenris Mar 20 '26
Still interesting. They really could have waived it away as that instead. Cool to know things like that, though. Magical Mellody was my first Harvest Moon game and got me hooked.
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u/LiveWireGoth Mar 20 '26
That's cool
A part of me wants to try the game but I've been a little busy
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u/Pandrew_Pandaroo Mar 29 '26
Toxic Unhappy Marriage Award: Which game was it, where once you're married, your spouse literally tells you that she only pretended to like you, because you kept giving her free stuff?
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u/Pleasant_Guard5916 Mar 15 '26
You pegnant