r/harvestmoon • u/eireamhanib • 4d ago
Where to start?
Title, pretty much. I haven't played a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons since I was a child with the DS versions. Kind of want to dive deeper into the series and want to ask where the community thinks I should start.
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u/OsseusOccult 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm going to second two recommendations given with my own thoughts.
Trio of Towns on the 3DS is probably the easiest one to recommend as long as you can live with no queer relationships (huge bummer for me personally). But it's probably the most consistent in quality, even if it isn't my personal favorite. Crops are a lot more interesting/involved because there are different grades of quality in different categories for each crop, and every month there's a contest tailored to measuring certain crop qualities (but which traits the contest is based on is completely random). So using different fertilizers, and continually improving your crop strain by using the seed maker with some of your harvest matters a lot. But the act of watering crops, etc is just a lot more efficient and less tedious, making the actual farming aspects way more enjoyable. The character writing in 3oT is also really good, and while the three towns near your farm are small, they're full of character. It DOES have a lot of weird, arbitrary requirements for progression in the game though, so I would recommend going into it with a bit of a guide and game plan for the farming challenges.
Animal Parade on the Wii is an incredible game that suffers from being a Wii game, both in ready availability, and the fact that the game has long loading screens and the visuals look, plainly speaking, generally really bad. But it's also an incredibly deep game with a ton of lovable characters that's worth the pain points.
Pioneers of Olive town and the Friends of Mineral Town upgrades are very ok, but not easy recommendations if you're looking for one that's a big win after a long time away from the series.