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Story of Seasons: Difference between revisions
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There is a distinct flavor of the spiritual in the ''Harvest Moon'' games; the player can typically meet a variety of imps, sprites, spirits, fairies, and even the Harvest Goddess, most of which are friendly and will help you out if you give offerings or make an effort to befriend them. Though a game that revolves around doing ''farm chores'' might sound ridiculously boring, somehow they managed to make an entertaining, stylish, successful game franchise around the concept. Not to mention ridiculously addictive. Although the series has never achieved massive sales numbers, it enjoys an extremely loyal cult fanbase.
More recent games have included an [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] or two; ''[[Rune Factory]]: A Fantasy Harvest Moon'' for the DS has a fantasy setting and some RPG-style elements, such as the ability to fight monsters (and with the releases of RF 2 (DS) and Frontier (Wii), has become a full-fledged [[Spin-Off]] Series), while in ''[[Oddly
In the majority of the games, there is a certain time limit (usually between two and three years of game time) built in, at which point some event (such as the character's father visiting the farm) occurs and the player is "graded"- but it's almost always possible to continue playing indefinitely even after you've received your "grade".
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As with [[The Wiki Rule|most popular series]], it has a [http://www.ranchstory.co.uk/wiki/Main_Page wiki], [http://harvestmoon.wikia.com/ two in-fact].
Don't confuse for the [[Neil Young]] song, although it could make one good soundtrack for the game, or the [[Blue
== The games in the series (North American releases) include: ==
* ''Harvest Moon'' ([[SNES]], 1995)
* ''Harvest Moon GB'' ([[Game Boy]], 1997)
* ''[[
* ''Harvest Moon 2'' GBC ([[Game Boy Color]], 1999)
* ''Back To Nature'' ([[Play Station]], 1999)
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* ''[[Rune Factory]]: A Fantasy Harvest Moon'' ([[Nintendo DS]], 2007)
* ''Puzzle De Harvest Moon'' ([[Nintendo DS]], 2007)
* ''[[
{{tropelist}}
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* [[Adaptational Attractiveness]]: A majority of the [[SNES]] characters had their designs updated to look more attractive and modern in ''Magical Melody''.
* [[A Homeowner Is You]]: Some games let you buy another house.
* [[All in
* [[All-Natural Gem Polish]]: In most games it's played straight, but it's notably averted in ''Animal Parade''--all the gems you find are uncut and require Mira to appraise and cut them before they're worth anything. And she has a decent chance of failing, too.
* [[Anachronism Stew]]: Most games will include very modern items like TVs or refrigerators, maybe even DVD players, but there will never be any industrialization of the farming industry.
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** This is possible in the English version, too. It's just a [[Game Breaking Bug|really bad idea]].
** Another example is that in ''Animal Parade'', it is mentioned that in the past, during the Flower Festival, a girl from the village would be voted to be the goddess of the festival. That's what was done in ''Harvest Moon 64''.
*** In the same game, Ellen and Gray appear in their long-forgotten ''[[
** Chelsea has the exact same get-up as Sara however she wears her bandanna rather than having it around her neck.
* [[Continuity Porn]]: For a series with such a flimsy (possibly non-existent) timeline, the games thrive on this.
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** First off, fans have done the math on the crops of all of the games, making it ridiculously easy to maximize your profits. In addition, many secrets, such as power berries, are possible to get immediately (with no reliance on luck or skill) if you know where to find them, making it simple to supercharge your farmer well before you would have been able to via legitimate exploration.
** The SNES version had the game clock stop at 6 PM, meaning you can clear the entire farm (which is unbelievably big compared to later versions) on the first day, by using the hot springs bath every time you're about to faint. You can't sell anything at night, but you can safely ignore all your other chores until then.
** In ''[[
** ''Back to Nature'' has the first mines just a few steps away from the hot springs bath, which restores both stamina ''and'' fatigue fully within 1 hour 10 minutes of in-game time. This means you never have to sleep, and the short trip to the mines makes it easy to get several thousand dollars by the second day.
** In ''A Wonderful Life'' it's possible to get a crop-to-seed converter for free by befriending the local [[Mad Scientist]]. If you plant some trees, harvest their fruit and turn them back into seeds, your money problems are over because the tree seeds are the most expensive seeds in the game and sell much higher than the actual fruit.
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* [[Excuse Plot]]: Most of the games don't flesh out much beyond the simple premise that you've either purchased or inherited an old farm, and now it's up to you to fix it up and make your living as a farmer. By far the worst is "The Harvest Goddess was punished for calling the king bald. He's to lazy to undo his own curse, so you go fix it"
** ''Magical Melody'' is one of the few that actually has the player trying to achieve a specific goal. The Harvest Goddess turned herself to stone because the townspeople no longer appreciate life like they once did, or her existence; the player must get her back to normal by collecting magical music notes (received by doing a large variety of things in life), and bring the village back to life (so to speak), because he/she is the only person besides Jamie who can see the Harvest Sprites.
* [[Expy]]: Quite a few of the ''Magical Melody'' "original characters" have designs and roles parallel to the Flowerbud characters in ''[[
** It's a common thing in [[Harvest Moon]], especially the handhelds. Character archetypes are used very often to the point where it's a ritual to some fans. The (usually) hot Asian doctor, the baker, the antisocial quiet guy, the player, the [[Tsundere]], the [[Bokukko]], the [[Meganekko]], etc.
* [[Eyedscreen]]: Used extensively in HMDS cutscenes.
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* [[Fishing Minigame]]: One of the main ways of making cash is by catching and selling fish.
* [[Fission Mailed]]: In most of the games since ''Back To Nature'', getting married triggers the credits. But the game goes right back to normal after they finish. One of the exceptions is ''Tale of Two Towns'', where the credits come after the tunnel is fully reopened.
* [[Flanderization]]: The series is extremely prone to this. If someone pops up in another game, expect this to happen to them. It's especially bad in ''[[
* [[Four Is Death]]: For various reasons, many HM games do strange things if you perform specific actions at 4:44 AM/PM.
** That's because in Japan, the number "4" is viewed with much superstition and is considered unlucky (much like the number "13" in the West).
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** In ''(More) Friends'', when Zack delivers the large bed to you, he wonders out loud what you're going to do with a bed that big (as in most HM games, the bed upgrade is a marriage requirement). He does so with a large toothy grin.
** Another event in ''Cute'' features Rock asking you if you would like to hang out with him at the beach. You are married and he is not. When he realizes that you and him are the only two on the beach, he begins to get a few ideas...but quickly decides against it since he doesn't want your husband angry at him for the rumors about you having an affair that could get around.
** In ''Animal Parade,'' rather than just making you or your spouse pregnant, you actually ''plan'' to have children. But when you do so, your spouse makes comments along the lines of, "Well, if we're going to try to have kids, we've got our work cut out for us! [[Say It
** The Japanese version of Cute got away with lesbian marriage in an E game by simply slapping the phrase "Best Friend" on everything, even though everything romantic is left intact.
** In "A Tale of Two Towns", one of the date options for Hiro is "Hiro's Room".
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* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: ''Tree Of Tranquility''.
** ''A Wonderful Life Special Edition''.
* [[Looking for Love In All
** Thankfully averted in the DS version.
* [[Lost Forever]]: Particularly in HM64, where Karen and Cliff will leave and never come back if you do not get their relationship values high enough
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** Another incarnation might be present in ''Island of Happiness'': mysterious (and rarer than [[Unobtanium|any given ore]]) are stones called "Wonderfuls" that are used to increase or alter the effects of your tools. Taro's fishing rod is the only tool in the game that cannot use these. Balanced out by the fact that the only difference between cheap tools and more expensive tools is how many of these stones can be set into one of the tools.
* [[Marathon Level]]: Many of the caves, including the 65,535 floor fourth mine in HM DS/DS Cute.
* [[Marth Debuted in Smash Bros]]: To newer fans, this occurs quite often when characters from older games appear in newer ones. Sara for example appeared for the first time in around ten years in a Wiiware game, and her source games are obscure [[Game Boy]] games; thus obviously some people thought she was a new character. Characters from the ''first game in the series'' have been mistaken for [[Expy|copycats]] of the ''[[
* [[Mayfly-December Romance]]: Wooing the Harvest Goddess, Harvest King, Witch Princess, Wizard, or Kappa.
** If you marry the wizard in ''Animal Parade'', he lampshades this by saying that he probably will live much longer than you.
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* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]: If given the option to, the game will fade to credits if you refuse The Mayor's offer to turn the farm over to you.
** ''DS/Cute'' had a variation on this: at the beginning of the game, your dog would attack the mayor. If you chose not to save the mayor, the credits rolled and you'd be taken back to the title screen.
** Actually, most of the time, The Mayor would ask if you were sure [[But Thou Must!|until you agreed]]. ''AWL'' and ''(M)FOMT'' did hit you with a Non-Standard Game Over this way, and AWL in particular was chock-full of them: [[Strangled
** Special Edition makes it even easier. When Takura asks you if you want to own the farm or not just press no and... Game Over before the ''game even actually begins''.
** Apparently, in DS/Cute, if you grow a Level 99 Poison Mushroom and put it in the soup at the Harvest Festival, you will poison the entire village and cause this. Growing a Poisonous Mushroom to Level 99 in incredibly difficult, though.
* [[Oddly
** The Japanese title for ''Back To Nature'' is ''The Farm Story: Harvest Moon'', with the female version being ''The Farm Story: Harvest Moon For Girl''; they're the only games that use the western title.
* [[Official Couple]]: The series tries its best to avert this, but it still shows. For example in the ''Wonderful Life'' games Celia and Rock take a liking to you according to your gender, and their events are easy to get even if you don't interact with them (it doesn't help that Marlin and Gustafa are rather hard to court than to Rock and that Celia increases in attraction when you ''buy seeds and such from their farm''); you also can't divorce Celia unlike the other two girls. ''Magical Melody'' has you and Jamie, likewise the ''Island'' games have you and your psuedo-character. Cute seems to imply that the protagonist marries Marlin, Skye, or one of the [[Gay Option|Special Girls.]] An accurate ''[[
** The fact that Karen (in ''[[
* [[One Game for
** Don't forget the "Girl Versions". They aren't very different, besides the rivals turning into bachelors and the bachelorettes turning into rivals, some new things were added (such as clothing) and dialogue slightly changed.
** An odd variation occurred for quite a period. ''Back To Nature'' is essentially a topsy turvy port of 64 to the [[Play Station]]. Back To Nature gained it's own [[Distaff Counterpart]] version, the first in the series. The games were later ported to the ''[[Game Boy Advance]]'' in enhanced 2D remakes.
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* [[She Cleans Up Nicely]]: The bookish, shy, [[Meganekko|often-bespectacled]] girl is ''always'' jaw-droppingly gorgeous on her wedding-day. This applies to all the other brides as well, but on those girls it's more noticeable.
* [[Shout-Out]]: ''Someone'' was having fun with ''Tree of Tranquility'' and ''Animal Parade.'' The most blatant one most people will probably get, in ''Animal Parade:'' Innkeeper Jake has found the Wizard's crystal ball and doesn't want to give its magical powers up. What does he say? "[[The Lord of the Rings|My precioussssss...]]"
** In another of ''Animal Parade'''s events, Calvin can find Owen and Luke attempting to demolish a very historic wall in the mines and, scolding them, cry that "''[[Indiana Jones
** Yet more in ''Animal Parade:'' The Pantsuit item has, as its description, "A suit for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCIUf8eYPqA taking care of business and working overtime.]
** The animal parade examples keep piling up!, watch a bear cub's max level trick and tell me it isn't a shout out to Pokemon
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** ''Island of Happiness'' took this to a new level: when falling down the mines via pitfall, you lose stamina in an exponentially increasing way. Falling down one floor takes 1 stamina, but falling down five floors takes around 100 stamina. [[Save Scumming]] helps, however.
* [[Sugar Bowl]]: About the worst thing that ever happens in the Harvest Mooniverse is that animals occasionally die --everything else is pretty idyllic... which makes the occasional [[Drama Bomb]] that much more powerful. ''A Wonderful Life'' is something of an exception to this, with a generally darker tone than the norm for the franchise.
* [[Super Title 64 Advance]]: [[
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Quite a few characters that were cast out completely from other games. The most noticeable being [[Hair of Gold|Claire]] to [[Brainy Brunette|Sara]], and Pastor Brown to [[Estrogen Brigade Bait|Carter]]. Most substitutes aren't disliked though, due to the flexibility of the fandom and due to the fact they originals simply unknown due to the games they appeared in.
* [[Take Your Time]]: With the exceptions of ''A Wonderful Life'', ''Grand Bazaar'', ''Twin Villages'' and ''Tree of Tranquility'', time doesn't pass while in buildings, so you can screw around to your heart's content without missing anything. Especially glaring in some games where you can buy a greenhouse to grow crops in -- meaning that you can have absolutely ''massive'' fields of produce, and since a greenhouse is a building, it takes literally no time to plant, water, or harvest them all.
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{{quote| '''Alice:''' "Well, I guess I'll take it from you. I-It's not like I'm happy about it or anything!"}}
* [[Ugly Guy Cute Daughter]]: Gannon and Eliza from ''Island Of Happiness''
* [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]]: Several entire ''games'' do this; ''Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon'' and ''Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon'' are both [[Exactly What It Says
* [[Unwanted Harem]]: In A wonderful Life it's pretty easy to unintentionally get Muffy and Celia to fall for you, without even talking to them sometimes.
* [[Updated Rerelease]]: AWL Special Edition, which added in an extra love interest, changing outfits, and potential daughters. But at the same time, the graphics actually got a little ''worse''.
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