cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3263596
Assuming it even comes out. I know there are some gender-related mods and stuff for Stardew Valley, and Stardew itself was a huge leap over the enforced disheteronormativity of Harvest Moon. I would like it if Haunted Choclatier was more "woke".
Kinda yeah - except it's got genuinely less coherant gameplay and feel emptier than most of them. I enjoyed Harvest Moon: One World and Light of Hope more, and they're not great either.
If yer gonna play specifcally a HM game I recommend Animal Parade, boyfriend got me to give it a try and it mostly holds up, villagers have like no dialogue but that's been a thing HM has gotten away with forever. Alternatively Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life, cause you have a kid and get old and stuff and that's neat. Also hybrid plants.
Actually good games in the genre, Fields of Mistria just hit EA and I put 70 hours in, boyfriend did 60, and we only stopped because we ran out of content (technically I have about 20-30 more hours I can do going for 100% item collection, prolly slowly do that at work). If you don't do EA, I still recommend making a note of it, check back in a couple years.
Moonstone Island, Sun Haven, Rune Factory 4 or (if you got a wii/emulator) Frontier, Littlewood, Nova Lands/Forager at a tangential sort of game, Coral Island is still EA but seems to have survived the false 1.0 and continuing devlopement apace, Harvestella if you want a more JRPG Sci-Fi tone, there's absolutely bonkers numbers and sorts of these games and having played at least a hundred those are the top of my head "These are just solid".
Also very cozy is Dysmantle, originally an android app I think it's a post-apocalypse "destroy everything, craft gear, learn the truth" game, you can break almost literally everything in the world, kill some zombie things, raid some temples, in a top-down hack and slash sort of experience and it's insanely content filled after all the Expansions and it's like my favourite game ever.
Realizing you did not ask for game recs...but I wrote all the things...so enjoy me gushing? lol
Are they just remaking all the HM games? Jesus.
But also, fukken saved and will research, ty!!
Lol, yeah they also remade Friends of Mineral Town. It's definitely better than the original but also. . .Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons are the old codgers doing their old thing from when they had no competition even now. They are trying new stuff lately, but have kept so much of the old trappings and just shallowness of the games.
Yep, living in a bubble seemingly unaware that Stardew and its ilk exist. 0 awareness of anything. HM64 was semi remade into Back to Nature, was demade into Friends of Mineral Town, was remade into Harvest Moon DS, was remade into Story of Seasons Mineral Town.....