Harvest Moon

I find it wonderful when I hear stories about how people discovered a certain game from your childhood. Maybe an older sibling introduced you to Mario and always made you play as Luigi. Maybe a friend first brought over Crash team racing and you spent a sleepover finishing every track. 

For me, I have this one hazy memory of first playing Harvest Moon 64.  

Every New Year's Eve family friends would come over, and while our parents were in the living room doing whatever us kids were playing video games. It was these days that I was first introduced to Mario 64, Zelda, rampage, and Harvest Moon 64.

At first I mentioned it in passing to my parents, and word of me enjoying games always seemed to get to my uncle Milton somehow. One day when I was visiting his house he hooked up the Playstation 2 he had for when I or my cousins visited and he popped in Harvest Moon Back to Nature.

I was so happy, that I started right away. The game was different from what I had seen on the N64, but I didn't care. This was my first farm to raise and my first time starting a new game. I played for hours not wanting to stop. My uncle and aunt just sat in the living room with me a watched, thinking back it must have been boring for them, but they didn't mind. They never minded because I was happy.

I grew up a Nintendo kid, and misses the Playstation age. I had only seen the system at friends houses and didn't know that Playstation games could be played on the PS2 or that PS2 memory cards didn't save Playstation games. So when it did come time for me to save and I couldn't my uncle, without even me asking got up and went to the store to buy a new memory card. He came back with, another Playstation 2 memory card. I don't remember being mad or upset, but right away he went to the store again and came home with a Playstation memory cards in time for me to save my game and go home. He even let me borrow the PS2 so I could continue. Let's just say my first town wasn't that great. My field was covered in weeds, and I barely grew any crops. The first animal I decided to buy was a sheep and didn't know I how to feed it, or that I had to push it back inside the barn at night. When I did make enough money to buy the feed I wasted most of it but filling every troff. Then I was only able to buy one feed a day because I didn't grow enough crops and would forge for the wild food every day.

I guess I learned a lot more from HM then I realized. How to plan a head, to micromanage, and be on time for things. Most of my harvest moon habits come from this game as well. I always name my first chicken Bird and all my cows start with the letter M, and Karen became the fist girl I tried to marry. I don't have that save file or memory card anymore, but that game is sitting in my Playstation at home waiting for me to pick up a controller again and play it when I get home. 

 My uncle eventually got me the N64 version so I could play on my own. The first girl I married was Mary of HM64.  I didn't know all of the goals of this game originally so I had first tied to befriend and marry Karen. (A favorite of mine from my short time playing Back to Nature). I didn't know how to save the Vineyard so Karen had gone to the city in my game. Popuri bothered me and had pink hair, so she was out. Shallow me has married every other bachelorette in HM but her.  I spoke to Elle'a grandmother and she died so I felt bad and didn't want to talk to her more. Ann, I could never figure out how to get her I like me. In a way Mary was my last choice but I grew to like her character. She was shy and liked to read. I found her more relatable than the other girls once I got to know her character.  What makes this game and this series so special in my opinion is that every experience is different for someone. It can be very personal if one of your cows die because they were sick and the ranch was closed so you couldn't get medicine and the game makes you feel bad...I have been able to swap stories with other fans about who they married, what crops they grow or if they prefer to rush and get animals first. 

I wish I could explain it better, why something as simple as a farming simulator game can bring such happiness.  Maybe it just goes back to the first time I got to sit down and enjoy Back to Nature, and how my aunt and uncle sat and watched me. 

Play, and threw the years I was able to build on that first memory. My uncle passed away five years ago, and I still think of him often. 

For every game I have memory. Mario party makes me think of nights with my girlfriends drinking and laughing. Smash brothers holds my memories of collage and how we would all get too competitive but still could laugh and head down to dinner. Mario itself I can trace back to the first games I payed with my older sister up to first meeting my boyfriend. 

Harvest moon is one game series that is special to me, not just for the memories that I hold playing it myself, but for the person I can remember.