On this month’s podcast (February) and backlog foray we shovel our way through Harvest Moon. Its legacy is of the farm simulator that planted the pixel-art seeds of farm management and buying the affections of others with gifts in the hearts of many a 90’s gamer. In particular, those seeds blossomed and inspired a rush of modern farm sims, not least of which is Eric Barone’s Stardew Valley, which shares a number of deliberate similarities to Harvest Moon. In our opinion improving on nearly all aspects of its inspiration (except oddly enough in the area of character animation).

In its time and in summary Harvest Moon is a farming RPG that looks a bit like SNES games you may already know. Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy, and maybe even the Ys series and others, seem to have inspired HM’s designers. And in the end, in light of advancements its inheritors have made to the HM bones — farming and management loops, inventory system, and expansive levels of interaction with NPCs — it’s the aesthetic of HM (1997) that endures or stands strongest against its more expansive and modern counterparts.

Check out the liner notes for backround on the wild publishing history of HM as a franchise, as well as music and speedrunning as per usual for us.

And then stay tuned for a podcast on Unicorn Overlord, which is a rare first-month (new game) pick up for us, in keeping with our clear fascination with turnbased strategy games.

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