Harvest Moon is arguably one of the most well-known farming simulation franchises out there. Surprisingly, many players are unaware of the series’ complicated history. To give a brief rundown, Natsume localized the Harvest Moon games up until Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. The original developers, Marvelous, then began publishing the games through their own localization branch, XSEED, under a new alias, Story of Seasons. However, as Natsume still owned the Harvest Moon name, it continued to produce games under that title. Since then, the quality of the Harvest Moon games has severely dipped, as Natsume has struggled to carve out a unique identity, leading to the release of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home and its new “Special Edition” release.
I’m not the biggest mobile gaming connoisseur, so I never played Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home when it launched as a mobile exclusive last year. But with the special edition now arriving on PC and consoles, I decided to give it a whirl. After spending over 20 hours with the game, I walked away unsatisfied with the experience, as there are so many issues that hold it back, some of which could have been avoided.
Plough The Fields With Hope
In the same vein as the other Harvest Moon games, the story here is easy to follow. After a decade away, your character returns to their hometown village of Alba to fulfil their childhood dream of running a pristine farm. However, you quickly find out that many residents have moved out of the area because the town has become rundown. With your childhood friend’s help, you hatch a plan to revitalize the village and return it to its former glory, hoping to attract new residents and tourists along the way. Depending on the gender you pick at the beginning of the game, the opposite gender will be your childhood best friend (Justin or Christina).
For those unfamiliar with the setup, your task is to expand your farm and the local village by participating in a variety of activities, such as growing crops, caring for animals, cooking, fishing, and mining. Once you progress so far into the story, you can then partake in social events, like attending seasonal festivals, entering horse racing competitions, or even marrying one of the residents. The gameplay hook here is that you can only do a limited number of activities a day, as you’re under the constraints of a stamina system. It’s all a juggling act, as it’s about managing and prioritizing which activities to do before your health runs out.
Happiness In A Bottle
To improve the state of the village and to move on to the next part of the story, you will have to collect Happiness, which is filled in a star-like bottle. To obtain this magical essence, you will have to engage in activities that boost the overall mood or the economy of the village, like fulfilling quests for residents, selling or buying items, or simply initiating a conversation with someone walking around. I guess being a social butterfly really is the pathway to success, eh?
In the first few chapters, it’s really easy to scoop up Happiness, as you’re still being introduced to the mechanics and controls. Which I’m not complaining about, as it’s a slog to push through. At this point, you don’t have much stamina, which limits what you can do each day. I would often end my farming antics and go to bed before the afternoon even arrived because my stamina was pretty much gone by then.
Once you reach Chapter 5, the gameplay starts warming up and finds a sort of rhythm, as you have more health and can perform more tasks each day. The mines also become available to you around this time, and selling the rocks you grab down there is, hands down, the best way to generate income. As you might expect, the later chapters will require you to collect more Happiness to progress through the story. But it’s still super easy to fill up the bottle and usually only takes a few tasks. It would have been nice if it took more jobs, as it would have made the campaign a little longer, since you can complete it within 15-20 hours.
Walking Around The Pasture
Let’s dive into my biggest gripe with Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition – the farming. You have the usual spill here: get seeds, plant them, and then water until the crops are ready to harvest. But the controls are what make this process downright unenjoyable. It’s really hard to aim in a particular direction, so you will quite often perform an action in a place you didn’t intend. Later down the line, you can unlock repeated actions, which makes this a little less painful as you can click on multiple tiles at once. But if I’m being entirely honest, by the time I reached the latter half of the game, I completely ignored the farming elements unless I needed to do something related to the story. Which is not great, considering this is, first and foremost, a farming simulator.
The world itself feels very barren and uninviting to explore, with only a handful of shops and interactive items in the open environment. I was hoping that more areas would become available as you progress through the story, which could have mitigated some of these downfalls. The only semblance to that was unlocking more levels in the mines, but this is also unexciting, as it’s just rocks in randomly generated rooms. You never feel like your deeds directly impact the world, which is a shame, as this is often a big motivator for me when I delve into these types of experiences.
The characters were not the most interesting either. I didn’t feel drawn to any of their personalities, and much of their dialogue would be recycled throughout the chapter. This often made me want to move on to the next one just to see some diversity in the conversations. What was also strange was that hardly any of the side quests tied into the character’s personal stories or motivations. It really would be rudimentary tasks, like “Justin wants a Margarita, so now it’s time to gather the ingredients to cook one.” This could have been a clever way to make us feel more connected to the characters, but it was yet another missed opportunity.
You’re Only As Good As Your Tools
When it comes to upgrades, there are only a few available. The main one you’ll probably interact with is your equipment, as each time you advance it to the next stage, it will drain less stamina. This is incredibly handy when you’re trying to squeeze multiple tasks into a day, so you’ll want to invest all your spare money in this. I know poor workers often blame their tools, but in this case, it really is justified.
If this wasn’t bad enough, there aren’t many customization options, either. You can only make a few items for your home, and there are hardly any outfits to craft. One of the most enjoyable aspects of any farming simulator is being able to customize what’s around you, very much like Animal Crossing. It was disappointing to see the lack of options here, as they could have offered so many distinctive rustic and rural items and outfits.
The graphics and the character models are nothing spectacular. It’s not necessarily bad, but it just looks like it was made a console generation ago. But one aspect I really didn’t like was that the main character’s assets were directly copied from Harvest Moon: The Wind of Anthos. Because of this, the game and its protagonist lack a true identity, creating a disconnect between the world it seeks to portray and what feels like a rehash of the previous instalment. In terms of performance, it runs well on the Nintendo Switch, with the framerate only dropping a few times while dashing in the mines.
If you’re a returning player, you might be wondering what additional content has been added to the special edition. To be honest, there’s not that much. The main selling point is the Hoverbike 5000, a futuristic-looking scooter that allows you to travel across the map at a much faster pace and, more importantly, uses no stamina. I’ll admit, I did use this vehicle as my main form of transportation once I unlocked it. It’s not too clear how you get it, as it’s attained in a side quest that is only initiated if you talk to a specific character. So hypothetically, someone could completely miss it during their entire playthrough. Not great, right? The other main piece of content that is worth highlighting is that there are two new characters you can befriend and marry: Ella and Nikolai, who you may recognize from Harvest Moon: The Wind of Anthos.
I know I’ve dunked on Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition a lot, but that’s because there are small glimmers of potential in places. While some of the issues can be traced back to its origins as a mobile game, that’s not a valid excuse for others, which stem from poor choices. A prime example of this is the flimsy controls, which could have been avoided if the game had spent more time in the oven, so to speak.
Natsume is trying to position Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition as a beginner-friendly farming simulator, which isn’t a bad idea on paper. However, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition should have been bigger, bolder, and braver when trying to establish a presence in the genre. Instead, it ends up as an unpasteurized version of itself, which is hard to recommend when other juggernauts occupy the space.
Disclaimer: Natsume provided a Nintendo Switch copy of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home for review purposes.
