ReCollection #3: Harvest Moon (1997) & Harvest Moon GB (1998)

 

"Rise up with the sun, water the garden, feed the animals, and visit the town all before sunrise!"

Or something of that nature. This is an indirect quote from a magazine ad for the Gameboy game 'Harvest Moon GB' dating back to 1998, though which magazine and month it's from I do not know. But it was a quote that flipped on a switch inside my head that screamed "You HAVE to play this game; It's right up your alley." 

The ad was double-billed with another Natsume release from that year—Legend of the River King GB—and was featured in the same magazine that also advertised Pokemon Red Version and Pokemon Blue Version, though again as previously mentioned I do not remember the specifics of this particular magazine. However, I really wish I did because I'd love to find a copy and flip through it again.

I vaguely remember reading a snippet of the ad that also mentioned that a Super Nintendo version existed, and seeing as it was 1998 and that Super Nintendo games were still available for rent, my eleven-year-old thought process was something like, "Well if there is a SNES version then it must be available to rent."

So that following Saturday, August 2nd—My grandmother's birthday—we headed out to town after a somewhat eventful morning involving a garter snake my father encountered while cleaning out some brush. After running some errands, we stopped at the new Hollywood Video that had just opened at the beginning of the year. My first rental was Resident Evil 2, and man did that ever set off a hilarious chain of events, but that's a ReCollection for another time.

We stopped at Hollywood Video and I was sent inside with my nephew who had been staying with us since March. Given enough money to cover the rental, we trekked across the parking lot and made our way through the entrance, banked a hard left to the video game section, passed the Nintendo 64 games, and went right for the dwindling SNES selection. Sure enough, there it was: Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo, something I surely had looked over as now had the Nintendo 64 and a Playstation as of the previous Christmas.

To this day, just looking at the cover art for this game sparks an incredibly warm feeling that I associate specifically with 1998, particularly that of the holiday season and two notable video games that will get their own ReCollections in the future.

Probably the most surprising part was the fact that the game was still available for rent. Usually, when I'd look for something specific, it'd always be rented out. And while Harvest Moon would eventually end up stolen upon trying to rent it in the future, I did get a good couple of week-long rentals worth from it while it was available.

In Harvest Moon, you play as a young farmer that inherits his deceased grandfather's farm and you are tasked with reviving it in two and a half year's time, at which time you'd be evaluated by your parents and be granted one of several different endings depending on what you managed to accomplish during that time period.

Harvest Moon SNES differs from almost every other game in the series in that it has an ending that upon reaching it, your time with that particular save file is done and you need to start over. Now while it was possible to flat-out lose your farm if you did poorly in some of the earlier titles—namely Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon Back to Nature—the only other game to flat-out end your progress was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, which had a legitimate ending(though that too would be changed in improved releases, including the upcoming remake!)

I had named my first farmer "Goku", and as I blazed through the early days of the game with little regard to anything but clearing land and growing crops, days ended pretty quickly, be it due to my not realizing that you could restore your stamina in the hot spring or just wanting to progress through the seasons and see what each brought to the table.

    

I remember my nephew encouraging me to keep watering a single tomato in expectancy of it growing to much larger sizes, something that wouldn't become a feature in the series until much, much further down the road. Nothing happened obviously, but it was one of those things that stuck with me after all these years.

Oh, and accidentally leaving a chicken outside without protection. Hearing that startled "bugock!" during the screen transition, waking up the next morning to find just the bird's feathers. The only remnants of the chicken after a wild dog attacked it during the night.

Though I'd go on to rent Harvest Moon for the SNES a few more times, even into 1999 after I had received the GB version the previous Christmas, eventually the copy Hollywood Video stopped appearing available for rent, no doubt stolen by someone that had become aware of the game's increasing value in the aftermarket. I had never seen the game available for purchase when it was brand new either, only after coming across it secondhand at Media Play. I did eventually get my own copy of it courtesy of my nephew, which was pictured above. 

It remains the most valuable video game in my collection.

I do still have my original copy of Harvest Moon GB that I got for Christmas in 1998, though the original box and booklet are long gone, replaced with a plastic repro, which unfortunately was only for the GBC re-release.