I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I’d try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there’s a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon’s later entries since there’s more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm doesn’t seem as big, you don’t have a way to know that you’re tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn’t seem as characteristic. It’s a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
KQ6 was great though. You’d go through and beat the game but notice that you’re many points short of the maximum and there were a bunch of loose threads that never got solved. It was the first game I ever played with two paths to the end and finding that second path was so good. Especially getting to play during one scene that was seen many times before as a cut scene, along with a puzzle whose solution completely changed the tone of the scene (figuratively and literally lol).
Though I don’t think I have the patience to do all of that again. I think I originally played that game over a period of months with no progress at all in many sessions. But I kept coming back to it as a kid.