#farming game

At some point about two weeks ago the trailer for the latest Harvest Moon game had dropped into my YouTube feed. It was understandable as to why it had been presented to me, I certainly collect enough farming themed video games as it is, but I have never been a fan of Harvest Moon.

Or rather, never a fan of Nastume's Harvest Moon.

If you're not familiar with the weirdness that is the video game industry, and porting games from one country to another, especially how it was done over two decades ago, you might not know if the drama that is Harvest Moon.

Harvest Moon is a video game, it can be arguably the video game that modern farming games have spawned from. It has been a touchstone of this genre. However, the Harvest Moon of today and the Harvest Moon of my childhood are two different franchises.

When the creators of Harvest Moon wanted to bring the game to the West, they needed to be localized, and they tapped Natsume to localize and distribute it, the latter is important because Natsume was the company who filed the copyright for Harvest Moon, as it does have a different name in Japan. As a result, when the Japanese company who owned the IP decided to change their localizer to Xseed Games, Natsume continued to hold the rights to that copyright.

Now, they didn't own rights to the actual game itself, but the right to have a farming game called Harvest Moon, remained with Natsume, whereas the original series was renamed into Story of Seasons. And that could have been left at that, except that Natsume decided to capitalize on the fact that after 20-some years their name was forever linked to the farming game Harvest Moon.

So they decided to make their own Harvest Moon game, which wouldn’t have been terrible if their first (and later games) weren't terrible. They were dull, unlively, and generally was a step backwards in graphics. It didn't help that drawn art and logo of the games invoked the old Harvest Moon so much that suspicions were abound that it was a cash grab meant to confuse customers. The thing that copyright was supposed to not allow except that Natsume owned the copyright.

But the reason why I mention this, is because they are still making farming games. So are Marvelous, the owners of Story of Seasons. However, Marvelous has been trapped in the cycle of remakes of their old games, probably because the last two-ish new games within that franchise really did not do well.

Which has brought up a really interesting thing that has happened. Between these two companies making lackluster farming games, it had about six years previously opened the door for other developers to make farming games, and players were excited by this. Probably hoping that one of those games would topple the big two giants, especially seeing the success of Stardew Valley.

A farming game that is now over a decade old, and so popular that even some of their mechanics are now part of modern farming games.

And it… sort of happened. Kind of…

The reality is, none of the farming games from newer developers ever got a sequel, but, honestly they don't need one, and should not have one. This is because this genre is now flooded with farming games, and if you've ever played a farming game, those suck up so many hours of gameplay.  So there are only so many of these types of games you can play.

Even if many of them are very good. I try to make a point to play a farming game at least once a year. I played Stardew Valley in 2021 (very late to that game), No Place Like Home in 2022, Harvestella in 2023, Immortal Life in 2024, and technically started Coral Island the end of 2025. I actually have enough time to probably play another farming game in 2026.

And with the exception of Harvestella, they are all games that are well under the 65 CAD cost of a Story of Seasons or Harvest Moon game. More damningly is the fact I really enjoyed the variety these games have given me due to them being made by very different people whose passions about the genre vary in terms of focus.

There are, right now 11 other farming games in my library that I have not touched, which is terrible when you do the mental math of how often I play these types of games. All of those games were certainly cheaper than what playing for a game from one of the two farming game series.

So in short, Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons are not going away. They are the only farming game franchises that will continue to release games as long as it's viable. Story of Seasons has a better chance since they have been doing all those remakes, but reality is, with the price of newer farming games and the variety of those games, their audience is no longer what it used to be.

I think I’ve gotten to the point where I will probably leave Coral Island alone (at least until the next update). I haven’t seen everything the game has to offer, but I think I’m at the point where I’m comfortable enough to leave it alone for a while. Normally, this would bother me because trying to jump back into a farming game after you left it alone for a long time is very daunting.

However, most of my farm is automated, so the farming portion isn’t a huge deal. I probably would just run the risk of missing a seasonal bug or fish because I will forget that is what I was doing.

But I will say for the time I was playing it, (which was a ridiculously long time, longer than any other farming game I’ve owned on Steam) I really, really enjoyed it. Coral Island is clearly a love letter to the farming game genre started by Harvest Moon, even though it takes a lot of its game mechanic cues from Stardew Valley.

This makes a lot of sense even though it makes me feel so goddamn old.

Stardew Valley recently had its 10th anniversary back in February this year. If you were a teenager when you first played this game, you are now a young adult. So it’s not really a surprise that Coral Island borrows a lot of islands from Stardew Valley, from the ability to place objects outside your farm to the offering system that revives the island.

And yet… I feel like Coral Island is primarily taking a shot at the Harvest Moon series. See, even though Harvest Moon is most well known for being a farming game, what always got fans of the franchise excited were the people you could get to know and date within the game. Dating and marriage has always been a component of these types of games, and Harvest Moon really leaned into that as the years had gone on.

However, as the years have gone on, the love interests have started to become less interesting, the townspeople even less than the love interests, and it’s very noticeable when the franchise has not had a successful release that wasn’t a remake of much older properties.

Coral Island’s strongest feature is the writing, interestingly enough. Not necessarily the overall plot, though the general plot of Coral Island certainly does the job, but the stories of all the characters living on the island. Their stories are incredibly down to earth and relatable in a lot of ways. As Were-Ah had mentioned when I told her about the goings ons of the island, it sounded like a typical small town where everyone was in everyone’s business.

More so, because a lot of them are related to each other in different ways other than the immediate nuclear family. There are cousins, nieces, and nephews, as well as adopted family, found family and step families involved in this little town. They all get along in their own way, but not perfectly. There are characters that I don’t agree with their actions, but I think they are at heart good people.

And the developers have done two very smart things in the design of these characters. First, they’ve given every character (as far as I know) their own story arc, unlockable as you become better friends. The second is they don’t give you all the information right away.

You actually have to figure out everyone’s relation to each other on your own through their dialogue. It’s great because it gives them far more depth. Though I do imagine there has to be something similar to a detective cork board in the devs’ office to keep track of all those relations. These are characters who don’t just exist, they have histories, feelings and preferences that go beyond just item likes and dislikes.

There are games that I like to play that I purposely don’t play that often, farming games are one, and RPG games are another.

The primary reason is that I can get stuck on them for a long time. The more content or better made something is, the longer I’ll be at it. At this point, my time in Coral Island has exceeded Blue Prince, which was my second longest played game last year, and is well on the way to exceed Two Point Museum, which was my longest played game last year.

It is also, probably, the longest played farming game I own so far.

Granted, a large part of the reason for the long game time is because I doubled the length of a game day, and never bothered to set it back since I found I like playing like that.

But it is a reminder on why I am careful on what sort of games in these genres I start to play. Especially since there are other, shorter, games that I really would like to play at some point this year.

Lil Gator Game, which got DLC this year, is something I would like to play. I really enjoyed the main game, and would like to try the DLC. It’s just such a charming game.

There’s Strange Antiquities, a point and click adventure sequel to Strange Horticulture that I would like to play. Despite knowing I will probably fail that game terribly, because I am not that bright.

Speaking of games that I will probably fail at due to requiring more brain power than I have, I had bought the Seance of Blake Manor, and certainly had that one on the play list.

And those are of the games that I own, while I have a lot of games to play, every year there are at least one or two games that I would like to play the year it gets released. 

One of the weird tropes of farming/life sim games is the fact most of the time there are characters in those games to court and marry. This is because Harvest Moon, the game that started the genre, had established this from the get go. In fact, one of the selling points of later Harvest Moon games (and these types of games in genre) is what characters you can date.

I remember when I was a kid, that the release of this information was one of the exciting things when waiting for the next Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game to come out.

Though, as I’ve gotten older, I find this has become less of the driving reason behind my game play for these types of games. And it’s not necessarily because I find the characters uninteresting. In fact, for Coral Island, I think I am going to settle on Mark. Not necessarily because I think he is my type, or that I think he’s hot. I want to tell this poor kind soul that he can stop fighting monsters in the cavern and come help look after the animals on my farm. He will not have to worry about money, he can split his time between the animal shelter and my farm, and he will not have to worry about making a living. He can just enjoy petting all the animals he wants.

That being said, the reason why I continue to play farming games is because I enjoy the goal driven logistics of these games. Especially good games like Coral Island where there is a very well made progression system of helping the town/environment/your farm. I like the mental exercise of thinking, this is the goal I’m working towards, what do I need to do to make that happen in an effective manner.

When I think about games like these when looking forward to playing them, but have other adult things to do, I like to think about my next steps. What are the resources I need to make the next plan for my farm, the town or quest happen. This sort of thing keeps me going when I have to be an adult.