Last Human Family

this article is part of an ongoing series examining the entire Harvest Moon franchise. see the main article and index here.

This is probably the most basic of all the Harvest Moon games, since it’s all the farming with none of the socializing or marrying. Its simplicity also puts it near the top of my own personal Harvest Moon list, since it’s so easy to pick up and play.

I hope you love to farm.

QUICK FACT: This is the only Harvest Moon game that lets you farm in winter.
QUICK FACT: This is also the only game that has all the social elements stripped out. You can’t even make friends.

GAME LENGTH: Grandpa evaluates you at the end of the year, but the game goes on infinitely. You won’t want to play for longer than two years, however, since most of the goals and items can be obtained in one year, and the second is used for the last few items and reaping the benefits of everything.  You can play for longer, to get the end-of-the year items (there are three total, and you can’t obtain one in your first year of play), but you probably won’t want to.  With no social elements, playing for longer than that leaves you with nothing to do except earn more money than the game can keep track of. There’s a lot of replay value, though, since getting the “Master” status from grandpa in two year takes a lot of work and planning.

GB/GBC Differences: Literally, the only difference between these two versions is that the GBC was optimized for Game Boy Color and the Super Game Boy attachment for the SNES (you could play with a cute frame on your TV). There aren’t any of the usual version differences, like different people/crops/events, they are exactly the same game.

… continue reading this entry.