Reviving the farm or saving the village/goddess? Options

[Indigo Horrible]

Since these days, Harvest Moon games seem to be more focused on saving the whole village or saving the Harvest Goddess, rather than reviving the run-down farm you've taken over, I've been wondering... which do you prefer? Restoring your farm to glory (or surpassing it, we never really know how successful that place used to be), or pulling the village's or Goddess's toosh out of the fire?

[Toaster Boy]

Reviving the farm indefinitely. I love the older ones where it's more about fixing up an old rundown farm and possibly starting a family than saving a whole village with rainbows or something. The older ones have a more realistic feel too.

[Harvest Moon Rac...]

The only ones where saving the village would be ok with me are the Rune Factory series. I'm more for restoring the farm since like Toast said is way more realistic.

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Restoring the farm works for me. The Goddess stuff is too excessive and adds unnecessary mystical-ness that I personally preferred to be in the background than the fore.

[ClassicTyler]

You know, the games seemed to last much longer when it was just about reviving the farm and starting the dream family.

[Charmy]

I think I prefer the reviving farm, starting a family and stuff than saving the Harvest Goddess from some weird situation. I liked the little touch of magic to be more secretive rather than out there like in the more recent games. But I wonder if they'll ever be a new plot. D'X

[jssblue]

I like games with story-lines, so I enjoy having another goal besides fixing your farm. Making your farm better isn't even a plot, you have to do it anyways to play the game. Farming is really what the games are all about, though, so a good balance of each is the best.

[epona]

I don't like having to save the goddess, but I like it when the sprites give me the best tools.
I'm more of the type who just likes to farm and see how my kid grows up.

[Hasfusel]

Screw the Goddess, I want a big farm and wife/babby. Sprites are good, and the Goddess is a good goal/character/bride/etc. But I'm more interested in what I see as should be the focus of the games, I.e. farming and wooing young women. Don't care much about having to run round finding rainbows/music notes/etc.

[Katie]

I prefer a good mix of both. I need a long, healthy storyline to keep me interested and able to come back to the game for more gameplay, but at the same time there's always that necessity to have a successful farm with a family.

Without the story, I get bored, like I did with AWL. Great game, just wish I had something to motivate me other than feeding my cows every day. With too much of a story and not much to do on the farm, I get that HMDS feeling where I don't feel I can accomplish much in the big scheme of things.

So, there needs to be a healthy balance. 8D

[Hasfusel]

The farming gameplay is supposed to be at the core of everything, in my opinion. A reason why I didn't like Rune Factory so much is that farming and villager interaction was made almost entirely irrelevant by the time you'd gotten the second mine and a hammer. You could focus on the storyline from then on without giving a second thought to your farm or the other characters, whose dialogue was limited, and marriage meant that your spouse would have one line and no schedule, while babby was some extra pixels in your spouse's picture after a while.
I wish they'd make, like, an ultimate Harvest Moon that incorporated all the game elements from the series and expanded them, so that farming, villager interaction and storyline were all linked and fleshed out enough to be interesting.

[Suiko]

Restoring the farm. I don't like the goddess sub plots

[Talenthia]

I like both. I think I prefer the goal of "restore the rundown farm" more, but having more storyline added doesn't hurt. it's when that storyline is pulling you away from what should be the main take of restoring the farm. in a lot of these games, I'm seeing it change from "bring your grandpa's farm back to it's former glory days" to "here's a farm, have fun."