Features you could love and leave in the ultimate HM, Make the ultimate HM in your head! Options

[Accidentally The...]

...Watch it never come to fruition.

I have a huge laundry list of traits I'd love to include and exclude from various entries in the series, but you all go first. This could take me a while.

(No points given for simply saying "Just remake 64 lol" or "Just don't remake STH lol". Actually, no points will be given regardless of what you say or do, but seriously. Be detailed. Don't make me use that sickle in my avatar.)

[ChronosGiegue]

*All characters from previous games
*Travel between villages
*A zoo (homage to AP)
*Mountain climbing!
*Spelunking!
*Your own boat!
*Gather musical notes, rainbows, happy-stickers, and awaken Inari!
*Live through five playable generations that detail the history of the world of Harvest Moon
The Story-
You are a young boy who has a fascination with plants, animals, and farming. Strangely, no one knows anything about your family's background. Can you shape your future while discovering the mysteries of the past?

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

More events, stronger characters. Even the generic archetypes the series has been reusing all this time can be used effectively when you consider that the strongsuit of the '64 version of Maria is that she appears in more events than any other character and feels like a much stronger character than, say, Elli.

A strong focus on world design. Make each of those character's houses more like a home, make the village breathe more, more festivals for characters to interact at that reflect the village's history, and let the weather impact the player more visually and from a gameplay perspective.

Just keep the story simple. Grandpa died, left the farm to you, you pick it up for sentimental reasons and are put on the clock by your parents who think it's dumb.

Character customization. If they can handle it, maybe even customize your character's background through some responses or interactions with your family over the phone or through mail. Similar to how you can go into correspondence with Tori in RFF and learn about each other.

[Accidentally The...]

Well, the new 3DS title DOES have extensive customization. Not just your character's design - the layout of the farm, the TOWN... and I do like them mixing up the same-old "inherited farm" thing every now and then. Maybe not quite to the convoluted extent of GrB, ToTT, or DS/MM, but stuff like STH/HoLV was fine. The Wii titles felt a bit forced too, but the story events felt more fun and rewarding. I think, at least, that should happen - be REWARDED for progressing the story.

(I also heard the 3DS game focuses on simply "revive an abandoned village", a la IoH, except really fun.)

I'll still hold off on mine because my list is huge, but you guys have some good ideas.

*Your own boat!

THEY FLIPPIN' BURGERS
YOU AT KINKO'S STRAIGHT FLIPPIN' COPIES

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Just listing features that seemed particularly important. Funnily enough, it seems Farming took a back seat to all of those for me. I always figured the farming itself stood best when it was simple and didn't take the sun, soil, multiple waterings, and all that into account. Just plant, water once a day, and only worry about ways to maximize profits with the crops after they've grown and how much time you want to put into maintaining them every day.

Also, you could get a boat in GBC3. It was pretty neat, and you could do ocean fishing with it to help out the Animal Crossing before Animal Crossing existed style aquarium. That'd be fun if it came back too. Along with other collection things like GBC2 Mary's fish, bug, plant, and photo albums.

[ChronosGiegue]

I have never played any of the handheld games. That being said, technically I wasn't copying. On top of that, you never have your own boat in any of the home consoles.

[Accidentally The...]

I have never played any of the handheld games. That being said, technically I wasn't copying. On top of that, you never have your own boat in any of the home consoles.

http://youtu.be/R7yfISlGLNU

HOW COULD YOU HAVE MISSED THIS?

[ChronosGiegue]

O-O I see what you did there... Well played, very well played... LOL I'm on a motha falcon boat.

[ZBoy]

I've always dreamed of a Harvest Moon World, where all the villages/towns are available to travel amoungst. You choose one to be your primary, and then over time you unlock access to the other areas.

I also want more character interaction. Not with the protagonist, but with NPC and NPC. I feel like having the characters interact more would make the town more alive.

[ChronosGiegue]

Oooooo! You mean NPC-to-NPC interaction like Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life? That fact alone (all of the character events) made it at the top of my game list.

[Accidentally The...]

Or the Mineral Town games. The housewives (sans Lillia) gathering to gab at the Town Square, May and Stu having play dates at Carter's, Jeff and Lillia visiting the clinic for their ailments, Zack crushing on Lillia, Duke, Harris, and Manna all interacting (and a lot of this stuff occurred OUTSIDE of random events and just through regular dialogue)... I miss stuff like that. AP and ToT each had their own approaches with those, but most interaction since Mineral Town and AWL feels like the characters are just there in other locations, not actually VISITING each other.

[Daniella]

I sort of liked the irrigation system from Two Towns, and the horse storage cart would be cool too.
And I think the idea of having your character have a background would be interesting. It would be nice to have an actual 'play as your child', too, where you marry the rival kids instead.

[ZBoy]

I was primarily thinking of Mineral Town and its character interactions.

I think that would be very cool if you got to even just pick 1 of 3 character backgrounds, kind of like Mass Effect. Then occasionally it would come up in dialouge. The options could be somethnig like:

1. Grew up in the town, but recently just came back after being gone for a few years.
2. Hated farming, so strayed to the city for as long as you could.
3. A newcomer who had no ties to the town at all.

[Celia]

I'd like to add, aside from the aquarium and albums Darth's already mentioned, the tv games and theater from the GB titles as well. Those features were fun to have.

*Gather musical notes, rainbows, happy-stickers, and awaken Inari!

NO

[Mizukithepanda]

Honestly, Darth's first post conveyed exactly what I want.

I would like to see the return of a "city/mainland" area like in GBC3. That was fun, and though I doubt many people remember it, it was also the first time in the games that you could set up a stall and sell your own goods. If the marketplace is handled like the Bazaar was in Welcome to the Wind Bazaar, I'd love to see that return too.

Things I don't want to see, however...

- Characters from older games. I'm bored of them. Come up with new people and new villages.
- "Collection" plots. (ie: musical notes, bells, rainbows, etc.)
- Plot outside of "restore/save the farm/village/bazaar/etc" in general. I don't need it. I just want to micromanage the ###### out of my farm, maximize my profits, and befriend villagers. I don't need stupid, time-consuming sidequests for Harvest Moon to be entertaining. (That said, things like fishing, bug catching, cooking, and mining are great so long as you don't have to partake in them to facilitate the plot.)
- Festivals where all I get to do is sit and watch a cutscene. Snoooooooooooooooooooooooooore.
- Nobody reacting when it's your birthday. Seriously. If I get the chance to pay attention to all of the villagers' birthdays, then they better darn well pay attention to mine. If no one's going to pay attention to it, then why the helk would I bother setting it? (This is the case in a few of the later handhelds. Nobody even notices your birthday until after you get married and even then it's only your wife/husband.)
- Complicated child-rearing. No explanation is necessary. If they grow up, that's fine, but I have zero interest in taking a role in that beyond befriending my kid.

[ZBoy]

I really like the idea of simple farming. I prefer just watering crops once a day. When I went back to trying AWL a few months ago, I didn't like having to worry about watering my crops twice a day.

More interactable ffestivals would be fun too. Watching cutscenes and listening to the three participants one liners every year is not fun...

[Accidentally The...]

I was primarily thinking of Mineral Town and its character interactions.

I think that would be very cool if you got to even just pick 1 of 3 character backgrounds, kind of like Mass Effect. Then occasionally it would come up in dialouge. The options could be somethnig like:

1. Grew up in the town, but recently just came back after being gone for a few years.
2. Hated farming, so strayed to the city for as long as you could.
3. A newcomer who had no ties to the town at all.

That wouldn't be too bad. BTN and I think 64 had something similar to 1, where you visited as a kid, met a local girl, and then came back as an adult.

Plus it's greasing up my fanfic gears...

I don't mind a collection-goal storyline (like bells or rainbows, although the notes were hit-and-miss for me), just as long as they keep it small. No "brush 100,000 times" crud. I enjoyed doing the bells, even if some were a bit chance-oriented (like the Red Bell - the Yellow Bell really seemed the easiest, and the Green Bell wasn't that hard; the Purple Bell just took a long time). The rainbows felt off because it forced you to wait through the seasons.

(The notes were alright in that a good deal of them could come from naturally progressing through the game, but I still didn't care for the set-up. The rewards - a power berry and free stamina restoration - were okay.)

But a simple "run the farm" storyline doesn't hurt either.

[Noviwan]

Hey guys I think They should combine HM and Record of agaraest wars or maybe runefactory instead pf record of agarest wars. You know because Record of agarest has terrible battle system in my opinion but the game always spans about 3-5 generations. so maybe a plot that makes you pass on the farm to your baby or something yeah I cant think of much more right now

[Celia]

I would like to see the return of a "city/mainland" area like in GBC3.

That reminds me; the mall.  Rugs and other aesthetics. Things that are actually useful. Good mall.

To put things simply, take any ideas they featured in the GB titles that they dropped for whatever reason and do that.  They even had a form of customization and different pets (which were useful) as early as them.  A fish pond, too.  Make me a game with the elements of GBC2&3 please.  Oh, snowboarding, I've missed you.  For the limitations they had back then, they sure were worthwhile and had about the best ideas.  (except the food spoiling bit)

[ChronosGiegue]

Crushing my hopes of ever letting the child die of starvation... Y U NO DIE ALREADY?!