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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I grew up playing King's Quest 5, 6, and 7. I was curious about the earlier ones and eventually found them on an abandonware site a while back and they didn't age very well. Turns out 5 was the first one that was all point and click based. Prior to that, they were text based and you needed to know the exact wording or alternatives that they had thought of or you couldn't do anything. I'm sure they were great games for their time but I just couldn't get into them.

More recently, I bought the collection on steam. I'm not sure how well someone who has never played them before would enjoy them, but I found 5 and 6 still stood up, despite being like 30 years old. Though it might also help that I could still remember a bunch of the puzzles, as they could be pretty unforgiving of mistakes. Save often because you could die at any moment, and hope you don't miss picking up an item you'll need later on or you might get eaten by a yeti or something.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Old Sierra games do suck as actual games. But the satisfaction of beating them is unrivaled, I'd put them above any Souls like.

They played best when you had other people to commiserate with. Hot seat multi-player getting more and more frustrated until someone realized you have to walk completely around the police car to check it before driving... 🤬

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] Hugin@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

I cut my teeth on Space Quest 1 and Kings Quest 3. Not only was the very spefic vocabulary a pain but so many solutions were a dead end trap.

I remember in Space Quest if you typed use [item] it would give you a message about not being a simple 2 word game and tell you to say use [item] on [thing]. It required that format.

Then halfway through the game the solution to one puzzle is use glass. Not use glass on laser. I has figured out the puzzle right away but it took me days to get the right wording.

Those games have not aged well.

[–] AGD4@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

God, I still remember struggling for hours, days because I didn't specifically type "Get out from boat", in Kings Quest II.

You'd think "Get out of boat" would suffice, but nooooo.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 days ago

Check out The Crimson Diamond for a modern indie game that uses the keyword thing like in early King's Quest, but it actually works well. The graphics are pretty endearing too.