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.

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[–] emb@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Even though it's hard to go back, I think Gen I is still quite good. I replayed Red maybe 3ish years ago, and had a great time. It's just that it's very rough around the edges until I'm used to it again.

The main thing that made me bring it up actually was remembering going back after playing GSC, and really missing the in-battle exp bar.

I'm surprised to hear you didn't like the physical/special split, I think it makes much more sense the new way.

That split was great, the sp. atk/def split is very good, hold items and abilities added a lot. Inventory management got a lot better in later games. And monster sprites did too, although the bad sprites in Gen 1 have a lot of charm and nostalgic appeal of their own.