Home Alone: Isolation in Harvest Moon

The Harvest Moon series is typically known as a farm simulator; a game in which you while away the hours ploughing fields, tending to and selling crops, and caring for your farmyard animals. The series has always meant a little more to me, however. Harvest Moon always seemed to display an idyllic community, far flung from those of real life. For instance, in the Playstation installment Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, you experienced the life of a boy returning to a small village after the death of his grandfather. You see flashbacks of a restful childhood spent visiting his farm, undertaking such heady pastimes as chasing chickens and riding cows. He even befriends a young girl, but before long his vacation is over and he reluctantly leaves for his city life.

Now, back in the present, our nameless hero is offered the chance to rejuvenate his grandfather’s farm. No payment, no agreement, no property agents involved… nothing. You’re just given the land and home with the verbal acknowledgement that if within three years you haven’t revived the farm to its former arable glory, you leave.

This wasn’t the point that resonated with me the most, though. What I really loved was the sense of community. There you were, a near stranger to the village, yet they all backed around you. Of course, some weren’t as open as others, but all of them grew warmer to you as time went on and you interacted with them. Everyone in the village of Mineral Town wanted to get to know you and, moreover, they wanted to see you stick at renovating the farm you inherited. People noticeably grew to like you more and more with a little effort, the bachelorettes in particular were a pleasure to please. Each time the heart displayed above the dialogue space changed to a different colour and grew bigger it was a mini achievement in itself. This is all without mentioning the festivals and personal events, of which there were plenty. Wandering into a new screen only to see the beginnings of a new event was exciting and the festivals offered a sense of togetherness that few games offer these days.

The reason I now question this sense of community that I had experienced comes after playing a later installment of the series, Harvest Moon: Rune Factory.  Sure, it was billed as a ‘Fantasy Harvest Moon’ but a Harvest Moon game nonetheless. This is why I was puzzled when even after a whole spring of getting to know the villagers, I still felt disparate from them.

I knew from the outset the girls didn’t have the heart indicator to signify their closeness to my young ‘farmer’, but I assumed their affections would show eventually. Of course, as with any game where an aspect is chasing after love interests, the other villagers were lower on my ‘to impress’ list. They did, however, remain an important factor in the feeling of community. So when after a whole season of farming, working and being involved in the village they’d only said the same repeated dialogue, I admit I was a little disappointed. Of course, this can be put down to the games development, but it was beyond that for me.

As I progressed with each cave exploration, sure, their subject would change minutely but overall to the same effect. “Be careful heading into Carmite Cave!” “Toros Cave is dangerous, so be careful”. The only respite that I was offered came in the form of the festivals, yet, as I soon discovered, even then they had little to say.

Was it the fact that my character in the game was an outsider with amnesia that made the villagers more wary of my existence? In the beginning people seemed cagey, yet after the first cave this seemed to change with their expressions. So, what was it? Was it the fact that I lived on the outskirts of town? I wasn’t quite sure. It was this that got my thoughts turning back to its Playstation brethren.

The community in Rune Factory made me reconsider my memories of the friendly people of Mineral Town. Maybe that whole community had always been fragile, built on the slightest of feelings. In each game our ‘Hero’ is set up to reside in a farm on the outskirts of town. Never inside the town, even if other farms are ran there. Sure, the issue of space is an obvious one, I’ll give the game that, but the other farms seemed to profit just fine!

Another thing is, you ultimately spend more time on your farm or mining than you do in the heart of the community. Even on festival days, a bulk of your spare schedule is given aside to harvesting those crops or rushing off to mine some more of that ore.

Once again the premise of the game is the obvious culprit; it wouldn’t be much of a farm simulator without an emphasis on farming. Even so, I can’t shake the feeling that it is rather rude to run off and do other things when other farmers or shop owners et al are willing to put aside a whole day of trade to participate in the festivities.

One of the clearer points lies in when you finally gain your sought after wife. Even if she was an important part in the community, she seems to give this all up to stay by your side at the farm. I know that certainly in Back to Nature, if you marry Elli she will still work occasionally, but not half as much as they did before the relationship.

It seems that even your wife has to eventually share in the partial solitude of your life. Well, I guess that must have been one of the vows when they did the deed, eh? “To live with forever, in barely sociable conditions till death do us part.”

I guess what I am trying to strike at is that, depending on your outlook or your quibbles with existentialism, Harvest Moon can either seem to be a friendly world or a falsely welcoming one. I used to believe that the villagers of Mineral Town cared about my existence, welcoming me to their festivals with open arms. Perhaps they only ever did that because I significantly improved the economy, outsider or not. I can’t see the townsfolk in Rune Factory minding if I kicked the bucket, in fact, it would probably only change a couple of words in their dialogue. “Be careful in death! I hear it is horrible!” or possibly “Wandering the eternal abyss is dangerous, you know!”

Then again, maybe I am being just a little too cynical. Who knows? Sacred Night is coming up soon and I think I’m just about winning Bianca over finally… one more date and she may be mine!

Tags: Back to Nature, enki, Harvest Moon, Playstation, Sony

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