The nature theme. You can get the sunshine you don’t get in real life vicariously through the game.

Hahahaha. I remember a few times I actually thought this while playing, and realized that meant I REALLY needed to go outside.

I’m sure most people have had strong emotions of HATE when meeting one of the NPCs, and that’s a special kind of moment.

Agreed. The NPCs did not even have very powerful AI, and yet somehow I actually managed to really like some of them, and strongly dislike others. That is an accomplishment.

Naturally, I had to play it. And as we all know, there is only one reason a person would want to play animal crossing: to collect as many Gyroids as possible. And then put them all in your enormous basement. And then activate them all. And listen to their neverending screams.

But then! I discovered only four of them could be activated at a time. I was devastated. All interest fizzled.

Looking at The Internet right now, it says the limit in other versions is ~8-14, which is still a pathetic sum. Haunted urns just aren’t that awesome when the dream of an entire screaming room can’t be fulfilled.

What do you think makes Animal Crossing so great?

The nature theme. You can get the sunshine you don’t get in real life vicariously through the game.

And the relationships with the NPCs. I’m sure most people have had strong emotions of HATE when meeting one of the NPCs, and that’s a special kind of moment. Also a couple might have felt sad when one of them they kind of liked moved away.

Why does it seem like nobody other than Harvest Moon has even come close to replicating this style of game?

Are we including things like The Sims in this category, or only third person dating simulators with dialogue (which disqualifies Black and White)?

The DS has a game like that by Konami called Magician’s quest: Mysterious Adventure. Essentially it’s a clone where you attend a magic school, but they copy it right down to the perspective and styling.

The game successfully walks a tough line – trying to be casually enjoyable but also provide the option for meaningful challenges. Harvest Moon is one of the few other franchises in this genre, but Viva Pinata is also worth mentioning. It was a really well-done game that you could play in short spurts for the cute factor alone, or spend hours and hours powergaming the shit out of your garden.

Why there aren’t more games like this? Hmm, to some extent I think the fun of them is hard to convey in an advertisement. Did you ever try to explain the concept of Harvest Moon to someone who was unfamiliar with it? Anytime I have, I’ve gotten ‘holy crap that sounds boring’ as a response. I always figured that it was primarily word of mouth and the cute factor putting these games in people’s homes, with astonished addiction sneaking in later. I’m not an industry pro by any means, but to me that sounds hard to bank on.

That’s not a huge deal for the player looking for the newest shiny, but as a budget gamer, I’ll probably skip the Wii version because I have the other two. (And I only picked up the DS version because it’s portable. Two “sit down and play” versions wouldn’t do much for me.)