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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[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 days ago

I'm sorry, I'm a young gen, so maybe that explains it but... I played the virtual console Yellow and got so damn bored...

It's hard picking a favorite gen, as 4 was my first (Platinum my beloved) but I liked 5 despite not being able to beat it, but the features they introduced after gen I are all very good. Physical Special split is good imo, makes more strategy to a relatively basic game (when you don't play against real people), abilities are great, newer types and type combos are nice additions, and a major one it the aesthetic.

Gen I characters and region are just so bland, the lack of themes, no extra minigame stuff... And I get it was the first gen so I can't fault them for that. But the characters in the modern games are fantastic even if they're weak, the music only gets better and better (each gen feels like it has a genre now), they include neat side stuff like the Poke Olympics, performance contests, berries & snacks, a ton of other stuff throughout the games. Like yeah, the newer games fall hard on the battle/difficulty aspect, and GameFreak's inability to make a good looking game is astonishing. But they do put some heart in the little things in the new games, that just made grinding all day long in OG Yellow feel like a chore...

And even those there's a lot, more Pokemon just makes that initial hour or so of a new game feel so special, like you're discovering it all over again.