Sim fans who want an alternative sim game outside Animal Crossing and The Sims have probably heard of farm simulators. However, instead of building characters, houses, and towns, these farm sims focus on managing a farm in a remote town. As hit titles like Amccus and Natsume's Harvest Moon and ConcernedApe's Stardew Valley have demonstrated, these games need players to invest time planting and selling the best crops, building the best relationships with townsfolk, and even do the occasional quest.
Moreover, perhaps players love these games as they provide just the right balance between casual and hardcore experiences. Casual fans might pop in their farm for a relaxing hour, just tending their crops. However, hardcore players might have intricate farm plans and have crops scheduled down to the time of day. Both franchises have established themselves as some of the best in the farm sim genre. However, just which of them is better?
Updated on December 19, 2021, by Ashely Claudino: Both Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon are excellent games that provide their fans with very complex yet fun farming content. It's no surprise that Stardew Valley became such a hit, the game's creator, Eric Barone, most commonly known as ConcernedApe, was greatly inspired by the classic Harvest Moon games. According to his AMA on Reddit, ConcernedApe's dream was to make a modern game that had a similar feeling as the traditional Harvest Moon games. So, which of them is better?
10 Theme: Stardew Valley Is One-Size Fits All
In a world where the gaming community knows of Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley turns a well-known gaming formula and makes it more accessible to the mainstream audience. Whereas Harvest Moon titles usually appeal to younger gamers, Stardew Valley has just the right amount of complexity and features to accommodate both hardcore and casual fans.
Like Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley tasks players with restoring and taking care of a farm. And again, like the farm sim, Stardew Valley players need to decide which crops to plant, what animals to acquire, which villagers to build relationships with, and how to best manage the farm overall. However, more interesting in Stardew Valley is the depth of roleplaying options for players. For instance, players can focus solely on selling a kind of crop, or building a reputation as a monster slayer in the nearby caves.
As such, Stardew Valley has just enough features to appeal to players who want a variety in their sessions. However, they also have enough things to do for short casual play.
9 Theme: Harvest Moon Is A Chill Encounter
As far as themes are concerned, Harvest Moon started the popular "city person gets a farm" trope. In most of the franchise's titles, the game begins with a young person finding themselves in charge of a farm. Players need to restore and, eventually, maintain this farm, which is also their inheritance from their grandfather.
Unlike more tactically-immersive RPGs and simulation games, Harvest Moon doesn't feature in-depth combat or monster hunting. Instead, players simply have to decide which tasks they'd like to do for the day. These include plating and selling crops, clearing land, raising livestock, foraging, and even building relationships with villages. It's all-in-all a chill experience which, at the time, is very new to audiences.
8 Visuals, Sounds: Stardew Valley Banked On Nostalgia
Visuals and music remain a huge selling point of Stardew Valley. After all, the game consistently uses gorgeous sprite art throughout the title. Moreover, ConcernedApe also made sure to integrate the UI seamlessly into the sprite graphics, giving players a sense of nostalgia with visuals while still maintaining a modern and realistic gameplay experience. Moreover, the game's incredible sound design makes it a perfect chill game for almost any audience.
As such, a lot of players consider Stardew Valley their go-to game for relaxation and chill. After all, aside from the captivating music, the visuals serve as a nice change of appearance versus the flashier and action-packed titles of modern gaming.
7 Visuals, Sounds: Harvest Moon Had Evolving Art
Players may have established a connection with Harvest Moon especially if they've played the game since their childhood. After all, the original 1996 launch of the first game had sprites reminiscent of classic Final Fantasy, albeit with a more peaceful undertone. Moreover, players who grew up playing Harvest Moon titles have seen the franchise grow and evolve, especially with regards to gameplay and visuals.
Gone are the days of sprites in modern Harvest Moon games. Nowadays, newer Harvest Moon games offer flashier and cuter art styles, relying on chibi artwork and simple 3D graphics to get the job done. The evolving art style serves as a nice change of pace and change of audiences, especially now that the games focus more on younger audiences.
6 Gameplay: Stardew Valley Is Expansive
Stardew Valley further improves upon the replayability of the farm sim. Unlike other farm sim games that rely mostly on planting and harvesting crops, Stardew Valley provides a ton of variety in gameplay options. For instance, players can create new items and furniture by gathering and hunting for items.
Additionally, the game has robust weather and seasonal systems that allow certain plants and crops to grow on certain timeframes. Stardew Valley also has a great design feature that enables players to customize both their farm and their home space to their liking.
Lastly, the game has a simple combat mechanic that enables players to hunt monsters.
5 Gameplay: Harvest Moon Is A Compact Experience
Unlike other modern titles released for more robust systems, most Harvest Moon games find themselves in handhelds. As such, it makes sense for the game to be more "compact" in terms of its gameplay offerings. However, this factor by no means implies that Harvest Moon is lacking in gameplay features.
For instance, the franchise centers its farming mechanic around planting crops and ranching livestock. However, Harvest Moon also has interesting features to improve its quality of life element. For instance, players can have pets and experience festivals with their favorite townsfolk.
Moreover, a fan-favorite aspect of Harvest Moon games is their marriage mechanic. Players can marry townsfolk they form a relationship with, and some games even allow players to have children with them. In some entries, players may see their children grow from toddlers to adults or even play as them in another run.
4 Legacy: Stardew Valley Innovated The Farm Sim
Perhaps the lasting legacy of Stardew Valley is its innovation of the farming sim. Aside from taking familiar elements of the farm sim and integrating them into a compact game with simple graphics, the game does offer a plethora of features that make Stardew Valley as robust as other modern titles.
For instance, the game allows players to marry any townsfolk of any gender. Moreover, each of these townsfolk has storylines that make them all appealing to all players. Finally, thanks to its lively mod community, Stardew Valley fans can personalize their experience for a unique playthrough.
3 Legacy: Harvest Moon Popularized The Farm Sim
When the first Harvest Moon game launched for the SNES back in 1996 (in Japan, 1997 in North America, and 1998 in Europe), it launched a whole new simulation genre. Whereas Maxis fans had SimCity and even 4X games such as Civilization, sim fans who want a more compact experience had Harvest Moon to give them the closest the world has to a video game where players manage a video game farm.
In turn, Harvest Moon spawned perhaps the most well-known farm sim franchise of the previous decade. It has eight console titles, 13 portable games, eight spinoffs, and four titles published by Natsume.
2 Innovation: Stardew Valley
Despite the lasting legacy of Harvest Moon, there's no denying the innovation Stardew Valley brought to the farming simulator. Granted, Harvest Moon may fit a much younger demographic; however, Stardew Valley provides a more comprehensive experience that can fit almost any kind of demographic.
For instance, the game offers a simple farming system that can be complex for hardcore players. Meanwhile, mechanics remain straightforward enough for casual players to drop in for a few hours and tend to their farm.
1 Verdict: Stardew Valley Wins
The more compact nature of Harvest Moon does impose limitations on its gameplay and mechanics. Younger audiences might love its visual anime "pop," but more experienced players might see Harvest Moon as a bit clunky.
In the end, Stardew Valley boasts more user-friendly gameplay while introducing bolder and modernized ideas for younger audiences. It's a chill experience for anyone looking to relax, and it can be just as competitive and fun for the more invested farm sim fans.
Plus, even though it's already been out for five years, it still gets constant dev attention and new patches and updates. It's gotten tons of major updates with an extensive amount of content and they've all been made available for absolutely no price at all - they were all free! It's amazing to see someone make such an effort and put such hard work into the wonderful game that is Stardew Valley.