When Stephen (who is the boss of this website, in case you didn't know. But not the boss of me. Most of the time) first approached me to write this column, he described it as a column about manga and anime, since this is allegedly a comics website, and those things are sort of related to comics. I, of course, being a diligent and obedient author, said, "I think I'll write about video games." And Stephen acquiesced anyway, because he knows I'm the only one of his friends who can meet a deadline.
And so, in the weeks leading up to the grand unveiling of the new and improved website, I promised him that I would write an article about Metal Gear Solid Substance. Oh, what an article about Substance it would be, with informative insights and clever commentary on all of the tactical espionage action. "I'll get that Substance article to you soon," I told him.
Then I handed him this article instead, and he told me I'd never work in this town again. This lead to some confusion as to what town, since we live in different cities, and while he was distracted, I published the article anyway.
A couple of years ago, I fell in with some bad stuff. It was by accident... you know how these things are; you start out innocently, curious, just experimenting, and before you know it, you're hooked, up until three in the morning, barely blinking, just thinking about your next crop.
Yes. I'm talking about farming sims.
Harvest Moon was released for the Super Nintendo in 1996 by Natsume and Ubi Soft. I remember seeing a small feature on it in Nintendo Power (because of course, I was a Nintendo Power subscriber from the first issue on for six years), and thinking "Gosh. Farming." And then, years later, when I was involved in the shady world of downloading SNES ROMs (since the SNES is effectively dead, I don't feel too guilty. But remember, it's illegal, and we at sequentialarts.typepad.com don't condone illegal activities. So if anyone asks, I slipped and fell onto my mouse and clicked on the download.) I went mad with power and decided it was time for my moon to be harvested.
It's deceptively simple. You play a young man who has just inherited a farm out in the country (as opposed to those city farms you hear so much about) and have a given period of years to bring it from its ramshackle state into a thriving source of produce and livestock. It is not what one would expect to be a fun game. You will spend hours weeding, chopping wood, tilling fields, watering your crops, milking your cows... and for what reward? Well, as with any simulation game, you really only get the satisfaction of having done something correctly. If you water your crops daily, they grow, you can sell them, and have money to... buymore crops. Or perhaps trade with the elves that live beneath your farm for a magical watering can.
I lost weeks of my life to this game. It addicted me to such an extend that when I saw the Playstation sequel, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, I embarrassed myself by shrieking with girlish farming delight in the Circuit City. They knew my horrible secret, but it was okay, because I could see on the back of the box that there were even more crops to grow and you could even raise sheep. Sheep! And sure enough, it was everything I could imagine. There were something like twelve different crops, and a bevy of livestock to be raised. I named all of my chickens after Evangelion characters. Shinji was my best hen. He laid golden eggs because I hugged him a lot.
Yes. If you hug your chickens a lot, they lay golden eggs. Because this is Harvest Moon, and it's a farming sim, and it's here to make you think things like "I have to get my cows inside, there's a storm brewing" and "This drought is hell on my tomato crop" and worry about whether or not you'll have enough feed for your chickens to get you through the winter. If you let it get to you. If you listen to the siren call of farming.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: While I was shocked to find this article posted on the website, I do have to say that it's quite good. So I told Whitney that she could indeed work in this town again. Her response was, "which town, Stephen?" To which I responded, "Any town you want, Whitney. Any town you want... Also, Guy has asked me to correct Whitney in saying that she is the only friend that I have who can follow a deadline. Instead of correcting that I will reinforce it, because as we all know, Guy is more of a tool for hire than a friend.)
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