Harvest Moon 64

About Harvest Moon 64

Harvest Moon 64 (1999), Bokujō Monogatari 2 in Japan, is Victor Interactive's Nintendo 64 farming game, in which the player restores a grandfather's abandoned farm, raises animals and courts one of five villagers through the seasons.

Harvest Moon 64 in Depth

The player inherits an abandoned farm with an empty chicken coop and barn and five tools, a hammer, axe, sickle, hoe and watering can, which upgrade to silver and then gold with use. Unlike the SNES original, each day has limited time and stamina. Crops such as turnips, potatoes, corn and strawberries are bought in season, planted in tilled soil and watered, and some keep producing all season; everything withers when the season changes unless grown in a greenhouse. Wild herbs change with the seasons, some curing sickness and others causing it. Cows, sheep and chickens bought at the nearby ranch need feeding and shelter from rain, or they fall ill and die, while good care improves their produce.

The town has a church, bar, bakery, flower shop, library and tool shop, with characters' locations and opening hours changing by time and day, and festivals close the shops for events such as dancing and swimming. The player owns a dog, inherited from the grandfather, and can get a horse to ride or use as a portable shipping crate, and both can enter yearly races decided largely by their bond with the player. Five women can be courted, their affection shown by heart colours, and the player can marry and have a child; each also has a rival suitor. Photographs arrive in the mail to record milestones.

Making Harvest Moon 64

Victor Interactive Software developed the game, publishing it in Japan on 5 February 1999, with Natsume releasing it in North America on 22 December 1999. Reviews were generally favourable, according to Metacritic, and Famitsu gave it 31 out of 40. Many reviewers found that its compelling, unusual play outweighed a repetitive soundtrack and glitchy visuals: IGN's Aaron Boulding forgave its "poor audio and visual elements" because he played it "for hours at a time", GameSpot's Joe Fielder called it "a strangely compelling, original little game that makes hours melt away incomprehensibly", and GamePro said it was not for "swashbucklers or diehard cityslickers". It was re-released on the Wii U Virtual Console in 2017 for the series' twentieth anniversary and on Nintendo Switch Online in 2023.