I'm not normally a review writing kinda guy, but something compelled me to start writing this one up for one of my favorite games as a child. I know this review is negative, however, most of my gripes with the game are due to it being a 2021 release. I still love the game, putting 75 and a half hours as of writing this in the last week and a half to bust out all the achievements. It's just that there are better games for cheaper. This review will be split into 3 parts ; Part one for general game stuff such as controls, part two for if you've played the original Friends of Mineral Town for GameBoy, and another part for if you have never played it and/or have no idea what this shhh even is.

Part 1 : General
Right off the bat, it's immediately apparent this game is pulled directly from some mobile device, my guess is the Switch. The default "Cancel" button is BackSpace. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BackSpace??? And I couldn't find an option to change specifically that in the controls. But I got used to it... after like 20 hours of playtime. And the limited direction of movement makes it clear this was coming from the GameBoy, as moving in a non cardinal direction is less then ideal on a keyboard, which makes it more clear it comes from the Switch. I wasn't originally planning on getting every achievement to the game, hell, I wasn't even planning on writing a review for this, but around hour 50-60, I felt compelled to speak my mind. So around the middle to end of Summer, or 25-30 hours in I started working on that. On a first play through, playing to the end of the day, midnightish, every day, should take about 20 hours of play time to get through 1 season. Sounds like a lot right? Well yes but no. Remember, this is a farming sim, it's literally designed to eat your time. While you can see most of the content the game has to offer in a single season, the little nuances remain to be seen until you go through an entire year. One thing I will mention, spoilers for in game content/money making, Do not use the Horse Racing Derby as a way to make money if you want to enjoy the game. It will nuke your outlook on money, make your extremely rich insanely fast, and just ruin the feel of the game. I went the first 2 seasons struggling to afford the things I wanted. I would plan what to buy and what not to, but then that came around and, OOPS, I'm a millionaire. It defeats the purpose of the final thing you can buy in the game, which I didn't even bother to purchase, because to OBTAIN said money, you have to sell EACH ITEM INDIVIDUALLY ONE AT A TIME to Huang. Like... WHAT?! It took me an hour to sell an entire inventory, and I even tried to set up a macro on my keyboard so I wouldnt ♥♥♥♥♥♥ have to do it. But I digress. Autumn Year 1, and I have 2 million. I spent half of that between Fall 18th and Winter 18th. I never spent money for the rest of the game. Lastely the mining in this game is dated and archaic. I hate it. Avoid mining except to upgrade tools or if going for completion. Speaking of which, I coulda shaved off like 20 hours of playtime if I didn't think I had to ship every item in the shipping log for an achievement, and if it didnt take almost a FULL YEAR to get 8 hearts with a pet to get a new one. I guess I can touch on that, the final 2 achievements that took me like 15 real hours were the 5 pets and the cook/ eat all recipes ones. the 5 pets is just stupid, and cook every recipe, the Autumn Sun is the last one you'll get. X Animal Produce is damn near impossible to get in a normal playthrough, let alone quickly. From this point on, you now move to the part of the review which best suits you, Veteran or Newcomer.

Part 2 : Return for Nostalgia
If you played the original FoMT on GameBoy, and you want to relive that, 100% buy this game... on sale. Because it is the EXACT same game. over 15 years later. For $40. Stardew Valley does eveything here but better and more, for over half the price. Only buy this for a trip down memory lane. The content is just as lack luster as it was back then. I can not recommend this game anymore then that. Revisiting a ton of old faces with redesigns and even glow ups is breathtaking the first time you see them **Although I don't like how they massacred my girl Karen**. The only noteable improvements from the original is they ditched the basket bullsh!t and went with the Stardew Valley approach to inventory in that you have a hotbar now, and see your whole inventory right there. And you can now see your stamina at all times, instead of having to get the Goddess Gem this time. Although the Goddess and Kappa Gems are still in the game, but have different functions. And the truth jewels are less useful in this version because of it, and surprisingly, 10x harder to get the last one. So, whatever. And as for how you used to have to leave that one tile open to harvest your crops, they got rid of that too. Which thank god for. Mining is still just as BS is it used to be, as stated in part 1, only do it to upgrade tools or for completion. The money isnt worth it, there is however now an elevator you can get to take you to increments of 50 levels in both mines now if you give the Harvest Goddess I believe 100 gifts in total, which is nice. As for anything else, that's pretty much all that I can say for Veterans. Buy this game if you want a nostalgia hit, but don't bet on Horse Races if you don't want your sense of money ruined. Oh, and they got rid of Rival marriages, but added same sex marriages and 2 new canidates, Jennifer and Brandon. NO RIVAL MARRIAGES??? 0/10

Part 3 : Newcomers
So you've never even heard of a Friends of Mineral Town huh? Well you might have heard of Stardew Valley, or Harvest Moon in general, but realized that modern Harvest Moon games are dogsh!t. Well for those still unaware, sometime in 2007ish, the actual creators of Harvest Moon lost the rights to using the name, and made their own thing, which the publishers got the name, and then decided to make their own games with the name, which every one of them after that point was kinda dookie, and the real Harvest Moon creators had to legally use a new name, and they went with Story of Seasons. Even myself didn't know this until recently, and apparently they have other SoS games, so might check those out. Anyway, this is an EXACT copy of the GameBoy Advance title under the same name, with a couple minor tweaks for quality of life and some random name changes. As for the game, assuming you have played Stardew Valley and are looking for more farming content... this aint it. going from Stardew to this, is a complete down grade. The amount of content to price in SV to this is baffling if you never played the original. There is little to nothing added to help elongate the end game, the amount of unique dialogue lines is shockingly small, and 1 in game year is enough to show you all that it has to offer.

Overall I think that :
This game should be avoided if you never played the original
If you DO buy it, buy it on sale, or better yet, I think it would handle better on Nintendo Switch, as it seems thats what its meant for
DO buy it if you want to support the REAL Harvest Moon creators, thus propelling the name back to where it should be, and maybe making more new games?
And I know this entire review is negative, but I love this game... as someone who played the original. Do I love it as much as $40? No. But I fall under the catagory for all the reasons you SHOULD buy this. So I enjoyed you. You probably won't. But I did.
And uhhh Marie had a glow-up on god.