I just don’t know about the Natsume original Harvest Moon entries sometimes. Sometimes, we’ll get one that’s passable and seems to at least get what we’d want from a Bokujou no Monogatari farming fame, like Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos. But then it seems like all lessons learned are forgotten. That’s when a game like Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition comes up and feels so lifeless, shallow, and oversimplified that it offers no motivation to keep playing.
As in past Harvest Moon games, things begin with our avatar moving from the city to the country. In this case, we’re heading back to Alba at the request of a childhood friend. The town’s faded as folks leave for the lure of city life. (Which I understand, after seeing what the day-to-day looks like over a fifteen hour period!) This means tending some land, raising some animals, doing some light gathering, and fulfilling some fetch quests to advance the campaign, increase your stamina, and become a more adept farmer. While there’s also the idea that we’re helping the town grow in the process, that revitalization doesn’t feel as evident in Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home as it does in other farming games such as Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar or Fields of Mistria.
Part of this is due to the routine we develop and interactions we engage in throughout Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home compared to other Story of Seasons style farming games. We start with five hearts of stamina, and we only gain more as chapters go on and we get additional stamina. We go through our very flat and bland looking environments for our standard farming tasks. Part of this involves button mashing on field spaces to till the land and plant crops, since actions automatically happen based on context and don’t require switching to specific tools. Each day primarily consists of tending crops via planting and watering, then feeding and caring for animals. If you have energy left, then it’s off to town to check on requests or maybe to head to forested areas or water for gathering and fishing.
“But Jenni, don’t all farming games involve these tasks?” Yes, they do. But they also make it entertaining and feel worthwhile via better pacing, animals that don’t seem to get stuck on areas, NPC dialogue that makes them feel like memorable and interesting individuals, and incentives that make your progress feel meaningful like relationships, farm growth, and town growth. None of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home feels worthwhile. Characters are flat and look very generic. I didn’t feel a drive to earn money and improve my homestead.
The generic nature applies to everything. In addition to reused assets from past Natsume original Harvest Moon games, such as the aforementioned Winds of Anthos, nothing feels implemented well. The lighting system and textures used makes items feel disconnected and not part of a cohesive world. While there is some effort to set the main character and love interests a part a bit, any other NPCs look incredibly generic and built from the same template. It sometimes feels like the character is running “above” the ground or floating, due to design decisions, rather than walking through the world. And because of the art direction, there’s a lot of open space and asset models that seem like they were purchased from a generic pack instead of crafted for a specific theme and this game. In Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, as an example, it feels like everything is original and made to create a sense of flow and belonging, even though the animals and crops will look similar to ones in past games.
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home also doesn’t feel comfortable to play. Tending crops sometimes led to me working on one I didn’t intend to or fertilizing the wrong one. The stamina system is terrible, and basically force you into only caring for your farm and perhaps talking to a few folks each day. While it isn’t too difficult to get Happiness to get through the chapters, earning it never feels satisfying. There’s so little to do and see, and that made me want to stop playing. Instead, I’d tend my farm each day, then immediately go back to bed. Even the overhead camera perspective almost made feel like that was forced into place to distract from the fact that the environments are so bland.
There are so many great farming games, and you should play one of them instead of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition. Hell, off the top of my head I could recommend Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, Dinkum, Fantasy Life i, Tales of Seikyu, and Fields of Mistria. Even Winter Burrow could qualify, since we grow mushrooms in the basement. This game doesn’t control well, has poor pacing, features a lifeless story, and looks so generic. Unless you’re 100% dedicated to playing every game with Harvest Moon in the game, I promise you that you can do better.
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition is available on the Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition
There are so many great farming games, and you should play one of them instead of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Special Edition. Switch version reviewed. Review copy provided by company for testing purposes.