Harvest Moon 64

About This Game

Gameplay

The objective of Harvest Moon 64 is to restore and maintain an abandoned farm left to the player by their grandfather. Along with restoring the farm, there are a number of other side quests that the player may choose to partake in, including training and racing a horse, selling crops, participating in a variety of town festivals, falling in love and getting married, collecting recipes, and collecting photographs from various achievements and events. The player starts out with the bare minimum features for the farm, including an empty chicken coop and barn, but animals and house extensions can be purchased and tools can be upgraded over the course of the game. The local town, where most of the villagers spend their day, contains a church, a bar, a bakery, a town square, a flower shop, a library, a tool shop, among other things. Unlike the original Harvest Moon for the SNES, there is a limited amount of time to work in any given day as well as a limited amount of stamina for work. Many game features, such as character locations and which shops are open, vary depending on the current time and day of the week.

History

Harvest Moon 64 was released in Japan on February 5, 1999, and in North America by Natsume Inc. on December 22, 1999. Natsume initially stated bringing it to Wii U Virtual Console was not possible due to technical issues, despite the Wii proving the task to be possible through homebrew emulation. However, in celebration of the series' twentieth anniversary, the game saw release on the Wii U Virtual Console on February 23, 2017. This also marked the game's debut in the PAL regions (the original had been cancelled due to time constraints), as well as the game's first official re-release (as well as the first time digital) in nearly two decades. The game was re-released on the Nintendo Classics service on December 7, 2023.