Update: Of course, three months after this article went live, Nintendo expanded its roster of N64 games on Nintendo Switch Online to include this one. Cheers!
Nintendo games are usually all-ages affairs, but every once in a while a game breaks the family-friendly mold the company's consoles are known for. One example, Natsume's Harvest Moon 64 (Bokujō Monogatari 2 in Japan,) is set to be released on Japan’s Nintendo Switch Online service sometime this year, and we’re feverously awaiting announcement of a Western release (seriously— it’s the best one of these kinds of games that isn’t called Stardew Valley.) However, even though it was re-released on Wii U’s Virtual Console, its absence from Nintendo's Switch subscription service in the West may be due to one of the game's central mechanics.
Nintendo has a history of censorship in the West, especially in the '90s. Around the creation of the ESRB, when there was more outrage about how video games were affecting our youths, Nintendo had a strict policy calling for certain alterations to licensed games on its platforms during the localization process. The company would routinely require the removal or replacement of any instances of suggestive content, gore, and religious iconography in order to make its library more family-friendly and palatable in the West. One of the most common practices to appease this policy was stripping out any reference to alcohol and replacing it with something more 'wholesome.'
In the original Japanese release of Pokémon Red / Blue / Green / Yellow, a drunk old man in Viridian City briefly blocks your path before sobering up. In the American release, however, he’s simply grumpy and in need of his morning coffee first. The changes don’t stop there. Buildings clearly labeled 'BAR' in Japan’s Mother 2 are all renamed to read 'CAFE' in America’s EarthBound. In Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, Vodka Drunkenski becomes Soda Popinski. Wario becoming dizzy and belching after being hit with a ball in Wario Land II suddenly makes much more sense when you realize he was originally being hit with a mug of frothy beer. This censorship was also required of third-party games, with Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars replacing an entire alcohol-related town named 'Drunkards' with the coffee-dependent 'Sleepers.'
You’re able to challenge every person to a drink-off, winning handily if you’ve spent the year honing your alcohol consumption. Some are impressed. Others are dejected. All are drunk.
It’s surprising then, that not only did Harvest Moon 64 survive this localization change, but alcohol actually plays a uniquely deep role in the game. Its influence can truly be seen all over, in everything from its story to its mechanics. Take, for instance, the only building in town open during the second half of your day: the bar. At this local tavern you’re able to spend your hard-earned money on a glass of wine, liquor, or beer while surrounded by a fluctuating number of townsfolk. Sometimes lively and boisterous, with numerous residents crowded around wooden tables, other times lonely and barren, with only the bartender there for comfort.
It is here where, already a few drinks in, you uncover the deepest worries and desires of these residents. Harris, the lonely postman, wonders if he’s good enough for Marie, the librarian and mayor’s daughter. The baker, Jeff, ponders if he’s too young to already be waxing nostalgic. Zack, the town shipper, prays he’s capable of raising his young daughter after his wife’s death. All of these people are only able to come out of their shell with the help of this 'magic liquid.'
The connection between Harvest Moon 64 and alcohol permeates through to the game’s mechanics. A hidden 'tolerance' stat determines your ability to outdrink the village residents at the New Year’s Eve celebration. You’re able to challenge every person there to a drink-off, winning handily if you’ve spent the year honing your alcohol consumption. Some are impressed. Others are dejected. All are drunk. Regardless of their reaction, each townsperson you’ve bested stumbles out of the festival with a higher affection stat for you. Drink is a central component of this community, and you’ve proven yourself capable of being a part of it.
Nowhere is this relationship with alcohol more prevalent than in the player's attempt to restore the vineyard—the game’s longest, most opaque side quest. In the far back corner of Flowerbud Village’s vineyard rests a large, dead tree. It’s been years since the vineyard has produced quality grapes, and the family who runs it has suffered, unable to see the twisted, sickly, barren branches of this tree as anything other than a sign of their own failure.
Karen, the moody and abrasive daughter who works part-time at the bar, dreams of saving up enough money to run away to the city (and away from her family) for good. Gotz, the grumpy father who inherited the vineyard, drinks alone each night, turning down your every attempt to socialize. Sasha, the meek, withdrawn mother, worries heavily about her daughter’s unhappiness. None of them can understand why the quality of their wine isn’t what it used to be, and why that barren tree no longer blooms. Legend has it, however, that in this tree sleeps a spirit. A Goddess of Wine capable of restoring the vineyard—and its family—to former glory. Harvest Moon 64’s very own Dionysus.
It's by completing this side quest that you’re able to awaken the long-dormant spirit. Through a series of events that include befriending the local bartender, a harvest sprite, and a specific prayer, you’re able to restore the vineyard back to its former glory, its wine becoming sweet and profitable once again. Karen and the rest of her family are overjoyed. One of the workers, Kai, brings by a bottle of the new batch to your farm and drinks with you to celebrate. What were the most standoffish NPCs in the game are suddenly reborn, and, if just for a moment, full of ebullient hope.
It is worth noting that the game tends to celebrate alcohol consumption in a way you wouldn’t likely see today. It’s not blind glorification — the bartender cautions you not to drink too much, and a scene of Karen stumbling drunk on the job is certainly not portrayed as a good thing — but overall Harvest Moon 64 tends to fall short of showcasing more nuanced, negative aspects of drinking. However, for an almost 25-year-old game on a Nintendo console, it’s impressive that it was present at all.
Who knows why Harvest Moon 64 was spared Nintendo of America's strict censorship policy back in 1999. It’s not as if the game came over from Japan completely unchanged, as a fourth television station and farm completion screen are among the features not brought over from the Japanese version. Probably it was simply too integral to lose or adapt in this case. After all, what would this small country town be without the joys and sorrows of alcohol? How would they celebrate their success? How would they mourn their loss? It’s drinking that brings out these residents’ rich, complicated interior lives, turning would-be stock characters into blooming three-dimensional ones you can truly empathize with.
So next time you’re in Flowerbud Village, take a moment to have a glass of wine and appreciate just how undiluted the English language version of this game was. Cheers!
Comments 38
Seeing this got my hopes up they'd surprise stuck the game up on NSO. Guess just need to keep waiting to entirely replace my Switch with a Harvest Moon 64 Machine.
That said the main thing I tend to think of in regards to alcohol in this game is how the basement at the vineyard can be used to both max out all your tools and guarantee a win in the New Year's Festival at the same time.
I don't play Harvest Moon N64, but I played Back to Nature on PS1 and the liquor Wine was displayed clearly and it was Karen's favorite gift.
Surprisingly, it changed into Premium Grape Juice in Remake version of Friends of Mineral Town.
You can't mention alcohol but that's okay to have real life guns in Fortnite.
'Murica at its finest.
Great article, enjoyed reading it! I’ve never heard anything about this game, wish it was NSO bound for us Americans…
I do think EarthBound has a certain charm from the "CAFE" that is still very clearly a bar, but it's definitely a good thing NoA has eased off the strict standards since.
Nintendo still censors their games. That sucks. I'm tired that they treat foreign gamers like a kids, who don't drink alcohol, don't use drugs, don't smoking, and, do not know about the existence of erotic/naughty things. I will never buy some of their localized games for this very reason. I wanted to buy Famicom Detective Club remakes, before I found out that they are censored. Censorship – no buy.
This game is in my top 5 games I wish I didn’t sell
One of my proudest gaming memories is beating Harvest Moon 64's New Years drinking game.
During my first year I didn't drink any alcohol and thus had zero tolerance. On New Years I passed out after only three shots and had to be carried home by the villagers. It was EMBARRASSING.
So for the following year I made sure to drink at least one beer every night. When New Years came around again I was able to keep up with everyone shot-for-shot. Gradually they all went home, leaving just me and the town's midwife. We kept drinking until she gave up and left. I stood in the town square alone, drunk, and triumphant.
That's interesting, I had no idea alcohol consumption was part of Harvest Moon 64. I'm kinda more curious to play it now haha.
I must say it's a missed opportunity that Link can't' construct a moonshine still in Tears of the Kingdom;)
I got a chuckle when the Blue Bar was renamed the Blue Bird Cafe in the new version of A Wonderful Life. Me and the boys hanging out in a cafe until past midnight drinking...coffee.
I want to play this game. Thinking about getting a n64 along with other great classics
A cherished childhood memory: sneaking into the vineyard and drinking unlimited amounts of free wine, to train your character’s liver for the new years event, and making every person in town leave the party drunk
Funny thing that people find drinking alcohol more offensive than praying to be healed in most JRPGs.
Harvest Moon is pretty tame, and everything there is seen through pink glasses (you don't have to clean after your animals, everything is always friendly and clean, etc.) so it's natural that alcohol is no exception.
Rebranding "bar" to "cafe" was one of the most unfortunate changes of all times, since "coffee shops" in the Netherlands are known for selling narcotics and the location in the game is where 2 of the main characters take drugs and shamble across town in narcotic delirium that makes the rest of the game's weirdness a run for its money so they recontextualizied the scene from getting drunk to taking halucin - inducing drugs
@rushiosan How is that a fair comparison? Fortnite came out over 20 years later with a audience of older kids, teens and adults. Harvest Moon 64 was marketed towards kids, and was released in a much more restrictive time than Fortnite.
@echoplex
Praying to be healed?
In Dragon Quest games you used to carry around your dead friends in coffins all the way to a church so you could get the priest to pray to The Almighty so that he'd resurrect them.
@Goat_FromBOTW Fortnitre came out over 20 years?
Also HM is kinda marketed towards all audience, or even with older generations in mind, since it's not something a kid's adhd brain would appreciate
The complete sanitation of any material children are going to be exposed to is a uniquely Western thing, really only happening in the UK and NA.
For most of the world that idea that children start to drink some alcohol, especially wine, at a young age is normal and the idea that you would have to hide the exitance of alcohol consumption makes a lot less sense when you're in a culture where there is a bottle of wine on the dinner table every night.
For reference ... here is My Melody literally dragging a bottle of wine back home because earlier in the episode her human friend's dad downs a whole bottle. It's really not a big deal.
https://youtu.be/GReMhjMAnTY?list=PLNefomLFMmqPA8ZJz1WJyGv01lFu3bPQQ&t=125
@DAHstroy Honestly it probably is. At the time they announced it we didn't have the SNES game yet but we do now so they clearly worked something out.
Just like with many other reasons, that was such an interesting time in gaming. Trends were changing and Nintendo could no longer rule with an iron fist. By the end of the 64 we had Conker drinking straight from the barrel and urinating on people in the club. Back then we couldn't believe what we were seeing!
@Goat_FromBOTW Censorship for such subjects remain as strong as it ever was. For some reason guns and other military themes are okay in the west if you look at mainstream titles aimed for the same audience, not only Fortnite.
I just find it funny how often gun culture is seen as "cool" while people lose their minds if a bottle of alcohol is pictured in any piece of media.
@Princess_Lilly you don't remember playing it on the GameCube? Ps2? Xbox?
I've always found that little bit of localization charming.
Vodka Drunkenski was renamed in the JP Punch Out games too. Even the limited gold Punch Out FC version has his name as Soda Popinski.
It reminds me The Witcher series, especially the first game: we could also raise tolerance to alcohol, so that we could drink with NPC until they gave us information (or until we fell asleep if our tolerance was too low). I also remember a boss fight with a drunk Geralt and blurry screen: it was funny. So, that was a real Eastern Europe game! XD
Honestly Soda Popinski is definitely a superior name imo. The one good thing from unnecessary censorship is that limitations can bring out creativity.
@MitchaK HM? Yeah I played a lot but 64 was only available for Nintendo consoles I think?
"Nintendo has a history of censorship in the West, especially in the '90s" Lol, you're saying it like it's not something that's still going on strong to this day. The anglophile world just has weird standards and cultural rules in this regard. I really don't get them.
@DDFawfulGuy Yes that was my point, I may have expressed myself too quickly for the sake of conciseness.
@Vyacheslav333 I am 45 and at the Gamescom Nintendo booth I was told I cannot try Prince of Persia The Lost Crown unless I verified my age first. Nintendo policy.
@Avaloner Awesome.
I remember having heard about alcohol in Harvest Moon 64 before, but certainly didn't know about it in detail so thanks for the article!
And yeah, this kind of censorship is first and foremost an issue of the anglophone world (remember the change of Vivian's gender in Paper Mario TTYD?), too bad that we can see it affecting other countries as well when they base their translations on the English one instead of the original Japanese text for example!
@Princess_Lilly
HM64 - 1999. Fortnite - 2017. So 18 years apart (Goat_FromBTW did not say 20 years ago, they say 20 years later than Fortnite).
@FantasiaWHT yeah they just didn't say "ago" in their post, so it sounded like that, thought that was funny
I don't think alcohol is keeping Harvest Moon 64 off of N64 Online in the U.S. The game was on the Wii U Virtual Console over here, and Nintendo Switch Online does have titles as high as T. No, the real reason it hasn't been announced for here is because doing so would have resulted in too many questions regarding Harvest Moon SNES. With the U.S. rights now renegotiated, we may see Harvest Moon 64 over here after all.
Soda Popinski > Vodka Drunkenski though. 👍sometimes it falls the other way.
@Megotchi
"Honestly Soda Popinski is definitely a superior name imo. The one good thing from unnecessary censorship is that limitations can bring out creativity."
i just saw your superior prior comment! 😅👍 thanks for the insightful interjection, i couldn't agree more.
Is this really censorship, or is it making things suitable for a wider age group. A bit like the fact that you are not allowed a gambling mechanic in games below a certain age. I am all for it personally.
I remember being able to play slot machines on the spectrum/commodore days, and in the early pokemon games. I don't see that a good thing that I was able to learn so much about gambling so young.
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