Topic: Harvest Moon vs. Animal Crossing

Quick Q: I bought my first Harvest Moon game about six weeks ago, and I've been obsessed with it ever since; getting close to 200 hours. I understand that it's a game that people either love or hate, but I love it. I see GameStop has Animal Crossing City Folk for $19.99, and I'm curious. My sense is that Animal Crossing is aimed more toward kids. And I understand that it requires a greater day-to-day commitment -- if you put it aside for a month, you may miss important stuff, whereas Harvest Moon always picks up where you left off. Is Animal Crossing a game that an adult can get into, and is it something that I have to be into constantly? Any other comparisons versus Harvest Moon? Thanks for any help!

Get animal crossing wild world. i prefer games like that to be handheld while i do other things.

Animal Crossing is an online communication life sim.
It's all about trading, chatting and creative designing.

Kids get pretty bored by it fast because there is no action and patience is needed,
so they damage towns of other people and get banned.
In the end they get back into something more destructive like Smash Bros and Mario Kart.

I have mostly 20-50 year old women on my Animal Crossing friends list, so it's mostly a game for female adults but there are a few males playing it regularly too.

200 hours in Harvest Moon is nothing. Animal Crossing can easily be a 500 hours game.

Animal Crossing. you'll be sure to get into it at any age, it doesn't matter.

EDIT: I'm also getting Rune Factory Frontier for the Wii. It's like Harvest Moon/Animal Crossing with some Final Fantasy mixed in there.

Okay...I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why you believe Animal Crossing would be more for kids than Harvest Moon. They are both similar, its just that Animal Crossing doesn't have marriage. Also, in Animal Crossing you are responsible for maintaining your town and developing relationships with your neighbors or else they move away. Harvest Moon is focused on just your farm and your animals and a wife.

P.S. Gamestop has the Strategy Guide for $10. The Animal Crossing game has a lot of things that it doesn't tell you, so the strategy guide is helpful. I recently bought it myself.

I watched some of the trailers on the Nintendo channel, and the voiceover artist always sounds like she's talking to a 5-year-old! Seriously, I saw that you have to do things like butterfly-catching contests and that people obsess over changing their clothing and hairstyle, etc., so I that's where I got the impression that it was more geared toward kids. So it seems like this is Harvest Moon with more of an emphasis on the social aspect. As for the real-time aspect of the game, if I put it down for a month and then come back to it, will I basically have to make up for a month of lost activity? That's something that would turn me off.

If you put it down for a month, your town will have weeds, some of your neighbors will have moved away and some of your flowers or grass may have died.

The voiceover girl is only in the commercials -- and the customization is probably the most addictive aspect of the game since there are a lot of different stuff to collect or sell. Each month has events that are supposed to keep people from getting bored. Usually there is a bug-catching contest or a fish-catching contest. If you win, you get a trophy.

The bad thing about Harvest Moon is that they haven't included WiFI features yet. In Animal Crossing, you can invite others to your town (if you both have friend codes).

out of curiousity (sp) which harvest moon game are you playing right now? there are lots of them now, and i would prob recommend trying out a different HM title. Most of them are different enough from each other to make them quite unique.

I'm playing the original GameCube version of Magical Melody, which, from what I've read, is generally somewhere near the mid-point between the most and least popular versions of the game. I love it. I could have finished it weeks ago, but I'm just taking my time and savoring the experience. After I finish this one, I'm going to take a break and get back to some of the games I've been ignoring. But then I'm looking forward to gradually getting into all of the other HM games. Indeed, it's great to know that I can spend years catching up on all of those great HM titles. I'm getting Animal Parade for Christmas. Maybe that will be the next one I start.

So it seems like it's something you generally need to give at least an hour or two a week to, just to make sure your world doesn't fall into shambles. Of course, if you want to accomplish things and have new experiences, much more time would be required. I'm going to get it this afternoon. For 20 bucks new, you really can't go wrong.