With finals coming to ahead for us summer class folk, I find myself burdened with a barrage of papers and projects. Like many of you, finding time between nausea and crafting flashcards can be a cumbersome, but necessary, evil. I have recently heard of a controversy that is spreading throughout the Stardew Valley fandom like wildfire. This source of this blaze? Harvest Town.
Source: Harvest Town
I have heard many a negative thing about Harvest Town including the fact that it’s just a complete duplicate of our favorite farming simulator and that to have a good time, one must pay to play. I decided to throw down my textbooks, cast aside my feelings of dread, and find out the truth. Perhaps Harvest Town, like many other new-age farming RPGs is just getting a bad rep, and I wanted to forge the difference between fact and fiction.
Source: Harvest Town
Harvest Town is a pixel-style farming simulation mobile game that boasts a high degree of freedom. Not only can one breed a variety of animals, infuse crops of different seasons together, one also has free exploration within the town, and the ability to harvest friendships with unique characters. These aspects, along with typical run-of-the-mill farming elements, sounds like the makings of a fabulous game. I must also add; the storyline is quite unique in the fact that a family member didn’t have to die for the character to receive the farm.
Source: Harvest Town
The game begins with the character reminiscing about their time living on the farm. They moved to the city to start their career at a young age however, they have now become older and almost resentful. What would life have been like if they had just stayed on their farm like everyone begged them to? After this slightly depressive display, they go to bed only to wake up young and surrounded by a weathered, unkept farm. Their grandfather begins asking if they are ready to leave for their job in the city but is met with an eager no. It appears that sleeping on a wish brought the protagonist back in time right before they left their farm forever.
Source: Harvest Town
Now, I was fascinated by this premise however, after the cutscene was over, I was bombarded with dialogue that moved too fast, leaving me feeling irritated during what should have been a happy moment. It took a while for me to figure out that I had to click a “slow” button in the corner if I wanted any chance at conversing with her grandpa. I remedied this mishap, determined to not let it get to me, and continued learning how to plow my new plot of land. All was great, I grew some beets, met some locals, and even cleared out some of my fields. That is until an option came up on my screen asking if I wanted to adopt a cow. Of course, I did, cows are amazing! After I clicked the exciting prompt, I came face to face with diamonds. Harvest Town wanted me to pay real-world money, for an in-game cow.
While the cow incident of 2019 really upset my already fragile state I’d like to challenge some of the statements I’ve read about Harvest Town. It’s not a Stardew Valley copycat. Yes, it’s a farming game, but so are hundreds of other RPGs. It has its own flair that allows players to explore a new point of view. The controls are easy for anyone to pick up and the graphics are cute especially for a mobile game. However, the cow thing really got to me. I don’t want to pay real money for a digital cow, I’d rather purchase a real cow. Overall, Harvest Town has its pros but it also has a few serious cons.
Did you really take a cow as a something bad? You don’t need a stupid cow to play and it’s just a way to help the creators. You can get a lot of diamonds just by playing and paying isn’t necessary.
The cow you were prompted to purchase was not an actual in game cow, but some sort of cosmetic following pet. Nothing in this game needs to be purchased for the full experience, and making purchases seems entirely redundant and more geared toward people who are not accustomed to the slow pace of farming simulators. Please continue to play and update your review. Ive played all forms of farming simulators from harvest moon, to story of seasons and of coure stardew valley, and this game is on par, not worse not better and far from play being controlling through micro transactions. Inpatient people will be making those, otherwise its basically a full content farming sim for free with entirely optional and unnecessary microtransactions, the microtransactions are so unnecessary that I think they’d do better charging a base price for the game.
honestly the games good enough to where id be ok buying a some in game coin just to show support do the makers of this game have a patrion
I was shocked… you write a review and you misunderstood a pet and a cow? wow…you must live in a world where flying cows live. I hate to be rude but seriously, you should write correct information.
u can make up to 100 dimends in the game with in 5 in game days and a lot of the stuff the dimends are for are so low cost that it never becomes a problem the cow thing was just so u can get more of that special milk that restores your energy and u get a free bottle every in game day and u get like 5 or 6 mini one just by doing dayly tasks but even the max amount of energy u have will increase a lot i had the game for i think 5 days now and my energy is at 300 and i goes up by 5 for almost every skill lvl up and they lvl up some what fast to lvl 4 basically the more you play the more free range you have no admittedly i never played stardew or harvest moon cus i never had the money to get the games and i didnt have a system to play them on so i cant speak for if its a clow or not game play wise but story wise it a 100 % origanle story that is rely sweet and i cant wait to see where it goes
People like you just make real original creators not even want to BOTHER. It reminds me of that breath of the wild rip off. It doesn’t matter if they crack the game open and steal everything and make a carbon copy, you damn retards will say the same thing: IT HAS A DIFFERENT NAME SO THEREFORE IT IS DIFFERENT!
I want someone to take your entire article no, ANY damn article you’ve ever written, slap a different name on it and change a few words, then publish it under their own name and make a bunch of money. MAYBE then you’ll understand. Maybe then it’ll get through your damn head. I’ve been stolen from I know what it feels like to pour your damn soul and heart into something and to watch people steal it away and then have the same attitude as yours: oh take it as a compliment, OHH it’s not really stealing!
Garbage, this whole article is pure and utter trash.
I am currently playing this game and can’t believe that the movements and actions are one and the same. They had added things and changed things, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are the same.
P.s. The game’s grammar doesn’t do you any justice.
Actually, HT use some of old english language
Chill out. Its just an article. If you dont like what was said in it just go elsewhere instead of insulting the creator.
or maybe No, the creator has to get their facts straight instead of making a great free game look like trash I don’t even care if this was like a year ago
You can get diamonds extremely easily just by playing the game and doing quests. You can buy them with real money if you want but you don’t have to.
While arguably you could call Harvest Town P2W, the developers have given an ample number of ways to gain diamonds freely. There’s not a serious advantage to purchasing diamonds and most of the bonuses (which is what the cow is: you’re not buying the pet – you’re making your first purchase of any amount and gaining a bonus gift). Diamonds may boost your level up a little quicker with the decorations you can purchase, but beyond that and perhaps some conveniences like ending production timers quicker, it’s not THAT much of an added advantage. Level doesn’t really mean too much either, and most money in-game is earned through shipments which anyone can do freely.
Harvest Town has many flaws, but the game is still in beta. Agreeing to a beta test means agreeing that the game may have many bugs. There’s not too many things that are game breaking and the developers do listen a lot to the community and try their best to fix things and add features requested by others. There can be translation issues in both the game and with the developers, but given English is their second language, it’s not too unexpected.
It’s certainly not the greatest farming game out there, but for a game exclusively on phones/tablets it’s pretty well up there in terms of playability. A reminder that Stardew’s origins are on PC and thus even with the hiccups of developing it for a new platform, it had the foundation of years of fine-tuning from the PC version.
Also another reminder that you can play Harvest Town 100% for free, but in order to play Stardew Valley you MUST buy it first. So a $0.99 optional floating cow, or a $7.99 game with no in-app purchases… I’d say it balances out pretty well.
Overall, both games have their perks. And both games have their flaws too. Farming-wise, Stardew prevails. Customising your farm-wise, Harvest Town wears the crown.
LATE TO THE PARTY.
If you really want to get technical… Harvest Town is a rip off of the Super Nintendo (SNES) Harvest Moon game made by Natsume. I would play that game all the time, and it’s why I got interested in Stardew Valley. Cause I missed it.
I wouldn’t play Harvest Town because boi, I don’t want to fall down that mobile rabbit hole.
Yeah you’re late to the party you’re so f******. dumb we’re not even talking about that did you even read the article or try the game like dam
Stardew Valley is a ripoff of Harvest Moon you nub. Get over yourself.
I’ve played both three games – Harvest Moon, Harvest Town and Stardew Valley. I’ve spent way more time playing SDV than both of the games and to be honest Harvest Town is way more fun and challenging than both of the games. It might be a bit similar to SDV but there are some part of it that makes it different like sailing, horseracing, mini games (eg: elf party), unique stories, ways to recover vitality, event, unique marketplace and also major and minor quest like getting married and such. I’ve played it and spent no money on it and still get free items like excess construction items, diamonds, milk and pennies. You don’t even have to pay to enjoy the gameplay but the only thing that make me dissatisfied is the dialogue.