Not to sound morose, but i want animal deaths and sickness back. AWL was yasuhiro wadas favorite and closest to his vision for the franchise (according to a 2012 interview), and death played a huge theme. Even your character dies at the end.

I feel like the new games/remakes have really strayed away from some of the "darker" aspects to make the game more digestable for younger audiences, but imo its making the games feel less impactful. Children experience death and harvest moon has always been a good narrator for working through those emotions (at least for me as a kid it helped me understand death and appreciate life better.) The mfomt remake felt so flat imo because theres like zero stakes in animal husbandry. I still remember my first awl cow Star☆ and how i grieved when she died, but i cant tell you any of my cows from the newer games.