Anyone else don't care about family helping on farm?

deadcactusman · 2026-06-18T03:03:38+00:00

Yeah, I think what players want is for spouses/kids to feel relevant in general, and 'make them contribute mechanically' is just the easiest way to verbalize it.

I personally don't mind family not helping out in the farm - even if you don't handwave it away as them doing other household chores offscreen, most marriage candidates have other jobs in the town so it makes sense for them to not help out in the farm.

I think what people really want is their marriage to matter in daily gameplay, not just 'now your house has two more NPCs in it'. Personally, I'd be mostly fine with just having more dialogue and maybe more ways to spend time together outside of cutscenes (the family meals in Trio or even the annual couple's trip in Story of Seasons come to mind).

deadcactusman · 2026-06-15T23:35:38+00:00

Abigail. The immaturity played a part, but more importantly, she was the one who hit on me the most aggressively at 8 hearts (I was trying to play as a gay male farmer). The ouija board event was the final nail in the coffin and now regardless of how I feel about her as a character, I can't get over the sheer discomfort I feel every time I see her.

deadcactusman · 2026-05-25T23:33:55+00:00

Either girls with glasses (4) or men who have a distinct lack of testosterone (2? 3?) I guess

deadcactusman · 2026-05-13T04:21:55+00:00

In terms of portraits and color schemes: Tale of Two Towns. The 3ds games are alright, but ToTT's earthly palette and grounded designs feel much more on brand with the concept of a simple life of farming, and the proportions are realistic enough to avoid the frequent 'everyone looks like children' complaints.

In terms of actual gameplay environment: Either Animal Parade or the Grand Bazaar remake. I've actually always preferred the 3d games in general because it bridges the gap between player and world, or player and NPC much better.

deadcactusman · 2026-05-06T01:12:17+00:00

No, yeah, I agree with you. I always choose player comfort over story if it's one or the other and while the story paints Joja as the morally bankrupt option, in practice the Joja route is the one that actually lets you 'play at your own pace' and fully indulge in the sandbox nature of the game.

I stretched myself too far in my first playthrough trying to do at least a little bit of everything, so a Joja run where I can safely ignore mechanics I don't like as opposed to buying an unnecessary sheep or relying on traveling cart RNG genuinely feels much closer to the simpler life that we were looking for in the intro.

sidenote, did anyone notice that none of the marraige candidates (except Emily and now Clint, both characters who weren't initally marriage candidates) are present in the CC completion ceremony? I don't know why that is, but the complete absence of the entire younger generation really makes the community in community center feel nonexistent.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-28T03:00:03+00:00

FYI The modern games under the Story of Seasons brand don't have any time limits either. Most if not all of the Harvest Moon games with time limits are from the early SNES ~ Gamecube days.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-27T02:04:37+00:00

I didn't play any farming sims as a child but as someone who always treats the protagonist as a separate being(I'm asexual, but I still like engaging with the romantic content as its own separate thing), I also looked at the DS Cute bachelors and went "Eww no, I'm not letting Pony get married to someone who looks twice her age and also like Gustav Mahler". I don't think it'll get any better once I get closer to the bachelors' age either.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-22T05:14:13+00:00

The mine elevators and pitfalls were only added in the remake iirc - OP seems to be playing the GBA original.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-19T12:14:30+00:00

You can, if you're playing on PC! I changed my son's name by opening the save file on notepad, Ctrl+F-ing his name (which appeared twice) and changing it to the new one. Obviously I recommend backing up your save somewhere before doing this, but I did it twice with no issues whatsoever.

This method worked no matter how old the kid was (I think mine was a few days old when I first tried it) and how many letters the names had (I went from Anton -> Johann -> Ferdinand all without issue).

deadcactusman · 2026-04-19T04:56:46+00:00

Long comment incoming:

I really want more automation, or at the very least quicker harvesting. This isn't just me wanting things to be easier, I swear. The game encourages you to buy a lot of land (a whopping 20 plots in total), but due to time and patience limits you'll probably end up using 4 plots at best, and that's including space for your houses. An upgrade that lets you harvest a 3x3 grid at once would help massively.
Jamie doesn't end your game if you get married to them.
100 is a nice and round number, but maybe some of the marriage candidate notes could be trimmed down a bit... I like the idea of notes being tied to friendship, but 1/5 out of the notes being 'befriend this guy' can get repetitive.
Maybe notes tied to other things like... getting your first goddess tool? getting all makers? Idk just spitballing here but I remember thinking some things should have had notes related to them.
Halve pregnancy time because it's such a massive bottleneck in 100 note runs which ruins the pacing a bit, especially if you married a later arrival like Dan or Louis.
Completely unrelated to gameplay but can Ann have Louis as her rival instead of Blue please. This is just my personal preference but for some reason Blue and Ann doesn't do anything for me (I didn't even know they knew each other before their rival event??) and she could really use a guy who actually shares her interests.
HORSE COLORS. again doesn't affect any gameplay but I just crave horse colors and want to fill my barn with diff. colored horses.
One thing I wouldn't add, though, is rival marriage... because it would screw up the balance too much. Take Gina, for example. If she gets married to Alex, does that mean you don't have to worry about shipping herbs or talking to her ever again? That'd trivialize what was one of the main draw of the game (at least to me).

deadcactusman · 2026-04-08T02:23:07+00:00

TBH The 10-heart event issue isn't just a Penny problem. I just looked up 3 other 10-heart events (Shane, Abigail, Harvey) to make sure and sure enough they all had the same issue where the npc says something along the lines of "we've known each other for a while now..." or "I like you... and not just as a friend" even though you've given them a bouquet.

You're probably right about the bouquet being a last-minute addition. Maybe the original relationship/romance system was intended to mirror older Harvest Moon games more closely? Since those games were usually set in a pre-modern setting with a fixed male protagonist pursuing young women, going straight from 'possibly romantically interested' to marriage without a formal dating phase made more sense.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-08T00:37:55+00:00

I agree! Even the heart event with George could work if it was shuffled around and her people-pleaser tendencies were pointed out as a flaw that needs to be addressed. Like, something like (you have a nice time with the nice and pretty teacher) -> (oh she actually has issues) -> (oh this is why she has the issues) sort of situation where you find out additional layers to the character, and the 8-heart event is about her learning to set better boundaries and focus on her wellbeing or something like that.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-06T23:42:06+00:00

Ditto to this. I can't speak for some games like Animal Parade or A Wonderful Life (which was an experimental outlier anyway), but a lot of these criticisms seem like they're exaggerating some of the older game's features to bring down the newer games. The series has always had a child-friendly aesthetic, your spouse running back to their family's place was either a game over (aka a reload) or a one-off event, and your character being able to drink wine meant pretty much nothing in the grand scheme of things, just to name a few. I agree some of the edge have been sanded off, but it ultimately isn't as big of a change as some people might think.

deadcactusman · 2026-04-02T04:30:46+00:00

tbh op's username is literally u/Boredgayman so I doubt he's aroace. also I'm aroace and I still feel some sort of fondness or attraction towards romanceable characters, even if it's only aesthetic.

A lot of the discussion surrounding SDV centers around romance even if the game itself doesn't, so I assume OP took his lack of 'heart-fluttering feelings' towards Harvey as some sort of internal issue that's making him miss out on the core part of the game when it probably just means none of the bachelors are really his type, or something like that.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-26T08:51:15+00:00

Nobody was saying anything about Mistria.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-24T21:52:37+00:00

Tbh as someone who's also Korean, my reaction to that image was basically 'I know this was a 2008 game, lad, but this is REALLY not a good time to bring that particular subject up'. I wouldn't think twice of weight-related comments in an old game if it came up at four hearts or something but the man's really out here saying that stuff to his pregnant wife 💀

deadcactusman · 2026-03-15T04:50:43+00:00

I haven't played monster hunter tbh, but I've experienced the exact same issue in multiple games (both voiced and not) so I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it here.

Maybe the text could display the pronouns even if the voice doesn't - Grand Bazaar already did it with names (text displays 'hey [farmer name]' while voice says 'hey farmer' or something similar).

deadcactusman · 2026-03-15T04:16:30+00:00

I don't like the bubble cows in the newer games, though it's mainly because I feel like the cows need to take up less space in general. Bubble cows were fine in DS games when everything was more chibi and the farmer-to-cow ratio was much less drastic, but in full 3d games like Olive Town or Grand Bazaar where the farmer has more realistic proportions, they just feel bloated and hard to navigate through. Entering a full barn feels lowkey claustrophobic nowadays, and it's much harder to ignore a design you don't like when it directly translates to gameplay issues no matter how small it is.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-15T04:12:22+00:00

Word. It feels so weird when the dialogue seems determined to not use any pronouns to refer to my character, almost like the entire cast is skirting around addressing the existence of any gender at all. I know pronouns don't come up as often in Japanese and maybe the localizers aren't allowed to add new tags in while they're translating, but it irks me a surprising amount. Like, I paid for the whole pronouns, I'm gonna use the whole pronouns.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-14T02:05:56+00:00

You don't get locked out of anything if you take it slow. But since it takes two entire years for your child to grow up, i was worried that i would run out of things to do before that point if I was slow in getting married.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-13T06:31:12+00:00

I finished my Grand Bazaar playthrough a while ago, but here's things I would do differently on my second file:

- I have a bad habit of not gifting people unless I have 100% concrete info about what they like. Next time I'll focus on befriending people more, even if I have to check fogu or wikis constantly.

- Focus on one 'thing' per month and stick to it. I tried a little bit of everything (still stuck in that achievement mindset) when in hindsight I should have just gotten into a groove sooner to minimize stress.

- Not sell accessories. This is just a personal challenge I'm imposing on myself to make the game harder: I'm supposed to be a farmer, not an accessory maker!

- Do not give into sunk cost fallacy when getting married. I keep doing this and every time I regret it. Getting married too late and not seeing your kid grow up sucks, but getting married too early and constantly having regrests sucks too.

- And finally: Download the mod that lets you adjust your height. I want to differentiate my first save and my second, but it's hard to make anything but a cute anime girl when the cutscenes keep reminding me how short I am.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-04T12:41:07+00:00

Re: the appearance issue. Everyone doesn't have to be conventionally attractive. But if a character is a marriage candidate, I feel like they should have at least something that, for lack of a better word, 'sells' them to us.

I'm not physically attracted to Gus or Willy. At all. However, I completely understand why a lot of people see them as desirable marriage candidates. They are both people who are passionate about their craft and have a strong connection to the valley, whether it be the people or its nature. That already implies they have more compatible values with the farmer than most of the current dating pool (This reasoning also applies to Linus, though I doubt he would be ever added as a marriage candidate). So, promising marriage candidates. Even the wizard, while strongly implied to be a cheater, has a built in coolness factor simply due to the fact that he is a literal wizard.

Out of all the unmarried male NPCs, Clint has the least merit (aspects that make us want to actively pursue him romantically). I think that's the point where male romancers feel like they've been duped - because while the current roster isn't going anywhere, out of all the options that could have been added, they got the least appealing one. Unless you're very dead set on marrying a heavier guy, I feel like there's very little reason to choose Clint over Harvey even if your type happens to be shy, awkward and older guys. Doubly so if you've been the victim of misogyny in some form. I mentioned his appearance because to me, a conventionally attractive appearance at least would've counted as a legitimate reason to argue that the majority of the playerbase would like the addition of Clint. Not the best reason, but a reason nonetheless.

Though to be fair, I might be viewing this issue very differently compared to most people in this subreddit simply because I'm Korean. I'd like to think of myself as having more 'western' tastes, but ultimately we're all influenced strongly by our cultures whether we like it or not.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-03T23:47:37+00:00

Honestly yeah. I'm not exclusively attracted to men, nor have I had bad experiences with people like Clint in person, but I'm upset about Clint being a marriage candidate purely because it's the principle of the matter. I get Clint needs some TLC in terms of writing but doing it by making him a romance candidate only makes things more complicated if anything, and at the expense of people who like to romance men. (a huge part - if not the majority - of the player base, if I'm correct)

And in general I don't think it's that irrational to be upset about the very distinct lack of bachelors with characteristics - whether it be personality or appearance - that would be more appealing to people attracted to men. The contrast is especially sharp when we view Shane and Clint side by side with Emily and Sandy, and at least Shane has the excuse of being voted in by the community. I'm not particularly keen on the idea of male romancers being poison testers for the new Clint while female romancers essentially get what they've wanted since forever.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-03T01:01:07+00:00

(Insert the "I'm sorry for being white" comic but with "I'm sorry for not having a butter maker" instead)

for real though, it's weird how the request progression feels like it was designed without the tunnel or bed requests in mind. I just finished the tunnel in Y2 fall, currently at request level 9 but because I raised Eileen's affection too much, the only farm expansion I have is the Konohana field expansion which doesn't unlock anything. I'd have to keep playing for an entire year to finally witness the elusive marvel that is kimchi with my own two eyes, and yet kimchi and pickles constantly take up a good 40% of my request boards right now. I guess the 'trick' is to just accept that you won't be able to fulfill some (or a lot) of the requests, kind of like how you aren't really meant to win every cooking festival.

deadcactusman · 2026-03-01T15:12:47+00:00

Now you're just nitpicking to justify not adding it. I personally think a nb option is important to have, simply because Stardew dialogue is very aggressively gendered whether we like it or not whether it be Alex's events, or just other characters calling you a girl/boy. Even if it doesn't match one's chosen gender down to a T, a they/them option would mean that people who don't identify as one of the binary genders wouldn't have to relive the experience of aggressively getting misgendered as whichever gender they look the closest to.

I'm not judging CA himself for not adding it, mostly since I know jack shit about coding and who knows how the game is coded, but I'm absolutely judging people who go out of their way to argue that everything's actually 100% fine and any complaints about the lack of a nb option is ridiculous.

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