rikku911 rates this game: 3/5It is a basic farm game. Your old grandpa gives you a farm and leaves you in charge of it. Would be the jist of it. And your job is to turn the farm around from a wasteland filled with rocks into a real farm that is successful, another feature of this game is being able to marry with your choice of female in town by giving her gifts from the farm and items you make once you buy a kitchen.
Antoids rates this game: 5/5First off, if you've ever played a Harvest Moon game, play this one. Easily one of, if not the, best in the series.
That said, Harvest Moon 64 is a farming sim. You're left in the care of an old, run-down farm. Initially, you'll spend most of your days clearing the field while profits slowly trickle in from turnips and the occasional potato, but as time goes on, you'll find yourself quickly tending full fields of all sorts of vegetables, caring for cows and chickens, and even finding time to woo ladies and make friends around town. To break up the farming, some days there will be special festivals, like an egg-finding game or horse races in town.
The core of the gameplay focuses around managing your time and strength. You need to have everything you plan to sell for the day shipped by sunset, but most of the townsfolk will be asleep by then. There's also only so much work you can do in a day before you run out of stamina (and need to eat or sleep for the day) or start over again tomorrow.
All told, Harvest Moon is a relaxing rural life sim, with enough to keep anyone interested over the 2-year course of the primary plot and beyond. I'd logged eight years on my original cartridge before I finally finished it.