#notes and reviews | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tennessoui · 9 months

Text

kit's list of obikin fic recs in no particular order

y'all asked and i finally answered.....here's a list of fics i've read and adored this year! note that i've tagged things that i think could squick people (a/b/o dynamics, weird biology, dub con, heavy kink, etc), and i've noted the ratings (explicit, mature, teen), but i have not noted top/bottom (this list contains a pretty even split of both) and i haven’t indicated which are WIPs - take a chance! i've left little paragraphs as to why i liked the fic but i tried to keep spoilers out of them so the story can be a surprise :D

remember to leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoyed the fic :D

Igneous - zimriya Notes: Explicit, A/B/O dynamics, canon compliant, series!

Trying to find this fic so I could reread it was the thing that prompted me to make this list. That’s how amazing this fic is. It tears out your heart strings. It hurts. I love it. It’s soft. It makes me cry. I am never going to recover from this perfect retelling of canon. This hurts just as much as the kenobi show. I owe this author a medical bill and a thank you card. I don’t care if a/b/o isn’t your thing or omega obi-wan isn’t your thing i need you to try reading this fic i really do because it’s just honestly superb and beautiful prose and i think about some of these lines near daily. Ok, fine. Daily.

I’d Never Be Me (Without The Support of Your Loving Arms) by euryrice Notes: Explicit

i don’t think i’ll ever stop talking or thinking about this fic, it’s up there for me….such a good take on a bond/spy au that I don’t think I’ll ever seriously try at one myself because it’d never be ‘i’d never be me without the support of your loving arms’; it’s just so well thought through. Canon lovingly applied. Kit beautifully moved and hungry for a second part of the series, even though it doesn’t even need a second part and is perfect as a stand alone. Witty banter rating: 10/10

Hooked On You by @whohatessand Notes: Explicit, infidelity, side anidala (padmé is being cheated on)

Dirty bad wrong never felt so good though; Anakin is cheating on his wife with her campaign manager. Anakin is very not satisfied with being a trophy husband, and honestly it’s so valid of him. This is so well-written that Anakin’s frustration with his life, his wife, his duties all feels very real and understandable. Does that excuse the cheating and the spit-as-lube fucking at a donor ball? Nah, but they know it doesn’t. And it ends on a very hopeful obikin note, which is my favorite

The Final Frontier of Pleasure by @jedibongrip Notes: Explicit, bp!Anakin, virginity kink (ish?)

“Just the tip” made into a very hot 2k fic wherein anakin’s definitely not a virgin anymore, but obi-wan’s gonna go along with it if it makes him happy (and means that he gets to keep touching him, god bless); note to say that all of this author’s stuff is very good!

Stars To Fill My Dreams by hidden_humours Notes: Explicit, reverse master/padawan, dark Anakin

Anakin is teetering on going off the walls insane in this fic and I am so here for it. This is just amazing. I love a padawan obi-wan and I especially love this time-travel with a twist (which I won’t spoil!); the summary even says “yeah this anakin isn’t all there” and the author is right!!! 100%!! I love it. I want to poke this Anakin with a stick. I want to push him off his metaphorical cliff of sanity. I want to push Obi-Wan off a cliff just to see what this Anakin would do. What a fic. What a goddamn fic.

Obi-Two by @virahaus Notes: Explicit, Obi-Wan/Anakin/Obi-Wan

Guys, holy shit I am so excited for this WIP you have no idea. Everything about it is delicious so far. The Obi-Wan that gets zapped back in time just before ROTS/Order 66 is living to see twunk Anakin again and he is so soft yet so commanding about it. Ben!Obi-Wan literally kills me in this fic. If there’s never another chapter, I’m begging you to read this anyway, it’s that good.

Vast as the sea, constant as the tide by @moonlightatnoon Notes: Explicit, pirate!anakin, captain!Obi-Wan

So maybe Kit’s attention was captured and held by the sea-themed title…she’s a simple lady. But this fic is absolutely beautiful. I love the intrigue, the history, the pining of it all. My attention, much like Obi-Wan, was gently captured and held hostage by pirate Anakin and the way he’s like ‘my obi-wan <3 mine <3’ while also being a whole ass pathetic lil mew mew of a pirate. He is so possessive and fearsome and clingy and needy I love this Anakin and how much he needs his Obi-Wan. I love the ending especially! Beautifully done.

Buns of Steel by @ragnarlothcat Notes: Explicit, humor, himbos the both of them

Put this under Fics That Make Kit Want To Join A Gym. I love the humor here (Rag has such a legendary way with a great turn of phrase and pacing of jokes that just makes the fic fly by) and the ridiculousness of it all. Obi-Wan here is extremely lovably bitchy and I adore it. His dialogue is quite polite, but this is a fic where the narration really makes the characterization pop. Also the amount of lusting after his beautiful aerobics instructor that Obi-Wan does…and how UNFAIR he finds Anakin’s beauty. Just amazing. Cheering for Obi-Wan living his best life and getting the hot aerobics instructor in the end.

My Thoughts I Confess (Verge On Dirty) by @artemisthehuntress Notes: Explicit, horny, horny, horny Obi-Wan

This is, of course, the other fic filed under Fics That Make Kit Want To Join A Gym. I love Anakin in booty shorts. I love Obi-Wan, head empty and no thoughts because his dick is too goddamn hard to see straight. One should not be exercising under such conditions. The humor here is impeccable. Love all of Obi-Wan’s fantasies with the hot guy working out next to him. If you’re a fan of horny-grip Obi-Wan, this is the fic for you! If you’re not as into horny-grip Obi-Wan, I’d say this fic is still worth the read because it’s just written so well.

just like the days we’d burn by @travellingcircus Notes: Explicit, PTSD mentions, heavy

I was always going to rec one of travellingcircus’ fics of course. They are a fantastic writer and I love their fics - especially the long oneshots that consume my entire night when I see that one’s been posted and I get to delve into a new side of obikin I could never imagine. This fic is one of my favorites by them – and maybe one of my favorite modern aus all together. Anakin has a racing career until he has an accident. Then he goes back to his small town and decides to have Obi-Wan instead because first love (I love first love fics especially in modern aus)!! Also Obi-Wan has a motorbike. This is excellent news. He also has helmet hair. I love Anakin in this fic so much. He’s crazy. He’s wounded. He’s obsessed. He’s in love. He’s desperate. And Anakin makes Obi-Wan all these things too. Such a good modern au for these characters. They feel so close to their canon characters, it’s marvelous.

Where Every Mask Cracks by skyl_tales Notes: Explicit, a spin-off of one of their other fics, but can be standalone

Skyl_tales’ fics for me are the very definition of fandom classic. They were the first fics I read and I continue to reread them roughly maybe once every year at least. They’re just all very readable. The writing style is something I have always loved and envied – their fics are approachable and entertaining, no matter how much you know or don’t know about Star War at the time of your reading. Tbh I think this is the fic author who has influenced my writing the most! I love this fic in particular because I do have a soft spot for vaderwan. Old Ben being delightfully torn up over Vader and Vader being delightfully unhinged about his former master…..with a magical fix-it device that restores both of them to their younger, strongest selves (if only to make the fucking easier and the horny insatiable)

Gay Chicken by zimriya Notes: Explicit, enemies to lovers, light daddy kink

Where to begin with this fic!!! I guess I cannot stress enough how much I love humor in fics when done right and this is done so well. Like it is literally so funny and so normal. There is something so beautiful about putting these space monk superheroes into like. Just situations. This fic is about laundry. But also upstairs neighbors. But also lost loves??? I’m always a bit hesitant for fics with a lot of notes/messages, because I can find that hard to read, but this was very, very easy to read, both format-wise and flow of the story wise. I love them both being assholes to each other. Love them slowly becoming friends through notes under the monikers “501” and “212”. LOVE the twist.

wildest dreams by kidhuzural Notes: Explicit, 5+1 fic

Basically: Baby Anakin wants to get married to Obi-Wan. Teenager padawan Anakin wants to marry Obi-Wan. Clone Wars Anakin wants to marry Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan wants to marry Clone Wars Anakin. I love love love fics that start out with baby padawan Anakin and have him grow up. It places so much emphasis on their master&padawan relationship and how important they were to each other before AOTC or TCW, which I think is the strongest basis for obikin. Also this Anakin is just so cute and Obi-Wan cares for his baby padawan so much!! All in all, this fic is just so sweet. Obsessed.

In Pursuit of Cold Water by @jswander Notes: Mature, Merman!Anakin

Can I have a fic rec list that doesn’t include this fic?? I love this fic. I think I reread it like twenty times while waiting for the last chapter, and it was worth it and gripping and incredible each time. I am fascinated by writers who can worldbuild, and Jo worldbuilds so well in this mermaid AU. I love the descriptions of their fins; the possessiveness, the hurt, the anger, the jadeness, and the naivete of Anakin somehow all existing in the same character and all being so justified. There’s some really heavy moments and also really silly moments (they dress Anakin up as an old lady to avoid detection at one point). I love the development of their relationship and especially the growth of their mental bond. Such a good translation of their Force bond in canon (and such a clever work-around for a mermaid not speaking English!) Just an amazing fic. So good.

The Devil’s In The Details by @ragnarlothcat Notes: Explicit, demon Anakin, darker!Anakin (because of the demon bit)

Back at it again with my Rag-writing obsession! I’m loving this WIP and how evil and innocent Anakin is. Yeah, he’s a demon haunting Obi-Wan’s new house; yeah, he’s killed like. A ton of people. But he’s so pathetic. So very eager to please. So very attractive. As a reader, you’re like Obi-Wan’s friend, Quinlan, who discovers Obi-Wan sleeping with a literal demon, and you’re like ‘bestie, do you not know? That’s a literal demon?’ and obi-wan is like ‘he is quite polite and does so good on our walks around town’ and you’re like ‘you’re taking him on walks???’ but also you can’t help but root for demon Anakin and poor decision-maker Obi-Wan. Also, once again, I love Rag’s humor and timing of it. The narration Obi-Wan has is so colorful and so fucking funny, I snort all the time. He’s such a bitch. He’s amazing.

By Omission by @posthumousvigor Notes: Explicit, reverse master/padawan au, drunk sex

This writer is very quickly becoming one of my favorites. I love their prose and the way they write Obi-Wan—especially padawan!Obi-Wan with Master Anakin. One of my favorite dynamics for obikin aus, and this writer gives me so much good food. TBH one of my all-time favorite cliches/tropes is one of them getting dressed up out of their Jedi robes to be put in Situations, and I especially love this for Obi-Wan cause Anakin got a whole movie of dressing up for funsies, and this fic delivers. Master Skywalker comes back early from a mission to find his padawan slutting it up in the Lower Levels, and what is a man to do other than snap?? And he snaps so beautifully in this fic. I love it when they’re horny beyond reason for each other.

how to stay by answersinahauntedclub Notes: Explicit, professor/student relationship

I know logically that this fic probably will not update again, but it is so beautiful and I think about it all the time. It is like. The peak of college/university aus in this fandom. Bold statement, I know, but I love this fic and characterization so much that I am stating it. They’re both disasters. They can’t resist each other even if they really, really should. It’s an incredible read and I am fascinated by both this Obi-Wan and this Anakin. Cannot stress enough the lovable disasters that they are. In writing this, I took an hour break and reread it again.

we’re swimming with the sharks (until we drown) by @obiwaned Notes: Teen, fake/pretend relationship

Getting this update notification felt like such a sweet sweet win for me. I loved the premise as soon as I read it and it just keeps getting better. Fake marriage for any reason is always amazing. I also LOVE non-linear timelines and this writer does it so well because you as the reader don’t get lost and confused trying to keep the timeline straight. It’s delectable, it’s straightforward, it’s so easy to devour, and I am obsessed with this fic and even the possibility of more.

Self-Insert by ZenyZootSuit Notes: Teen, crack

God this is so funny in a very crack way. Short and funny and perfect. Darth Vader writes self-insert fanfiction about being with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Sidious finds out. Imperial secrets are leaked, but I’m sure those were important details he needed to include!! For context! Realism! Absolutely perfect; no notes.

Open Circle by Calyss Note: Explicit, Dark Obi-Wan, dom/sub (under)tones, seduction to the Dark side

This is also one of my annual rereads, and one of my absolute favorite Sith Obi-Wans in the fandom. I love how out of control this sith Obi-Wan is, how very obsessed with just Anakin he is. Sith Obi-Wan really said “he’s mine” and he’s gonna destroy Anakin’s marriage and the whole galaxy to prove it. And also Anakin is not going to say no or resist much at all because that’s his master and he loves him and has weird feelings for him he has not really examined. This is also such an id fic of mine. But no regrets putting it on the list. When I saw it updated in October 2022, I literally cleaned my room and improved my life before I sat down to read it.

How to Save a Galactic Republic Without Really Trying by @sharpest-tongue Notes: Mature, Post Kenobi show

So many amazing fics came out of the Kenobi show but this absolutely has to be one of my favorites. There’s humor, there’s touching moments, there’s Star Wars lingo I didn’t know but that made the whole thing feel very much in-universe (and that I have now incorporated into my Star Wars Wikipedia slash Dictionary for later use, even if it’s all made up). I love a time travel fic, has to be said, and this one delivers perfectly. The Jedi as family in this fic really made me emotional. Extra special shout out to Obi-Wan, raising his padawan again in a do-over, and thinking, ‘i was not this bad as a teenager wtf?? Yeah ok whatever i MAY have fought in TWO WARS at that age but still!!!’ love him. Love his obvious blind spots for anakin and also for himself. Such a good fic!!!

broken bones, thunder drums by @maragny Notes: Teen, hurt/comfort

There is so much to love about this fic and I love it all. Clone War fics are like my bread and butter in this fandom. I love obikin fics that take place in the middle of battle where the reader is confronted with the reality of either Anakin or Obi-Wan fighting – and this fic really starts by throwing you into the action in such a visceral, effective way that I was stressed! I was gripped! It makes Anakin hiding his injury feel not only understandable but also like the only option. Good think Obi-Wan is there to save the day and help Anakin through his pain because he is overprotective and in love with him. Also the first chapter is told from Rex’s point of view, which just. One of my favorite outsider POVs for obikin is Rex.

no news is good news by @rhymenoceros Notes: Mature, crack, relationship reveal, breaking news/news cycle format

This fic is so funny! The tone is perfect for what the writer sets out to do — that is, make the reader feel like they’re caught up in a social media news cycle! There’s talk shows, there’s paparazzi, there’s space reddit, there’s leaked Jedi text conversations….the Jedi screen names are hilarious and easy to tell who is who while still staying true to the joke. Cannot recommend this fic enough. Cute, funny, horny, and with that sweet sweet Palpatine downfall that the best cracky fics always have.

Falling Deep Into You by @dark--whisperings Notes: Explicit, dom/sub tones, so much pining

Any fic that has the tag “Obi-Wan Kenobi is a freak in bed” has my attention and my interest. This writer describes Anakin subbing and Obi-Wan domming so very beautifully that it’s almost a manifesto in 8k. Lots of good sex here, but I really love the opening scene and the push and pull the writer’s given the characters. They want each other so much—Obi-Wan wants so much, but alas! Religious guilt on par with catholicism! Of course the nasty freaky sex fiend in Obi-Wan wins out over the Jedi Master, but I really enjoyed the guilt and the way he gives in and goes to find Anakin because of course he does. And then the ending! A resetting of the chess board so that the game can start over tomorrow. A great fic all in all!

you took my love so tenderly by @billboguspreston & @acrylicsalts-inspo Notes: Explicit, prince/guard dynamic, exhibitionism

I started reading this fic when it was first posted, and I followed it attentively and with baited breath. I love the reverse age dynamic (I know, it’s not for everyone, but I lovelovelove it), and I love that this Obi-Wan is such a spitfire. He knows what he wants and that’s for his silent, restrained, older, handsome bodyguard to snap and fuck him and he WILL brat his way into getting what he wants as is his right. Anakin being both incredibly horny (Anakin horny-gripping the pommel of his sword because Obi-Wan has decided to get off right in front of him to see if he can tempt him into fucking him) is amazing. Obi-Wan being both the aggressor and also the inexperienced one is chef’s fucking kiss and a dynamic I do not see often enough. So worth the read. And there may be more sequels??? Be still my beating heart!

I Wanna Be Owned by @kyberkenobi Notes: Explicit, 5+1 things, light BDSM

Speaking of horny grip lol, I had to think for a bit about which fic from this writer to choose because all of them are very good and very very smutty with all sorts of kinks and dynamics. The writer you go to for mean dom Obi-Wan and if you’re feeling up for discovering a kink you weren’t sure you were into before. There’s plenty of amazing fics on her ao3 (I was also immediately obsessed with the recent alpha/alpha one), but this fic is one of my favorites. I love the style of a 5+1 for a fic, and I am obsessed with casual slut (affectionate) Obi-Wan and Anakin’s blinders of his master slowly being pulled away until he HAS to confront the reason Obi-Wan can untie and hogtie a criminal they caught so damn quickly. It’s indecent. It’s amazing.

Our Man From Tatooine by kazmir Notes: Explicit, a/b/o dynamics, intersex omegas

This story is such a good, quick, enthralling read. I really can’t say much without spoiling it, but it’s worth the read. Dark Obikin, twists and turns, roleplaying, horny mates being unable to resist the other’s draw….so good….One of those fics I paused to reread while reccing it lol

Acts of Contrition by @marycontraire Notes: A series, ranging from Gen - Explicit

Cheating a little bit to rec you all a series instead because I just reread this fic series and fell in love with it all over again. Literally a fandom classic for me. The world building is amazing, the realism and research really pays off because it creates such a rich world for people to dive into. The Tatooine culture is so rich and interesting, and I love this Anakin especially. It’s a very realistic take on if Anakin had been expelled from the Order for the Tusken massacre. This Anakin is darker and clingier and Obi-Wan is trying to keep himself level and sane and something Anakin can cling to while still being a Jedi in all but name. Every installment of this series is gold and worth reading as quickly as possible just to have this in your mind faster. Also worth a slow read to savor it because unfortunately, you can only read a fic series like this for the first time once.

You can call me baby (you can call me love) by @lilredghost Notes: Explicit, 5 + 1

This fic is so sweet that I honestly forgot it was explicit - even though, yes, it opens with a sex scene lmao! But I love this writer’s explicit fics so much (their ao3 is worth a browse) that I am not disappointed in it being explicit, no sir. Obi-Wan gets upset when Anakin calls him an old man repeatedly and I’ve read this fic so much that when I see repeated use of “old man” in other fics I’m like “! no! His feelings!!!” this fic ALSO has anakin calling obi-wan baby <3 so good so sweet so perfect.

take my hand through the flames by @atornpage Notes: Explicit, vaderwan, seduction to the Dark Side

Oh this may just be the WIP I am most excited to see updated! It’s such a clever and unique concept that I’m on the edge of my seat to see where the writer takes the story next. There are not enough stories where a character falls into a coma and time passes around them, and this is so perfect. I adore fics where baby Anakin is clingy and obsessed with Obi-Wan and everyone around them is like ‘this is not REALLY the Jedi way, guys’, and this fic has SO much of that. I can’t wait to see all the promises of the tags come to fruition and am massively enjoying the ride to get there!

Heal Me, My Darling by @wasureneba Notes: Explicit, sick fic, idiots in love

Who doesn’t love a sick fic?? The tender healing…the care…the rotten work…not to me, not if it’s you, etc etc…this fic is such a good sick fic too, I was here for the entire thing! Anakin is in top whiny form and Obi-Wan is cuddling him left and right! I also love Anakin having a praise kink in this fic – it made me soft and so receptive to the idea again when I was getting tired of seeing it as a default in a ton of fics. But this fic said “Obi-Wan tells Anakin he’s doing good while touching his ass to administer a very important for plot reasons shot and Anakin bursts into flames” and I said “absolutely and understandable, please tell me what happens next.” This is like a perfect sick fic for me. The right balance of sweet and horny. Caring Obi-Wan and whiny because he’s bored! Anakin. God-tier combination.

Νόστος by NFx Notes: Explicit, stockholm syndrome typical of hades & persephone aus

I am always here for a good Hades&Persephone AU and I feel like this is a great one! I especially love AUs that carefully place Star Wars GFFA characters into an established world (like Greek mythology in this case), and take care to match up the side characters of the GFFA with the AU characters they’re being transposed on. I like the pace and narration of this one too, the way the tone feels both readable and still old — the dialogue and narration don’t read like a BBC documentary set in Ancient Greece where everyone just sort of speaks like they’re in a Shakespeare play for some reason, but it’s still sorta oldish/stiffer dialogue that really keeps you in the fic universe without alienating readers. Also, horny. But dark horny. Love a darker Anakin.

Hunting the Homeward Light by GreenQueenofClubs Notes: Teen

One of my all-time favorites, I think, and if you haven't read it or haven't reread it recently, you need to! There's so much tension build up and detail put in with such an amazing pay off that I could literally read this fic every month and probably find something new to enjoy all over again. I don't even have strong opinions about mace training anakin, but this fic convinced me it could work and work really well. also poor poor obi-wan </3 his emotional support padawan goes missing </3 but then is found :) as a twunk :)

#asks #obikin #obikin fic recs #me: im gonna focus and write my fic #also me: jk here is 4k of fic recs #i hope you enjoy!! i actually spent like 2 nights on this lol #combing through my history #tried to also spotlight some writers i like a lot but dont really see recc'ed #also psa if you have a tumblr pls link it to it on your ao3 #for kit #my notes are so silly i am sorry #i don't have kit's opinion corner often #so i shoved all my opinions into 4k of nonsense fic review #me: i hope peoplee like my fic list :)#also me: posts at the weirdest times where most people are not online :)

428 notes · View notes

stemmmm · 3 months

Text

Close to a year and four rewrites later, I present to you...

Stem's Thoughts on the Game Design of Harvest Moon on SNES

I’m not going to lie, if you don’t like farming sims, you won’t like this one. At their core, every farming sim (at least in the rpg genre) is nearly identical, and that’s because of this game. In a way, I might dare to say that Harvest Moon for the SNES is the perfect farming sim because it has every one of the usual elements in their most simplified form and it just works straight from the get-go. It works so well in fact, that after this game came out in 1996, four more entries to the series were released before the year 2000.

If you are someone who does like farming sims, I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s simple and to the point, with a fast pace and enough random events and points of intrigue that the game kept me relatively engaged for my whole playthrough.

Also, by nature of this being the first game and therefore hard to cover concisely and by nature of taking so long to write this... it's long as hell! Enjoy! :) <3

I can’t say my appreciation of this game doesn’t come with a few caveats. I’ve intermittently played HM games all my life, starting with the GameBoy port (GB1) all the way to Pioneers of Olive Town, so while I don’t know exactly how the series has evolved, I’ve seen it at some of its earliest and at its latest. My vague childhood memories of GB1 (a game I didn’t own and didn’t play much of) were that it was pretty sparse and bland, so knowing that this original game was allegedly the same thing but with a little more content, I was expecting the bare minimum. I was prepared to never even be able to leave my farm, but the first thing the game did was shuttle me off to the nearby town and blocked the exit until I talked to everyone there.

(Maps of the town, mountain, and farm via The Spriters Resource)

You learn everything you need to know about the game right here at the beginning; Firstly, that this town is small as all hell and has hardly anyone in it aside from the five girls you can marry and their immediate family members. The next thing you’ll learn is that there’s a fence on your farm, and you need to be taking care of that. Of the few repetitive lines of dialogue any given person in town has to share with you on any given day, a fair amount are devoted to reminding you to fix your fence, to make sure it’s in good repair. There was just a big storm so watch out! Remember to check it every day! Are you chopping enough wood? Because you’ll need it for that fence!

I’m being dramatic of course, you aren’t reminded about it that much, though the thin variation of dialogue means it comes up a lot. The emphasis on your fence does exist, and it isn’t for nothing: while it doesn’t matter as much if all you do is grow crops– if you keep animals, the game tells you that the ideal thing to do for yours and the animal’s happiness is to put the animals outside to graze. Animal feed bought from the livestock shop will keep them fed, but it's nothing compared to fresh grass grown on your farm. You can’t even buy animals without a certain amount of grass planted! And sure, you can cut the grass to store for later, but it’s at its best straight out of the ground. However, the way the game is programmed, the animals only eat when the day rolls over, so putting animals outside for the day and taking them in at night isn’t an option, and on top of that, there’s things that come out at night that can hurt your animals. This is where your fence comes in.

The Utility of Fences

At the entrance to your farm is a cluster of buildings: your house, a small lumber shed, a barn, coop, and silo, a tool shed, and an old, dried up well. Just barely surrounding all of these is a little wooden fence that looks more like a row of upright logs than anything else. Despite this farm having presumably been abandoned, the fence is in perfect repair. You’ll quickly discover that the fence as it is won’t work out; there’s hardly space to plant anything within it, and with the well dried up, you’re forced to hop it to get to a water source to fill up your watering can. It’s pretty clear that you’ll need to expand your fence, and it’s easy to do with all of the tree stumps littering the massive field that it’s blocking off.

On top of needing to expand the range of your fence, the individual planks eventually will rot away and leave useless stumps. They show up more frequently after rain or a large storm. The posts don’t rot away completely so they have to be manually removed, but replacing them is as simple as smashing the old post with a hammer or ax and popping a new post in its place. It becomes a very natural part of your daily routine to run a lap around the farm’s perimeter before you go to bed to make sure everything looks safe and secure. It’s a good way to ensure your animals are put away and debris is cleared out, too! It slotted very nicely into my daily schedule until a certain point.

With how much time you have to spend hopping over the logs to get to the rest of the area too large to fence in, you might be tempted to leave one out of place for easier traversal. When night comes, it’s clear why that would be a mistake. Sometimes when you go to bed, you’ll hear your dog barking. It’s a small detail, one that took me a long time to notice because I didn’t always play with the sound on. There are wild dogs that prowl around the wilderness surrounding your farm, and only at night do they dare to come close. Your dog, if left outside, isn't able to do anything other than warn you of their presence if they show up. There’s nothing to notice during the daytime if it happens, unless you happened to leave one of your animals outside. There was one night that I left my chickens outside, having thought my fence was in perfect order and repair. I went to bed and heard the dog barking, followed by a horrible crunch. When I went out in the morning, I saw where my chicken had been before, it had been replaced by a pile of feathers. On the north side of my farm was a rotted fence post I’d failed to fix.

The Reality of Fences

After losing my chicken, a cluster of pixels on my screen it may have been, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my animals outside. I didn’t want to take a risk again, the sound and sight of feathers was upsetting enough. On a more logical note, the chickens didn’t even lay eggs if left outside so there was no value in it. Cows were a pain to put back inside the barn too, because of some silliness with the game’s collision. As much of a disappointment as it was to not have my animals roam around, it was just easier. At the time, I was focusing on upgrading my house anyways, so I didn’t have time to take care of my animals outside where time would pass when I could use that time gathering wood, and everything I had was being saved up for the house so I didn’t have any extra materials to repair my fence with. My fence was all rotting away. Because it was inconvenient for getting to my crops, I started smashing all the old posts as they went, too. That’s when I noticed something: the wild dog wasn’t coming anymore.

I didn’t pay much attention to it until I was looking up a completely different mechanic and discovered a forum explaining how the fences were broken. Rotted posts attracted the wild dog, they said. It didn’t matter if you had gaps in your fence, or even a fence at all–in fact no fence was the best kind to have because the mere existence of posts that could rot was a liability.

I was hesitant at first to test this concept, after all there wasn’t much I could gain from it. My chickens wouldn’t lay outside, and my cows would be too challenging to get back in if the forecast called for rain. The thing that got me to finally try it was when I was trying to hatch more chickens. My coop felt like a nightmare to navigate due to its current population. I wanted less animals inside that I had to feed, so I threw a couple chicks outside–they weren’t laying yet anyways. Lo and behold, the dog didn’t come. More days passed and more animals were left outside, and it never came. My fence had rotted until there was nothing left at all. No dogs could ever come to my farm again. And I realized that the game’s own insistence on its mechanics was all a lie.

How You’re Told To Play - How The Game Lies

Of course, my animals didn’t stay outside. For a minute it was fun having a crowd of cows milling about while I tended to my crops, but letting them wander free and uninhibited made it impossible to find and milk all of them without any trouble, and there were the rainy days to watch out for. After the novelty wore off, they went back inside and stayed there. The thing is, that didn’t make a single bit of difference in how much they liked me compared to how they were living in the barn. On top of that, they didn’t seem to care whether I was feeding them grass or store-bought food either, though I mostly stuck to the grasses since they were cheaper and easier to get. Nothing about how I was told to care for animals really mattered past feeding them every day, petting it and maybe brushing it, if it was a cow.

It gets worse. The most basic aspect of the game is the fact that time passes. The story takes place over 2 and a half years, running through each day until the end, and these days last from 6AM to 6PM according to the game’s own internal time setting. After 6PM, all of the shops aside from the bar will close and you lose the ability to sell anything as you’re told it would rot in the shipping bin overnight, so there’s nothing to do but sleep until the next day. Issue with this is that when the days stop at 6PM… they just stop. Time doesn’t flow anymore. The game doesn’t give you any kind of clock to know the exact time it is until after you’ve upgraded your house, so all you have to go by before that is the color of the environment and whether or not your character has played an animation to eat something (you’re automatically fed when you wake up, at noon, and at night). I discovered this because I was curious if I could actually see the wild dog by staying out, and left the game running for probably 20 minutes in real life only for nothing to happen. Because of the time freeze, the time after 6PM actually becomes really valuable for farm logistics. You can’t sell anything, no, but you can pull up all the weeds on the farm, water your crops, fix your fences, feed and care for animals if you hadn’t already, and harvest wood for fences and house upgrades which would have taken a lot of valuable time to get during shipping-hours. The only thing that gets in the way of doing all that is you running out of energy.

Your energy is what allows you to use your farming equipment like your ax or watering can. Running out of it doesn’t mean you fall unconscious or anything, but your character will play an animation of them stumbling over and will fail to use any tools. The most obvious fix to this is to simply go to bed, as sleeping gives you a full recharge. You can also, however, recharge it by going to the hot spring on the mountain, or by eating food bought at the restaurant in town or foraged for in the forest. You can’t tell easily how much is refilled, as there’s no visual indicator like a health bar, but you’re able to eat more than once, and jumping into the hot spring seems to count whether you did it or not more than how much time you spend in there, so you can hop in and out a couple of times and call it good.

Individually, time freezing at 6PM and energy being endlessly replenishable aren’t bad things. Even together, they’re not the worst. Having free time to focus on profitless chores is nice, and I think it’s important to be able to replenish your energy in case you have a limited amount of time to do things like for example, cut all of your grass before winter kills it. What makes an exploit out of these is the fact that the resources in the forest will never run out. Every time you re-enter the forest, all forage items and tree stumps are respawned. The infinite amount of forage makes for infinite energy refills, and could also make for an incredible money exploit if you didn’t have a very limited amount of time to ship things. You don’t have a limited amount of time to cut up tree stumps though. If you wanted to, you could run up to the forest after 6PM, chop every stump, then simply reload the area, and everything’s back. You can get all of the wood you would ever need to fully upgrade your house in one night. It’s a bit of a grind to do all at once, but it’s a grind you’d be doing over time anyways. It’s not the worst exploit in the world, since you still need money to pay for the house upgrade, but arguably because of how you have to focus your energy elsewhere for most of the game, the wood is the harder thing to get. Additionally, when the game has very little to do in both fall and winter due to the lack of crops, this exploit takes away just about any reason to play those two seasons other than to take care of animals. It’s an optional exploit of course–as all exploits are–but once you learn about it, it’s hard to resist the desire to get the grind out of the way all at once and mess up the pacing of the game.

The Charm of the Game

Learning that the fences were completely broken as a mechanic was a huge disappointment for me. From the moment I got a grasp on how the game was supposed to work, I wanted to eventually surround my whole field with fencing and keep my animals outside so I would have some life on my farm while I worked. I didn’t just want this, I was excited for it! This was something I’d never done in a farming sim that didn’t already manage putting animals in and out for you like Stardew Valley or newer Story of Seasons games do. My routine is always the same: I go into the barn and coop to tend to each of my animals, I take care of my crops outside, then run straight to town to talk to everyone, and go to bed. The change in routine that would come from taking care of the animals outside and patrolling the fence every night felt fresh to me. It made me feel that even though this was the first game of its kind, it was different and required new things of me. But in the end, I played it exactly the same.

Harvest Moon is still very different from all of the games that followed it, though. In many ways, it’s because it has less “stuff” in it– both in terms of items and things you have to do. But I wouldn’t say that it feels incomplete. Harvest Moon runs over the course of 2 and a half years before your work is evaluated. Until that happens, you have the ability to farm four different crops, you can raise both cows and chickens, you can upgrade your house to have more features, upgrade your working tools, build relationships with the townspeople to a small extent, go to town festivals that happen each year, and you can get married to one of the five girls living in town with whom you can have up to two children. Everything that you would come to expect as a fan of games like this is already here from the very first iteration. The most notable lack this game has, and one that seems to be completely unique to this game, is that there aren’t any crops in the fall or winter, which means that unless you have animals, there’s a whole half of the year that you don’t have anything to do. The game is clearly aware of this though, because in an average playthrough, this is where you’ll start to run into the story events.

There isn’t much of an overarching story in the game, past the general concept that you’ve run away from home to work on an abandoned farm. The conclusion rests on how good of a job you actually do. In between those two points are smaller events, usually tied to when you get tool upgrades or special ones for each of the romantic interests. The first event you’re likely to run into happens on the very last day of summer, where one of the woodsmen comes to your house in the morning to ask if you’re okay because he heard a huge crash at night and you should check your farm. What I found was that a tree in my field had fallen over, and its remaining stump had a big empty hole in it. When I inspected the stump, I was suddenly underground in a cave filled with loud and industrious music, and I was faced with two, little green people–Harvest Sprites, though I don’t know if they’re called that yet here. One asked me if my scythe worked well, and when I said yes, told me that they had made it and that I should check my shed tomorrow for a better one. Other tool upgrades are obtained in similar fashion; one comes from feeding a starving sprite a mushroom and another comes from another hole in the farm opening up to reveal another part of the cave system that has a couple of hints on how to unlock other things.

The events for romantic interests happen at less scripted times, as they’re tied to how strong your relationship is with each girl. Each girl only has one event, and it only triggers when your relationship is high enough that you would ask her to marry you. The events usually take up a whole day, and don’t necessarily add much to each character. Ellen’s revolves around how she’s no good at keeping pets– something established on your second day at the farm when you get your dog from her, Eve’s hammers in her fraught relationship with her grandpa, and Ann’s is about losing the chicken weathervane, or “weathercock” which sits on the roof of her workshop and goes missing every time there’s a storm. Conversely, Nina and Maria’s scenes bring up entirely new events that bring up a number of questions while providing no answers. Nina disappears while looking for a medicinal plant because her mother is apparently sick, and Maria vanishes for days until you find her hiding away with the woodsmen for some reason. All of these events, whether they share new information or not, manage to add some greatly appreciated depth to each character by giving them more room to speak and be sincere than their short and repetitive day-to-day dialogues do.

The dialogue in this game is simple, to the point, and sparse– probably because there was only so much memory that could be reserved for approximately 15 people who all have multiple lines of dialogue, and only so much money to pay someone to write more. There is simple dialogue that doesn’t tell you much more than “hello, how are you” would, more dialogue that I’d label as tutorial text, and a few lines that I truthfully couldn’t understand well because of the sub-par translation this game received for english. The dialogue that exists to inform the world really manages to create a unique vibe though. Nina’s dialogue, almost always about plants, goes into forays about how they’re creatures with wills to live, too. Ellen’s uncle who runs the ranch shop tells you that it’s much better to feed your animals fresh grass if you try to buy any from his store, and if you decline to purchase he laughs as if he’s won something. There’s even dialogue referencing the silent player! Multiple lines exist to comment on him not paying attention, and inspection prompts have people telling you not to touch something rather than being an item description. It was the last thing I expected, to get the same level of personality out of the main character as I did from each of the girls, albeit very subtly. He went from a kind of nothing, self-insert into being what I perceive to be a hyperactive boy, akin to a border collie who was let out into a field of sheep for the first time–the exact kind of person crazy enough to take on an abandoned farm and succeed.

It’s these short little character details that bring life into the game. Each day, you’ll really only see one line of dialogue from each character, be it new or old, with that dialogue usually only changing if there’s a change in season or festival coming up. The repetitive, pretty mindless routine of the game can turn into a sort of meditation if you let it, where you spend your time working thinking about the folks in town and what they had to say to you the previous day. The developers took this concept in stride and gave the side characters loads of dialogue about life, about God and religion, and about… very basic morals, but morals nonetheless. It’s a children’s game after all. When you take the thoughts, questions and prompts the characters give you back to the farm to do your long and tedious routine, you have to ask yourself– what are you working so hard for? For the feeling of accomplishment? Recognition from your peers? For the sake of some higher power, if you worship one? For me personally, it was to write this essay, but it was also for a good grade on the high score screen at the end, so to be honest a lot of this stuff was lost on me until just now when I was reviewing the game to get screenshots.

Setting The Standard - Why You Should Play HM SNES

You may read all of this and still think, well, it doesn’t sound like the game has much in it. And you would be right, it’s a very small game, but it’s also extremely quick. On average, my days only lasted about three minutes of real life time. Everything flew by, and I think I finished the game in 20 hours or less. I barely got a chance to notice that there wasn’t much going on because every second of my day was spent busy doing something, and when I wasn’t busy, the break was appreciated. I didn’t start to run out of things to do until I was finished with the second year, and when I looked up what I needed to do to get a decent ending, I was already most of the way there. It was easy to push through those last two seasons to get to the end, and it was so, so worth it.

As I mentioned earlier, the game ends with a high score screen, meaning it has to track all of your accomplishments. These include, but are not limited to: the number of things you ship, number of each crop you grow, number of animals you have and how much they like you, how upgraded your house is, who you married, how much all of the girls in town like you if you didn't get married, how many kids you have (which basically equates to how long you were married), your happiness score (increased by going to festivals and decreased by having animals die), and how many times you’ve pet your dog. In addition to these being tallied up and presented to you, you get special cutscenes not just for each one of these accomplishments, but additional ones for if you managed to do even better! I got a cutscene for having a cow, followed by one for having lots of cows, followed by yet another for having cows that loved me! Watching them play one after the other felt like taking a victory lap even without getting the best possible result. Seeing all of my numbers come up at the end made me want to try again to actually get those other cutscenes, not to get to see them, they’re so easy to find on Youtube, but because the game made it feel like an accomplishment! If I weren’t following this game up by immediately playing its GameBoy port, I absolutely would have started a new file right away. I’ve been playing the Harvest Moon series since I was a little kid and this was the first time I’d actually managed to beat one of these games. I struggle to think the finale of any game following this will feel as good as this one did.

I started writing this whole thing about the fences because it was an easy and silly entry point to get into my core issue with the game, and so I could have an opportunity to dig into game mechanics and the way the knowledge you have of them will completely alter your playstyle, because that’s all fun and interesting for me to talk about. Another reason why I focused on that was because it was near impossible for me to pick any kind of focus point when talking about this game. After all, I’m trying to study a whole series of games that spans multiple decades, and this is not only the first game in that series, but a game that created the whole genre of farming sims and defined that genre so thoroughly that you can see its DNA in every single game that followed.

I didn’t expect much to come out of my experience with this game. My expectations for it before I even picked it up were that it was going to be basically featureless, as informed by my experience with one of the first games I ever played as a child, Harvest Moon GB, which I will get into next. This game was not that at all. I think that everything it did manage to get working right came together just about perfectly. Harvest Moon is exactly what it wanted to be, and where it wasn’t, it lied about how it worked to try and make you play the correct way anyways. When I believed that lie, my time playing was even more enjoyable. Maybe if farming worked just a little bit more like how you’re told it’s supposed to, and if there was just a little bit more story, those would cover the things I felt wanting for the most. But maybe a little flexibility and ambiguity is a good thing. Maybe actually maintaining a fence is just too hard, and maybe if the girls were more fleshed out, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy filling in their gaps in my head.

There are many more things I could say and wanted to say about this game, but this has grown far too long already so I'm cutting myself off here. I'm sure my later entries aren't going to get near this length. If you managed to get to this point, thank you so much for reading!

#harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon snes #hm snes #game review #m.txt #hm posting #i think i hit the image cap also? it wouldn't let me put in more even though i dont think there are that many. maybe it was a different cap #im happy to answer questions about things i didnt cover here too lol and i have notes from my playthrough if anyone is interested in those #those notes are the only reason i was able to keep all of this straight given how long it took me to write #anyways finally hitting post after like 3 days because i keep forgetting until weird hours

153 notes · View notes