In the same way Animal Crossing was the best-timed lifeline after launching in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I desperately needed the new Harvest Moon to ground me in mundane provincial existence. The loss of a beloved childhood video game series probably wouldn't hit me quite as hard if it hadn't happened on the anniversary month of a year spent in quarantine.īut in this perpetual chaos of pandemic isolation and uncertainty - as I played my Switch for the millionth hour in my too-small Los Angeles apartment, the city outside still reeling from being an epicenter of the virus - I needed the comfort of what Harvest Moon used to be. After switching publishers, the original Harvest Moon creators were forced to change their series' name to Story of Seasons (which has a new Switch title coming out on March 23), allowing the original publisher, Natsume, to release awful, artless imitations under the Harvest Moon name so uninformed fans like myself would buy it before realizing they'd made a horrible mistake. To be clear, Harvest Moon has been limping toward zombification for years now, becoming more and more of a husk of its former self since 2014. And - not to be dramatic - but it turned whatever remained of my dying soul into actual dust.

Harvest Moon: One World, released on March 3 2021, is the official time of death for what was once one of the most beloved farming simulators ever.

Harvest moon a wonderful life crops