Does Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos Bring Harvest Moon Back?

I was overly critical of Harvest Moon: One World, and for good reason. Many things about that game bothered me, but the most egregious of them all was the laziness in development. I was shocked that instead of naming characters, they used descriptions to describe people, such as the “Busy Man.” It was lazy development, and that laziness seemed to trickle down and permeate almost all aspects of the game.

If it wasn’t for my YouTube channel (youtube.com/adamroffel), I’m not sure I would have ever played Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos. Now, after 25 hours streaming, I’ve moved into the game’s final quest and I think now’s the time to ask the big question – does this game redeem the Harvest Moon franchise?

There are always going to be things about the new Harvest Moon games that I’m not going to enjoy. I prefer buying the seeds I need in stores, instead of running all over the place looking for sprites. I don’t love the animal husbandry system, and while the wild animals are cute and add some cool buffs, they aren’t interesting enough to me to actually go and get them.

Still, I think the game does so much right. I love the various fields spread out in the open world, and love the story approach this game takes. I thought I would hate the rigid locations where you can plant seeds, but ended up really loving it. The various biomes are also interesting to explore, and I like that I need warming meals to go to the snow, and cooling meals when I need to go to the volcano. Those are things that are really interesting to me.

I love looking for the golden sprites so I can upgrade my bags and get more stamina. I even love the mining, which I think a ton of people do not like. This is NOT the best version of Harvest Moon in my opinion, and there are things I would change. But would I say this game redeems the franchise a little bit. For sure.

When this game was announced, I was so put off by One World that I had no desire to play. If a new Harvest Moon game launches next year, I will be all in on day one if they continue to make these steps!