Harvest Moon: Back to Nature 1999

Is it still worth playing?

Victor Interactive Software's 1999 farming simulation for the PlayStation, in which you restore your late grandfather's farm within three years or leave town. You clear weeds, plant crops and raise livestock, and a daily energy limit means overworking ends in a blackout and a hospital stay. Time passes outdoors and pauses inside buildings, with four seasons, changing weather, and storms, frost and blizzards that damage the farm. You can also fish and cook, and between chores there are festivals, horse race betting, dating and marriage, which lets you stay. A female version follows a shipwreck survivor given an abandoned farm. It was the first game of the series on a console not made by Nintendo. If you come to it now, expect a farm that turns energy that runs out and weather that can wreck a crop into a small plan each day.