Software:Harvest Moon: Back to Nature

Short description: 1999 video game

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
PlayStation version cover art
Developer(s)	Victor Interactive Software
Publisher(s)	JP: Victor Interactive Software NA/EU: Natsume
Director(s)	Masayuki Kisaki Teru Kurouta Rouge Kaizuki Magoichi Oritake
Producer(s)	Yasuhiro Wada
Artist(s)	Igusa Matsuyama
Composer(s)	Miyuki Homareda
Series	Story of Seasons
Platform(s)	PlayStation, PlayStation Portable
Release	December 16, 1999 PlayStation JP: December 16, 1999 NA: November 22, 2000 EU: January 26, 2001 PlayStation Portable JP: November 23, 2005 NA: July 31, 2007
Genre(s)	Life simulation, Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

is a 1999 video game in the farm simulation series Story of Seasons developed by Victor Interactive Software and published outside of Japan by Natsume. It is the first Harvest Moon game for a non-Nintendo console. Characters from Harvest Moon 64 were transferred to be the characters in this game, although with new lifestyles, personalities, and relatives.

A version featuring a female protagonist, Harvest Moon for Girl, was released in Japan on December 7, 2000. In 2005, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature was coupled and ported as Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl for the PlayStation Portable. In 2008, Marvelous Interactive released Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and Harvest Moon for Girl for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable via the PlayStation Network.

This game was remade as the Game Boy Advance games Software:Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town, both of which would later get a remake of their own for the Nintendo Switch under the name Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town.

Story

As a young boy, the main character, named Pete by default, went to his grandfather's farm for the summer. His grandfather was too busy taking care of the farm to spend much time with him, so the boy explored the town and countryside on his own. The boy befriended his grandfather's puppy and met a little girl his own age with whom he became close friends. When the summer was over the boy had to go back home, but he promised the little girl that he would return someday. Ten years later, years after his grandfather's death, the boy, now a grown man, returns to the town to take over the farm. Upon meeting the main character, mayor and other villagers decide that he would be allowed to stay as the rightful owner if he restored the farm to its original state within three years. Otherwise, he would have to leave. If he is successful and has married one of the bachelorettes, he will be allowed to stay and his wife reveals that she is the young girl from his childhood.

The girl part of the story began at a ship, where the female character, named Claire by default, befriended a fellow passenger, but tragedy struck. The passenger ship she was in sunk, she was the sole survivor, and washed ashore at the village where she was found by a boy. She was revived by the villagers and she was given the abandoned farm to start her life over, after the villagers learn of her situation. The story ends if she marries a bachelor, who is revealed to be the same boy who found her.

Gameplay

The game begins with main character inheriting a small amount of money and ramshackle farm covered in weeds. Over the course of the game the player must build a thriving farm, and become a friend of the citizens of Mineral Town. Throughout the game the player must balance between attending to the farm and interacting with other characters to maintain friendships. In order to begin with the story, the player must overcome the first obstacle of reestablishing the farm by getting rid of weeds and planting new crops. Once that is done a time frame of three years to completely rejuvenate the farm begins. Time passes while the player is outdoors, and pauses inside different buildings such as shops or barns and mines. Both the growing of crops and raising of livestock require daily attention and the expenditure of time.

Player starts off with an assortment of rudimentary farming tools which can later be upgraded and refined to allow for a more efficient work rate, allowing more work to be done with less energy. Energy is the predominant element of the game, affecting all other aspects of it, particularly in the early stages. The main character can perform a limited amount of tasks each day. Rather than displaying an energy bar, the game instead shows the character becoming more tired as he performs more tasks. Working after the energy has been depleted results in character's blackout and hospitalization which leads to incapacity to perform work; duration of hospitalization increases with each subsequent blackout. There are weather patterns as well as four different seasons in the game, often changing at random but also when certain progress is made. There are rainfalls, hurricanes, frost and blizzards which all do damage to player's farm as they would in real life.

Player can participate in a number of activities, such as betting on horse races, dating and partaking in festivals which coincide with the seasons. During the game, the player will be tasked with finding a suitable wife who will, once proposed to, join the player on the farm where they soon after marry and start a family.
Once the initial three years pass, if the farm was completely renewed, the player character's family settles on their farm for good and the game continues indefinitely, otherwise the game ends.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PS PSP AllGame N/A EGM 7/10 N/A Famitsu 31/40 N/A Game Informer 6.75/10 N/A GamePro N/A GameSpot 8.3/10 5/10 GameZone N/A 7/10 IGN 7.5/10 7.1/10 OPM (US) N/A PSM 7/10 6/10 Aggregate score Metacritic 82/100 61/100

Back to Nature received "favorable" reviews, while Boy & Girl received "mixed" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave the former a score of 31 out of 40.

In Indonesia, Back to the Nature was localized into Indonesian by Palapa, one of the earliest games to be localized into Indonesian market, leading to the series's enduring popularity in the country.

External links

• MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers". This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months. The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing. A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school. Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information. In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount. This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign. A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art). Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel, and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million. The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager. Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface. This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue. Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.

See also

• IGDB – game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions