life’ s larger stressors came around, I wanted to have a life like the one I was playing. But, unlike my father’ s actual experience on a farm, Harvest Moon was far-removed from the actual experience of farming. The Harvest fairies aren’ t the only element that adds an aspect of fantasy to the game. Instead, the whole game is built on a utopian, pastoral dream. It depicts capitalism without any of its plagues and I am happy to immerse myself in this world for hour upon hour. You are given an endlessly productive plot of fertile land and everything you need to be just as productive as you want to- with no consequences if you decide instead to spend time fishing on the riverbank or picking flowers off the mountainside. There are other farms, but no true competition; a moneydriven market but no real need for profits. My life in the game is driven by my own desire to watch my crops grow and my animals be happy, not by a financial pressure to survive.
Alongside this economic system of Harvest Moon is a social world of friendship and romance much easier to navigate than our own. It’ s not that I believe the characters have real thoughts or feelings, but it feels good as a player to belong to this community. You start off as a stranger to this world but over time, come to befriend and even marry its characters. With programmed lines on both sides of the conversation, social interaction could not be easier. While it would obviously never replace real life relationships, it is a place where you can escape from the complicated, reallife social world and plug into something easier.
And at the end of the day, that’ s exactly why I still continue to play Harvest Moon late night in my dorm when I am absolutely overwhelmed with not only academics, but my social life too. It’ s where I can go and escape from the overbearing reality of life and take part in a fantasy, if only for a while, of a new life absent of the pressures that come from a capitalistic world. To me, the world of Harvest Moon is the dream that I can take part in when I need to and one that after so many years, I continue to need.