Harvest Moon

牧場物語 (Bokujō Monogatari)SNES, Switch, Nintendo 3DS, Wii +11996

  1. JP1996
  2. NA1997
  3. EU1998
  4. RU—

Harvest Moon was released in Japan as 牧場物語 (Bokujō Monogatari, "Farm Story") and kept the name Harvest Moon in North America and Europe. Its most recent official re-release is in the Japanese Nintendo Switch Online Super Famicom library, added in 2022; it also appeared earlier on Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

Harvest Moon is the farming game that started the series now known as Story of Seasons. Developed by Amccus and published by Pack-In-Video, it came out in Japan on 9 August 1996 as Bokujō Monogatari. Director and producer Yasuhiro Wada wanted a country-life game at a time when fighting games dominated, and drew on his childhood in Miyazaki on Kyushu; Alpine dairy farms, the manga Dr. Slump and the Derby Stallion horse-breeding games were also influences.

The game took three years to make with a team of 8 to 10 people. When the parent company went bankrupt, only Wada, programmer Tomomi Yamatate and designer Setsuko Miyakoshi stayed on for the final six months.

Natsume brought the game to North America in 1997, and Nintendo released it in Europe on 29 January 1998 with German and French language options. Japan also got a four-episode Satellaview spin-off, BS Bokujō Monogatari, in September 1996.1

Names and releases

RegionTitle on the boxPlatformDatePublisherSrc
NA Harvest MoonSources disagree on the day: the infobox gives 17 June 1997, the article body 17 August 1997 SNES 1997 Natsume 1
JP 牧場物語Bokujō Monogatari SNES Aug 9, 1996 Pack-In-Video 1
EU Harvest MoonWith German and French language options SNES Jan 29, 1998 Nintendo 1
JP 牧場物語Nintendo Switch Online Super Famicom library (Japan) Switch 2022 Nintendo 1

Also known as: 牧場物語 JP1Bokujō Monogatari JP1

Box art by region

  • Harvest Moon box art, North America release
    NA Harvest Moon
  • Harvest Moon box art, Europe release
    EU Harvest Moon

Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: libretro-thumbnails.

Version differences

  • TextSNES (NA/EU)

    The English localization calls alcohol "juice", even though characters who drink it still get drunk.1

  • TextSNES (NA/EU)

    Some Japanese details survived localization: townspeople speak of a "God of the Harvest" and a "God of Business" in Shinto terms, an onigiri appears in the new-day scenes, and the news anchor bows to viewers.1

  • TextSNES (EU)

    The European release, published by Nintendo, added German and French language options.1

Translations

  • German Official

    Nintendo1998SNES · English versionReleased · complete

    The European SNES release includes an official German language option.1

  • French Official

    Nintendo1998SNES · English versionReleased · complete

    The European SNES release includes an official French language option.1

Reception

Sales started slowly, at about 20,000 copies in Japan, but positive reviews and word of mouth later pushed them past 100,000. Famitsu scored the game 7, 9, 9 and 9, GameRankings shows an average of 73%, and IGN later ranked it 46th in its Top 100 SNES Games.1

Sources

  1. 1en.wikipedia.org

Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13

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