Any Fans of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons?

[theRepublic]

Any fans of Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons out there?  I've always been semi-interested in this series, but never made the jump to get into it.  I was wondering what a good starting place would be?  The reason I ask now, is that with the Nintendo eshops shutting down for Wii U and 3DS, we are losing access to some Virtual Console games.

Is it worth starting at the beginning?  I do enjoy SNES games, and the first one is available on the Wii U eshop.  Harvest Moon 64 is on there as well.  Friends of Mineral Town is also available.  That one was a GBA game.

On the 3DS eshop, there is Harvest Moon 1, 2, and 3 for the GBC.  Not sure if these old GBC games would be that good anymore.

Or is it better to just move on to more modern games?  There is a Friends of Mineral Town remake on Switch, and also Pioneers of Olive Town.  The 3DS has The Tale of Two Towns, A New Beginning, Story of Seasons, and Trio of Towns.

Basically I just don't know enough about the series to know what is considered the best.  There are so many games and they all seem to score pretty similarly on review sites.

Or should I just go for Stardew Valley?  I've heard good things about that game and it seems pretty similar.