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.

You're fine playing Pioneers of Olive Town or FOMT on Switch. You might also consider Rune Factory 4 or Rune Factory 5, which are also on Switch and have fantasy RPG elements mixed into the farming. 

I am a fan. Been playing them since ps1. I got friends of mineral Town on switch and its pretty a remake of the ps1 game.
This game is very slow moving.. Everything takes time and its very manual. I'm friends of mineral Town u grow crops and the aim is to make alot of money. Then u got option to raise chicken, rabbits, cows, llama, sheep and horse. U can get specialised dogs and animals.. Then u can raise fishes. Then u got events at town every month. Some of the events make your animals produce gold standard products which yield more money. U can even use products of your item and turn them. Into higher crafted items which sells for more or be used as gifts. U have towns people and each towns people have their quirks. U have the option to make them your best friend or make them your husband or wife whichever u choose.

You then have fairies who help u when u utilise your entire farm. This is a very useful for your farm as the farm land is big. Every 30 secs or 1 minute in real time, is equivalent to 10 mins in the game. Every 5pm in game time, one of the towns people comes and pick up your shipment. So in that time u have to feed and brush and get produce from your animals, plant your crops, water them or harvest them. In that time u lose stamina so u need to spend time in a hot spring to recharge it and make towns people happy. Its alot of micromanagement. Its fun cause u have to plan your day. U can't do everything at one go until u upgrade your weapons and use fairy help.

That's not all of it.. There's also fishing, building upgrades and mines. 2 mines. One only available during winter. There's 250 floors of it.. One provides minerals for weapon upgrades and one for selling and making jewellery. Mines also have lakes that holds legendary fishes. There's also lake queen that u have feed that after several days rewards u with items that benefit u in the game.

After all of that, u have to balance your finances. Cause at the end of every month u need to make profit. Each crop cost money and make certain amount of money and we crops regrow after your Harvest and some don't. Also each crop take x amount of days to grow.

Stardew is more user friendly and not as slow moving as harvest moon. Plus Stardew has some rpg elements which makes it really cool. I have Stardew and have suck 100 hours into it?

I've been playing the PS1 one, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. It's an enjoyable game to play while listening to an audiobook or a podcast but I got into winter a bit ago and it's become kinda boring since you can barely plant any crops on Winter and there's little else to do to pass the time.

I heard you have to play for 3 in-game years to see the ending and I don't know if I can drudge through 2 more winters lol.

I started off (and is the only one) I have completed... Harvest Moon on the SNES.

Have story of Seasons on Switch which I have enjoyed to a point, but for me... Once you complete one entry, you have completed them all as the premise tends to be recycled, even decades later.
They are still fun however.

Each game can stand on it's own legs, so it doesn't matter where you start.

I played through Harvest Moon on SNES years ago and liked it a lot, but I haven't played any other games in the series. I'd say it's worth a try.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was assuming.  Reason I was trying to get it narrowed down to hopefully 1 or 2 games.

I'm tempted to go with the SNES Harvest Moon.  The art work still looks great.  A lot of the newer Harvest Moon games that have gone to 3D... well, kind of look ugly to me.

Used to be, then the civil war happened between the publisher and developer. Stardew Valley then blew me away and I'd just prefer a sequel to that, at this point.

My understanding is to just avoid everything published by Natsume under the Harvest Moon name after 2014.  Those are done by a different developer and not very good from what I hear.