Farming sims have come a long way since Friends of Mineral Town. But this (and by extension Back To Nature and Harvest Moon 64) was where The Good Shit started. It was never strictly about farming, but about participating in festivals, making friends, even settling down and getting married. FoMT even has a rivals system, where if you take too long to get married, every bachelorette will eventually marry someone else, in which case your only option is to wed God (joking not joking).

Friends of Mineral Town walked so other games in the series, let alone the genre, could run. It lacks a lot of the bells and whistles modern Harvest Moon games have, while other titles like Rune Factory or Stardew Valley augment the experience to a satisfying degree. But for some folks, they just want the good ol' back-to-basics of a solid portable Harvest Moon to see where things started to get good for the series.

All wives are perfect. Rick is an asshole.