I love this game so, so much. totally got the rose-tinted goggles on regarding this one. will not hesitate to admit that. but also, I don't care. I am so sad that Mario Golf got less and less fun as the installments kept coming. this game is the most fun. I will admit the unlocking characters is garbage and that they're OP af when you go up against them. it's true. it's really all true. but I like Peach and Plum the most anyway so uhhhhhhhhh. whoops. Maple too, but she's the easy unlock that exists, so... well. :)
never owned this one, just rented it a lot, and then have emulated it a number of times. so much fun. I have done the research and realized that Toadstool Tour has most of the same content this game did. huh. the only game mode here that is not there is mini golf. while the mini golf courses are bland(and visually glitchy via N64 emulation), I don't care, I love doing the mini golf. it is a real shame they've never done it again.

I never had a GBA growing up. I tried playing the GBA More Friends of Mineral Town emulated a long time ago, but found it to be anything but enjoyable. the GBA being limited to so few buttons, the very small amount of backpack space, and so on made it really painful to play. I know there's the basket item, but that's honestly just another nuisance. my first Harvest Moon experience was Another Wonderful Life, which has no inventory limit, and way more buttons to work with. hearing that Friends of Mineral Town was so good, I totally didn't get it, honestly. it was cute, but... eh.

after hearing about how this remake improved things, I decided to just buy it. and playing it, it finally... kind of clicked. kind of. this game still isn't that great. but it's not actually bad, either. just, compared to others old and new, it's... dare I say... mid. sorry! I married Huang and played until some time after my character had the baby. so, I did put a lot of time into it. and I'm sure I'll play it again someday, it's a chill time. can't hate that.

this game has a lot of content that requires putting in a lot of time and effort. but it's not even anything really worth having. there's the town villa which requires 10 million G, there's the mountain cottage which requires you to play the game for 50 in-game years... there's also a beach cottage, but that one only requires giving the harvest goddess 150 presents. won't take you as long as those other two things, anyway.
anyway, then there's all the stuff in the mines. there's a lot of stuff in the mines. both mines. you can unlock elevators for these mines, but it does require giving the harvest goddess 100 gifts. and even then, it only takes you to certain levels. so unless you've made it to at least floor 50 in either mine, it's not going to be of any use. so that really sucks tbh. there's lots of stuff in the mines. none of it is really needed. but it's there!

basic gameplay is like... well, pretty much any other farming sim. as this is a remake, there's a lot of QoL here compared to the original, but it's just fixing problems of the original. the really nice thing about this game, for a Harvest Moon title, is you can marry whoever you wish regardless of the player character gender you choose. it's a shame I am... personally not a fan of most of them. wasn't in the original, either. I do like the newly added ones, Jennifer and Brandon... especially Jennifer. Huang is cute and great once you marry him, but that's about it.
the other special candidates besides Huang require ridiculous amounts of time and effort to make it happen. I like, half get it... and half don't. even worse, they don't live at your house or anything. I don't get it, really. even as a "just for the heck of it" thing, for all the effort, it's a shame. I know that is just how the original games had it but I think that makes it even worse somehow. but that's just what I think, soooooooo

the graphics... well, they work. nothing special. some of the chibi models look terrible. the redesigns of characters is something I'm mixed on. some of them are very cute. some of them are... uhhhhhhh.(Duke and Harris.......) I'm not sure why some of them were changed as much as they were, namely Jeff. I dunno, just feels weird. music is ok. as with many remasters/remakes, the vibes of the new music are not the same. but in this instance, it's closer than what other games manage.

overall, underwhelming, but not an actually bad experience.

as someone who doesn't have a good way to play RH DS and wasn't sure they had interest in playing the original(I do maybe kinda but didn't when I played this last summer), I loved this. I do think it's a shame the real sequel games of Fillbots and Shoot-'em-Up 2 are absent. also I wish it had more DS content(wish Munchy Monk 2 was in!!!!!!!) and extra games being locked behind getting perfects is annoying to me because of the limit of tries and then the subsequent effort of getting another chance at perfect... thankfully most of them are just from Fever, which I've also played, but stilllllll. but I really really enjoyed my time with this and had a ton of fun. the polish in graphics for all of the older games is really nice too, imo. that said, there's not enough new for series enthusiasts that played all 3 other games. otherwise, this is 100% worth your time. so much fun. also for all the fuss about Lockstep's difficulty, I didn't find it that bad. no way I'll ever get Superb on it tho lol

not bad. to note, I am not done with this, but idk, I might be running out of steam for a while and the thoughts I'm noting here don't require me to complete the game. for all the things this mod/hack does right, one that it does wrong is not making grinding better, at least in the current beta. I've heard a previous version allowed you to buy rare candies. but the current beta, which is the version you're encouraged to play for a number of reasons, removed that. the breeder trainers are supposed to be ones you can repeatedly battle, but idk how that works. I've tried interacting with them for more battles, to no avail. eh.
this game requiring you to really keep your team up isn't a terrible thing, but with every trainer in the game having significantly better Pokemon than they do in vanilla Crystal means this mod really keeps you on your toes and it'll take you by surprise for a while. eventually you'll start to at least kind of expect the wild varied movesets, but it's sort of annoying not really knowing exactly what to expect. I dislike that you can come across annoying situations like recover spam. but for the most part, it's not too bad minus the weird surprises that can screw you over.
idk how I feel about the original content and such... it's not that it's super unfitting, but eh. one thing I'm not keen on at all is the trainer sprites from future games that were added to Polished Crystal. for the most part, I don't think they're needed. also several of them look... weird. like they really don't fit, despite the artist's best efforts. or they just feel too recognizable, but clearly from a future game. it just feels off.
a few of the general custom overworld sprites are also awkward looking, like the juggler's. but I do like how those little visual upgrades make this mod feel fresh.
I feel dumb as hell because I can't think of what from HGSS is here in this mod. well, aside from Lyra, I guess. who... I could do without because I don't like her, but whatever.

finally finished completing this with all palettes. that really makes me wish there were more variety here, especially in regards to the bosses. worst palette for me personally was easily the charger. 8's palette is second lol I tried and failed 3 times with only my 3 extra lives, so I decided to try running with all the hacks I had. mostly because my friend said that that was how they succeeded... so I figured it was worth a shot. not really that much easier, but I had safety nets so I was willing to risk my neck more of the time. I'd still like a few more items from the shop, so I'll have to do some prlz farming... eventually.

a beautiful experience. I'm honestly floored by the love and care put into this remake. it's unreal. my expectations were honestly not all too high. I know they put more stuff online before the game released, but I refused to look at anything. so all I saw was the announcement, and like, one screenshot at some point. I didn't really know what to expect! I love this game, but the SMRPG remake, while not comparable, did have me set lower expectations for this. now I wish SMRPG could have gotten updated text!

this took me a bit longer to finish than I wanted it to because my stubborn ass decided I had to complete the pit of 100 trials before finishing the game. this took me 3 attempts. but I did it! and I just finished the game. I know there's postgame stuff... I will get to that later. it can wait. I know a second pit completion's on the list of stuff to do.
any complaints I have are minor, and largely only in relation to how the game looks and some of the music. again with the real instrument stuff! I mean, yes, it works sometimes! but I'm still overall not a fan! however, most of the brand new tracks are fantastic. the implementation of a way to listen to the original music is lovely to have, but I wish you could mix and match. I realize that'd be super extensive, but still... really wish that was a thing that could be done. I do appreciate the amount of effort in things like the variations of certain tracks... it's very extensive!
I'm not a fan of the glossy and reflective floors/ground in the game, it doesn't look right in most areas. like, it's a bit much. and while I knew this game was going to look more... Papery... I do miss the low poly look of certain things a lot. like the bushes in Poshley Heights, and the chairs in Flurrie's home. etc.
the single gameplay complaint I have is that the game is a bit... Slow. this is in many ways, but most importantly, when you're selecting things. like, there's a weird delay before you can actually do it? also, I'm disappointed you cannot fast scroll text unless re-reading it.

finally, finally finished this one. glad to have it done. I'm finally free. pretty much everything I said about the first game applies here too. it's not a bad game, but it's not really my sort of thing. I purchased this before my interest in Bayonetta faded away. but I wasn't pulled in and had a lot of various struggles that led to me constantly putting off playing this. my interest in the character herself has faded, but I had to finish this anyway. I'm not keen on when the gameplay changes, those parts are the worst and most unfun.
at least the final boss in this game wasn't as much of an annoyance to me.

It's OK.
playing this game made me realize I fucking hate the gameplay of Platinum's games. I really, really hate it. but that's on me. and not something I was going to realize until I played a Platinum game. but I liked Bayonetta a LOT as a character for years. honestly I was obsessed. and so, I felt obligated to play her games. still gotta finish 2, uhhhhhhhh, someday. >_> due to all I know about 3, and due to my dislike of the gameplay of these games, I doubt I'll play that one on my own. who knows. maybe the fucked up sense of obligation I have will make me play it.
unfortunately, I don't really care for most of the other characters. there's also such a small notable cast, which is kind of a downside here. a few more characters probably would have helped make things more interesting. while not comparable for the most part, The Wonderful 101 has a sizeable cast full of mostly likable characters, and they really helped make the game enjoyable as a whole. so Bayonetta severely suffers in that department.
I don't like Jeanne, and I know that's largely a controversial or hot take. but I don't. imo, she makes the worst first impression and never gave me a reason to like her. I've really never understood why anyone likes her. maybe I'm just fucked up and insane, who knows. Rodin is great, though his role means he's... not much of a character in the grand scheme of things. still, I adore him. Enzo is a funny asshole, Luka is the second worst, and Balder just sort of exists, idk. considering that my memory of him at this time is pretty poor, he definitely didn't do anything memorable, soooooooo... yep.
aaaaaaaand the story is uninteresting and convoluted. so, then... what real good is there? not much. the game looks good. the music was fine, though largely not notable.
I don't know how to give this a proper end, so I'll end it by saying that. :^)

I have officially decided to drop this game because "completion" is a terrible, terrible grind I wouldn't wish on anyone. this game has a lot of cool stuff and offers some reasons to keep playing if you hate that games like this often feel like you're done with 'em once you've chosen someone to marry... but it's all so incredibly grindy and it takes multiple years in the game to unlock the different farm animals. there is a very large variety of stuff to grow... but annoyingly, you cannot grow it all on your own farm. everything grows faster on the special fields, this makes a difference with the stuff that takes more time, like wheat. and rice, lotus roots, and wasabi have to be grown in the paddy. sure you don't really need to grow them, but still! it's still goofy that you can't unless you get the special field to do it!
ultimately, if you don't mind procedural unlocks and like to play these games for a very long time, this one will be great for you.
it's not a bad game at all, but not easily recommended.