Stardew Valley's OG Rival Gets Surprise Free PC Release Coming Soon

Harvest Moon 64, one of the original games to inspire Stardew Valley, will be returning soon as a free game available on PC.

For many fans of the Nintendo 64, Harvest Moon 64 remains one of the most interesting games on the platform due to its focus on farming, life simulation elements, and ‘cosy’ aspects that set it apart from other games of its time.

While the Harvest Moon licence has been in a bit of an iffy spot in the last few decades, particularly as a result of its split from the original publisher which saw the series rebranded as Story of Seasons, this new release should entice fans of the original to check it out.

As reported by Video Game Esoterica, a YouTube channel dedicated to unofficial PC ports, recompilation projects, and other pieces of retro gaming history, efforts to port Harvest Moon 64 to PC are now in play.

In their latest video, VGE discusses the latest strides made in the Harvest Moon 64 recompilation project.

Created by a developer known as SrBananaMan64, the project is being referred to as both a recompilation and a PC port.

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The recompilation will include “properly scaled UI for ultrawide displays and day-one mod and texture support through N64Recomp”. However, not much more is known about the project right now aside from that.

Judging from the trailer, which includes around a minute of footage, the graphics are pretty much on par with the original game’s for now, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that the PC port will feature higher resolutions.

Check out the trailer below to get a closer look at what the port will looks like. Though, of course, there's a lot about that still looks like it's subject to change.

The Harvest Moon 64 Recompilation Project Does Not Have A Release Date In Mind Yet

However, it’s still early days, and much can change as the project progresses over time. For starters, with there being texture support planned from Day 1, there’ll be plenty of mods that will replace the Nintendo 64 graphics with fresh sprites and art.

The Harvest Moon 64 unofficial PC port doesn’t feature any original game assets, as those instead need to be launched directly from a legally-obtained ROM file.

It joins many other recent efforts where developers have created unofficial PC ports based on decompilations of retro games, such as Silent Hill, Animal Crossing, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The process of decompiling a game involves essentially manually converting a game’s source code from encrypted code to something that’s readable, allowing you to do more with it than you could if you were simply emulating the game.

It led to games like Ship of Harkinian (based on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) and Super Mario Bros. Remastered (based on the original Super Mario Bros.) getting mod support, improved performance, and more features beyond what the original releases were capable of.

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