By The Clarius February 6, 2004 For many of you reading this, video gaming does not involve much more then helping Mario rescue Princess Peach from Bowser's clutches or leading Link on a quest to save Hyrule. While action-packed Nintendo video games are always fun to play, I would like you to consider this scenario for a moment. A farmer watering a crop. A farmer riding a horse. A farmer falling in love and bringing an entire village out of condement without killing anything. I am talking about the series of games known as Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon series has been a favorite of mine for a long time. The lead character, (dubed as Jack), may never be as well known as Mario or Link, but this small, 2-D farmer has a loyal fan base in his own right and is the lead in over 10 farming simulators. For those of you unfamillar with this series, the basic pretense of Harvest Moon is to successfully run a farm and befriend the villagers before a set time limit. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! You must grow crops, expand your house, raise animals, make friends, win races, mine ore, woe a lass and start a family all within 2 short years! Although the games do differ in appearence and style, all of them hold the charm and simplicity that draws so many to these games. The best part for someone new to the series is that there is a game for almost any system! So the next time your in a video game store looking for the newest thing from the Nintendo marketing machine, look for the the farmer. I think you will be pleasently surprised!