History YMMV / HarvestMoonBackToNature

** For ''More Friends of Mineral Town'', there are the "secret" bachelors (consisting of Gourmet, Won, and Kappa), who tend to look more unsavory compared to the main bachelors. Won gets this the least though, since he's considered more handsome.

* AwesomeMusic: ''Back To Nature'' and ''Friends Of Mineral Town'' were praised for their music, including the buoyant town theme and the seasonal tracks, especially the delightful spring track (which becomes even more glorious after the serious and severe winter track). In ''DS'' you can buy records of some of the tracks from the games, including season tracks, and play them at your leisure.

* MostWonderfulSound:

* TakeThatScrappy!: Many of Rick's random events involves him getting insulted or undermined by Popuri, Kai, Karen or Lillia. Furthermore, his early heart events in Harvest Moon Back to Nature have [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64yw7CoN9vo Karen insulting him]] and call him a "cad".

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids?: Although, not as dark as it predecessors, such as ''Harvest Moon 64'', this game does contains several dark themes, such as child abandonment, death, depression and characters having suicidal tendencies.
* WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack?: In the PS game. Karen and Rick's second rival event had them arguing about Kai. The argument ended with Rick insulting Karen's integrity by telling her to go with Kai. This results in Karen getting emotionally hurt and calling him a "cad". Why would she actually want a guy like that?

** Among the bachelorettes, Elli is the most popular bachelorette in the game according to Gamefaq's poll. Karen and Kai receive the most fanworks as well.

** Many female players were disappointed that [[GoodShepherd Carter]] was not a bachelor. Especially compared to the secret bachelors mentioned below.

** For ''More Friends of Mineral Town'', there are the "secret" bachelors (consisting of Gourmet, Won, and Kappa), who tend to look more unsavory compared to the main bachelors.

** Using an emulator and a lot of patience, you can get absurdly rich really quickly after you start your game. Basically every first five days of the new year, you can play a Harvest Goddess game where the items you will get depends on how many correct guesses you attained but the most sought of them involve either the Fish Fossil(5000g) or the Treasure Chest{10000g) at 60 to 69 wins or 70 to 79 wins respectively. Under a normal GBA device, you probably wouldn't be able reach such high amount of win and since the numbers are completely chosen at random, you can't save scum and rechoose the correct answer. However, with an emulator, you can save your current state and load to the state you previously saved in so if you pick a wrong answer, simply rewind to the previous state and choose the correct number until you get around 75 wins before purposely losing to get your prize. If you do this 5 times per day and repeat 3 days over, then you will get ''200,000g'' just in the span of four days, enough to buy anything that you normally would never bought within the first year.

** The Opening Day swimming contest in the Summer. To win you have to carefully balance yourself between swimming and taking breaths, which can be painfully difficult no matter what your approach. If your stamina ever runs out, you have effectively no chance of winning. You will be reloading and replaying this festival '''a lot'''.

** The Opening Day swimming contest in the Summer. To win you have to carefully balance yourself between swimming and taking breaths, which can be painfully difficult no matter what your approach. If your stamina ever runs out, you have effectively no chance of winning. You will be reloading and replaying this festival '''a lot''.

** The Swimming Contest. You will be reloading and replaying that one '''a lot''.

* NoEnding: Subverted. The game does have an ending with credits at the end of your third year (both bad and good ending), but you are given a choice to continue on.

** Your character and your childhood friend singing together in the opening flashback. [[spoiler: Even more so in the good ending, when another flashback reveals that she is your wife]].

** Fishing. It takes a long time to fish. There's a high chance you only fish out garbage. In addition, you have to keep your finger press on the Square button the entire time which prevents you from doing other activities while fishing.

** In one event in ''Harvest Moon Back to Nature'', if you head to the mountain in Winter, you'll get caught in the middle of a storm. Gotz will then rescue and scold you. [[spoiler: After that, he'll reveal the fate of his wife and daughter.]]

* ThatOneSidequest: The Swimming Contest. You will be reloading and replaying that one A LOT.

** Louis. He lives with Gotz and appears to be very good friends with him. According to Gotz, Louis helped him out [[spoiler:when his wife and daughter died]]. However, we never get a cutscene with them interacting, or know anything else about him, besides his fascination with bees. In fact, he doesn't even attend the festivals. His only purpose in the game is really just to increase the sale price of your honey.

* WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack?: In the PS game. Karen and Rick's second rival event had them arguing about Kai. The argument ended with Rick insulting Karen's integrity by telling her to go with Kai. This results in Karen getting emotionally hurt. Why would she actually want a guy like that?

** The hothouse, though not as game-breaking as in ''Harvest Moon 64'', still fits the role well in ''Back to Nature''. Just like in ''64'', you can grow any crop inside, no matter what the season (even winter). You can easily maximize your profits by growing high value crops, such as pineapples or sweet potatoes. However, it does have one glaring drawback - if a blizzard or a hurricane strikes, there is a small chance that it may be destroyed, forcing you to cough up another 30,000 gold and 580 lumber to rebuild it.

** Your character and your childhood friend singing together in the opening flashback. [[spoiler: Even more so in the good ending, when she is revealed to be your wife]].

* BreatherBoss: Out of all the bachelorettes, Elli is the easiest to court. She gets high affection from any flowers which are available to forage in Spring, Summer and Fall. In addition, unlike Karen, Popuri, Mary and Ann's daily routine, Elli's daily routine remain strictly at her house or the hospital, subsequently making her easily accessible for the player.

* {{Flanderization}}: Popuri's childish trait definitely got exaggerated after every installment. ''64'' Popuri was friendly, selfless and a bit childish. ''BTN'' Popuri got even more childish to the point where she was a bit selfish. ''FOMT'' Popuri's childish got exaggerated yet again where she even attends the Pumpkin Festival (a festival for child). ''DS'' Popuri got her childish trait exaggerated even further.

** Rick. Many find his overzealous protectiveness towards Popuri and his uncalled antagonism against Kai very obnoxious. His nerdy appearance, which makes him look decidedly less attractive than most of the other normal bachelors doesn't help his case either.

* GameBreaker: Animal exchange cheat. You can easily duplicate your animals by simply trading one animal back and forth with three save files. To do this cheat, have three save files. Two save files for your first game file (A & B), and one for the second game file (C). Trade all the animals you want to duplicate from game file A to game file C. Then trade all the animals you just got from game file C to save file B (which should be the same saves as game file A). Now you have just duplicated your animals.

** Among the bachelors, Gray and Cliff seems to be the most popular bachelors according to Gamefaq's poll.
** Among the bachelorettes, Elli is the most popular bachelorette in the game according to Gamefaq's poll.

* HellIsThatNoise: The wild dogs from Friends of Mineral Town. Compared to all the other softer, cartoon-like voices and noises, they sound like someone actually recorded an angry, rabid dog. Oh, and they also attack your animals (except your dog, who will fight him off for you) if you leave them out past 8PM.

* BreatherBoss: Out of all the bachelorette, Elli is the easiest to court. She gets high affection from any flowers which are available to forage in Spring, Summer and Fall. In addition, unlike Karen, Popuri, Mary and Ann's daily routine, Elli's daily routine remain strictly at her house or the hospital, subsequently making her easily accessible for the player.

* ThatOneAchievement: Collecting all the Legendary Fishes can be extremely difficult if you don't have lightning speed reaction. Even if you do, you might end up catching some garbage or other fishes. In addition, it doesn't help that some Legendary Fish, like the Angler, can only be caught in Winter around certain time (8pm - 11pm). This can make things extremely difficult and aggravating as it is possible that you don't even get a bite when you're fishing between those time.

* FoeYay: Rick and Kai.
* FridgeLogic: According to the Mayor, the farm use to be great and populated. So why is it when the players acquire the farm, none of the barns or your house are upgraded?

** Jeff, the supermarket owner. For someone [[NiceGuy as kind-hearted as he is]], he sure ends up being taken advantage of, ''a lot''. His family has been driven into debt as a result of Duke and other customers repeatedly buying items from him on credit without paying. Because Jeff never finds it in himself to object to it, he ends up as the subject of heavy criticism from his wife Sasha and daughter Karen [[ExtremeDoormat for being such a pushover]]. It has driven him into a near-constant state of depression to the point that he even gets ''stomachaches'' from it, causing him to spend most of his days off recovering at the Clinic.

** Jeff, the supermarket owner. For someone [[NiceGuy as kind-hearted as he is]], he sure ends up being taken advantage of, ''a lot''. His family has been driven into debt as a result of customers repeatedly buying items from him on credit without paying. Because he never finds it in himself to object, he ends up as the subject of heavy criticism from his wife Sasha and daughter Karen [[ExtremeDoormat for being such a pushover]]. It has driven him into a near-constant state of depression to the point that he even gets ''stomachaches'' from it, causing him to spend most of his days off recovering at the Clinic.

** Not as extreme as the above example, but Harris is kind of a woobie. He is in love with Aja (daughter of Manna and Duke), but due to Aja's fight with Duke, she left for the city leaving Harris behind. Years later, he still hasn't gotten over her.

* BreatherBoss: Out of all the bachelorette, Elli is the easiest to court. She gets high affection from any flowers which are available to forage in Spring, Summer and Fall. In addition, unlike Karen, Popuri, Mary and Ann's daily routine, Elli's daily routine remain strictly at her house or the hospital. Therefore, making her easily accessible for the player.

* CommonKnowledge: Tell a casual Western ''Harvest Moon'' fan that the videogames were created by Victor/Marvelous. You'll be surprise by how many of them would say "no, it's made by Natsume"

* IronWoobie: Gotz can come off as just a short-tempered introvert. However, after finding out that the reason he acts like this is due to him losing both his wife and daughter in a storm makes you want to give the poor man a hug.

** Several fans, especially the newer fans, didn't like that the base gift giving affection won't decrease after the first gift. Therefore, every gifts you give in the day would always worth say 100 points. People stated that it made the game too easy.
** Fishing. It takes a long time to fish. There's a high chance you only fish out garbage. In addition, you have to keep your finger press on the [] button the entire time which prevents you from doing other activities while fishing.

** Louis. He lives with Gotz and appears to be very good friends with him. According to Gotz, Louis helped him out when his wife and daughter died. However, we never get a cutscene with them interacting, or know anything else about him, besides his fascination with bees. In fact, he doesn't even attend the festivals. His only purpose in the game is really just increase the sale price of your honey.

* BadassDecay: Although, not really the same character, but ''64'' Cliff is a confident character, while ''Back to Nature'' Cliff is extremely shy.

* PortingDisaster: Averted. The PSP port of both ''Harvest Moon: Back to Nature'' and ''Harvest Moon: Back to Nature for Girls'' was actually really well made. Marvelous cleverly addressed the lack of L2 and R2 button, and they even fixed up some glitches from the PS1 games, such as the time freeze glitch.

* AwesomeMusic: ''FOMT'' was praised for its music, including the buoyant town theme and the seasonal tracks, especially the delightful spring track (which becomes even more glorious after the serious and severe winter track). In ''DS'' you can buy records of some of the tracks from the game, including season tracks, and play them at your leisure.

* CommonKnowledge: Tell a casual Western Harvest Moon fan that the videogames were created by Victor/Marvelous. You'll be surprise by how many of them would say "no, it's made by Natsume"

* SequelDisplacement: Marvelous all but [[CanonDiscontinuity booted]] 64 out of canon. Practically every cameo and reference to Karen, Popuri, Ann, and the other characters are their [=FOMT/BtN=] incarnations. Fans are much, much more acquainted with those games.
* ShipToShipCombat: Averted. Despite Harvest Moon Back to Nature using the same characters from Harvest Moon 64, and changed their pairing around, the fans are civil about it. It probably helps since Harvest Moon Back to Nature made it clear that even though the characters look the same, they are completely different individuals.
** It's rare but you will see fans arguing couples, such as Popuri/Kai or Popuri/Gray. It mostly comes down to "Which ships fit better?"

** In the girl version of Harvest Moon Back to Nature. The morning of the Goddess Festival, Gotz will stop by your farm. He will give you the Goddess dress that use to belong to his wife [[spoiler: who had died in a storm]]. What makes this even more sad is that the dress was going to pass down to Gotz's daughter [[spoiler: who had also died in the storm]].
** In one event in Harvest Moon Back to Nature, if you head to the mountain in Winter, you'll get caught in the middle of a storm. Gotz will then rescue and scold you. [[spoiler: After that, he'll reveal the fate of his wife and daughter.]]

** In Harvest Moon Back to Nature. If you becomes good friend with Kai, there will be one scene where he tells you that you are his only true guy friend since all the other guys in the town hates him for petty reasons. You really want to give the poor guy a hug.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids?: Although, not as dark as it predecessors, such as Harvest Moon 64, this game does contains several dark themes, such as child abandonment, death, depression and characters having suicidal tendencies.

* PortingDisaster: Averted. The PSP port of both Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature for Girls was actually really well made. Marvelous cleverly addressed the lack of L2 and R2 button, and they even fixed up some glitches from the PS1 games, such as the time freeze glitch.

* SameCharacterButDifferent: The game uses the same character from ''Harvest Moon 64'' but they have completely different personality, back-story and relationship.