Lemme come in a year later and add another game: "Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Special Edition"
Because even the people who like the game usually prefer the gamecube version. Yeah, the Special edition runs like molasses in the wintertime, but the games so slow paced anyway that the load times never bothered me. Plus it balanced the game out much better imo. You cant just buy a seed maker + a single banana tree and start printing money, and you dont start with a field full of fodder, teaching you that its better to let your livestock out unless its raining. You can have a daughter. And BEST of all, each chapter is only 1 year long. Gamecube version that crap went on forever. Never reallly cared for Lumina though. Celia always best girl. So much so that I'm in love with her name and find myself using it all the time for stuff.)
As for the base game itself, I'm still peeved that no other harvest moon or harvest moon inspired game lets you really "have a life" from your arrival to your death years later. People got old. Animals came and gone. Friends moved away and came back. Your kid grew up and was influenced by the people around him. I loved it.
it just needed a few festivals. And more rewarding crop growing.
That's all it was missing to be perfect and its neeeever gonna happen.