In all seriousness, though, Snake’s cardboard box is a good symbol of what I like about the franchise, and it’s a reminder that I don’t like it for what I thought I’d like it for. I’m not sure what serious fans and critics say, but gamers in general seem to praise the MGS franchise for its story. It took me a few games to realize that this just doesn’t work given that its story is a joke. Not a joke in the parody sense, but in the genuinely bad sense.

But bad is the wrong word to use. Is James Bond bad? The storylines are impossible to take seriously but few would call them bad. It’s hard to even call it postmodern knowingness–MGS and Bond seem to work without the self-consciousness of Quentin Tarantino flicks. Yet this is a story that unironically builds armies of shounen anime-style nanomachine-enhanced superhumans against a backdrop of nuclear war and serious business; how is it anything but terrible? (On a related note, is Pussy Galore really a sillier name than Liquid Snake or Fatman? Only slightly.)

It’s style that makes it good, anyway. Metal Gear Solid is excessively stylized and it always has been. The cutscenes, the over-the-top villains, and the mechs launching nukes complement the tongue-in-cheek cardboard box escapades and Psycho Mantis meta gimmicks. The franchise rarely feels ironic and never feels sarcastic, yet the straightforwardness of its drama comes across as sincere rather than contrived. The nanomachines jokes about the fourth game are legitimate; it’s entirely reasonable to not take desus ex machina pseudo-science seriously. Yet the game isn’t really about the war economy, or at least it doesn’t feel like it is: it’s about two old men beating the crap out of each other on top of a boat in the middle of the ocean as the sun sets (with gorgeous graphics and non-realist character designs). MGS has style and it has it in spades.

So maybe it is comparable to the likes of Kill Bill. (Let’s not forget that Kojima is a film buff). Unironic and melodramatic on the outside, yes, but it becomes evident very quickly that stylized action eclipses whatever themes the story might be trying to unsubtly unveil.

The odd part is that once you get caught up in the action (and by action I mean cutscenes), the story grows on you. The plot is concluded awkwardly but it’s exciting to follow from game to game, and it’s interesting to observe the often radically different themes expressed in each entry despite their connected plots. But my point is that you don’t play MGS for its probing examination of the endurance of the human spirit in times of strife, or at least I don’t–I play it for mechs launching nukes. In a medium where most stories aimed at teens or adults end up clumsy, pulpy, melodramatic, and far too serious, it’s refreshing to see one that has fun with itself without turning into parody or satire. Oh, and it’s also awesome.

Harvest Moon is an interesting title. On one hand, it represents a long-running, solid entry in the realm of simulation games that aim to turn tedious tasks into something interesting. Tasks such as, well, living. Or working, or building a city, or in this case, farming. On the other hand, it appears to be entrenched in a way of thinking that doesn’t mesh well with today’s ideals of immersion and suspension of disbelief.

By their nature, simulation games require suspension of disbelief. Moreso than with any other genre, they must immerse the player and tread lightly around their consciousness to maintain the illusion that living a second life as a farmer is something worth investing a few tens of hours into. It’s the only way to make reality interesting. Without this degree of immersion, games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing are just single-player RPGs with a bizarre premise.

And that’s exactly the feeling I got from Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, an old GBA game that I forgot I had bought. The first few hours are promising: like the rest of its ilk, Mineral Town gives you more tasks than time, forcing a sense of urgency onto the player. It’s exciting. Like finding the airship in classic JRPGs, the world expands around you, revealing seemingly infinite possibilities. Tediousness isn’t an issue, surprisingly (or at least it’s less of an issue than other more pressing problems). While the game does get repetitive after the first couple of seasons, the feeling that you’re a poor farmer years away from your lifelong goal persists. There’s much to do and no time to do it, so you toil away. It sounds harsh, but the concept of accomplishing tasks to unlock new tasks forms the basis of RPGs in general. People like filling bars.

The issue is that the game is soulless, for lack of a better word. Interaction with the townsfolk is kept to a minimum, NPCs repeat the same dialogue day after day, town festivals are nothing but boring minigames, and time passes without giving the player anything to reflect about. I knew I had to drop the game when I finished the first year and was greeted with nothing but the same waking-up animation that introduced every other day. There was no indication that a year had passed, no opportunity to talk with the locals at New Years’ festival and reminisce about your experiences. You got some free flour, I think, but that’s it.

In other words, Harvest Moon follows more in the tradition of RPGs than simulation games and dating sims. This was probably intentional but I’m disappointed nonetheless. I can see why some people would want to play a “collect-’em-all” Pokemon or Animal Crossing style RPG with a fresh coat of paint but this comes at the loss of great potential. The franchise could be interesting if it stressed its simulation aspects, creating dialogue branches and an affection system that requires more than daily gifts, but at present it’s no different from any other game about leveling up to buy a new sword which you’ll use to kill enemies and level up again.

That statement isn’t as hyperbolic as it sounds. The game deliberately blurs the line between illusion and reality. After seeing Alma in the hallucination enough times you’ll probably develop a feel for what’s real and what isn’t. Maybe you’ll stop shooting at her every time she appears. Then you draw near the end of the game and get assailed by a group of flying ghosts. It’s okay, no biggie–after all, you’re imagining things. Alma is trying to creep you out, and if your suspension of disbelief fails, you’ll recognize that the developers aren’t doing much more than repeating tired horror movie tricks.

Or so it seems. The difference becomes evident when you fire a few shots at the ghosts and return to reality to find yourself firing at a wall with an empty clip. Worse yet: the moment of realization when you miss a ghost or two and return to reality to find your health half depleted.

In F.E.A.R., illusion is reality. Much like the stories that have been told about psychological disorders, the fears in one’s mind are as real as any. They can warp you, cause you to do unspeakable things (the game tries this angle at least once), and ultimately kill you. When you die in the Matrix, you die in real life.

This might have been a thematic point on the staff’s part to emphasize the theme of fear of the unknown. Even if it wasn’t, though, it accomplishes its purpose as a gameplay mechanic. You might make the mistake of feeling safe within the hallucinations because your flashlight and slow-mo are disabled, implying that they serve as an interactive cut-scene rather than part of the game. F.E.A.R. makes good use of this assumption. It accomplishes one of the main goals of all horror fiction: enforcing the feeling that you’re never safe, that certain things are beyond your control. You can run, but you can’t hide.