I still remember hiding under the covers and running my small ranch over and over again with the faint light of the GBA. At that time, the screen was so small and the pixels were so big that I could count them, but I couldn't bear to turn it off, always thinking of "harvesting another crop of corn and going to sleep." Now I picked up my phone and opened "Prosperous Farm", and I found that feeling of racing heart again - except that this time the map is more than a hundred times larger! 😭
To be honest, I had a bit of an "old antique" mentality at the beginning. After all, I am used to playing the old farm game on the handheld console, and I always feel that the subsequent mobile business simulation games are just a shell of krypton gold. But Thrive Farm really surprised me. It combines the classic farm gameplay with the synthesis system, but it is not inconsistent at all. You have to open up wasteland, raise chickens and feed cows, farm and harvest vegetables, and in the workshop, you have to turn milk into butter and peaches into perfume - my God, have you ever seen so much fancy work on GBA back then? At that time, I could only grow a few radishes and raise a chicken, and the order was just for an egg from the village man. Good thing now, the order is delivered directly to the ocean-going trading ship. It's so advanced that it makes me, an old player, a little confused. ⚓
What surprised me the most was the huge island. More than 1,000 pieces of land! Back then, my entire pasture was only an 8×8 grid. If I planted strawberries, I couldn't squeeze in the pumpkins. Now that there is so much extra land out of thin air, I suddenly understand what "difficulty in choosing" means - there are more than 30 crops, from corn and millet to mango and cocoa beans, and I, a veteran farmer, have to look up the guide. Not to mention the more than 400 workshops, bread, soda, chocolate cake... "What if my farm can build a factory" that I dreamed about on the handheld when I was a child has now come true. Every time I unlock a new workshop, I feel like I saw 3D Ranch on PSP for the first time. I am stunned for a long time: Isn't this the super farm in my dream? 🤯
The building collection is also interesting. There are more than 500 buildings. Every time I collect one, I will automatically fill in my mind a piece of BGM from when I played Harvest Moon on the NDS. The "dang-dang" synthetic prompt sound suddenly overlapped with the clicking sound of the handheld buttons. I know that youth cannot be bought back with a mobile phone simulator, but "Prosperous Farm" allowed me to have the dream of a "farmer" again in the fragmented time of middle-aged people. Now half an hour before going to bed every day, I first collect a wave of fruits, then arrange production in the workshop, and then turn off the screen with satisfaction - just like closing the GBA back then, falling asleep with the expectation of tomorrow. 🌙
If you have ever been like me, secretly milking cows during class breaks and exchanging seeds with classmates on the lawn, then I really recommend you to take a walk in "Prosperous Farm". You don't need to be crazy about it, and you can play it slowly with zero krypton. The sense of accomplishment of watching the land prosper little by little is exactly the same as before. After all, some things have changed, but the joy of farming has never changed. 🧡