If by that you are referring to Stardew Valley, while it is indeed inspired by Harvest Moon, it is so much richer and deeper and after playing it I guarantee you won't want to go back . It is like saying why play a modern Roguelike when you can just play Rogue.
The longer I played the less I enjoyed it and it’s hard to put my finger on. Music is great, gameplay is great, relationships are alright. Something always feels off though.
I blame the hard coded cooking aspect of the game tbh. And your animals can’t die. And you can’t save in the mines…
The mines are an easy target to pick on, and I understand why it is like this. The game is first and foremost an indie farming sim, and as someone who really enjoys action JRPGs (having grown up on Summon Night: Swordcraft Story) I was thoroughly dissatisfied with the mines. It’s essentially pre-1.12 Minecraft combat (aka spam clicking) against the same 5 enemies, breaking rocks to either get to the nth floor or collect enough of whatever resource to get out and do something more productive. I understand that making it more in-depth would pull the lone dev’s resources from other things and may not even be an interest for them, let alone the mostly casual players, but still a critique I will field.
Probably bigger to me is the relationships. I adore most of the characters, and especially Penny and Sam. It makes romance delightfully difficult when your preferred partner gets with your favorite guy, but that brings me to the problem with the base game. I can’t have a best friend. I want to get full hearts on people without it being strictly romantic, and I am thankful there are so many mods that do touch on this.
Finally, as for urgency, it’s really hard to describe and I’m not sure if it’s the right term. I just feel pressured in SD in ways I don’t in FOMT. Pressured to focus on the game, to plan my time around the game rather than picking it up, playing for the time allotted during a break, and then quicksaving for later. I feel pressured to be profitable, to be efficient, and to be social on top of that. It’s been a good few months since I’ve played FOMT, I admit, while SD was only a few weeks ago, so it may be revealing to play it again and see if I can deduce where these feelings originate.