Released in 1999, Natsume and Marvelous Entertainment's Harvest Moon 64 introduced Flowerbud Village and its residents to a generation of fans. The game was a farming sim with dating sim elements and its most popular characters were the five girls available to marry and the five rivals for their affection.
The same characters appeared in the next game, Harvest Moon: Back To Nature, and its Gameboy Advance port, Harvest Moon: Friends Of Mineral Town, with different personalities. How do the Mineral Town denizens compare to their counterparts in Flowerbud Village? Let's take a look.
10 Ann
Ann works at the inn with her father Doug in Friends of Mineral Town. She is a fantastic cook and can usually be found cleaning and serving patrons at the inn. She isn't very feminine, which concerns her father, but her sweet personality more than makes up for it.
In Harvest Moon 64, Ann lives at the Green Ranch with Doug and her brother Gray. Like her Mineral Town counterpart, Ann is a tomboy and worries her father with her rough personality. Unlike Mineral Town Ann, she is a terrible cook and knows how to care for all kinds of animals. She also has a violent, aggressive streak that she takes out on Cliff if the two get married.
9 Cliff
Cliff has been the player's rival for Ann in every game they've appeared in together. In Harvest Moon 64, Cliff is a wanderer who shows up at the player's farm in the first spring. He lives on the outskirts of the village with Kane, his pet hawk. If the player befriends Cliff, he decides to stay in Flowerbud Village and marry Ann (if the player hasn't proposed to her first); otherwise, he leaves the village forever and disappears from the game.
The player similarly decides Cliff's fate in Friends Of Mineral Town, having the option to help Cliff find work in Mineral Town or let him run out of money. In both games, he is quiet and distant from the other townspeople and needs the player to coax him out of his shell.
8 Doctor
Known as Trent in Harvest Moon DS, the Doctor in Friends Of Mineral Town never reveals his name. He was first introduced in Harvest Moon: Back To Nature as the player's rival for Elli and doesn't appear in Harvest Moon 64. His role as Elli's love interest is taken by Jeff, who runs the bakery instead of the supermarket in HM64.
The Doctor and Elli's workplace romance is similar to Jeff and Elli's, minus the large age gap. The Doctor is kind, caring, and always focused on his work.
7 Elli
Elli comes from a long line of midwives in Friends Of Mineral Town. In addition to working at the clinic with the Doctor, she takes care of her grandmother Ellen and younger brother, Stu. Despite these huge responsibilities, she is always kind and patient and wants to make everyone feel happy and taken care of.
Elli is a baker and more preoccupied with her weight in Harvest Moon 64. She also loves to fish by the river on her days off. She has the same warm and caring personality but is much harder to win over, favoring eggs and milk over flowers.
6 Gray
In Harvest Moon 64, Gray is even more sullen and anti-social than he is in Friends Of Mineral Town. In fact, his sister Ann calls him "a social disaster." Gray lives at the Green Ranch in HM64 and is initially cold towards the player, though he warms up if befriended and reveals himself to be the "good guy" his sister promised.
Gray picks up a different hobby depending on the game. In Harvest Moon 64, he takes an interest in flowers to get closer to Popuri. In Friends Of Mineral Town, he spends a lot of time exchanging reading recommendations with Mary. If the player decides to vie for either girls' affection, they can consider Gray their rival.
5 Kai
Kai works at the vineyard in Harvest Moon 64. He helps Karen's family with the fall harvest but also spends a lot of time listening to Karen's problems. He is more hardworking and deferential in Flowerbud Village than he is in Mineral Town, where he has a reputation of being a troublemaker.
Kai is an excellent swimmer, and his fondness for the ocean carries over to Mineral Town, where he opens the Seaside Shack on the beach every summer. Though Karen makes the occasional appearance at the beach, it's mostly Popuri who visits him in Friends Of Mineral Town.
4 Karen
Karen's personality changes a lot between Harvest Moon 64 and Friends Of Mineral Town. In both games, she loves wine and being at the beach, but she's much happier in Mineral Town. She is rude to the player when first introduced in Harvest Moon 64 and is clearly unhappy with life in Flowerbud Village. She has a troubled home life at the vineyard and a strained relationship with her father, Gotz.
HM64 Karen also dreams of moving to the city to become a dancer, which she abandons if the player befriends her. Mineral Town Karen has no such ambitions, being content to help out her parents at the supermarket. Not to mention, this version of Karen is nice to the player from the beginning.
3 Popuri
In Mineral Town, Popuri helps her family run the poultry farm. She finds life on the farm boring and longs to see the world, which she eventually does if she marries Kai. After their wedding, she leaves town to travel with her new husband and returns only in summer.
Instead of eggs and chickens, Popuri is obsessed with flowers in Harvest Moon 64. Her mother runs the village flower shop, and her father Basil is a botanist studying exotic plants. Her personality is more or less the same as her Mineral Town counterpart: Sunny, upbeat, and feminine. She spends her days off foraging in the woods and visiting the elderly couple in the mountains.
2 Mary
Poor Mary is even shyer in Harvest Moon 64 than she is in Friends Of Mineral Town. She's called Maria in Flowerbud Village and works at the library -- just like she does in Mineral Town -- seeking refuge in books.
Maria spends her days off exploring the woods and Sundays playing the church organ. She's also the mayor's daughter and resides in the nicest house in town. The player's rival for her affection is Harris the mailman, who isn't even on the roster of bachelors in Friends Of Mineral Town.
1 Rick
Like the Doctor, Rick isn't a rival in Harvest Moon 64. His Mineral Town love interest, Karen, is paired up with Kai in Flowerbud Village, leaving Rick a perpetual bachelor. This Rick is also the grandson of Ann from the very first Harvest Moon game.
Rick inherited Ann's knack for mechanics and gadgetry, being the owner of the village tool shop. Rick is also Ann's cousin, and the player can occasionally find them spending time together at the tool shop.