Best Life Simulation Series?

[lisalover1]

What are your favorite life sims? Note that this doesn't mean regular simulation games [i.e: SimCity, Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc.], but instead, games where you control the life of a single person, or a small group of people. So, which are your favorites?

[MrPopo]

Let's see how many in this genre I can even name:

Sims series
Harvest Moon series
Animal Crossing series

Which actually totals up to a fairly large library. I'd have to go with Rune Factory, since it gives you more things to do. Dungeon crawling + farming is a combo that somehow works.

[edit] Huh, there's a poll that I somehow missed. Seems like I got most of them. Forgot about Princess Maker, but that hasn't had any domestic releases, so it's only come up for me in random wikipedia articles.

[RCBH928]

whats the point of the sims?
Just watching people live?
is there a goal to reach to end the game?

[Marspants]

Harvest Moon for me. I really loved what it used to be, but they seem to be screwing it lately.

[lisalover1]

Harvest Moon for me. I really loved what it used to be, but they seem to be screwing it lately.

Really? I've been sensing more of a "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" mentality towards the series lately. There has been very few big changes in the games over time.

[Original_Name]

My vote goes to other, which in this case means Shenmue!

[sakicfan84]

These type of games really aren't my cup of tea. I do enjoy the Harvest Moon games, but I think the concept has definitely been beaten into the ground now.

[jfrost]

I think it's fun for a while. I find them great to play on portables.

[General Chaos]

I love life sims so it was hard to choose but I went with other. My vote (at least right now) would go to Europa 1400/The Guild 2 on the PC. Once you get the bugs worked out it's simply the deepest life sim out there. My wife and I just started playing a lan game and it is incredible how much you can do in the game, plus it never really ends.

Any one remotely interested in life sims should check it out.

The only game series on that list I haven't experienced is princess maker. I guess I'll look into it.

Any other suggestions beyond those listed in the poll?

[Marspants]

I love life sims so it was hard to choose but I went with other. My vote (at least right now) would go to Europa 1400/The Guild 2 on the PC. Once you get the bugs worked out it's simply the deepest life sim out there. My wife and I just started playing a lan game and it is incredible how much you can do in the game, plus it never really ends.

That actually sounds pretty good. One thing I always wanted in the Sims was a lan option or some mulit-player aspect offline, I think that would be awesome. Harvest Moon Online might not be bad (I hope anyway).