Stardew Valley vs Harvest Moon

As much as I would like to say SV, I have to not do so. SV is great, it's very charming, it has so much heartblood poured into it. It feels great. But it is also very casual and easy.
I don't even try hard and can upgrade everything in half a year and max out my skills in a little over a year. At least it's not so easy to please grandpa the first time he evaluates what we did, but it's still way too easy and failing has no consequences bedide not getting your award and having to pay for the next evaluation.
I want to struggle, I want to have to work hard for my upgrades (or try to prevent the unwanted priority upgrades getting in my way in ToTT...) I want to pour a lot of time in one save and need this time to get my upgrade and skills done.

I'm not a huge Harvest Moon fan. I started with the GBC one and liked it. Until I realized, that the "You have to get the farm back into shape in a year" thing was a lie. I tried doing nothing but go back to bed after getting up and nothing bad happened (aside from it being an really boring year), felt betrayed and robbed of my game goal and fail state and got rid of the game and stayed away from the series for years.
But then, the first playthrough without knowing the premiss was a fraud was fun and very enjoyable...

So I wanted something like this, without this "betrayal" and some day Rune Factory caught my attention and I tried and loved it. It was flawed and had some broken things (for those who played the first RF strawberries should ring a bell) but it was also awsome and didn't lie to us about our task. It improved with every part and became really good. RF4 is almost perfect and I'm very sad, we wont get a new one, with Neverland gone.
Rune Factory has a wonderful artstyle and a wide variety of activities. Farming, fighting, fishing, crafting, mining and lots of skills with lots of levels.

(I copy the next lines from this threat: http://community.playstarbound.com/...-this-thing-called-harvest-moon.113111/page-3 no point in writing them all again)
RF4 is actually the best of them for me. RF4 has the best and most complex farming system I've seen in one of this kind of games. (Soil has quality and health, crops have quality and health, planting the same crops on the same spots for too long is bad! Weather can change every hour. Crops don't die because of season changes and can be planted in every season -some take several months to mature, but grow better in some than in others. You can harvest several whateveritbears from one plant and there are times when harvest is good or poor for some of them. Plus what ever I'm forgetting now).
A town and NPCs which actually feel alive plus action RPG elements (Hey, the last two apply to SV too, just that the NPCs and town in RF4 are just more alive). Crafting and levels for many things (including walkig xD) going to 99 for some and higher for others, it takes very long to max everything, it's delightful And it's a handheld game, it's almost perfect ...almost... it has no gay option and the placing of objects in the world is horrible, I can never tell where exactly the thing I'm placing will end, making decorating and organizing your crafting area a pain.

Oh and one thing which is also not in it: An annual event as intriguing and beautiful as the Dance of the Moon jellies.

I've tried some of the Harvest Moon games afterwards and none had a false premiss, but I still prefere Rune Factory but those I really like are those, who got criticised for having too expensive upgrades (TLV beside several points which are very different from other HM games but imo very enjoyable...) or limiting the availability of them too much (ToTT). So for me it's Rune Factory and certain Harvest Moon games.


So for me: I prefer Rune Factory in general, espeacilly RF4 as an overall. SV has as much charme (and more in some points) but is too casual (and not a handheld game). Harvest Moon lacks a lot of the charme but is more my playstyle.
Which makes (short term) RF -> SV -> HM and (long term) RF -> HM -> SV.

Sorry ._. I'm not the type for many (semi) short playthroughs but for one which let's me improve/upgrade/build up constantly and make me put an effort into this (while I'm not forced to stay at the PC and can chose my location and positon freely at that).