Which portable Harvest Moon game should I buy?

Image by rosefirerising
Goodguide App (iTunes):
itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodguide/id294447660?mt=8

I am in love with GoodGuide right now. Well, having a lot of fun with
it, anyway.

In their words:
"The GoodGuide app helps you find safe, healthy, and sustainable
products while you shop. You can browse, search or simply scan a
barcode to see detailed ratings for health, environment and social
responsibility for more than 70,000 products and companies."

Most people are good people. They want to do good things that don’t
hurt other people, we want to buy things that weren’t made in
sweatshops, that protect the environment, all that. But the world is a
complex place, and to accomplish that basic goal you have to know more
than most of us could ever know, even if we spent our lives doing
research. This is similar to when we have elections. We all want to
elect the best person for the job, but there are so many jobs and so
many people running for office, how can we know enough to make an
informed choice about all of them? Especially if you have a day job or
a family or other important matters in your life that take up your
time and attention. What I started doing as in my early 20s was to
research a couple of the political races deeply and decide what I
really felt about them. Then I would look at the various pundits and
interest groups and other recommenders, and see who agreed with me on
those races I’d researched, and WHY. The group that followed a
reasoning path closest to my own, I would then trust for their
recommendations on the other races.

With tools like HealthyStuff and Goodguide (which uses some data from
HealthyStuff), we really need to follow a similar process. We can’t
know it all. Research a few items or products or companies, and then
do a reality check on how much trust you want to put into the apps
recommendations. I am a big fan of "who watches the watchers," and
advise people to always do a little extra research on their own rather
than just putting blind trust in someone who is telling you what to
do. Verify the data, for a while, at least.

For the purposes of this blogpost, let’s just assume that we trust the
data on which Goodguide is basing its recommendations, and trust their
goals and recommendations. Even if you don’t, they raise interesting
and provocative issues to ponder and explore regarding the products we
purchase and have in our homes. The app is such a wonderful concept,
and well implemented and designed. Here is a quick overview of why I
find it so fascinating and useful.

It opens with a window to browse their database for types of products,
but right next to the products button in the lower left corner is a
barcode scan option. That’s what intrigued me so much.

Scanning is neat. You press the scan button, line up the brackets with
the barcode on the item, and then an identification pops up verifying
the item.

Select that item, and it adds it to your list of what you’ve scanned,
which you can later add to your own custom lists. Select the item from
the list, and it gives you an overview of how well the item ranks on
key factors of health, ecology, and social responsibility. For the
curious, this seems to be a scale of 1-10, with 10 being good.

Reading the details blew my mind. I scanned Lubriderm, which was a
product recommended by my dermatologist. My reaction to this? "Hunh,
what? Wait a sec? If this has a couple problem ingredients like that,
why is my dermatologist recommending it?" Something to explore and
learn more about.

Since this is a health product, I was surprised that they ranked
higher on how well the company manages their ecological
responsibilities than with health, but that is still a good thing.

But OOPS, they are even worse on social responsibility than they were
on health. Disappointing. Interesting. Hmmm.

Now, if you have concerns about some of the choices a company is
making, the next question is, "Well, but what choice do I have?
Really." And that is the next question they answer. My, why don’t I
try Miessence or Burt’s Bee’s instead, if they are truly comparable
products (which is a question for my dermatologist).

What I’ve described so far is what got me so excited, but that isn’t
all the app does. You can make an account, save notes, make lists of
what you like or don’t, get engaged with a community, share
recommendations with friends, and earn badges for various good
behaviors.

I love the way this tool supports my making my own decisions. Yes, it
makes recommendations and tries to guide my actions, but ultimately it
is giving me information I need to make my own informed decisions or
ask more questions. I wish I had more tools like this for supporting
health at the levels of the individual, the group, and the globe.

Question by Lola: Which portable Harvest Moon game should I buy?
I love the Harvest Moon series. I have played AWL, Animal Parade, ToTT, Grand Bazaar, and RF3. Animal Parade was my absolute favorite, it fulfilled everything I’ve ever wanted from a HM game.

I was hoping there was a Ds/PSP Harvest Moon that resembles Animal Parade?
Currently looking at Hero of Leaf Valley but you can’t have kids, that’s almost a deal breaker for me.

Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!