Harvest Moon DS

Harvest Moon DS is the first DS entry in the long-running series. A "girls' version" was released later the same year in Japan, though US fans wouldn't see it for another year and a half.

Japanese Version Only
In the Japanese versions, by linking A Wonderful Life (GameCube) to Friends of Mineral Town, then to Harvest Moon DS, a grave with the name of the protagonist from the GameCube should appear. In the US versions though, it requires instead only Friends of Mineral Town, and shows the name of the hero from that game. The JP manipulation is possible in the US version, though it can trigger a serious glitch with the save file.

The Japanese version also has an Achievement system which is exclusive to it. It shows up as logs when linking with both versions of Friends of Mineral Town. The Boy version logs talks about Mining, Fishing... while the Girl version talks about festivals.

European Version Alterations
In the JP and US versions, there are 3 tables in the Casino with different games: Poker, Black Jack, and a card-based memory game. In the European version the Poker and Black Jack games were removed. They were replaced with the memory game, making all three tables the same, to remove gambling references.

The GBA-slot feature was completely removed in the EU version. Alongside the features mentioned above, there is also:
 * By inserting Friends of Mineral Town in the GBA slot once (US/EU copies for the US version, JP for JP version), it triggers the five potential love interests (along with other NPCs) from that game to show up. The game can't be continued if the player marries them though. These NPC include Mary, Karen, Elli, Dr Trent, Gray, Ann, Cliff, Popuri, Rick, and Kai.
 * Bonus CD including music from from FoMT: Spring HM, Summer HM, Autumn HM, Winter HM, and Last Dance.

Untranslated Dialogue
During some side-quests, untranslated Japanese text chunks would occasionally pop-up.

Revisional Differences
The original US version was rife with glitches which were fixed with a later revision, v1.1. Among them:
 * Due to missing requirements, two characters are unable to be married. The Witch Princess (because the game fails to count dead animals) and the Harvest Fairy (if the Buckwheat Noodles are obtained instead of the needed Buckwheat Flour at the New Year Festival, because they are unavailable elsewhere)
 * Mining Data (because of Chocker not registering), Recipe Data and Shipping data (because of Buckwheat Flour not registering) cannot be completed
 * Typos and random freezes and save-corrupting glitches (Winter, after 255 saves, saving in the Harvest Tree or while hiring the fishing team)
 * The milker easy-leveling glitch.
 * Other glitches

The Japanese version had a V1.1 version issued shortly after the original release date, which fixed most of the glitches of the original game. For some reason, Natsume used the original glitched version when creating the American version, despite the JP V1.1 being available. The European version used the bug-fixed Japanese version as a basis.