Well true the SNES allowed you to get married/date, but it was with only one person and the feature was removed from the series until it debuted on the consoles (Can't fit something like that in the GB/GBC)
Actually speaking of GBC... If I recall Harvest Moon 2 was the first to have a sort of 'heart event' system as speaking to the various shopkeepers over a (long) period of time would get them to have special events. I remember my favorite was the flower girl would offer to get bathe in the hot spring with you...
We need more of that action
The events were non-gender modified of course, so even if your a female she acts all shy about it.
A nice idea... I never did have them yell at me about the Golden Log thing. Although I wonder why a log worth 100,000G makes them mad but you buying a cottage for like... 999,999,999 or something doesn't? XD