There are tons of mods for this game. Make sure to check them out on your second playthrough (automation mod highly recommended).

There’s no true time limit on this game. Enjoy it at your own pace, you won’t be punished for it. Because of the seasons, there are certain things that might be delayed for a little while, but you can literally just sleep away as many days as you need to if you reach a point that you’re waiting for a specific date. There’s no loss condition.

Chests are your best friend. Always save a copy of most crops/gems, as these are often loved gifts for the villagers. Dinosaur Egg should be saved until you know what to do with it, while Ancient Seed should be donated immediately to the museum.

The sooner you invest in tappers for Oak resin, the happier you’ll be.

Fishing is actually really good. It seems hard, but as you level it and get better equipment, it’ll be easier. Once you have the right lures, fishing becomes fairly simple (aside from the really rare or Legendary fish). Don’t be discouraged!

Use the TV to know which days will have rain. Very important to plan out your days you head to the mines or wherever else you desire.

Invest in the Community Center/Joja Repairs (two different routes in the game). They come with very useful rewards.

For skills, you can go down any branch you want. But I highly suggest for Farmer: Tiller, then Artisan. Definitely the most friendly to a newbie.

If you aren’t playing with a romhack, I’d suggest Pokemon Emerald instead of Firered. But you may want to look into some simple romhacks that will add QoL from later pokemon games (along with fairy type, etc.), and that unlock all pokemon so that you can actually obtain every single one without needing to trade.

As for recs:

Any GBA Fire Emblem game. The JP only one, Binding Blade, has a full English fan translation patch that you can apply to the rom. I’ve never played Sacred Stones, but Binding Blade is better for gameplay, Blazing Blade (or just “Fire Emblem” in the English market) has better story/characters. If you’re already a Fire Emblem fan, then Thracia (on SNES) is one of the best games in the series; just make sure to use a guide (there’s a spoiler free one out there somewhere) because the game has some really bad design that punishes the player for not knowing things (like needing a certain amount of keys before a certain level).

Megaman series on NES. Megaman 2 is one of the best games of all time imho. The others are fun, but they do get repetitive.

Super Mario World. Best platformer of its time, and probably one of the best of all time. You can play SNES version, but I think Super Mario Advance 3 (?) on GBA also has it (I think this one has the JP levels too?).

Double Dragon (on NES) is a fun beat-em-up for the time.

Frogger (on various systems) was a fun game for its time.

I’d be remiss to not recommend The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. I’m not a huge Zelda fan and even I found this to be a great game. At the time, it was simply unparalleled. Even now, it holds up really well, although its open world looks sad to anyone that’s only every known modern games. I believe it’s been decompiled, so there might be a PC version out there somewhere. There is the 3DS version which updates the graphics and fixes some annoyances and improves gameplay, whereas the N64 version has romhacks and (presumably) texture packs. Actually, there’s a Gamecube version too if you want to emulate it on there.

On PS1, the Darkstalkers series is fun if you like Fighting games.

NES: 1942, Battletoads (also on other systems)

SNES: Aladdin

GBC/A: The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons (and/or Ages)

N64: The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask, Mario Kart 64, Mario Party 3, Donkey Kong 64, 1080 Snowboarding

Make sure you’ve looked into texture packs for the 3D consoles. They can make a huge difference in terms of emulating the game on modern screens.

If playing SSX, unless you have a reason to prefer PS1, I highly suggest just playing Gamecube or PS2 versions of either SSX Tricky or SSX 3 (depending on which on you prefer). SSX Tricky is insanely fun.

It’s not the best, but Pop OS because it’s the only one that actually worked without any other setup (Mint didn’t appear on my screen, and I couldn’t find anyway to access a terminal or troubleshoot that). Starting to regret it, though, especially as the Pop community devolves into the Cosmic cult and 22.04 has more issues (some of my flatpaks refuse to open now, sometimes I get a black screen when starting the computer, bluetooth headphones no longer work, etc.).