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Harvest Moon can refer to one of two series of Farm Life Sim Video Games.

What happened?

In Japan, the series that started in 1996 has never changed names and has always been known as Bokujou Monogatari. They are designed by the company now known as Marvelous (prior companies involved and company names include Amccus and Pack-In Video, Victor Interactive Software, and Marvelous Entertainment; there were many merges and name changes). From 1996 until 2013, the series was published and localized in the US by Natsume, who created the Harvest Moon name and often didn't put the Marvelous name (or other company names) on the game packaging.

In early 2014, Marvelous dropped Natsume as the publishing and localization company for the series and switched to XSEED Games, their acquired Western division who were already localizing the spinoff Rune Factory series and several other games. (The European localization company, Rising Star Games, also was dropped; adaptions are now done by Marvelous Europe). XSEED Games then created a new name for the game series in the West, Story of Seasons.

However, Natsume still owned the rights to the Harvest Moon brand and logo. So they decided to make a new series of farm sim games on their own with the Harvest Moon brand, using the Appci Corporation as their developer. The Natsume games are not available in Japan due to copyright reasons, but are adapted for Europe by Rising Star Games (the former localizer for the Story of Seasons games).

How things went down on Natsume's side is explained in this interview, and a neutral discussion on the differences by The Gamer can be read here. Even several years on, the name split have caused no small amount of confusion for fans and retailers alike—especially as it seems that new Harvest Moon games come out awfully close to the release of new Story of Seasons games.

To summarize: The Bokujō Monogatari series that started in 1996 was titled Harvest Moon in the west until 2014. The continuation of that series is now called Story of Seasons. This includes any Video Game Remakes of older titles (e.g. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is the remake of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life). If you're looking for the continuation of those games from the late 1990s and 2000s, you want Story of Seasons. Any games after 2014 titled Harvest Moon are designed by Natsume and are not related to the older games at all.

No list of games or tropes should be placed here—they should go on their respective series names, even if prior to the name change.


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