Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons

I want to ask, which of the 3DS Harvest Moon games would y'all recommend. I was checking out some of the them at Toys R' Us and Gamestop after searching for a gift for my niece and figured I'd get one of them for myself.

I have Tale of Two Towns myself. It's quite alright.

I do prefer Tale of Two Towns over A New Beginning...BUT STAY AWAY FROM THE LOST VALLEY.

I've heard that Lost Valley is actually pretty decent as a mountain hermit simulator, but yeah, there's no reason at all to get it over ANB or Rune Factory.

Unless it were gifted to me, I'm not bothering with Lost Valley. I'm not fond of the art style and am currently obsessed with Fantasy Life while waiting for Story of Seasons to come out.

I made a bunch of individual game pages on the Harvest Moon page.

The Natsume games get too much undeserved hate. Sure, their art design is shoddy but the games themselves are pretty decent. At least Natsume listens to (western?) fans. Bokumono is getting old hat. It's easy to get burned out and they aren't doing enough. That's why there's such a big Fandom Rivalry with Stardew Valley nowadays.

Double-posting for bump.

http://gematsu.com/2017/10/story-seasons-tale-two-towns-announced-3ds

Story of Seasons: A Tale of Two Towns+ is now a thing. It's an enhanced version of Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns.

edited 4th Oct '17 11:45:10 AM by Pichu-kun

DLC for Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns released recently. I strongly recommend it if not because of the slew of new content then because of how the localization team didn't have to translate it (and would have been a huge strain to do so due to the sheer amount of text) but they still asked if the fans wanted it anyway.

The new Natsume game for PC and Switch comes out this month, if anyone cares (which I doubt).

Thread title changed per request.

Light of Hope came out on Steam a few days ago.

I've been reading mixed reviews from fans. I haven't bothered to watch any video playthroughs though, but I know the prerelease was negative. The price ($30USD) is really steep for what seems like a Mission-Pack Sequel. The consensus seems to be "It's okay" and "Just buy a cheaper HM. Or Stardew."

Also Natsume posted this:

''To each their own, but for us, it's the feeling. Harvest Moon has never been about graphics. Fundamentally, it's never been about a function, feature, character, or artstyle. It's always been about that simplistic message that hard work gets rewarded. We listen to everyone's feedback because that's the reason why the genre has grown. You take what's popular in the series, and you try and evolve it at the same time.''

Yeah... I don't agree. Art-style and character are everything in a genre like this.

edited 21st Nov '17 7:53:35 PM by Pichu-kun

You guys probably missed it but Natsume caused a lot of controversy with one of the bachelor/ettes in Light of Hope: Special Edition. They're a Gem Sprite (not a Harvest Sprite) who looks like a toddler. They can be transformed into a human form and married. Unfortunately, Natsume worded it very wrong and people instead thought that you were dating a baby.

edited 11th Apr '18 9:25:13 AM by Pichu-kun

I hope the next Natsume Harvest Moon title (and the next Story of Season title) for that matter has a Gay Option ability. Most of the series' Spiritual Successors do. I've been playing Light of Hope and it's annoying that you have to play as Mike to marry Melanie.

Turns out the Doraemon crossover isn't Japan-only.

Friends of Mineral Town getting a Switch remake.

Edited by tclittle on Jul 2nd 2019 at 5:14:31 AM

Darn it to heck. I wanted a Harvest Moon 64 remake.

On otherhand I liked that game, on otherhand Harvest Moon is pretty much in name only considering devs changed ._.

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 2nd 2019 at 6:49:52 PM

This is made by Marvelous, the original devs. It will be branded as Story of Seasons here.

Oh yeah, because they own right to the localized name but none of story of season characters and games, forgot about that

There is a new Harvest Moon (Natsume) game coming out but it's a puzzle spinoff.

The characters won't be completely changed for this remake, it is a remake after all. The magazine scans show the redesigns of Popurii, Karen, Rick, and Cliff.

From what I understand, since Natsume was the non-Japanese localizer, they hold the rights to the names, and unless Marvelous was able to get the rights to those names when they split or sometime inbetween then and now, then those names will likely be the biggest change for a lot of players.

I can't find much detail on the Mineral Town characters, but I'm pretty sure Natsume doesn't own the names since they're the same in the Japanese versions too.

What the heck happened to the character designs? Are they using the same cast? I recognized Ellen (?), Thomas, Popuri, Rick, Cliff (?), and Karen (?).

I'm looking at scans and my opinion is really sour on this remake.

You can choose as two new original protagonists instead of Pete and Claire. They look terrible and generic.

Geeze, they really did mess up the designs. Only Popuri looks like her classic self. What happened to Carter? He's been replaced with some dark haired guy! Harris went from super skinny to chubby for some reason. They gave Kappa hair!

The bachelors and bachelorettes look literally more attractive than any Self-Fanservice I've seen. I hate it. Part of the charm of the original was that the characters looked "normal" and ordinary, not supermodel hot. Why are Claire and Pete the same but everyone else gets a redesign? I remember how cute everyone looked in their Island of Happiness cameos, so why not redesigns like that?

I've always a AWL or 64 remake, but not if they're gonna revamp everything so much. I just expected everything with better graphics and improved dialogue.

Edit:

Did anyone else know of Princess Vanilla from Harvest Moon 64? Apparently she's a Dummied Out character who was discovered a few years ago. It's so neat. You can't find much info on SOS development. There's almost no known cut content from 64.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Jul 10th 2019 at 7:35:40 AM