As buildings are slowly restored, villagers will return to the village. A recent monsoon has destroyed most of the buildings, and it's up to the player to restore the local farm and help repair the damage. Similar to past Harvest Moons, the player arrives in a town to find it in dire straits. It's great though, that there's validation that there's a market for it there," Markay says. We'd been talking about a PC version for a while. Was it because of Stardew Valley that we went after PC? No. "We love the fact that Stardew Valley just reiterates that there's a want and a need in the PC market for a farming and life simulation game. Markay and Hiro Maekawa both tell me they see it as a great way to continue expanding the series to a whole new audience that, if the success of Stardew Valley is anything to go by, are hungry for more cutesy farming simulations. It's also the first time a Harvest Moon game has come to PC. While there's still subtle innovations, like the improved rucksack that automatically selects the best tool instead of needing to constantly swap between them, "it feels like a Harvest Moon game," Markay says. Gone is the Minecraft influence, replaced by a renewed focus on farming and socializing. With the 20th anniversary of Harvest Moon this year, Markay says Natsume wanted to make a Harvest Moon that pays homage to the series' nostalgic past. But Natsume is hoping to change that with Light of Hope. Regardless of what Markay has to say, you don't have to dig very far to find that fans disagree with Natsume's attempts to evolve the series. It's not as negative as it used to be, maybe four and a half years ago, but in terms of sales we're quite happy with them." "Everyone has a favorite Harvest Moon, so they want all Harvest Moons to be exactly the same, but that wouldn't make other fans happy. With 20 years of Harvest Moon behind them, every fan has their opinion on which one is best. While the cast and characters might change with each one, you always could find comfort in the humdrum serenity of watering your field or bringing your beau freshly picked strawberries.īut for Markay, Hiro Maekawa and Taka Maekawa, they insist that Harvest Moon hasn't lost its soul at all. It's more cartoonish aesthetic and reworked farming simulation was too much of a departure from a series that was beloved for how faithfully it stuck to the same day-in-day-out farming of the original games. Many felt that Natsume's Harvest Moon had lost its soul. It's follow up, Skytree Village, fared slightly better.Įveryone has a favorite Harvest Moon, so they want all Harvest Moons to be exactly the same For the first Natsume-developed Harvest Moon, it was received poorly with fans and critics. Players could literally sculpt their farmland in three dimensions. Unlike Story of Seasons (Bokujō Monogatari), which is largely faithful to the core formula of farming and socializing with villagers, The Lost Valley shook up Harvest Moon by introducing Minecraft-esque terraforming. In 2014 Maekawa and his team started making their own games under the Harvest Moon name, starting with Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. We had a lot of loyal Harvest Moon fans in Europe and America, and I said to myself, we shouldn't-we cannot say to these loyal fans that there will be no more Harvest Moon games." But for us, we spent a lot of time and energy to this unknown farming simulation game for almost 16 years. "If you have your own subsidiary in America, it makes sense for them to go by themselves. "We didn't like that idea, but it's understandable," Hiro Maekawa tells me. It's a point in Bokujō Monogatari's history that continues to confuse even the most dedicated fans, with rumors circulating of disputes between the two companies that inspired a kind of rivalry. Natsume would only be able to keep the name Harvest Moon, but the original series would continue under the new name of Story of Seasons. After 16 years of working together, Marvelous decided to rescind Natsume's publishing and localization rights for Bokujō Monogatari and instead publish it through their own subsidiary, XSeed.
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