Story of Seasons: A New Harvest Moon

There’s a new Harvest Moon game coming, but it’s not a “Harvest Moon” game.

That sentence sounds like nonsense upon reading it, a sure sign that I’ve clearly lost my mind. But it actually makes perfect sense. The sly devils at XSeed Games teased a new title a couple of days ago on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, using a plushie from a Little King’s Story character as assistance for hammering home the clue. There were good guesses, but few figured out what it was for. Someone at the company thought about this one carefully.

Given how Harvest Moon games perform outside Japan, it would have been a bigger surprise if we didn’t receive the newest installment in America, whose name is literally translated as Harvest Moon: Connect to a New Land. The surprises here, instead, are who’s localizing it, and how it’s being localized. It’s XSeed who announced this, not Natsume, and they’re bringing it over under the name “Story of Seasons.” Natsume has localized the series for years, since the franchise’s creation, yet this is the first one they won’t be given the opportunity to handle. Though XSeed handled two Rune Factory games before, Rune Factory Frontier (in a collaboration with Marvelous USA) and last year’s Rune Factory 4, they’ve never handled a proper game in the franchise before. When Marvelous acquired AQ Interactive, they received XSeed along with them. The company figured there was no need to hand the franchise to another localization company when they have their own.

The results of this are bittersweet. XSeed’s localizations tend to be better than Natsume’s, and they work faster, though the latter was admittedly improving over time. It’s a shame their most dependable constant stream of revenue is being stripped from them. And despite its origins, XSeed can’t use the “Harvest Moon” name because it belongs to Natsume, due to a deal that company made well before Marvelous took over publishing duties in Japan. The onus is on XSeed to spread the word that Story of Seasons is simply the old Harvest Moon people know under a new name, which may not be too difficult given its dedicated niche audience. They pay attention to what’s happening online, and most will be informed of the change before its release date, though they won’t like every part of the deal.

The biggest issue with XSeed handling this is how they’ll have to spend their time with a game that was guaranteed to be localized, instead of having the opportunity to go after and translate a title that would have otherwise been ignored. Here’s hoping it won’t take up too much of their time.

Harvest Moo…*ahem*, Story of Seasons is the second game in the franchise’s semi-reboot for 3DS, following Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. It retains the features that title added to lure in some of the Animal Crossing audience, in allowing for full customization of the player character and their garden — down to the design of the house and the furniture inside. It’s actually better than AC in one regard, because you can actually change your character’s skin color. Not only was it good for newcomers, as shown by its plethora of tutorials, it was also the perfect game for former fans who felt the series had become too predictable in its approach for their liking. It takes some time to get going, but becomes an enthralling experience after a few hours. It’s still available in certain stores throughout North America, but whether that will remain the case for long because of the aforementioned deal is another question.

Though the sequel is mostly similar, though it comes with a group of new potential bachelors and bachelorettes, crops don’t carry over from one season to the other this time around. You’ll want to keep that in mind before they wither and die. Also, some items from Mario games made their way into it, allowing for players to grow Red Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, and Stars in their gardens upon meeting very special conditions. They’ll, of course, remain in the American version.

If you read the above (and I hope you did!), you may be wondering if Natsume can make their own “Harvest Moon” game, one separate from Marvelous’ entries. Sure, they can, and maybe they’re doing that now. The Story of Seasons was also surprising because a listing for a title called Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley for 3DS popped up a little over one month ago, though no publisher was listed (though who else could it be?). It was initially presumed to be a subtitle for the game announced in this post, but that’s clearly not the case. They also might be teasing something on their Twitter account, though their wording is intentionally vague.

Natsume has the means to make their own Harvest Moon if they wanted. They previously published a similar game called Hometown Story, developed by Toybox. Even better, it was created and designed by Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon. A pity it received a poor critical reception, so hopefully they can work on releasing a quality product if they’re developing. And get a better character designer — though her Pokemon designs are fine.

Thankfully, fans aren’t giving XSeed too much hate over it, though their parent company in Japan made all the moves here. Look for it on store shelves in the winter, and it would be nice if they offered some kind of plushie as a preorder bonus.