Harvest Moon

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Iirc wasnt the team behind the good Harvest Moon games now working on Story of Seasons? Been thinking about trying the newest one but im not sure if they still have the touch

I know Stardew Valley exists but for some reason it just never hit that Sunshine Islands spot for me, SI is probably my favorite one in the series so far, but ive only played up to Tale of Two Towns, which was aight

To greatly tl;dr - Natsume, the company that localized the Harvest Moon games in the West kept the rights to the name of the series when that partnership ended. The Harvest Moon Devs decided to just literally translate the name, so now it’s Story of Seasons.

Rather hilariously, Natsume always puts out a Harvest Moon game within a week of the launch of a Story of Seasons game. Natsume’s games have been mostly garbage. It’s one of the funnier pieces of drama in this branch of gaming.

No seriously, why does one of my comfort series have to be the one overrun with Troons…

 

[m1ddl3m4rch]

To greatly tl;dr - Natsume, the company that localized the Harvest Moon games in the West kept the rights to the name of the series when that partnership ended. The Harvest Moon Devs decided to just literally translate the name, so now it’s Story of Seasons.

Rather hilariously, Natsume always puts out a Harvest Moon game within a week of the launch of a Story of Seasons game. Natsume’s games have been mostly garbage. It’s one of the funnier pieces of drama in this branch of gaming.

No seriously, why does one of my comfort series have to be the one overrun with Troons…

I think the best one is Harvest Moon Animal Parade for the Wii. Its definitely my favorite

 

[Psyduck]

Saw that theres a couple of Story of Seasons titles for the PS4, anyone tried them? Are they any good?

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Saw that theres a couple of Story of Seasons titles for the PS4, anyone tried them? Are they any good?

I’ve played Pioneers of Olive Town. It’s alright, but you can very easily lag out your farm - Item Makers are this games bread and butter, and every single item maker is for a specific item. There’s also the obligatory Randomly Generated Mines to get the resources to upgrade your tools and buildings, the furthest mine being a particular hell.

Add in you having to put path blocks everywhere to avoid Trees/Rocks/Grass growing where you don’t want them to grow - Edit to Add, also the fact you need to practice Animal Husbandry to get better quality Milk/Eggs/Wool/whatever the Aplaca produces - a lot of PoOT’s loop comes to “basic planning ahead”.

Least this summer we have the long awaited AWL Remake (peak of the series, fight me) coming out. Finaly, I can play it again without the many, many bugs in the Special Edition, or digging out the Gamecube.

 

[skykiii]

I actually discovered the series a few years back and got kinda casually interested in it. It started out as something I was looking into for my mom (she was looking for an offline alternative to Farmtown).

But I wound up getting into the games myself. Especially last year, when for awhile I was addicted to Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.

It's weird how a game where you do work you'd never do in real life can make a compelling game. Actually I take that back... it makes me want to make a real-life garden.

ADDENDUM: The Doraemon one is also good, and can be enjoyed without having seen the Doraemon anime/manga (though its recommended to at least know the basics). The one thing that may be an issue is that one is a bit more story-driven, to the point where it literally takes hours before you get into basic farming gameplay and you can't skip it (what I did was made a save the moment the game allowed me to so that I could just load that if I ever want to start over).

 

[Hammr2]

No seriously, why does one of my comfort series have to be the one overrun with Troons…

Checking out out the steam page of your upcoming favourite game.

My condolence.
At least the Nintendo page is normal. Anyway, it's just cringe that Steam part.

 

[T-21]

Here's your new Harvest Moon game. Same version in Japanese too.
View attachment 4353815

You've gotta be shitting me.

I aware they did similar on FoMT, where same sex marriage is possible and you'll still able to get a baby came outta nowhere regardless candidates you pick. But seeing this hurts me most the fact some of OG series I know used to be the part of my childhood, has been destructed with forced LGBT agendas, AGAIN!

As for AWL, play GameCube version. It runs and generally much better than shitty PS2 version.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Checking out out the steam page of your upcoming favourite game.
View attachment 4369984
My condolence.
At least the Nintendo page is normal. Anyway, it's just cringe that Steam part.

I fucking hate the Troons that’ve infiltrated Gaming more than most other Troons.

I get it, it’s just optional flavour text and it probably not being worth the headache by just making everyone player-sexual, bit goddamn do I hope they stop pandering to these freaks soon.

As for AWL, play GameCube version. It runs and generally much better than shitty PS2 version.

Unfortunately for me, even my Gamecube has started to have issues reading some discs. Considering the age of that thing, I can’t be that surprised.

But if your options are the Remake or the Special Edition, I’d still say Remake - the Special Edition is such a buggy mess that it’s not even funny, and every time they’ve rereleased it it’s somehow gotten buggier.

Of course, there’s always just emulating the Original, but that’s besides the point.

 

[Psyduck]

Look, i dont have issues with some text pandering, but damn, does it get exhausting...

Just hope the game is good, AWL was great back then, not sure if it holds up today, but the memories remain

 

[Pizza Time]

It's always a massive disappointment when Japanese games end up pozzed like this, but it's somewhat understandable considering how much of their Western fanbase are likely to be women (including handmaidens and not-like-other-girl enbys) and trannies. It's a shame that AWL is getting this treatment but I'll be able to overlook a simple choice at the beginning for the sake of reliving some good childhood memories. Hopefully the Switch version runs well, unlike Rune Factory 5.

 

[skykiii]

To greatly tl;dr - Natsume, the company that localized the Harvest Moon games in the West kept the rights to the name of the series when that partnership ended. The Harvest Moon Devs decided to just literally translate the name, so now it’s Story of Seasons.

Rather hilariously, Natsume always puts out a Harvest Moon game within a week of the launch of a Story of Seasons game. Natsume’s games have been mostly garbage. It’s one of the funnier pieces of drama in this branch of gaming.

No seriously, why does one of my comfort series have to be the one overrun with Troons…

There is legit one Natsume HM game I found fun. It's called Harvest Moon Mad Dash... but its a puzzle game rather than a farming sim.

Which I mean probably explains a lot.

It's kinda sad how these companies fall. Natsume used to be "that company that put out all those NES and SNES games that nobody played but everybody loved" (Shadow of the Ninja for example). Then they became "the Harvest Moon company" and now apparently still feel like that's their only bankable resource. Why not get back to making underrated platformers and puzzle games?

......... On the whole "Story of Seasons is pozzed now" thing, I feel like that's a bit of an overreaction. The games give you the *option* of going gay... they don't absolutely force it. It's still very possible to play like its a straight community... which in all likelihood, it is. I would be surprised if there's any dialogue or anything that actually acknowledges you being nonbinary. They probably still use gendered pronouns out the ass, and give off a sense of "this town is putting up with you being the local weirdo since you've actually been a very helpful weirdo."

And even the older games allowed you to do things like get pregnant by a kappa... which from what I've read causes the town to act a little weird about it and think your character is a slut who just doesn't wanna name the father.

(This reminds me, its been awhile since I booted up Pioneers of Olive Town... I can't even remember what my plan was last time).

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

On the whole "Story of Seasons is pozzed now" thing, I feel like that's a bit of an overreaction. The games give you the *option* of going gay... they don't absolutely force it. It's still very possible to play like its a straight community... which in all likelihood, it is. I would be surprised if there's any dialogue or anything that actually acknowledges you being nonbinary. They probably still use gendered pronouns out the ass, and give off a sense of "this town is putting up with you being the local weirdo since you've actually been a very helpful weirdo."

That’s probably the best explanation we’re going to get, outside it being The Devs paying lip service to not have to deal with a headache from their Western Audience bitching.

And besides, AWL had some weirdos in that Valley anyway. Least the upside of a silent protagonist is that they can get away with being fairly neutral as far as the townspeople talking to you.

 

[MightyMorphin'Willbender]

I do love me these chill farming games, currently getting my itch scratched with Graveyard Keeper but it is very obviously not the same thing.
Almost considering going back to Stardew Valley just to try them mods.

All this talk about Pioneers reminded me that I put it away to wait for the DLCs to arrive, and now that they have all dropped i've found myself not even playing any of them. This teaches a valuable lesson of not buying season pass bundles I guess...

 

[skykiii]

I do love me these chill farming games, currently getting my itch scratched with Graveyard Keeper but it is very obviously not the same thing.
Almost considering going back to Stardew Valley just to try them mods.

All this talk about Pioneers reminded me that I put it away to wait for the DLCs to arrive, and now that they have all dropped i've found myself not even playing any of them. This teaches a valuable lesson of not buying season pass bundles I guess...

Eh, I view that as no different than back in the day when I would buy Game of the Year Editions for like Half-Life or whatever that came with tons of extra stuff. Its cool if I ever want to try them out.

That said some of the Olive Town DLCs are kinda auto-applied. There's one involving a new storyline of "mysteries" around town that starts happening as soon as certain conditions are met. It's a little bit immersion-breaking because it seems to assume you're farther in than you actually are (one of the missions for it required me to make yogurt for Cindy before I could even craft yogurt-makers) but it winds up being not that big a deal... especially as this is one of those things where you've got all the time in the world to do the thing and the storyline can just hang in stasis until you're ready for it to continue. Which is what I did because, I mean, I had crops to grow!

 

[T-21]

I do love me these chill farming games, currently getting my itch scratched with Graveyard Keeper but it is very obviously not the same thing.
Almost considering going back to Stardew Valley just to try them mods.

All this talk about Pioneers reminded me that I put it away to wait for the DLCs to arrive, and now that they have all dropped i've found myself not even playing any of them. This teaches a valuable lesson of not buying season pass bundles I guess...

Does Stardew Valley have any LGBT shit? If not, I'd definitely buy it next season sale.

 

[HeyYou]

Does Stardew Valley have any LGBT shit? If not, I'd definitely buy it next season sale.

Doesn't have they/them shit from what I remember, it's just male/female, but all the love interests are romanceable regardless of gender just like the newest Harvest Moons. None of this shit is actually in the story or in your face obnoxious which I assume is how the Harvest Moon remakes are going to be