These days, there aren't too many things you can hide from the internet. Perhaps like many other fellow Harvest Moon players, you have noticed something "off" about the past few launches of the farming sim series. They've had a disappointing reception and just don't seem the same according to long time players. Those scientific theories behind people's tendency to feel a gut instinct about something must be right, because spoiler alert: they're literally not, nor have they been for a number of years. We're talking totally different games with the same name here, because if money talks, so do titles apparently.
A Short Gameplay Recap
As a quick background, Harvest Moon is a game where the player typically leaves a big city setting for small-town life and inherits or buys run-down farmland. Your goal is to turn that land into something glorious again, via crops, raising livestock, etc. Typically the plot also involves helping out the town in some way, via improving its economy or saving it from being corporatized by a guy in a suit, and eventually marrying the bachelor or bachelorette of your choice. There's usually also some kind of magic theme involved. Basically, it's every single element of a Hallmark movie combined into a game.
Story of Seasons Versus Harvest Moon
Recently, Harvest Moon: One World was announced for the Switch and the PS4, to be launched this Fall. The game will apparently feature the player initially living in a world without things like crops, only knowing about them through old books. The player will be allowed to travel past the limits of their hometown out into the world.
However, a game called Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is also launching in just a few weeks, scheduled for July 14th. Long time Harvest Moon players were very confused by this because there was a game way back when for the Gameboy Advance called Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. While anything can be a coincidence, it was extremely obvious the Story of Seasons game was a remake of Friends of Mineral Town, but why the heck was it called Story of Seasons and not Harvest Moon? What does One World have to do with anything?
Here's A History Lesson
To better understand it, let's go back in time here just a little bit, circa 1996.
The very first Harvest Moon game was launched for the Nintendo 64 in the late 1990s by the company Marvelous, called Bokujō Monogatari in Japan. When it was published in the United States, the name used was Harvest Moon. Marvelous partnered up with the publishing company Natsume for localizing its games in the Americas. According to Natsume president Hiro Maekawa, it was much more than that. In a 2017 interview with PC Gamer, he says that "it was Natsume who helped the original Bokujō Monogatari creator Yashukiro Wada's vision". The companies seemed to work well together, which is why it's surprising to hear what happened next.
They Changed Publishers
For around eighteen years, Natsume handled all of publishing Harvest Moon games in the West. In 2014, Marvelous told the world that their own publishing company XSEED would now manage the localization of the Bokujō Monogatari/Harvest Moon series. Natsume seemed to be out of the picture, but that, friends, was far from being the case.
Natsume still owned the rights to the Harvest Moon trademark as a name, so they went ahead and created their own game, while the ones that Marvelous was still making became Story of Seasons as a result. "For us, we spent a lot of time and energy to popularize this unknown farming game simulation game for almost 16 years. We had a lot of loyal Harvest Moon fans in Europe and America, and we cannot say to these fans that there will be no more Harvest Moon games," Maekawa said in the same interview. Marvelous continued to publish games under the name Story of Seasons, with the most recent being Doraemon Story of Seasons for the Switch and PC, crossing over with the anime of the same name.
The Drama Isn't As Dramatic As People Think
Maekawa said that there's no rivalry between the companies, that it is standard business practice for a company to go with their own publisher. Despite what he says regarding Natsume's games being "Harvest Moon", fans feel otherwise. Players tend to consider Story of Seasons the "real" Harvest Moon because their games usually consist of the original farming and socialization mechanics while Natsume's sometimes try out other activities. They also feel that Marvelous having to change the name was not fair because, by 2014, Harvest Moon was a very popular title with the public. Nine times out of ten a consumer is going to know what that is more than they would know Story of Seasons, so they're most likely not going to reach for that. This is why many people who had no idea about the switch continued to purchase them and became met with confusion seeing the differences.
There's Bias In Everything
Poor success of a title doesn't always necessarily translate that the game itself is bad quality. Factors like marketing and the nature of a fanbase can affect whether a game becomes hit or miss in the numbers. When you suddenly make dramatic changes to a series that's generally had the same favored mechanics and aesthetic for years; so of course longtime fans are going to give it a bad review. This isn't going to be the same for people who are just getting into the series and were not used to the features in play when Marvelous was involved. Story of Seasons tends to stick to typical simulator farming at its core and Natsume is always up for trying something new. Both of these practices have their pros and cons, but it's really what kind of play features you're looking for in a game that should be the deciding factor of what you purchase.
Now you know the story of the Harvest Moon change saga and hopefully, no longer feel confused as far as regarding what happened with Marvelous and Natsume. Happy farming, players!
Harvest Moon: One World launches for the Nintendo Switch and the PC this Fall.
Source: Twitter, Twitter, PC Gamer , NintendoLife