Natsume has opted to go early with an E3 reveal, confirming that Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories is coming to Wii U this Winter; oddly it's also coming to PC, Android and iOS, which is a diverse mix of platforms.
Perhaps in response to criticism from some fans that the franchise has drifted away from its core style in recent times, the press release making this announcement emphasizes that nostalgia and returning to the roots of the series are a priority. The named 'Seeds of Memories' need to be unlocked by doing the usual Harvest Moon activities - namely running a farm and assisting the locals. The following description is an excerpt from the press release.
Old favorites return in the animal department with cows, sheep, and chickens, along with a horse to ride, and a dog to keep as a pet! Farmers will also have a new pet to take care of, but it isn't what they'd expect... It's a bobcat! The bobcat starts out wild, but as players befriend the animal, can they convince the bobcat to become their loyal friend?
Featuring cooking, fishing, foraging, and mining, players will need to upgrade their tools to find the highest-quality items. Players will also be able to participate in contests and festivals like the Cooking Contest and Starry Night Festival! Woo one of the ten marriage candidates – 5 bachelors and 5 bachelorettes – and find that special someone to make their farming life complete!
The game will be on show at E3, so we'll be sure to try and go hands on. Are you excited about this first Harvest Moon game for Wii U?
Comments 57
Great news, hope more awesome games like this get made for the WiiU.
This better not be anything like The Lost Valley.
Oh man. Haven't played a Harvest Moon since Tale of Two Towns, and never a console version, so I may potentially be all over this. Will need to see the art style and marriage candidates first to really make a decision. Bobcat ? Awesome !! Hope there's alpacas too. Come onnnn, E3 !!
Hopefully it makes it's way to Europe!!!
The fact it's coming to mobile devices kind of worries me as to what the game will actually be like. I imagine it'll be an eShop game and not a fully fledged retail title.
Well, i dont think that we europeans will see it in the next 5 years anyways.
But its bought as soon as it does
Eh. I was not fond of New Beginning (which I recall was promised to return more to a classic style). The game spoon-fed you it's own content and it bored me to tears. Never made it beyond the first year because my days quickly ended with me just going to sleep because I had nothing to do.
I predict 99 cents on Android and iOS, $9.99 on PC and $29.99 on the Wii U eShop.
Can we woo any of the 10 regardless of gender yet?
I'm so happy to hear this, I was tired of all the gimmickiness.
I bought Animal Parade and was promptly disappointed.
Woah, something is coming to the wii u?!? I'm kinda shocked lol can't wait to play this, i love harvest Moon!
I need this.
I'm glad there's going to be a new console version harvest moon. I have trouble believing the mobile version will be a lot like the wii u version. Then again, if they went back to a 16 bit like aesthetic, it may not be that bad
Never played a Harvest Moon game so maybe i should try this one? I don't know this is great for the people who like the series.
will be getting this game. I actually like Lost Valley.
I'm desperately hoping "return to roots" means something similar to Friends of Mineral Town or the games from those days. I want to freak out with excitement but will probably keep that tempered, judging from recent Natsume entries...
Still, this is fantastic news. A playable build at E3 would be perfect!
Ooooh, a third party Wii U game. I hope they have decent bachelors. Rune Factory 4 is so bad in that regard that I almost wish I had played as a guy.
I doubt it, but they could even allow same sex couplings to make it less of an issue. I probably would have gone for Forté, Margret, and even Clorica before Vishnal.
Well it's not Bokujō Monogatari. But color me excited all the same. It sounds like they are going in the right direction. Plus I love me console Harvest Moon. Exciting news!
I hope it's good.
So is this a real harvest moon or a fake one like the last one was?
Can't wait! It's hard to get my head round the fact that it isn't really Harvest Moon even though it's got the name
I just hope it isn't as tedious as Lost Valley...
Hooray. While I prefer rune factory this is still great news
@Radbot42 depends on what you consider a real harvest moon.
IoS and android? Hype is dead
Get out of here! This is pretty funny, nastume has no roots. This was never game, and they were pretty horrible at localizing the games. This is going to be a huge flop, just like lost valley. I have no hope for this.
@Radbot42 it's another lost valley. They own the name but they are not the long time makers of the original harvest moon
I have too many Harvest Moon games going on right now. I'm playing A New Beginning, A Wonderful Life, Rune Factory 3, and Rune Factory Frontier.
IF this was a marvelous game I would have screamed with joy. But this? I don't know, I'll keep my opinion to myself until I see the game.
If its similar to A Wonderful Life on Gamecube then I might have to buy it
Let's hope this is as good as Animal Parade on Wii or better. I've been asking for Harvest Moon on the Wii U for a long time, so I'll buy it if it's good.
I'm pretty excited about this! I've been waiting for a Wii U Harvest Moon for quite some time. I'm bad about finishing them but still love starting a new one.
A classic eshop version for $20-$40 would be just fine. But without marvelous, we'll have to see what they're really going to be.
@Okumei I can't really vouch for his personality, but Leon would probably be the best looking of them if not for his ridiculous get up.
Never bought or played a Harvest Moon game. Might give the Wii U version a try...
I'll wait on this one. Hopefully Marvelous creates their own WiiU game...
Is it develeped by Marvelous Entertainment? If not, then it is not a true harvest moon game. But if the gameplay looks good. I might consider it. I am skeptic to trust natsume on Harvest moon games ever since Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley.
Ugh please let this be a good one. I've been wanting a Harvest Moon game for WiiU for ages.
Never played harvest moon before, if i like what i see i might buy it.
Is this going to be the first HM game on PC?? Interesting. I don't have Wii U, or any mobile device. The Lost Valley was a great game. It's sad so many people refuse to give it a try just because Marvelous didn't make it. A good game is a good game, regardless of who makes it. All this 'it's not a true game in the series so it MUST be awful' talk is a really silly way of thinking IMO.
Then again, I'm pretty tired of the 'real' HM games now. They're growing rather stale. My last HM game was A Tale of Two Towns and I don't plan on getting any future HM game. Natsume's game is a refreshing take on the series, IMO. I wish lots of the features in the game was in the main games. These should have been in the main series from the start :/
I have three Harvest Moon games on Wii if you don't count the SNES original on VC and Rune Factory Frontier.
Magical Melody - The first Wii Harvest Moon and the best of the bunch. Unfortunately it's just the Gamecube version but without the ability to play as a female character.
Tree of Tranquility - A real letdown. Graphics, audio, loading times, long walks, loading times, no widescreen, and lots of loading times and long walks. Probably the worst HM game ever.
Animal Parade - Basically the same slow frustrating engine that Tree of Tranquility runs on. Couldn't get around playing much of it, but looks a bit better than Tree of Tranquility.
It's sad to see all Wii Harvest Moon games being either gimped or running on a slow bad-aged engine. I liked Harvest Moon on SNES and N64 best. No long ways, no long loading times, no frustrating controls, no bad 3D graphics... Hope they go back to that 16/64bit style.
@Donjwolf
It goes both ways. The reception for the recent Marvelous games is improving, and Story of Seasons in particular attained the best overall reviews HM has received in a long time (78 at metacritic right now, against 63 from ToTT and 74 from ANB). Fan reception has been equally positive, particularly with the people that hated the slower pace of the other recent games (on the other hand, the people that loved ToTT and ANB were not that happy with SoS new fast and streamlined approach to farming).
And yet, the fact that you are downright dismissing EVERY present and future game from the franchise as long as it is made by Marvelous, and at the same time you are accusing people of not even giving a chance to Lost Valley makes your advice seem contradictory if not downright hypocrite.
And speaking of giving a chance, a lot, if not most of the people that hate The Lost Valley do so because they played the game, and were massively dissapointed by it (the ones that did not played it on the other hand, mostly ignore it). And since that is the only precedent we all have as far as farming games developed by Natsume, they have fair reasons to be visibly dissapointed that this game is again made by them. . And if they give a chance to the "true Harvest Moon" despite of some horrible recent offerings, is because they know the Marvelous team still has what it takes to create the ocassional decent enough farming game.
I hope we get a Rune Factory game soon too. Frontier on the Wii was epic.
@Donjwolf
Its not so much that its "not made by Marvelous" but rather that what fans have come to enjoy and generally expect from Harvest Moon is actually a separate series developed solely by them.
Just because Natsume localized them doesn't mean they can successfully replicate them, which s exactly what they're thinking. Most of the hate is from people who see Lost Valley as a poor attempt at doing so, not just from fans who see it as Natsume milking the name, but from people who actually played it. The game seems to have scored horribly across the board, that includes retailers such as Amazon.
Personally, I'm one of the former, but while I may not like that they're reusing the name I still would like to see them make a good game. If they're going to do it, they best do the series' name justice after all. Ruining the name it is exactly what fans are concerned about in the first place.
OMG A NEW WII U RETAIL GAME FROM AN ESTEEMED SERIES... OMG THIRD PARTY SUPPORT THAT ISN'T INDIE OR LEGO...
.....
"also on iOS and Android"
crap it's only a mobile HM game coming to the eShop
A third-party retail title....on Wii u! Wonders never die!
On the Natsume forums they say a European release is planned, with details to follow: http://www.natsume.com/community/showthread.php?s=88132159cbe0a8849c4fa7182085563f&t=3475
I hope they make it happen, and give it a retail release while they're at it too.
Q: Are you excited about this first Harvest Moon game for Wii U?
A: YES! Yes, I am excited for this news. For some reason, even though my only devoted Harvest Moon experience has been Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, I've had a desire to play another Harvest Moon game for the last couple of years.
For some reason, I don't feel like I'd enjoy the experience of a Harvest Moon game on my handheld, I'd much rather sit down at home and relax with such a series, so I passed up on the later 3DS entries and have been waiting for a console release. With the whole Story of Seasons thing that happened, I figured my hopes for a console based Harvest Moon were dashed, but lo and behold, my Wii U shall be graced with a Harvest Moon title.
Hopefully I can re-experience the same joys as I had with playing Harvest Moon for the first time on my Gamecube. I look forward to hearing more about this instalment at E3.
Keep in mind, this is not going to be a real Harvest Moon game, y'all.
Umm the description of the game sounds just like the last 4 harvest Moons and Runefactory minus the dungeon crawling. I hope its something refreshing but doubt it will be. Let's hope cause its a series which deserves great sequels.
It's awesome to read about a new Natsume console game, and on WiiU! I'm up to speed on the developer backstory, and my take on it is there are even more games to enjoy! Farming with a relationship tree... it's not that hard of a concept for different teams to take in unique directions. And Harvest Moon has had so many twists and turns over its entire life, that it's tough to say what elements a "true" HM game must have. My only hesitation with this if it will have a heavy dlc/free-to-play vibe given it's cross developed for mobile.
Great news. I hope they go back to the style of the Harvest Moon 64 and Back to Nature.
If it is going retro, I hope that they go with a sprite based design.
YES! I'm going to try and restrain my excitement until there's some more info released but a Harvest Moon for console is LONG overdue! I know Natsume's last entry wasn't very good at all but that doesn't mean this will be bad, they just tried something new and it didn't work. It sounds to me like they've realized that and are taking it back to the roots, which is exactly what they need to do! This has me even more excited for E3 now, let's hope it doesn't disappoint!
I find it amazing that Natsume has the balls to say the series will return to its 'roots', even though Natsume NEVER made the original games...just poorly localized them.
Natsume will NEVER get ANY of my money ever again. They're pathetic.
The only good side to this is maybe Marvelous Entertainment will see they need to make a Wii U game for XSeed to localize.
Return to "roots" huh
hehehheheh
A lot of you are confused! This is not a real harvest moon game. It is a rip off.
Check out the E3 demo on youtube, It is nasty ugly. Wow. It is a IOS or Android looking game.
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