Round-Up The Animals Again, In The Complete Edition Of Harvest Moon: Light Of Hope

Not sure if I'll ever get into this series, but they look really fun

That's, uh, nice I guess. Kind of already have it 😅

I wonder if they'll announce a new one at e3.

@Natsume if you're reading, please update the game to let me play without having to sync a controller 😀

Waiting on bokumono! And rune factory. Although I have heard that Natsume is improving...

The sub-par-phone-game graphics always put me off on this game. Can anyone tell me if it's actually good?

@Anti-Matter Yeah this game looks mediocre. Have you played Stardew Valley though? As a fan of the earlier games I can say it of equal or greater quality. It would be difficult for Natsume to make a more worthy successor than SDV.

@BKPyrexx Wait for the actual Marvelous-produced entry, now known as Story of Seasons since Natsume owns the "Harvest Moon" trademark. Not necessarily the upcoming Doraemon-themed one, just the next SoS in general. Or there's Rune Factory 4 and 5 coming up, if you need some questing with your farming.

"Light of Hope Special Edition Complete" - now that is a mouthful. Much easier to just say "64".
Or whatever we're up to by now (1028-bit?)

@Wanjia
How about My Time At Portia? It is one of the best games I've played in quite a while in the genre, despite the bugs that they have just recently ironed out.

@Nathan The bugs / glitches for the Switch version of “My Time At Portia” are worse than ever (for me at least) after the patch. Completely unplayable in some areas. I had no problems (well, “game breaking” problems) before the patch. Now I definitely do. This is just following the same normal everyday game day routine (which I had no problems with before the “patch”). Now I can not even make it halfway through a game day (before something happens to make the game absolutely unplayable). 😡

Seems they just rushed out this patch without even checking it first!

Some examples:

• When trying to spar with an NPC, a black screen occurs whilst the battle music plays, then after a while it simply goes back to the game and my player is frozen and unable to move.
• When trying to pet animals in the barn, a glitch where a neverending (game freezing) animation of petting that animal sometimes occurs.
• When trying to take photos for quests, you are told “maximum photos reached”, which renders the quests uncompletable. Deleting the photos does not work or fix the situation.
• After climbing off my horse, my players head is twisted around in an oddly disturbing angle.
• I can not complete commissions or give presents. Whenever I try to give any of the NPCs anything (presents or their commissions) the game breaks. Sometimes my character freezes and can not move. Sometimes I can move but my players arms are stuck in a “reaching out” (“giving presents”) position and when I try moving, my player starts sliding [instead of walking]. I can not do anything at all [talk to NPCs / pick up items / enter buildings etc.] whilst my player is [stuck / until new day, or reset] in this position.
• Posting comissions on the Civil Corps board can freeze the game completely.

These are all things that I could easily do before the patch (except for the photos one). Now the game is just a complete mess.

if I can't be gay I aint playing. Periodt!!!

Just not digging the art style. It looks generic and reminds of that cheap art you'd see in budget children's books.

I mean, I know I can't even draw a chair but... when your own older games in the series look better, that's really saying something. The GBA titles are much more appealing to look at than this even despite the much lower resolution.

@theabstractart you can be gay and play any games you want. Lol no one is stopping you

@konbinilife I mean have same sex relationships in the game

@Nintendzoey Let me just say, as a fellow gamer, I feel your pain! I know how it is to have a game I should like, crushed by bugs. Thanks for the post, though, I had wondered about this game and now I know I can wait for others in the genre.

@dugan Thank you. It really is a shame, as I was loving this game. There is so much to do and was one game that I really had trouble trying to put down. If it was not for the bugs / glitches, this could easily be one of my favourite games in this genre in a long time.

To be honest the more I see of Harvest Moon since the HM/SoS split the more I shy away from it. I've been a fan since the very first game but somehow I really cannot get into the "new" HM's art style and not having heard anything good about these games isn't helping either.

@Nintendzoey have a thanks from me as well! I was sort of eyeing Portia since it was announced for Switch and this is quite important to hear.

@BenAV Personally I'm more interested in Atomicrops and Stardew Valley.

@KarateLuigi The worst part is how many hours I have sunk into this game. It is basically the only game that I have been playing since it was released (I pre-ordered it). I have fallen in love with this game, to be perfectly honest.
[I was not really experiencing any problems at all until this “patch” was released. Now, it is unplayable. 😔]

@theabstractart Same, brah. Forced hetero in life-sim games is really dull. It's like... I can either choose to be female and try to pretend that the most feminine male romance option is actually a girl, or I can choose to be a male which is just... meh.

@Nintendzoey aw man... sorry to hear that. Not to point out the obvious, but if you haven't yet it might be worth contacting support if reinstalling doesn't help. Either way, here's hoping they'll fix these issues someday, they sound rather nasty. I shall be crossing my fingers.

@KarateLuigi Thanks. Hope I can play it again soon. 🤞

I just hope Natsume can come up with a better "Harvest Moon" game someday. (Plus I like their company name heheh)

@Wanjia
Light of Hope is the best reviewed of the new Natsume Harvest Moon games. While it's a big step forward in gameplay it's also a big step backwards in visual fidelity, mainly because they took their 3d assests and turned them 2d. It's honestly not a bad farming game mechanically, but the design is the killer.

@theabstractart and @Nekonokatzen
I've never understood why people praise Stardew Valley for having every character be bi and making the male and female romances exactly the same. It's a cop out.

@KarateLuigi
Like I said before each release is getting better, if you can find this game used for cheap and you've already gotten burnt out on Stardew Valley it's not a bad option really.

@Wanjia
There's 4 new Natsume games. The Lost Valley (3ds), Skytree Village (3ds), Seeds of Memory (Mobile), and Light of Hope.

Both The Lost Valley and Skytree Village had the Minecraft style over world.
The Lost Valley had no town and villagers would just occasionally visit your house in the mountains.
Skytree Village had, well, a village and refined that Minecraft style a lot more, too bad it was still clunky and super slow making the game feel bad to play.
Seeds of Memory was basically just a beta for Light of Hope, which makes sense when you realize it was originally planned to launch on everything Light of Hope did.
Light of Hope took the characters from the other 3 games and put them into the engine of Seeds of Memory and then made it feel just a bit less mobile game-y than Seeds of Memory.

Overall, is it a masterpiece? No, but, if you like this genre of game there's very little options right now, and even less if you don't use PC. If the only thing you have to play games on is a Switch, and you're burnt out on Stardew, Light of Hope is something to look at, specially over My Time at Portia with all of it's game breaking bugs.

@Tejan hmm, even with each release getting better it still doesn't entice me at all to be honest, especially when looking at screenshots or descriptions including yours (Minecraft style? Mobile game-y? I'm afraid it's a very hard pass from me even if I were to ignore the art style). Which doesn't necessarily apply to future instalments, of course, so I shall continue keeping an eye on those.

The thing is I'm way more interested in Story of Seasons, the whole relationship + family aspect and thus also visuals are the main reason I play them. Which is why Stardew Valley for example never managed to interest me (got it for co-op only and I still cannot imagine myself playing it alone - it doesn't add anything of note for my personal taste while also lacking what I love most about HM/SoS. Basically why settle for this or new HM if there's a whole franchise - old HM/SoS - that suits my taste way better?).

But I digress. While I still have to pass I genuinely do thank you for your input and for the insight!

@KarateLuigi the gameplay of the 3DS games is really nothing at all like minecraft, its just the blocky presentation of the map (the games let you raise and lower the height of the squares of land), that triggers the comparisons.

That style is only present in the 3DS games so far.

But why tho?
Doesn't matter how much content the game has, the core mechanics are unbalanced and broken, the characters are bland and one-dimensional, and the game is simply not fun.

Stop it Natsume. Just about every Harvest Moon fan knows the actual franchise is Story of Seasons now.

@Nintendzoey
Wow... 😟
Is that really true My Time at Portia Switch version unplayable after lattest update due to another glitches?
How about the PS4 version?
Does the PS4 version have same problem?

@Wanjia
Of the 4 new Natsume games:

Harvest Moon 3D: The Lost Valley, the first released, is a 46 Metascore with 4.2 User score

Harvest Moon: Skytree Village, the second released, is a 59 Metascore with a 6.5 User score

HARVEST MOON: Seeds Of Memories is mobile only and has 4 stars on Android and 3.5 on iTunes.

Harvest Moon: Light of Hope (on the Switch), the fourth release, is 62 Metascore with a 5.5 User score

Critically, Light of Hope is the best of the new Natsume games. Now if you mean of all games ever published by Natsume, we've been talking about 2 completely different things this whole time.

@Wanjia
And mobile games are artificially inflated with almost nothing coming from mobile having a score lower than 3 stars ever.

Hell, Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning, probably one of the top 5 best Harvest Moon games is only like a 70 on Metacritc.

It's like I said, before, it's not a very good game, but if you like the style of game it's a good game for you. Unlike My Time a Portia, Light of Hope actually functions giving it a higher score there, though it has suspiciously long load times. Like I said, if you only have a Switch and you've gotten burnt out on Stardew, Light of Hope is the next best game for people that like farming sims.

On PC, My Time at Portia is a much better game because, while still glitchy, you can use the more horsepower of a PC to bruteforce through a lot of issues.

But eitherway, your mind seems made up as you asked for evidence and then immediately claimed it didn't matter. I'm not going to continue further, but please do keep an eye out for the next Harvest Moon title because if they decide to use the money they made off this to hire an competent artist and listen to the legitimate criticisms from this game it should finally reach the heights for some of the less well remembered games like Magical Melody.

@Anti-Matter My game is basically unplayable after being “patched”. Not being able to give presents or commissions (without glitching) is especially troublesome [as it is a big part of the game].

Not sure about the PS4 version. I play the Switch version (as I like the portability of the game). Hopefully someone who plays on PS4 can answer you.

@BenAV Ouch! That put a stake right through my heart...

@BenAV oh...