Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley

Asside from this games bizarre backstoryThe original Harvest Moon games had a unique title to Japan. Natsume, deciding they wanted to make their own farming game, and already own the trademark stateside, made a new game under the Title Harvest Moon. Marvelous, no longer able to release a game under the name Harvest Moon due to Natsume owning the Trademark on the name, is releasing it stateside as Story of Seasons. So Harvest Moon is not actually an entry in the franchise that we have come to know, but Story of Seasons is. :p, This game is pretty great thus far. Only a short ways in. The Map you do your farming and what not is freaking huge. And customizable! You can 'dig' which adds soil, and actually lowers the ground. You can use that soil to place in other places to elevate it. (You can also buy soil.)

At first it is only you there, and a sprite of some kind. You agree to cultivate the land to revive the goddess. A trader shows up, and it seems depending on what you do, more people start to show up. (After you grow the set of flowers you get, a person shows up who can sell you more flower seeds comes in.)

Not very far, as I said, but I am SO looking forward to writing up a blog about this when I"m done. It may not be the original guys behind Harvest Moon, but Natsume did a good job with the formula. Let's see if they keep this up!

I was wondering why there was two Harvest Moon games coming out in such close proximity. Especially since I'd heard there wouldn't be anymore Harvest Moon. I guess whoever's article I read regarding that situation was either misleading, or I misunderstood. Just not a Harvest Moon from the original company. And then there's still Rune Factory games, and now Fantasy Life. So many ecology simulators. Now we just need another Animal Crossing. Unless I missed one

Oh well, more competition on those fronts is good. They'll all be innovating trying to steal each other's fans. And maybe one will come along that really captivates me. I still need to try Rune Factory 4 and Fantasy Life. But I'm always curious as to what Harvest Moon is up to. I always kinda shrugged them off until PeanutbutterGamer kept doing reviews of them. Now I'm intrigued but not quite interested enough to play one. But almost! I'll keep an eye on this one as well

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Originally Posted by Vyk

I was wondering why there was two Harvest Moon games coming out in such close proximity. Especially since I'd heard there wouldn't be anymore Harvest Moon. I guess whoever's article I read regarding that situation was either misleading, or I misunderstood. Just not a Harvest Moon from the original company. And then there's still Rune Factory games, and now Fantasy Life. So many ecology simulators. Now we just need another Animal Crossing. Unless I missed one

Oh well, more competition on those fronts is good. They'll all be innovating trying to steal each other's fans. And maybe one will come along that really captivates me. I still need to try Rune Factory 4 and Fantasy Life. But I'm always curious as to what Harvest Moon is up to. I always kinda shrugged them off until PeanutbutterGamer kept doing reviews of them. Now I'm intrigued but not quite interested enough to play one. But almost! I'll keep an eye on this one as well

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How many did PBG review? The only one I can find is Animal Parade. He's mentioned them a lot, but I haven't seen a lot of full reviews.

I just really don't feel much attraction to the series these days. Rune Factory gives me everything Harvest Moon does, with added exploration, more features (like better mining and fishing), sidequests GALORE, and more interesting NPCs in the town.

I may be wrong. I watch a lot of random PBG videos while bored. He does mention them a lot, so I get a lot of exposure to them through him. But yeah, I'm not sure how many videos he has dedicated to them, it just felt like he had more

...I'm having a hard time saying that this is a game you should play.

The absolute freedom and customization of the farm land is fantastic, I'm making basically a slowly elevating garden, and a bitchin' flower bed serving as an ornamental walkway out of my home into the wild land area. Elevation you farm at has a chance to give you unique vegtables as well.

But you don't go into town. It's people showing up in your place on certain days. You really end up without the same chamr other harvest moons or Rune Factory have. Still some great characters and what not though.

I woudl adore for some of these aspects to leak over into the original team or the Rune Factory guys (not sure when we'll se the next game due to Marvelous shutting down a while ago. I've heard nothing on what was to become of Rune Factory 5. :( ) But damn, there are some fantastic elements in this game.