This past Tuesday, the two newest Harvest Moon games were released in North America - Sunshine Islands, the sequel to Island of Happiness, and Animal Parade can now be found in your local game/electronic stores, so go check them out!

Here's the official press release Natsume sent out for Animal Parade:

Burlingame, Calif., November 10, 2009 - Natsume, a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that Harvest Moon: Animal Parade for the Nintendo Wii has shipped to retail. The game is priced at an MSRP of $49.99, and is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.

"Harvest Moon: Animal Parade delivers the ultimate in farming fun! It features entertaining new characters, a huge variety of fun pets, and exciting new activities, " said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume. "Anyone looking for a family-friendly Wi title this fall should make sure that Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is at the top of their list."

There's trouble in the once-prosperous village of Harmonica Town! Crops aren't growing, the wind isn't blowing, and the five elemental bells are missing. Only the power of the Harvest King can revive the land, but he's nowhere to be found. It's up to the player to find the five bells, awaken the Harvest King, and save the town!

Players will find plenty of exciting activities in Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, including fishing, mining, cultivating crops, and caring for wild animals such as penguins, pandas, and monkeys. Players can take their exotic pets out for walks, teach them tricks, and even ride them around town! When the circus rolls into town, players will also need to help the ringmaster find the escaped animals. Befriend the lion, giraffe, and hippopotamus, or the show is doomed!

and for Sunshine Islands:

Burlingame, Calif., November 10, 2009 - Natsume Inc., a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands for the Nintendo DS has shipped to retail! It is available at an MSRP of $29.99, and is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.

In Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands, players rejoin all of the beloved characters from Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, and meet some new faces as well! Years ago, a powerful earthquake struck the Sunshine Islands chain, and most of the islands sank forever...or did they? It's up to the player to find the magical Sun Stones and raise the sunken islands. As they do, they'll meet new characters, harvest new crops, and befriend animals such as ducks, monkeys, and badgers. Players will grow their farm, care for animals, mine, fish, and compete in festivals in their quest to restore the Sunshine Islands to their former glory. With a little luck, they may even find true love and start a family along the way.

"Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands is here just in time for the holidays! You get to meet some great new characters, train your pets in fun minigames, and grow a huge variety of crops. It's a fantastic Harvest Moon experience!" said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO at Natsume. "This is a great game for players of all ages, whether they're loyal fans or brand new Harvest Moon players!"

-click for more-

Read more • 0 Comments

If you haven't checked out the ever-updating Rune Factory 3 website yet, you should definitely click over now. There have been tons of updates over the past month or two, including new characters, game features, commercials/promotions, and in-game videos - and all in an amazing layout!

Marvelous has announced they will be releasing the single of the Rune Factory 3 theme (sung by the Summer Vegetables) in Japan on November 4th. But it seems like there's no word yet on the official soundtrack. Play-asia.com has sold the previous two DS Rune Factory games' soundtracks though, so hopefully they'll feature Rune Factory 3's as well. We'll let you guys know if/when we see it show up!

And for more Rune Factory 3, you should check out Aubergine Bianca's channel on Youtube.

-Click for more-

Read more • 1 Comments

Yup. That Rune Factory 3 we mentioned a couple updates ago? Information's finally coming out for it. It's for the DS, and its official site is finally up.

Scans. Famitsu scans first. Neogaf has some here, and true-gaming has some too.

Screens. Next, screenshots. Famitsu.com has posted some. Check them out!

Gameplay Details. IGN wrote an article about the game. Here are a few snippets of it:

• the main character's name is Maisu.


• all the classic aspects of RF are still here---raising monsters, farming in caves


• but you can also take plants into battle!


• a "transformation belt" lets you transform into monsters! which will unlock different abilities and conversations


• also, you live in a tree. it's supposed to be much larger and roomier than the usual HM house.

Siliconera also wrote an article: he mainly comments on how the character interaction has seemingly improved. Apparently now, the dialogue and actions of NPCs will actually depend on each other a bit---they'll go about their daily lives as normal, but what they do/say will alter depending on the relationships you form and the decisions you make in the game.

Now, onto the headline.

MANWOMAN ? That's what Siliconera thinks, at least. You can see a picture of our new protagonist up at the right. Do you think it's a boy or a girl? Now see this very amusing quote by the writer at Siliconera:

I don’t have anything against effeminate characters. I’ve played and loved enough Square Enix games, but this…this…manwoman…with his fringe (is that what it’s called?) and bangs and hairband is a bit too much.

lawls. Well, the last time they tried to make a manwoman, they came out with Jamie (Magical Melody). I'm pretty sure this one turned out better.

7 Comments

We somehow have internet access here, yay. However, I'm rushing for time and I do not have my laptop with me so I won't be able to crop out any pictures for you all. I'll do that after I get back.

Screenshots & Art. There are more screenshots and a few pieces of art for the WiiWare game, Ranch Store, including a strawberry cow. Strawberry cows!! Click the link and scroll down a bit to see.

New Characters. Saibara, Nami, and the red Harvest Sprite (known as Nic in STH, among other names) are confirmed characters in Ranch Store. Nami's hair became very messy. I'll upload the character art next week so you can see.


And.. that's it for now.

5 Comments

Heyy people. Sorry for the obvious random disappearance of updates. Hopefully they'll happen a little more frequently for at least a little while (minus next week probably because I will not have access to a computer).

First, last week Cher from UNoT informed us that her issue of Marvelous Entertainment DREAM magazine specifies

• a Rune Factory 3 80% complete (no console announced yet)
• another DS HM 75% complete
• and a Harvest Moon Online! in the works! only in Japan, though, right now. :(


Anyway, we missed a lot of stuff!---most important of which would be E3! So for any of you who didn't see, this was Natsume's E3 lineup:

• HM: Animal Parade (Wii) - September 2009
For the last half a year or so, this was known as "Exciting Animal March." As you can see, it's supposed to be a sequel to ToT.
• HM: Sunshine Islands (DS) - August 2009
This was known as "Sparkling Sun and Friends," and many of you will be happy because for the longest time we thought this was not going to come out in English!
• HM: Frantic Farming (DS) - July 2009
You've seen a couple updates about this. It's the sequel to Puzzle de HM, a new and improved version.
• HM: My Little Shop (WiiWare) - Q3 2009
You've seen a couple updates about this too. We don't have a section up for it yet.
• HM: Sugartown (PSP) - Q4 2009
And you've seen a LOT of updates about this one! It was known as "Sugar Village & Everyone's Wish." (As you can see, they shortened the name, lols.) It's almost like an improved port of the old PS2 HM, Save the Homeland.

They have other non-HM games in their lineup, too. You can see their full brochure here.

As you can see, the official English names have pretty much come out. I would update our own sections accordingly, but I am currently ...

Read more • 1 Comments

Hi.

FF Preview. IGN wrote a preview for that 2nd HM puzzle game, Frantic Farming. Apparently they thought it was seriously an improvement!---or, at least, a serious attempt at one. That's good to hear.

FS Videos. There are videos up on Gametrailer for that WiiWare game, Farm Store, if anyone's interested.

Cow Milking.
Gardening.
Ice Cream!!!


Now for some Rune Factory Frontier stuff:

1UP's Impressions. She didn't really like it. Then again, she's new to Rune Factory altogether, so while many of us are looking for improvements from the earlier RF games, she'll still be comparing it to, like, FoMT. She mainly targeted the camera angle and a "loss of sense of ownership" that she feels really takes away from the appeal of the game.

N-Sider's Review. They liked it. From what I've skimmed, it seems like overall the same stuff as with the other RF games---they just basically did an overall good job with it, I guess. You can read the specifics in the link though.

Siliconera's Review. He liked it, thought there were solid improvements etc., but admitted it didn't make the best first impression as a game. He said RFF just isn't a gateway game (which may explain some of the problems 1UP's writer was having), but undoubtedly good once you can spend a couple hours on it.

That's all for now. Bye you guys.

3 Comments

Natsume's March newsletter was sent out last week, and it features the upcoming Frantic Farming DS game! It's more or less the sequel to the not-so-successful "Puzzle De Harvest Moon", but hopefully this one will be more of a hit. For one, it's set in the world of Island of Happiness, so you'll be sure to see some familiar faces around the game! And while PdHM didn't have much of a storyline, Frantic Farming will have a "story" to go along with each of the 12 playable characters. Make sure to check out the link above for the rest of the new features along with some new screenshots! The game will be available this June.

Gol dodo - A new Sugar Village villager has been added named Gol Dodo (love that last name :P). He shows up one day in your town, having come from a far away land, and has some trouble understanding your language. Check out a video of him in the link!

0 Comments

Harvest Moon: Farm Store, the new Wiiware game that we announced a couple weeks back, finally has had content put up on its main site! Check out the new site here. Just a few highlights from the site:

Videos -Here are some in-game videos. From what I can tell, it looks like this game still has a lot of the classic Harvest Moon elements... just watered down? You are able to go out and purchase seeds that you can grow/harvest, as well as farms animals that you take care of like chickens and cows. But instead of simply shipping the crops or the milk/eggs from your animals, you use them as ingredients in products that you end up selling at your store!

Characters - So far they have up the main characters (boy or girl), the grandmother and grandfather, the Mayor (might look a little different than the mayors we're used to seeing :P), Uncle Takakura, and Vaughn (from IoH!).



Also! The Sugar Village website updated recently, adding a new 'character', seen left. His name is Ponta, and he (she??) is a racoon! From what we can gather he really loves food, and he's a source of some recipes in the game. Now everyone say "awww". :)

2 Comments