From Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons on Switch

Are you a fan of farming simulation games? If so, then you are in luck: next month, March 2021, sees two releases of two closely related farming simulation games. Harvest Moon: One World releases March 5 and Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town on March 26.

But did you know the Harvest Moon game isn’t from the same series you may remember from your youth? And that Story of Seasons is the older series? Let’s look at how this came about.

From Harvest Moon to Story of the Seasons

Things in Harvest Moon country got complicated 2014. Marvelous AQL was the developer of the Harvest Moon titles before 2014, which are called Bokujo Monogatari in Japan, which more literally translates as Ranch Story. Before 2014 HM games where localised and distributed by Natsume in the US, and by Rising Star in Europe.

 

Hold on, here is where it gets tricky: Marvelous and Rising Star decided to localize and distribute the next new game, which was going to be called Harvest Moon: Connect to a new land, themselves in the US. Problem was that Natsume held the rights to the name Harvest Moon!

The Harvest Moon series, first released in 1997 in the US for the SNES, had seen 16 titles on the diverse Nintendo platforms. But this is how after 2014 the new name for Western releases was chosen: Story of the Seasons!

Harvest Moon: One World

The first game in the new game series by Natsume was Harvest Moon: the Lost Valley on 3DS. Though the media reception wasn’t great, I must say I liked the game: it had terra forming added to the farming gameplay. What was missing was a town to explore, but digging until you got the most fantastic landscape was very satisfying.

Harvest Moon: the Lost Valley (2014)

Fast forward to 2021. The terraforming is gone, but so are the weird wide eyed faces of the characters that didn’t appeal to me. We now have a new very sleek looking game coming!

Harvest Moon: One World (2021)

Your journey will take you through five seamlessly connected regions with vastly different climates, each boasting their own unique flora and fauna.
The state-of-the-art Expando-Farm can be packed up and taken with you to pastures new! The people of each region have adapted their farming practices to survive their native climate. To prosper in your new home, you’ll need to pick up the skills of the local culture – maintaining healthy pastures, cultivating rice, taking care of reindeer and more. Sounds good to me!

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is the first fully new SoS game on the Switch, and it’s an entry the fans have really been looking forward to! And as is often the case, you’ll have your work cut out for you: your grandfather’s farm has been reclaimed by nature over the years.

Olive Town – just a stone’s throw away from your farm – is a port town resting gently on the coast of the peninsula. It might be a quiet little town, but it is home to a whole host of unique characters. And while the townsfolk get by well enough in this picturesque seaside locale, a little more tourism never hurt anyone.

Tame the wilderness of the peninsula, discover the flora and fauna that make it their home and unearth the secrets of the world around you. Work with the land to build the farm of your dreams from the ground up. Build facilities wherever you see fit, level up your farming skills and craft everything from fences to sprinklers for crops! And it’s that building feature that is very appealing to me!

Sure is a good month that’s coming up!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *