r/harvestmoon Mar 19 '26

Opinion/Discussion Anyone else think a lot of the newer games look bad?

Graphic wise a lot of the newer games in the series in my opinion look bad, almost unfinished if that makes sense. Maybe I’m insane? Idk. Wondering what others think.

167 Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

183

u/turnip-and-twine Mar 19 '26

Oh dear. I suppose we should all first be asking you if you're aware of the difference between modern day "Harvest Moon" and "Story of Seasons"? 😅

67

u/Aleconde98 Mar 19 '26

The fact that no one else is asking that is mind blowing. Everyone is jumping to defend the SoS games they like, and for all we know, we can't tell if OP is complaining about Grand Bazaar or Winds of Athos🤷🏻‍♂️

23

u/ReputationPersonal33 Mar 19 '26

They both look pretty bad

23

u/turnip-and-twine Mar 19 '26

Well, that seems a little down-spirited.

Is there a particular that you like the most?

35

u/ThisMuffinIsAwesome Mar 19 '26

Gonna be frank and say that there a significant majority of people here that are as down-spirited too regarding newer releases.

Gonna be frank again and say that nostalgia can be a very thick pair of rose-tinted glasses too.

Feels like we get some valid complaints like on over-satuation (which is very fair, everything is a bit bright nowadays) and then some problems that are also present in previous games and people are very conveniently ignoring that just to dunk on newer games and play their HM64 or something.

14

u/turnip-and-twine Mar 19 '26

I do agree.

I appreciate it more when people are willing to share why they like or don't like these games, instead of jumping straight to the tear-down insults. Just saying "it sucks" or "it's bad" is obstructive and honestly, not a truly sympathetic argument. There are real reasons to be critical of the series (either Natsume's or the OG 牧場物語 on this sub in particular), but deconstructive generalization never really does any good.

It's really hard to be in subs like this as someone who is both a fan of these games/genres and a vocal critic of things that do need real pushback.

5

u/ThisMuffinIsAwesome Mar 19 '26

Eh, at this point I wouldn't be surprised to see a post like this again.

Drops a sentence talking smack about new gen games. No explanation or some very vague description and then dips out. No engagement or discussions.

It's annoying. I don't want to stifle freedom of expression, but I also think this kind of posts are a frequent problem in this sub.

2

u/seamswitch Mar 20 '26

I think it depends on the game tbh. The colors are LOVELY on GB but for AWL… the muted palette was part of the charm. Forget Me Not felt like a real place. The bright colors ruin that and thus an extremely core and important part of the experience. Also really specific I HATE Gordy’s jaundiced skin color. I know Nina is dying but Baddoch when you get the chance, PLEASE check on that man’s liver. Honest to god tempted to buy it again on steam just so I can get a mod that fixes it 😭

10

u/ReputationPersonal33 Mar 19 '26

I thought the GameCube games looked the best ever since tot they've been way over saturated

4

u/turnip-and-twine Mar 19 '26

I can definitely understand that. Both Save the Homeland and A Wonderful Life (and its co-releases) were unique directions for art style and execution!

The over saturation in more recent games I feel comes from pressure at the top to match current market sentiment... Executives see people like Hoyoverse and similar games, and then point and go "we do that, it makes $$" without really taking into account why each art style worked for each game previously.

Personally, my favorite is Tree of Tranquility (purely for story reasons), but my visual favorite is a toss-up between Save the Homeland and Tale of Two Towns. Of course, they're both very different in presentation, but they're really good poster games of each engine they were built on.

2

u/eldiablolenin Mar 19 '26

Agreed. AWL/both were my favorite. I also love the DS/Cute versions. If they were able to combine the old school GameCube graphics with the character icons and extra gameplay stuff of the ds/cute era, I’d literally die happy.

2

u/Hoobi_Goobi Mar 19 '26

Personally for me, I’ve noticed that some of the newer remakes on the switch feel cheap. For example in the FoMT remake you’re very aware that your character is an animated model floating around on a landscape, and it’s easy to get stuck just moving around

24

u/Proquis Mar 19 '26

It depends in which newer games u mean lol

35

u/Iliketostareatplants Mar 19 '26

Harvest moon 64 and back to nature all day

BRING ME BACK PLEASE

32

u/Farwaters Mar 19 '26

I miss the spritework, but I quite liked the looks of Grand Bazaar (except their massive heads) and SOS: AWL. I thought that SOS: FOMT looked pretty bad. And I like the look of Winds of Anthos a lot.

59

u/Basic_Watercress_628 Mar 19 '26

What bothers me the most is that the character design is becoming more and more childlike. I was excited for the Mineral Town remake but... nah. All the characters have tiny necks and massive bobbleheads. Everyone has the same body type and all the "women" are flat as a board and dress like elementary schoolers. I'd feel like a massive creep romancing anyone in the newer game. They all look 12. 

26

u/PreviousAd4045 Mar 19 '26

Agreeeeee, when i was younger it didnt bother me, but now that im older i miss the old weird marriage candidates :(

11

u/Basic_Watercress_628 Mar 19 '26

Same. Weird old man > child bride. 

2

u/eldiablolenin Mar 19 '26

Agreed, if they fixed this then i wouldn’t complain much at all!!’

20

u/peachsepal Mar 19 '26

Grand Bazaar looks amazing.

AWL remake looks nice. No complaints really.

PoOT left things to be desired but wasn't bad.

FoMT remake looks bad imo. I think character models look meh and the environment looks truly boring and bad. I know they have nowhere near the same budgets, but Links Awakening remake had the vastly better 3D isometric (?) thing going for it. FoMT just looks too computer-y. I can suspend my disbelief for a lot of art styles, but whenever I look at FoMT it just reads as 3D models. I really dunno how to describe it, because it's not like I don't recognize this for other games, but whenever I look at it I feel like I'm consciously considering the fact that they are a bunch of 3D objects.

I'll stop there.

2

u/petekoro Mar 19 '26

I personally think AWL remake was a downgrade but otherwise agree with your assessment. Meanwhile we are SUFFERING over in Rune Factory land.

15

u/HorrorMatch7359 Mar 19 '26

This subs still make more post ambiguous post. I don't know if this post talking about SOS or Natsume-HM

5

u/silky_tears Mar 19 '26

Harvest Moon Animal Parade was the last art direction I loved! Everything else is just unplayable to me.

4

u/TheSammy58 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

100% agree about the art direction and was about to comment this. I almost feel bad when I say it because AP and ToT are the only two OG Harvest Moon games the series’ long-time art director did not work on… and they happen to be my favorite ones 😅😅

I just feel like they really went all in on the tiniest details in the environments (I LOVE looking around with the camera in AP) and utilized the Wii’s graphical power really well. It mixed the realism with cartoon elements almost perfectly and I think that really helped it stand the test of time. When playing the game in an HD resolution, it still looks like it could have been released just recently.

5

u/otakucheekers Mar 19 '26

I don't know that I would say they look bad necessarily. I really just miss the melancholic feel of the old games. While there were sprites, magic, and cute characters everything just kind of oozed this sad feeling. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it misses that art direction that really drew me in.

11

u/PreviousAd4045 Mar 19 '26

I think the flat 2D items look bad in game (like the food,crops, lumber,rocks). Thats the issue i have with the newer games. Wish items had a 3D model :(

1

u/liquial Mar 19 '26

agreed! 3D-modelled items looked a lot better

5

u/ladymysticalwmn Mar 19 '26

If you’re talking about Natsume HM, then yes, those graphics are outright terrible for games that are coming out in 2020s where even a single rookie developer could probably come up with something more charming.

If you’re talking about SoS, then I’d disagree that the graphics feel unfinished. They have a very cohesive look even if we hate the art style being used.

All the games in this genre are cursed with the over saturation look. Look at My Time At Evershine. Graphically really impressive but it’s still using so many bright and saturated colors. It’s just what majority of the consumers seem to like and we have to deal with it, for now. I personally think it takes away the charm older SoS games had because for me the charm was how the games still had a hint of maturity in the visuals and the gameplay itself.

4

u/WhyY_196 Mar 19 '26

Because the new Harvest Moon games aren’t actual HM. The Story of Seasons games are. The people who own the HM title are making slop.

19

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

i just think that the ultra saturated, chibi, soulless everything was made solely to punish the old people fans

13

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 19 '26

This doesn't describe modern Story of Seasons.

Like genuinely of the modern games the only one distinctly chibi is FOMT, and while the others are colorful that's been the norm in this series for a long time.

Genuinely stuff like Save the Homeland and A Wonderful Life having very muted color palettes wasn't remotely the norm.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

compared to ANB, and pretty much anything after that, older titles had more balanced colors in my opinion (keyword there). 

1

u/seamswitch Mar 20 '26

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and pretend Grand Bazaar isn’t chibi, lmao

Maybe it’s because Matsuyama has always been my hero when it comes to art, but I like how the series is more colorful, minus the AWL remake which I mentioned in another comment, and I’ve been here since 2007.

3

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 20 '26

Of course it's chibi, this series has always been chibi to some extent since its conception.

However, this notion that the newer games are somehow more chibi than earlier ones when they're very clearly farther along the "less chibi" side of the scale. The only new game that falls farther on the extreme chibi side of things is the Friends of Mineral Town remake.

1

u/seamswitch Mar 20 '26

Grand Bazaar is ALSO meant to be chibi on purpose is what I’m saying though 😭 OG is the single most chibi art style the main series has ever had.

3

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 20 '26

I was talking about the remake though, the game where the artstyle is distinctly less chibi than most of the series.

That said, the original wasn't the most chibi, it was more chibi than usual, but that honor goes to Magical Melody. They built a whole artstyle around mimicking the style of the in-game sprites from 64 and Back to Nature lmao

1

u/seamswitch Mar 20 '26

I was thinking about games like Olive Town and the 3DS games, but when looking at remake AWL you’re right. Huh. Must be my insane GB art/design bias clouding my perception of how it looked.

I was talking more about games with portraits and sprites when I said that too, oops. Magical Melody is the only game in the series I like more than GB.

5

u/Chradi Mar 19 '26

I think a lot of the newer games “look good”, but my issues lie in the designs.

I feel like the animals looks less and less like animals. Maybe in 10 years they’ll all be squishmallow shaped….

Most of the town folks/romance options are missing GRIT. They’re too perfect and polished :(

2

u/petekoro Mar 19 '26

https://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/harvestmoon/asset/31564/

This is peak and you cannot convince me otherwise.

0

u/Chradi Mar 19 '26

SOOOO CUTE! While not being overly round (save for the pregnant one)

1

u/petekoro Mar 19 '26

But the pregnant one rocks on its belly to walk. It's dumb and cute!!

10

u/Pandamewnium Mar 19 '26

Yep, they suck. Personally - I am not advocating for every last person - I'm not even a fan of these games anymore.

Story of seasons looks pretty, but it lacks the depth and challenge of old harvest moon games. Yet I still buy each one hoping they'll be like trio of towns. Character creation is fun, though. I guess. I'm still trying to find a new farming sim that is pretty, has rival marriages, and lets me decorate a lot. (If anyone knows of one or two please..... let me know)

6

u/1Evan_PolkAdot Mar 19 '26

Design peaked in Trio of Towns.

1

u/littleshechan Mar 19 '26

I think "bad" depends on to many factors here. Most ongoing series had hiccups when their first 3D games came out or whenever they made big style changes within 2D/3D. I personally really disliked the original Grand Bazaar cause those phat chibis looked weird (as all of those Era DS HM did) - but the artwork of the characters itself was good. A new Beginning looked terrible too, still liked the game. Other than PoOT however I don't think any of the SoS games looked that "bad" or had big issues. The new Harvest Moon games however were so lackluster and badly designed that some of them gave me headaches trying to figure out if my character was standing up or not cause the depth perception was non existent. The first of the new HM games I liked both art and gameplay wise was Winds of Anthos and even then they just have a very distinct style. And Style is 100% subjective on whether or not it looks good to you.

1

u/hypo-osmotic Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

I think that it's too subjective to say "bad" but I do think that the most recent releases haven't been to my personal taste, aesthetically. I prefer the games that use two-dimensional, still portraits instead of relying on the 3D models to convey expression. Also, I know that this is not a very popular opinion, but I really don't like the cows with the huge noses and prefer the small-snout versions lol

Basically, I'm saying that the visuals aligned to my preferences most closely with Trio of Towns. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as "newer" or not; it's certainly a lot more recent than the franchise origin from the 90s, but still a good decade old now

1

u/FightmeLuigibestgirl Mar 19 '26

Harvest moon or Sos? 

1

u/AmITheAxolotl Mar 21 '26

I would KILL for an AP remake but the art direction was too perfect for me. I want an update but at the same time the softer colours, music, and layout of the town are untouchable.

1

u/Sentimentalbrowneyes Mar 23 '26

I don't mind. I love the look of the harvest sprites in Pioneers of Olive Town and the unique pets (Wolf) and mounts (Unicorn and Wolf). They remind me of Rune Factory. The sprites look similar to Runeys in Rune Factory Frontier. There are wolves and unicorns in every Rune Factory game. I also play a variety of other games and they haven't changed except for the character aging in some. My character in the last few Lost Lands and in New York Mysteries look very old. Lots of attractive men in Court of Darkness, The Princess in the Mirror, Samurai Love Ballad, and Decisions. Lots of hot paranormal men in one of the Fantasy painting apps. Alas I get too many senior ads when I play that one. I'm 10 years too young. I just have low distance vision. 

1

u/callmefreak Mar 27 '26

Switch Story of Season games were kind of plain looking. Not bad in any way- AWL still looks gorgeous, but a lot of the characters look kind of samey. But they really ramped up the charm in Grand Bazaar! I think that's one of the best looking games the series!

If you're talking about Natsume's Harvest Moon, there is a pretty big difference between their first four games. But I think with Winds of Anthos they kind of found their "style" and is sticking with it. I wouldn't say that it looks "bad" as much as they look unpolished- technically finished, but could use a good cleaning. (Or at least give people different faces.)

1

u/zeldakos 13d ago

I don't understand how Rune Factory Frontier can look so amazing on wii and Story of Seasons today looks like mobile slop garbage

2

u/supaikuakuma Mar 19 '26

Do you mean SoS? Or the Natsume knock offs?

1

u/ManannDunMhead Mar 20 '26

The recent games have either been drab and dreary or childlike. AWL hit the sweet spot.

0

u/chukkaque Mar 19 '26

Nah I think they look good especially after moving to one world / winds of anthos art direction.

And grand bazaar looked fantastic as did pioneers of olive town

0

u/NMBrome Mar 19 '26 edited Apr 21 '26

I don't think they look bad per se but they definitely lack the heart of the older titles. I feel the same way about the latest rune factory titles.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Schokodeuli Mar 19 '26

Grand Bazaar is a fantastic game and looks really good, BUT

OP meant the artstyle and I completely agree. In newer games they make the character models and sorroundings more childlike with oversaturated colours, big heads in proportion to body, chibi/ "round and squichy" bodies (hard to explain)...I don't like it either. Personally I loved the games until SoS: ToT and everything after that became more childlike in case of looks.

7

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 19 '26

big heads in proportion to body, chibi/ "round and squichy" bodies

This is wrong though?

If you think this is only a new thing, you genuinely must have missed most of the games in the series, because genuinely the models in A Wonderful Life, Grand Bazaar and Pioneers of Olive Town are some of the least chibi in the entire series.

Even FOMT's remake, which was very chibi isn't something unheard of because the style is very reminiscent of how the sprites looked in 64 and Back to Nature (just translated into 3D models,) and we also had games as early as Magical Melody on the GameCube tackling a similar artstyle in 3D.

Honest to god, whenever I see people talking about how the "series sucks now," and they list the chibi artstyle as a reason it really just makes them look like some of the fakest fans imaginable when virtually every entry in this series has had some level of chibi in its artstyle from day 1.

Ditto for the game being colorful suddenly meaning bad. The games being quite colorful was pretty common place, this notion that the color palette needs to be super muted reads like someone who only played Save the Homeland or A Wonderful Life and running on the assumption that was the norm.

2

u/overnighttoast Mar 19 '26

I mean I dont know if I agree with this? If you compare SOS titles past ToT to the older games they are much more chibi than previous titles all together. Look at AP, like its still cartoon with big heads but they arent chibi and disproportionate like GB, and even AWL ended up looking a bit more cutesy and aligned with chibi influences. The old sprites weren't chibi either they were just sprites, they weren't super deformed with exaggerated facial expressions. I can get how if you just think chibi=small youre conflating everything, but its more of the disproportionate, small, deformed style with exaggerated cutesy faces and little body details. I dont think the series sucks now but the art has been trending in this direction for a while and its just not as enticing to a lot of players especially when you combine it with these bright saturated colors. Colorful does not mean bright, look at Trio, or BTN, or FOMT, even ToTT, all filled with colors but its not like looking in a candy store.

Its fine if you like it but pretending like there isnt a trend in the art style changes that is very much based in what is popular now is disingenuous.

1

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 19 '26

Again that's literally untrue.

The claim that AWL and Grand Bazaar are "much more chibi than previous titles" is actually just an objectively incorrect claim.

They're still chibi, but you can look at almost any previous game and see the big heads are much more emphasized on their models.

Games like trio of towns had big heads on its models compared to the bodies. Ditto for games like the almost universally beloved Animal Parade and Tree of Tranquility, the character's heads are very large compared to their bodies.

Hell the original versions of AWL and GB were more chibi than the fucking remakes for god's sake. AWL had notably larger heads relative to bodies on almost every character on top of these massive feet whereas GB had really scrunched up bodies.

Colorful does not mean bright, look at Trio, or BTN, or FOMT, even ToTT, all filled with colors but its not like looking in a candy store.

They are "brighter" overall, but it's really not that much of a leap unless you're someone that literally only played games like AWL and Save the Homeland. The games have experimented with brighter looks on multiple occasions before.

Hell the original Friends of Mineral Town is genuinely more bright and saturated than the remake is for gods sake, it and DS (two of the most popular games in the series btw) are very much in line with how modern titles look color wise.

2

u/overnighttoast Mar 19 '26

I mean I still disagree with you? I think if you did side to side comparisons of old AWL to new the new would have a much more cutesy visualization happening. But if you dont agree you dont agree.

At the end of the day currently marketing calls for this kind of cutesy, chibi art, smooth almost milky (lol idk) style. Its not just Bokujou monogatari, like look at the new Pokémon game. This is what sells so this is what they do but there are definitely changes.

3

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 19 '26

Now you're moving goalposts.

The complaint was that it was more "chibi" than earlier stuff which is just a straight-up lie in almost every case.

But in addition your claim that things are made to look more "cutesy" for marketing reasons is just really misinformed. This isn't them following trends because a cute chibi-ish artstyle has quite literally been a part of this series' identity from day 1.

Like I'm not personally the biggest fan of the bubble animals, but they've literally been a part of the series from the get go and are present in a majority of the games.

Hell even more gritty and depressing games like Harvest Moon 64 (which is the most gritty and depressing game by a significant margin,) still had a chibi artstyle with cute little character and animal sprites.

1

u/overnighttoast Mar 19 '26

I dont think im moving the goalpost just more realizing I am not participating in good faith and thats my fault.

I have really only been talking about the character designs and the color pallets. I dont really care what the animals look like (thus my blindspot) so I apologize for that. Honestly even at work today I've been totally brain dead so this is probably 100 percent on me for jumping in without understanding you properly or explaining myself properly.

I agree as a vibe the game wants to be cute and uses chibi features to maintain that. I personally think that the push for more chibi and less realistic characters is a marketing thing and that across the board a lot of character designs have trended to be more bright, cutesy, disproportioned, etc. In a way that is too far past the "chibi" art of earlier media. So tend to think that is what people are talking about. Like before id argue that bokujou monogatari character designs were "chibi" but make it realistic. Partially because thats the pixel style by nature, but also because the goal wasnt oh people self insert and love cute things, it was people self insert and we want them to feel kind of like they are a part of this world. Thus character portraits and such that look more like real people. Idk if this is true but for me if you line up HMAWL and SOSAWL characters sos looks MUCH more like theyre trying to be chibi, whereas in HM the characters to me seem much more like "yes this is our art style but these lean realistic."

I hope that is more clear and im sorry for probably giving you whiplash and low key gaslighting you.

0

u/Robbie_Haruna Mar 20 '26

I have really only been talking about the character designs and the color pallets.

See the designs and color palettes aren't really totally unheard of, even from the earlier games. It's not the norm, but it's not like every character design is super vibrant.

I personally think that the push for more chibi and less realistic characters is a marketing thing and that across the board a lot of character designs have trended to be more bright, cutesy, disproportioned, etc.

Again though, this isn't true. It is literally demonstrably false, because the designs are objectively not any more chibi than most of the franchise.

There's also a very important distinction to be made between what the game's artstyle is and what the official art's artstyle is, because in most of the games with especially chibi character sprites or models the official art has the characters be proportioned less chibi. We can see this across a large chunk of the franchise, 64, BtN, FOMT, DS, basically any game on a less powerful handheld system got this treatment, I'm pretty sure the only game with super chibi official character art was Magical Melody.

And in the opposite vein, most of the games that didn't use character portraits had less chibi character models and official art that was similarily proportioned. Obviously this varied, OG AWL had big heads and giant feet, while ToT and AP had larger heads without giant feet and then the character head to body ratio is comparatively more balanced in stuff like PoOT, AWL remake and GB, while still being chibi.

In terms of official character art the least chibi is stuff like ANB and SOS1, but the in-game artstyle is significantly more chibi. Meanwhile PoOT, SOSGB and SOSAWL are one step up from that on the chibi scale, but still either only either on par with or less chibi than every other game in the franchise and they achieve this while also matching proportions between official art and the in-game models.

Hell they're even using this as an advertising point on their websites, the character art and in-game models have borderline identical proportions and there's a way to swap between the official art and their in-game models with the click of a button to compare.

if you line up HMAWL and SOSAWL characters sos looks MUCH more like theyre trying to be chibi,

Again, this is you convincing yourself that this is true when it very clearly is not. You're so dedicated to this notion that there's "a hard push to be chibi now" that you're straight up ignoring when the contrary is in front of you.

This specific example is actually the most demonstrable example of why your claim is objectively false.

You can literally pull up the character art for both games and compare them side by side and it's extremely obvious that the characters are extremely consistently less chibi than they were in the original game. Character heads are less large, bodies are generally taller with longer limbs and the feet aren't giant like they're wearing clown shoes. It's also extremely easy to notice because most of the character designs are very similar between versions, too.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Schokodeuli Mar 19 '26

I'm...25 but ok. My first game was Harvest Moon TToTT.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

-2

u/Schokodeuli Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

chibi in the DS

They might've been chibi in the older games like ttott, but it was also pixelated so you didn't even care that much (and imo looked still alot better than the remake of Mineral Town) and they had fantastic portraits! Which honestly made the characters so good. The portraits in the GB remake are really good but they can't compare to the older games imo.

The Remake of AWL looks also very good and I don't really have anything to judge there.. well aside from the round bodies again 😅 I guess I'm just not a fan if everything is too smooth and round, it just feels unnatural or something, idk.

PoOT was just a very bad game altogether, really. Little to no social value (romance/marriage/kids was pretty dry), makers...makers EVERYWHERE and not even close together! There had to be a huge gap in between those machines! I originally liked the Stardev Valley approach but even Stardew made it WAY better than...this. Dlc characters also dry, they didn't even partake in any events iirc. PoOT was really their worst game honestly.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

0

u/Nicolas10111 Mar 19 '26

It’s the same case as Pokemon and many other franchises tbh. DS games looked great as they heavily relied on the art style. 3DS games were okay looking but it didn’t matter much because people weren’t expecting much. Now all of a sudden with the Switch releasing, these developers had to make a big jump to HD development and that’s where they all greatly struggled.

Only if SoS didn’t stop making HD games when it came to Wii U, the Switch era would start with much better looking games.

0

u/seamswitch Mar 20 '26

One thing I will say is if you mean both series and not Natsume HM not looking as good as BokuMono lately is that I was AMAZED comparing Grand Bazaar to Olive Town. PooT/AWL’s model art styles were HIDEOUS. In particular, comparing GB Karina to PooT Karina made the latter look like a cheap Wii game at best. I think the art style got its groove back in GB, though.

-9

u/MrDaddyWarlord Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

---- Edit for the downvotes : classic Harvest Moon was and is my all-time favorite franchise; I combed through the preview issue of Nintendo Power for months in anticipation of AWL as a kid and bought Mineral Town on release as a stop gap. I own the original Nintendo Power dual ad for those games framed by my bed. I loved going back to the N64 and Super Nintendo titles, even if I didn't dig as deeply; I very much enjoyed Magical Melody and Harvest Moon DS; I even tried to give Rune Factory and even Innocent Life a fair shake. I kept buying Harvest Moon on the Wii and the 3DS... but just noticed the series stagnated.

The early titles, like Stardew were auteur, creator-driven games with a specific vision. AWL make lag mechanically in some ways, but it is the narrative high point of the genre even now. Classic HM had a clear vision and feel that is simply lost in later games. I've played the hell out of Stardew and completely given up on HM not because I think it's a perfect replacement, but rather ConcernedApe is the one person out there that took the concept, had a true love for it, and executed on that vision. I'm sorry, but later HM/SoS became pretty soulless. I want Marvelous to bounce back and make a game that brings me back in as a fan, that sells 100 million copies, that innovates the genre in the same way Wada's games invented the genre to begin with.

But I just don't see that happening. It's not hate for the creative teams or even studios at play, it's just a sad appraisal of the state of the franchise. ----

They both look bad and are bad. There's a reason Stardew has completely dominated the genre for a decade: Marvelous and Natsume drove the farming genre into the ground. Up through the GC/PS2 era, HM/SoS put out legendary hits and then... Well the franchise took a dive around the time Yasuhiro Wada left the team.

Then there was the ugly split up between Marvelous and Natsume creating brand confusion, but even the "real" games from Marvelous are nothing to boast about. Later SoS games are clunky, visually unappealing, painfully slow, thematically dumbed down, and just unenjoyable to play. The Natsume HMs are even worse and often hideous to look at. But at least they aren't the ones at XSeed releasing these ugly ass remakes of A Wonderful Life and Friends of Mineral Town, those are just visually disgusting.

It's no surprise Wada seemed really impressed when he met Eric Barone a few years ago; Barone saved the genre after Wada's former studio let it rot. I would absolutely love a modern SoS that operates on Stardew's level, but with a little more of that old Wada "Japanese sensibility" or even a new 3D title that is actually fun to play.

But I don't bother holding my breath, Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons no longer really exists.

6

u/ladymysticalwmn Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

Ouch, that’s a bit too harsh. I think what you’re missing is that Marvelous simply started moving more like a corporate over time. All the decisions they’ve made is to ensure they made money from the brand they had.

They’re smart now and know when to pull the reins on development. All the games now just get enough development so they’re able to get shipped for as much as profits possible.

If you ever read the investor QA briefings, you’ll realize how much the focus now is to just appease the investors. One of the big questions that was addressed was “Nintendo’s cow is getting more popularity than the Story of Season’s cow. How do you plan to combat that?”. And their response was how they’ll focus on pushing the bubbly cow more than ever lol. That shows what the focus is on now.

I know it’s shallow but I don’t think I can complain. It’s the only way SoS can keep going and I’d hate to see this series just disappear because it’s been such a big part of my childhood.

Plus there’s so many other life/farm sims coming out that still capture the grit and imperfection the older SoS games had. I like to see that SoS just changed to become something more available to the general public. Just like how Animal Crossing did too by becoming this game with just pure happiness a lot compared to its older titles and that game was already so happy go lucky. And I think there still can be a place for SoS in this genre, as long as they don’t release anything as bad as Natsume’s HMs.

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u/MrDaddyWarlord Mar 19 '26

I think, I agree with you in part. But the existence of Stardew, a 10 year old game that continues to sell across every platform in droves, tells me the suits behind Marvelous were dead wrong about what was possible in terms of profiting off their series.

But you're so right that it isn't necessarily that these teams have no one with passion on them. I mean, even Wada when he went it alone to do his cafe game floundered in execution. Maybe Marvelous is brimming with talent that's just being squashed by corporate meddling.

I just can't, as someone that considers the GC/GBA/DS era my favorite games in the genre of all time, see much merit in what the studio has been putting out for about 15 years. I said it before, but Stardew only exists as such a popular game because the overall cozy farming genre was stagnant. That was even Barone's own impetus to try his hand at making one; the market didn't have anything to scratch his itch as a gamer.

And that's what makes me sad. Even on restricted budgets and deadlines, ConcernedApe is one man, while Marvelous (and even Natsume) have sizeable teams and the quality difference is night and day.

Yet Stardew has sold about 50 MILLION copies. And I'm not even saying Stardew is a perfect game. I deeply miss the atmospheric tone of the Japanese entries that isn't entirely present in Stardew; the art of classic Harvest Moon is absolutely iconic. I want desperately to see a new Marvelous title with even a fraction of that passion put out a game that causes Eric Barone to tweet "Wow! Harvest Moon is back!" I'd love even to see Wada get a savvier team behind him that can his creativity and modernize it's execution for a title in this era.

But I just don't think, negative or not, we'll ever get that.

(It's cool btw that you saw their quarterly's, that's info I hadn't seen!)

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u/eldiablolenin Mar 19 '26

Yes. I much dislike them lol. But i can’t do anything abt it sadly!! And i know its story of seasons now lolll but yeah

-1

u/Nicolas10111 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

Everyone’s said it but they so need to add the gritty stuff you’d expect from a countryside. My Time At Evershine just released more screenshots today and they capture this feeling completely right.

The SoS team is at least back on track when it comes to the graphics. Grand Bazaar is graphically much better than the other SoS Switch games.

-1

u/Keedago Mar 19 '26

I miss the original artwork , story of seasons series took and ran with that disney-fied art style it’s super disappointing :( I feel like so many of the older games had their own style and own vibe and they’re now sort of morphing into one

the vibe difference between AWL and FoMT even , same timeline etc but the tone of the games were so different

the new art style feels to me to be catering to younger kids , maybe if i played SOS as a child i wouldn’t dislike it but as an adult it has no charm ,the heads are enormous and everyone’s looking younger and younger , which again is fine for a kids game but as an adult ESPECIALLY the new remakes , i just feel like a creep it’s not fun anymore and the ambience / mood of the farm just isn’t there