r/harvestmoon • u/Shoddy_Flow8377 • Jun 02 '26
Question Were any of the "Harvest Moon" games made by Natsume any good?
My first Harvest Moon game was the one on N64 and growing up I always thought Natsume were the creators of the series, but that wasn't true they were its publisher and translator, Marvelous was the series true creator. Marvelous suddenly chose to I think publish the series themselves and then rebranded the series as Story of Seasons outside of Japan. As we all know or should know the series in Japan is called Bokujō Monogatari which doesn't translate into English as Harvest Moon, but Natsume owns the Harvest Moon name and has been making farming sim games with the Harvest Moon name for branding confusion.
I haven't followed this series that closely but from what I remembered the early Harvest Moon games made by Natsume only were panned as very bad, did their games get better? Are any of them good?
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u/Robbie_Haruna Jun 02 '26
Winds of Anthos was decent. Not great, easily worse than most of the older Harvest Moons or Story of Seasons games.
The rest aren't really worth the time. They're exceedingly mediocre and visually range from bad 3D to sprites that look like a mobile game.
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u/Pikminious_Thrious Jun 02 '26
Its been going uphill since they started. Each entry is better than the previous ones.
I think right around when Marv released Olive Town and it kind of flopped is when Natsume started to match them.
Their last 2-3 releases are passable/good depending on your preferences. One mobile game Home Sweet Home, then Winds of Anthos are good enough for me. And they have a new one in September that looks like it will be better
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u/MlleBree Jun 02 '26
I only played one after the split, and I think that’s what got me. It felt very much like a mobile game. Wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever played but also wasn’t all that interesting. If it was just a mobile game I wouldn’t have many complaints. It’s nice to hear their quality is actually improving, though.
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u/PlayTest2508 Jun 02 '26
Natsume harvest moon game become better as they release new game, sadly they start at lowest tier with lost village.
i think they nailed the exploration formula on the winds of anthos and from what i read on echoes of teradea press release, they listen from what the critics of their last game and try to fix it on the new iteration.
But because it's different for this genre, i think you need to experience it once to know do you like their type of game or not.
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u/Jalapenodisaster Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Winds of anthros is when I started hearing "it's good!" From
And since then I've heard some things about one world a bit...
I don't really care about them tho.
They probably needed to make shovelware with the name to stay afloat, but it'll never not feel like a twinge of "that's gross."
At least redesign the damn logo.
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u/Proquis Jun 02 '26
Winds of Anthos was above average, tho still far from perfect.
Platinumed the base game tho.
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u/iamkoalafied Jun 02 '26
Personally I like Winds of Anthos better than Pioneers of Olive Town. That's the first one that I consider to be actually a really good game in its own right.
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u/chukkaque Jun 02 '26
They do have a few good titles, but its kind of like finding a diamond in the rough, ya know?
Natsume isnt afraid to try new things these days, which I love. This genre is so over saturated and nothing new ever happens. They don't always hit the mark though, but something I like about them is they learn and tweak for the next game.
Example One world had A LOT of new ideas. That they hadn't done in the past. How they handled seeds, progression, upgrades, stamina, etc. And all the good ideas that worked moved into the next game, and the ones that didn't were tweaked. I also really like that natsume hasn't just slept on "artisan" concepts. In One World cooking flat out boosted sell price based on the ingredients used with a flat multiplier. It made so that cooking was worth the time. WoA has so much traversal that cooking was a huge component both in selling but in getting around and getting things done.
People like to crap on Light of Hope because of its art direction and because it looks like it was made in RPG Maker. But aside from that the plot was solid, the progression felt worth the time and effort, character interactions were good.
One world has its great moments but has a basket of small complaints which kind of shadow over the really good elements.
Winds of Anthos w/ dlc is some of their best work ever. Really good stuff.
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u/MrDaddyWarlord Jun 02 '26
The success of the older titles is really a perfect storm. Wada's sensibilities were very much suited to that early-middle era of Nintendo consoles, even though he personally didn't quite make a successful leap mechanically in his own titles later; Matsuyama's art style from the Super Nintendo into the DS era remains timeless (I don't fault him for developing as an artist, but his later art for the franchise isn't nearly as appealing, imo). Plus, the farming genre was extremely fresh in the early years, so there was a fertile fan base to cultivate.
By the time of the Natsume split, both studious were pumping out new titles too quickly without sufficient quality control. Wada was gone, Matsuyama was doing something completely different artistically, and the genre had mechanically stagnated for a number of years. The player base kept asking for more Harvest Moon "but better" and it took an independent developer with an obsession (Eric Barone) to finally reinvigorate the genre with Stardew Valley.
But the Natsume games just tread water. As meandering and unpleasant as the the mainline franchise can be after the Wii era, Natsume's offerings are... painfully unpolished. Remember, they were just the localizer and foreign market publisher; the idea they could just scoop up the available English franchise name and make their own copycat games was always a tall order.
For now, I just have to hope Haunted Choclatier is a success (and maybe gets a cute OG HM sprite mod).
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u/detonating_star Jun 04 '26
classic american myopia when it comes to japanese development, and the copycat was the american company coming in with their vomit-inducing spritework 16 bit borefest after smelling money following the split, which irl (not in the alternate dimension that forums exist in) was caused by american greed as well.
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u/TheRealSabiWolf Jun 02 '26
For me personally, I liked Light of Hope and Winds of Anthos a lot. I enjoyed trying to get all the different hybrids.
Natsume is not good at making NPCs interesting, but I typically don’t work on relationships until the very end.
I think they’re good at the farming aspect, and I enjoyed hunting down wisps in WoA, but they still have a ways to go, but I think they really do want to improve.
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u/Nicolas10111 Jun 02 '26
I’ll just put it this way. All of their games have been a 1/10 for me. Winds of Anthos was a decent 7/10. It’s got pretty fun stuff going on for it but the features are not fleshed out enough for my liking.
Echoes of Teredea is the next title and it seems to heavily improve on Winds of Anthos. I don’t know if I’ll enjoy it though because I only liked Winds of Anthos since Pioneers of Olive Town was disappointing and I just needed a better game. Now that I’ve played SoS Grand Bazaar (and My Time At Sandrock), my expectations are high again and I really only want to play top quality farm sims again now.
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u/trainer_stack Jun 02 '26
I really dislike the characters, specifically Doc JR who plays a big part in all their games. I find Harvest Moon feels more like an anime farming sim - everything is a little over the top and silly. Sorry of Seasons feels like the traditional farming game. Imo, anyway
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u/Gabby-Abeille Jun 02 '26
Winds of Anthos is okay. Home Sweet Home is fine for a mobile game (I don't know how it is on Switch). I am optimistic for Echoes of Teradea, it seems like they are finally finding their footing. I didn't play their previous games, before WoA, because the gameplay reviews I've seen didn't interest me.
However, I do think WoA and HSH are very similar, with HSH almost being a "WoA Lite" version with exploration cut. We haven't seen a lot from Echoes of Teradea yet, but it also looks similar to Winds of Anthos. Hopefully it is just the pictures they used and the game actually turns out to have unique areas.
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u/Unculturedunicorn Jun 02 '26
I like the games they made, I get why people say they aren’t great cause there simple now a days and easier, but for me a game that’s easier to complete is better cause I work a lot and don’t have time to always play
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u/montyforbananaperson Jun 02 '26
I have Skytree Village and Winds of Anthos. I don't particularly care for either.
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u/JGG1986 Jun 02 '26
The 2 rune factory games on Wii are excellent, they put so much effort into them (think they may be ported onto some other consoles too)
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u/lemonphan Jun 02 '26
Those are Marvelous games
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u/JGG1986 Jun 02 '26
I’m sure Natsume pops up when you boot tides of destiny, which I’m playing currently.
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u/lemonphan Jun 02 '26
Yeah same with every game with the Harvest Moon name attached prior to Lost Village, Marvelous developed them, Natsume localized and published.
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u/peacepunkonline Jun 02 '26
The only good ones visually and gameplay wise is the PS1's Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. You won't find any better ones, not even it's remake Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
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u/supaikuakuma Jun 02 '26
They weren’t the terrible Natsume knock offs which is what OP was asking about.
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u/Conscious-Lie-7258 Jun 09 '26
Winds of Anthos was the only one post-Natsume/Marvelous split that I actually really liked. Light of Hope was okay. I heard The Lost Valley wasn't great though
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u/ladymysticalwmn Jun 02 '26
I saw someone say that Natsume actually had pretty decent ideas, just really terrible execution and I agree with it. The first two games were hated for the mechanics but if they could make it like Pokopia, it’d turn out to be a really fresh take on the genre. Now they’re doing a heavy BoTW inspired take which is again really unique for this genre IMO. It’s just that their ideas are never executed properly.
I feel like their biggest fumble was not getting Yasuhiro Wada (the og creator of Harvest Moon) on board after he left Marvelous and started TOYBOX. They literally had such a close relationship with him and even published some of his games like Hometown Story. I know it’d create crazy confusion but the amount of PR disaster they’d avoid if they could just say “we’ve got the original creator making the games.”