{"id":17277,"date":"2022-12-16T12:44:24","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T03:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=17277"},"modified":"2022-12-16T12:44:25","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T03:44:25","slug":"20221216-17277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20221216-17277\/","title":{"rendered":"Natsume has announced a new Harvest Moon title to the dismay and ire of fans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><br><br>Natsume has announced a new entry in the <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> series; <em><strong>Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos<\/strong><\/em> is set to be released in summer 2023. However, most of the reactions on Twitter have been negative. This is likely due to the recent history of the <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> series and its lackluster performance.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We are happy to announce the title of the next Harvest Moon! Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos will be launching Summer 2023! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/HarvestMoon25?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#HarvestMoon25<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QTBpdMCk9T\">pic.twitter.com\/QTBpdMCk9T<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Natsume Inc. (@Natsume_Inc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Natsume_Inc\/status\/1603058626398142467?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 14, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><em>Harvest Moon<\/em> is a series of farm simulator games developed by Natsume. Players are able to grow crops, do various farming chores, and interact with the inhabitants of the farm. In the past, Natsume was responsible for the North American distribution of Marvelous&#8217;s <em>Bokujou Monogatari<\/em> (the Japanese title can be translated to \u201cFarm Story\u201d), which was also published by Natsume under the title <em>Harvest Moon<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, around 2014, Marvelous decided to proceed with the North American expansion on its own as XSEED Games from its subsidiary Marvelous USA. However, the handover of the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Harvest Moon<\/em> IP from Natsume to XSEED Games did not go smoothly, as Natsume retained the <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> IP instead of turning it over to Marvelous and XSEED Games. As a result, Marvelous was forced to change the English name of the <em>Bokujou Monogatari<\/em> series to <em>Story of Seasons<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, while the series continues in Japan as <em>Bokujou Monogatari<\/em>, the English-speaking world has the strange situation of having both Marvelous&#8217;s <em>Story of Seasons<\/em> and Natsume&#8217;s <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> series. Natsume&#8217;s <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> series has not been developed for the Japanese market.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" src=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-696x392.jpg 696w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221215-230805-001-747x420.jpg 747w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Perhaps because of this history, users have been very critical of Natsume for not passing on <em>Harvest Moon<\/em>. What makes this criticism even stronger is the quality of Natsume&#8217;s <em>Harvest Moon <\/em>series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley<\/em> for the Nintendo 3DS, the first release after the split from Marvelous, received a Metascore of 46 on Metacritic. <em>Harvest Moon: Skytree Village<\/em>, also for Nintendo 3DS, has a Metascore of 59. <em>Harvest Moon: Light of Hope<\/em> for the Nintendo Switch has a Metascore of 62. The latest title, <em>Harvest Moon: One World<\/em> also for Nintendo Switch, has a Metascore of 54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of these releases have low user scores as well as low scores from critics. The time between releases is also fast, and many seem to have been made without much consideration. There are also spin-off puzzle games and other games made using the <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> IP, but the quality of these games is not high either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, the <em>Story of Seasons<\/em> series, while not incredibly highly rated, gains a consistent Metascore in the 70s for its releases. From the user&#8217;s point of view, Natsume is using the <em>Story of Seasons<\/em> fan base to churn out new games for a casual audience, perhaps even preying on those unaware of the complicated name change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of this, the announcement of the new <em>Harvest Moon <\/em>game has been met with criticism. Many of the criticisms were directed at <em>Harvest Moon<\/em> for not handing over the IP to the original owner and for releasing only low-quality new titles. It seems that the criticism is harsh on both fronts.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">You may have the original title but the quality of these games are always borderline bootleg. Go play Story of Seasons <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gRP0GA1ONb\">pic.twitter.com\/gRP0GA1ONb<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Ty \u2605 (@azytheboi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/azytheboi\/status\/1603163524372602882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 14, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Great! So excited to see another trash game presented by Natsume as a way of saying &quot;we own the name we can do what we want&quot; when in fact the original games developers transitioned to story of seasons and are doing and amazing job. Please Natsume&#8230; Just give it up&#8230;<\/p>&mdash; \ud83e\udd81ardo (@LeOnaRD__oN) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeOnaRD__oN\/status\/1603132323683131393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 14, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>The fact that the series is continuing suggests that Natsume believes it can expect a certain level of sales. Perhaps they are reaching out to casuals and others who have not seen the harsh criticism of <em>Harvest Moon<\/em>. If Natsume is going to face the criticism, they need to start by improving the quality of their games.<br><br><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Written by. Connor Lawless based on the <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/articles\/newsjp\/20221215-230805\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">original Japanese article<\/a> (original article&#8217;s publication date: 2022-12-15 17:43<\/em> <em>JST)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, a new entry in the Harvest Moon series, has been announced. However, most of the reactions on Twitter have been negative. This is likely due to the recent history of the Harvest Moon series and its lackluster performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-17277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Natsume has announced a new Harvest Moon title to the dismay and ire of fans - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, a new entry in the Harvest Moon series, has been announced. However, most of the reactions on Twitter have been negative. 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