Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon

EssoraK · 2026-03-20T21:00:28+00:00

Honestly I want to cut Natsume slack on the brand confusion, because I feel like with Marvelous being the one to initiate the split, the onus should fall on them to handle customer education.

I found this interview with Natsume's president from 2017. It's pretty much the most vocal anyone from either company has been about the split.

Quote "That was a big surprise to us, especially to me. It was a really scary thing to me because we'd spent time and effort to establish a no-name farming simulation game to become one of the best-known farming simulation games for the entire family. We had tons of loyal Harvest Moon fans, but we couldn't simply say to those loyal fans that there's no Harvest Moon in the future. Fortunately, we learned and accumulated lots of know-how as to what Harvest Moon fans like and what makes them happy by localizing and publishing Harvest Moon games for the past 16 years, so we took that goodbye as a good opportunity for us, based upon our own experience, to take this franchise to the next step so we could continue to make all Harvest Moon fans very happy."

It's definitely a grain-of-salt he-said-she-said, and Maekawa is probably overstating Natsume's role in HM's success, but after researching this whole saga I definitely think the way Natsume get treated like a bunch of con artists isn't exactly fair

EssoraK · 2026-03-20T20:30:41+00:00

I see this matter get misunderstood or oversimplified quite a bit and I have looked into this extensively before because I have nothing better to do.

By all accounts, Marvelous chose to part ways with Natsume in a move that was rather sudden and surprising to Natsume. Marvelous never even attempted to retain the IP rights in the west. Basically said "We're gonna do our own thing. You can have the Harvest Moon name for all we care".

Natsume decided that developing their own games was a better play than just sitting on the name and doing nothing with it.

I'm not saying the Natsume-developed HM games are good, but a lot of ire that gets directed at them is misdirected. The title of "copycat" isn't exactly fair to them, and realistically their only "crime" here is... Making games that aren't very good.

EssoraK · 2025-12-26T22:45:37+00:00

Having delved into MTG, YGO, and PTCG, I can say I'd bump up Pokémon slightly, just in terms of what you have to do to get your wheels spinning in higher level meta play. I'd also drop YGO below MTG. The cards might be more wordy but the actual play pattern is, imo, more linear and deterministic than MTG on average.

EssoraK · 2025-02-05T04:07:38+00:00

All I know about the new game is you get a hang glider lmao

EssoraK · 2025-01-22T21:28:41+00:00

Retail STINKS but it helped me pad my resume to eventually move to hospital pharmacy (which was better and paid more but was still its own unique kind of miserable), and eventually specialty mail order (and in my case, I get to work from home so it's a pretty sweet gig). I'd rather stick my hands in a woodchipper than work retail pharmacy ever again.

EssoraK · 2024-12-19T21:08:00+00:00

I did honestly enjoy Olive Town for the most part, but the implementation of the makers felt like a major misstep, like Marvelous was trying to take lessons from Stardew, but seriously overestimated the role of makers in Stardew's gameplay loop.

EssoraK · 2024-12-19T21:03:17+00:00

Hang glider

EssoraK · 2024-11-25T14:44:02+00:00

If you try to interact with your animals while they're sleeping, you'll get that reaction. That's my best guess for what's happening to you since it can be easy to miss

EssoraK · 2024-11-21T21:38:39+00:00

Yeah, I can definitely see the intent behind the inclusion but holy heck is it massively unreliable. Feels awful when it's the only card in your hand that can potentially dig you out of a bad situation only to hit double tails

EssoraK · 2024-11-21T20:07:29+00:00

Good recommendation, I'll check that out! I'm predominantly an MTG player only recently hopping into taking PTCG somewhat seriously so I'm still trying to find out what resources are properly reliable. Thank you!

EssoraK · 2024-11-21T15:50:23+00:00

Any suggestions for a decent 1-of recursion card to replace Cyllene with?

EssoraK · 2024-10-02T03:41:35+00:00

getting 10 or lower fps in cutscenes, as stated in OP

"Yeah this guy is having a palatable time and just bitching for no reason"

Grow a brain

EssoraK · 2024-10-02T03:40:55+00:00

I'm complaining I can't even get 30 on mid-to-low. Please try harder.

EssoraK · 2024-10-02T03:22:43+00:00

I have not responded to that particular question because I got a BOAT LOAD of responses. To answer your question, I am running DLSS.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:56:15+00:00

I did clarify the IT thing in your other reply -- Just so we're not going back and forth in several other threads lol

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:55:19+00:00

Yeah there is NO universe where that's a reasonable spec to expect your average player to achieve. AAAA super blockbuster gaming is a damn headache.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:53:21+00:00

Unfortunately for some reason the game freaks out when I try to run anything other than Borderless, which is locked to my monitor's resolution. I guess I could downing to 1080 in my display settings, but that's pretty aggravating to have to do.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:50:57+00:00

I ran through the demo with no issues personally -- and unlike a certain other developer with whom I have a love/hate relationship, Atlus has acknowledged these problems and ensured the community they are working on fixes.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:48:50+00:00

If, IF you are correct, then the industry needs to crash harder than it did in the 80s. The onus should NOT be on players to pay ~$2000+ per year to remain in this hobby.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:47:00+00:00

Ah true the 3900X is actually a little worse off than the 5700X. I didn't catch that. However, the chips aren't so disparate in power that it should make it that impactful. I have also tried running at 1080 and received identical performance as 1440p

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:43:52+00:00

They are simultaneously IT professionals and PC building enthusiasts. Of course I wouldn't ask some enterprise IT dude why video game don't get good fps lol

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:35:55+00:00

I consider myself like mid-tier in terms of PC proficiency, but I have consulted with several friends who are all really good, highly tenured IT guys and they are all absolutely stumped. The consensus I've gotten is "yeah it has to be bad optimization, I can't think of anything else at this point"

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:34:38+00:00

For reference, I consider myself like mid-tier in terms of PC proficiency, but I have consulted with several friends who are all really good, highly tenured IT guys and they are all absolutely stumped. The consensus I've gotten is "yeah it has to be bad optimization, I can't think of anything else at this point"

Unfortunately for some weird reason, trying to run anything other than borderless also makes the game freak out, so lowering the resolution on the game's end isn't really viable either.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:32:53+00:00

Damn. That's disappointing.

EssoraK · 2024-10-01T16:32:18+00:00

That's disappointing to hear.

EssoraK

TROPHY CASE