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Natsume’s booth was quiet and unimposing for a South Hall entry. Right next to the obnoxious loudness of Midway and Eidos sat our mild-mannered friends, with their fishing games, farming sims and offbeat RPGs. We made our way to the not-quite-soundproof booth at the center of the exhibit, entering a room filled with stuffed-plush cows and thirst quenching Arrowhead water. Therein we talked about games where nobody died, and kindness is a tool of the trade. Natsume, we love you.
Graham Markay was our guide through the new roster. There were two new Harvest Moon games on display this year; A Wonderful Life for GC and Friends of Mineral Town for GBA.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life seems to answer many of the complaints fans of the series have had over the years. For one thing, the game is much longer, lasting a full 30 years this time, frighteningly full of possibility. Once again you can choose your mate, but this time you will grow older together, and your child will age as well. The entire environment will change with time.
Days are longer, so that you can get more done. But the seasons are shorter, given the length of the time period. 40 new characters are introduced as well. The animal herding is more involved – there’s a lot more you can do in terms of animal upkeep and interaction.
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town takes the basic premise and relationships of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (PSX) and makes it portable. Of course there are extras too - more minigames, and new scenarios for example.
In case you’re not hip to the farm life sim thing, Back to Nature was about a young lad who returns to his grandfather’s farm after the old man’s passing away. This boy must turn the farm into a profitable and successful venture inside of three years, or face losing it forever. Sounds trite, I know. But the gameplay, the relationships and the atmosphere are all utterly engaging. This game should be no different.
Naturally there will be connectivity between the two games – the example we were given was that the bartender from the GBA game can wander into the GC world, and new scenarios will pop up as a result.
Cima was the next object of discussion, a fantastic looking RPG from Neverland, makers of the Lufia series. And, well…people do die in this one (see paragraph one), but at least there are ramifications. This is the first of a trilogy of stories. The Cima are a race of beings that live in a dimension parallel to the human world. The main character is a guardian of a portal between the worlds…princesses, rifts and cultural difference enter into the story just where you’d imagine they would.
But the story promises to be heavy on the emotion, and very based on relationships. Perhaps the most encouraging advance promised by the game is the NPCs. The idea is that there are no NPCs in Cima, only APCs, Active (un)Playable Characters. The villagers and travelers you meet may or may not join your party temporarily, but their main purpose is to guide you through dungeons, give pertinent information, and build a relationship with your party. Further, they can be killed, if you don’t protect them. If they die, you lose your information source. This raises the stakes in a pretty damned fantastic way.
Cima will come to the US before Japan, that is to say the end of the 3rd quarter this year.
The playable demo at E3 was pretty nice; 20 minutes of gameplay just to show off the variation. The battles are realtime (what I saw of them thus far, at least), the graphics are superb, and the interaction with the APCs was…contrived, but has the potential to be very worthwhile. Look forward to this one.
River King was the last title we touched on; the GBA sequel to what is likely the most popular fishing RPG in the world. Care to dispute it?
This one is going to have a deeper story than previous iterations, and will just be better all round. I’d love to get my hands on this one, it’s too wacky to leave alone. If Natsume ever goes under, we’ll never see games like this in the US again, at least not with this level of quality.
Graham fielded a few of my other questions as well – have some answers:
Gekioh may very well hit the UK in the near future, for one thing. Good news for our pals with the funny accents.
And as for whether or not more games like this might be released in the future, saving shooters from mangling at the hands of XS games, the answer is ‘maybe.’
It was at this point that I mentioned how every copy in my area is sold out. And how many persons purchased the game at my recommendation. He says he’ll take a look at the sales records and see how the game did, as games come across his desk at least twice per week. It’s a possibility. If I can influence Natsume such that they publish and localize more shooters…then this whole ‘website’ thing will have finally paid off.
Brandon Sheffield
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