Ushi No Tane Harvest Moon News Issue 55 http://www.fogu.com/hm November 01, 2005 Hello hello again! The Harvest Moon party went on today in Japan and Marvelous announced two new Harvest Moon titles. The first is a Nintendo DS game called "Rune Factory" and is in the New Harvest Moon sub-genre that also includes Innocent Life. The game is being developed by Neverland Company, who are the same folks who did Frontier Stories for GBA. The game's description is so bizarre... that I'm not sure if I'm even understanding it correct. It appears to be a Pokemon-like game where you become friends with monsters in order to capture them to place on your farm. Captured monsters are then raised to be your party members in an RPG environment. There's even a screen shot of the monsters wandering around in your crop field! It is expected to be released sometime in 2006. The second thing they announced was the fact that they have started working on an online version of the series. There was no information on whether it is a PC online game or if it is for a game console (DS, PSP, etc.) but it is in production :) I'm guessing it's the DS game that Nintendo hinted about during E3 2005, but I could be wrong of course. Supposably MMV will also stop making "for girl" versions of the game after HMDS For Girl is released, as they begin to include both male and female heroes in their games. Both Famitsu and IT Media attended the party, and have placed articles on their web sites. They include screen shots of the new Rune Factory, new shots of Innocent Life, and the new poster girl of the series, 13 year old Riko Narumi. She is in the new tv commercials for HMDS For Girl. Famitsu.com party article IT Media's article about MMV's HM party Marvelous is also having a Club Nintendo giveaway like they did with the pigs when Songs of Happiness was first released. This time it is a plushie cow, but larger then the ones we received when we preordered FoMT and AWL. You can see pictures of it in the two articles from Famitsu and IT Media. You can see Narumi-san's tv commercial on the HMDS For Girl website. http://www.bokumono.com/series/corosute_girl/tvcm.html Until next time! - Where to cows buy their gifts? -- From a cattle-og Ushi No Tane Harvest Moon News Issue 55 http://www.fogu.com/hm November 28, 2005 The Playstation Portable version of Back To Nature, "Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl", was released in Japan on November 23rd. Over at 2chan (a very large Japanese message forum), the players have mentioned that you can change the 4:3 screen ratio seen from prerelease screen shots into the wide screen PSP mode. Making the game display in full screen does remove the grassy border around the edges of the game view. You can switch it back anytime by checking out the bookcase inside your farmhouse. The game also had a little bit of load time when moving from area to area. It is bearable though, as it only takes a second to open up the world map, but up to 3 or 4 seconds as you walk through the village. The girl side of "Boy and Girl" will still end your game after you view the marriage ceremony. The boy side plays as the standard Back To Nature from the year 2000. Marvelous' farming-battle hybrid, Rune Factory, has appeared in the latest edition of Nintendo DREAM. The article gives a little more information but not much. You have to purchase weapons to fight the wandering monsters with, and there is a magic system as well. You have to fight and capture the monsters before you can befriend them. The article also says that the festivals are still in the town, and it has a picture of the Harvest Festival. The game has a female heroine who is there to help you with your farm. Neither the hero or the girl have official names yet. A previous Famitsu article mentions that Rune Factory also uses the Nintendo Wifi system. You can send messages to your friend's game and even open a Wifi bazaar to buy and sell items with. Marvelous launched their Rune Factory web site last week but there isn't much content yet. Just a few screen shots and a notice that there will be an update sometime in December. Marvelous' Rune Factory web site http://www.mmv-i.net/game/ds/runefactory/index.html Nintendo DREAM, page 46 http://www.fogu.com/hm/scans/051127_nindreamp46_runefactory.jpg Nintendo DREAM, page 47 http://www.fogu.com/hm/scans/051127_nindreamp47_runefactory.jpg As for River King, Lexa on the UNoT forum noticed that the video game store she works for has a new released called "Harvest Fishing". The game was published by Ubisoft and it is the UK version of "River King: Wonderful Journey". For a change, the UK gets a game released before North America. Congrats to those of you on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Now I'm going into my closet to sulk.... Until next time! - Why can't cows drive boats? -- Because they can't steer their udders! *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* POLL QUESTION Last issue's results: Q: Would you attend a Natsume-sponsored HM party? 39.0% = Most definitely! 37.3% = Depends on when and where... 23.7% = I can't afford to travel to California. 00.0% = I eat earwax. <- Whaaa no votes?! Yummy! (Total votes: 59) This issue's poll: Q: Should the PSP version of HM be localized? Vote at http://www.fogu.com/hm/hmlist/poll/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*