Another round of Harvest Moon: Light of Hope details
– Play as a young girl or boy
– Starting a new life
– Complete basic Harvest Moon tasks like clearing the land, growing crops, shipping produce, and raising animals
– Doing so will entice more villagers to return to the island
– Once you bring back villagers, you’ll be able to help them out with requests and take advantage of more goods, services, and features that will open up further possibilities for farming
– Top-down view
– Natsume is describing the look as “retro plus”
– Combination of drawn backgrounds and soft-edged 3D character and animal models
– In the talking-heads cutscenes, lively, animated models stand behind their dialogue boxes acting out associated emotions
– Can zoom way in or way out using the ‘ZL’ and ‘ZR’ buttons
– The daily grind is very similar to what it was in the original Harvest Moon
– The controls have been streamlined significantly
– Contextual tools all mapped onto a single ‘action’ button
– Walk up to a weed and press ‘B’ to pluck it
– Pressing the same button in front of a planted seed will water it instead
– Clear land, till land, plant crops, pick crops, break up stones, cut down trees, and store found objects
– Can move by tapping and then holding a swipe outward in any direction on the touchscreen
– Interact with anything nearby with another tap
– Can use the touchscreen to access menus and item storage
– Can till, plant, or water a whole section of land by dragging a finger across it
– Plenty of dating events and farming in the final version
– Five bachelors and five bachelorettes planned
– Those who have kept up with the series will recognize familiar faces in the love market
– The recurring appearance of characters — as with the cast running through the original game, Harvest Moon 64, Back to Nature, and Friends of Mineral town — has come up as a common theme when fans say what they love about the classic titles
– Love interests include Buff florist Dean, shy and flustered Jeanne, Melanie
– Form relationships with gift giving, sparkling conversation, and event triggering
– Cows, chickens, sheep, horses, dogs, and Poitou donkey appearing
– You’ll see a cow that gave chocolate milk, a ‘chocolate chicken’ that gives candied eggs, and a pink sheep that produces cotton candy wool
– Candy products are apparently treated differently from their workaday variants in terms of recipes, shipping, and villager likes and dislikes
