Marvelous on Story of Seasons’ name, series will continue, more
At E3 2014, GameSpot and NintendoWorldReport spoke with Yoshifumi Hashimoto, head of development over at Marvelous AQL, to discuss Story of Seasons. Hashimoto spoke about the game’s name, the separation between the title and Harvest Moon and plans to continue the series, same-sex relationships, and more.
You can find excerpts from the interview below. Head on over to this link for the full thing.
On the game’s name…
As for the title change, we couldn’t use Harvest Moon anymore because that’s another IP for their title. So we tried to come up with a different name, and that’s Story of Seasons. The original Japanese title is Bokuj? Monogatari, which is just Farm Life. But the subtitle was Connect to a New World, or Connecting to a New World, and we really concentrated on the “connect” part, because for the first time in the series we have other NPCs who are farmers. Up until now in the series, you were always the only farmer in the whole village, so even though you were working hard and doing a good job, you never had that praise; you didn’t know how good you were at what you were doing. But because you have other farmers this time, they’re sort of like a rival, while at the same time they understand what kind of life farming life is. So you have a rival but a companion too. You have friends that you’re connecting to in that sense. There will be also be Wifi capabilities, so you can actually connect with other users and help out their farmers as well.
On the game’s Nintendo collaboration…
For the first time in the series, we have a collaboration with Nintendo. You can actually grow the Super Mushroom and the Super Star and the Fire Flower. For example, the Super Mushroom, in the Nintendo version, the character just got bigger. But that has no benefit in Story of Seasons, so when you actually successfully grow the Super Mushroom in Story of Seasons, all the crops around it will become giant. For the Mushroom, you’ll actually see it just grow bigger in size right in front of your eyes instead of having to take care of it every day. It’ll just grow up to the size you need to ship it out right away. These are little new features I think the users will really enjoy.
On whether there is anything the team wasn’t able to do in Harvest Moon that is now possible with Story of Seasons being disconnected from Harvest Moon overseas…
That is an excellent question, because I think that’s one of the things that people are really confused about. The thing is, in Japan it’s called Bokuj? Monogatari, which is Farm Story. In America, it was Harvest Moon, but Natsume owns that IP. So even though we’re changing the publisher, it’s the same [series in Japan]. For 18 years, it’s been the same development team, so the game itself hasn’t really changed in that sense, but Natsume’s doing their own Harvest Moon now because we sort of have a different way of looking at where Harvest Moon should go. That’s where we departed each other. So in that, Xseed being part of–we’re in the same company. We’re 100 percent subsidiary of Marvelous AQL, so it’s just easier to communicate on a daily basis from moving on. Before, when it was Bokuj?, it was Bokuj? and that was the end, because the product was done, and it was Natsume who localized it into Harvest Moon. But moving forward, and with this one too even though it’s already sold in Japan, I still working with Xseed to sort of fine tune it for the US audience. Talking about things like is it okay to have the difficulty level the same as the Japanese version, and truly make it a little more difficult? Are they more used to it, or should we make it easier in these kind of parts? Not to change it, not to culturalize it, but to make it so the US audience will experience exactly what the Japanese people are experiencing. That’s one of the things we’re really concentrating on.
On whether Story of Seasons will become a series in and of itself…
So Story of Seasons is a new title, but we’ll be continuing on with the Bokuj? series in Japan. As long as we’re making that and going through Xseed, Story of Seasons will start off a new series. And it goes back to what I mentioned a little bit before, when it was just Japan and I was done with it. Now that we have a US subsidiary, we have more of a relationship to talk about what we can do to internationalize it or to have the same experience in most countries or no matter where you play. I guess the biggest thing would be, there are a lot of farming simulations on social apps and other media, but on consoles there aren’t that many. So to see another one… and as long they’re good, they’ll keep vitalizing the genre, and it won’t disappear. There’s a lot of genres that used to be so popular, but you don’t see anymore just because the demand wasn’t there or the publisher didn’t make any money out of it. So to see another title out, I think that will just bring the bar of the quality people can expect higher, which vitalizes the genre. I think it’s good for the industry as a whole that there are more titles I can compete with.
But we have been creating the Bokuj?–or Harvest Moon as it used to be–for eighteen years, and I do have pride in what we do. So I do not want to lose to them.
On same-sex relationships…
That’s a tricky question, because no matter how I answer it I get criticized for it. But personally, yeah, as long as you fall in love with someone I think it’s okay. But I think it is a touchy subject and difficult because it is for a mass audience. Just looking at how the world changes, and which one is more accepted, I think things will start changing more and more. But we’ll see how it goes.
On there will be any more collaborations in the future like what was done with Nintendo…
The series has been going on for 18 years, so the longtime fans are really sensitive to major changes. In the last one [Harvest Moon: A New Beginning], you were able to completely construct the town however you wanted by placing whatever you wanted. We got some praise, and there were some people who didn’t really understand what to do. That was one thing, and the other thing was to have the avatar system. In the very beginning when we announced that, we got a lot of flak or negative comments for it, but once the game was out, it was actually a positive thing that a lot of people actually enjoyed. So it’s a trial and error, I guess. But for this one, it’s the first time we tried this collaboration, and so far the reception has been really good. I think, moving forward, I will try to come up with more stuff that’s feasible. But the collaboration is a success, so we’ll probably see that in the future as well.
