Natsume on how Harvest Moon is always evolving, divide with Story of Seasons, more

Later this year, Natsume will be bringing out Harvest Moon: Skytree Village. It’s the second game in the series following the split with Marvelous over the Bokujo Monogatari titles, which Natsume previously localized. Harvest Moon now refers to the games that Natsume makes internally.

Polygon spoke with Natsume vice president of operations Graham Markay about Skytree Valley at E3 last week and the franchise as a whole. He commented on how the series is constantly evolving, the divide with Story of Seasons, and more.

Head past the break for some of Markay’s responses. You can read Polygon’s full article here.

On how he sees the game as another evolution for the series…

“[Harvest Moon] has changed ever since I have been working with the series. It’s always kind of changed. We’ve been involved in it for so long, [and] I look at it as Harvest Moon. I don’t look at it like, ‘We lost Bokujo.'”

On Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley…

“We wanted to evolve the series. We had heard things from the past two decades, like, ‘I got tired of going in and out of my rucksack, of the watering can, tilling the land.'”

On the divide between Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons…

“There’s loyalists and they want to say, ‘Oh, I’m never going to play this because it’s not authentic.’ Obviously they’re going to feel that way, but why is it not authentic? Because it didn’t have the guy who developed the last one?”

On how Natsume feels the company is responsible for introducing a generation of gamers to not just the series, but the farming simulation genre as a whole…

“It’s all changing, and every game’s changed. Everything’s evolving and moving. I can’t say there’s a split. This Harvest Moon isn’t Bokujo, but it is, fundamentally speaking, because of the experience. It’s messy, but it’s a good messy. I think everyone benefits from it.”