natsume
Latest
E308: A smattering of Natsume simulation screens
Natsume released the slightest trickle of media for Rune Factory 2 and Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness in honor of E3, and because we love them, we'll accept it. Grudgingly. In much the same way, E3 itself has been as skimpy; like these updates -- particularly the Rune Factory 2 art -- every release has packed a punch, but it feels like it's only a taste of something greater. Must we state the obvious? %Gallery-15230% %Gallery-25983%
E308: Princess Debut shots dance the night away
Look what just arrived at the ball in our inboxes! As promised earlier today, Natsume has distributed lots of fresh media for its localization of Cave's Princess Debut, complete with talking animals, an entire wardrobe of accessories, and (of course) lots of dancing with charming Princes. That Cesar is such a dish! Pirouette your way into our gallery for plenty of new screens and art.%Gallery-27282%[Via press release]
E308: Bushels of excitement sprout as Harvest Moon trailer is revealed
A simple, relaxing day on the farm. Sounds like a perfect treat to escape the hustle and bustle of big cities, hostile takeovers and estate settlements. The Pensky file will have to wait, because the brand new trailer for Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness has arrived, and it will charm the pants off you. Natsume was quick to deliver its E3 lineup, and they have already begun showering us with fertile, productive videos and news. Nice one! Go on -- use your powers of vision to check out the above video, then use your powers of purchasing to buy the thing when it comes out. Harvest Moon is a pretty failsafe franchise. %Gallery-15230%
E308: We fit into Natsume's niche
Natsume will be sharing some DS love at this week's E3 convention, showing off Princess Debut and Rune Factory 2 for the first time. Island of Happiness and Hamtaro will also be on the company's E3 agenda, balancing out the lineup nicely. Harvest Moon fans (like ourselves) will probably be the most excited by this schedule, as we'll get more media and details on Island of Happiness and Rune Factory 2, which come out this summer and fall respectively. At the same time, we can't help but be intrigued by Princess Debut. Depending on how the "adventure" parts work, it might be the closest thing to an otome (girl's dating game) that we've seen for the DS outside of Japan. We're also not going to complain about the rhythm-based dancing segments, as we're rhythm game fiends. Granted, all these titles are rather niche, but we wouldn't take Natsume any other way. %Gallery-25983% %Gallery-27282%
Harvest Menagerie
Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility already features some wild and exotic animals not usually found in the adorable farming series, like friendly ostriches. The newly-announced sequel seems to be going even further down that wacky path. For one thing, it's called Bokujou Monogatari: Waku Waku Animal March (Harvest Moon: Exciting Animal March). For another, animals like a lion, a giraffe, a hippopotamus, and a zebra can be seen in the art found on the new game's website.Other than the new animals and a new, older-looking pair of player characters, Waku Waku Animal March looks strikingly similar to Tree of Tranquility. Check out the screens at Famitsu and more at Dengeki. It will be interesting to see if Natsume picks this up for localization or if the new Marvelous USA takes care of it themselves (through XSEED).[Thanks, ASH!]
Natsume officially introduces Princess Debut
Gamefly recently posted a listing suggesting that Natsume taken on publishing duties for Cave's Princess Debut. The company sent out a press release confirming the rumor, and officially announcing Princess Debut for the fall.In Princess Debut, a girl magically enters a fantasy world in which not only is she a princess, but she will attend a ball in thirty days, and must therefore learn to dance in order to successfully impersonate a princess and win the affections of one of six princes.The game involves two parts: an adventure portion in which your character must interact with the princes and convince one to dance with her, and a dancing segment featuring touch-screen-controlled ballroom dances. On her way to one of 14 different endings, the erstwhile princess can unlock 20 new outfits.While this is clearly not targeted at us, we like to see new interpretations of the "dancing game." This is like Dance Dance Revolution, except with more revolving.%Gallery-27282%[Via press release]
Natsume makes us a happy blog with new Harvest Moon screens
The fine folk at Natsume just sent over a couple of new screens from latest installment in their popular Harvest Moon franchise, upcoming DS title Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. For those of you familiar with the franchise, you should pretty much know what to expect. Farming, tending to livestock and interacting with NPCs is usually the order for the day, so we don't expect this title to be any different. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. We like taking care of virtual cows as much as the next DS-obsessed blog. Hit up our gallery below for the new screens from Island of Happiness. %Gallery-15230%
Harvest Moon: Ostrich of Mobility
Natsume is celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the Harvest Moon franchise* in the best possible way: with new Harvest Moon games. They released new screens today of the Wii farming game Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility, which feature all the best parts of Harvest Moon: planting stuff, caring for animals, riding around on an ostrich -- wait, what? In case all the tomato-growing hadn't quite lured you into the world of Harvest Moon yet, maybe the allure of awkward livestock vehicles may do the trick. *They say it's the ten-year anniversary, but Harvest Moon came out in Japan in 1996 and the U.S. in 1997. It is the ten-year anniversary of the PAL release of Harvest Moon SNES, so it still counts! %Gallery-3745% [Via press release]
Gamefly: Japanese and Chinese Coaches, Princess Debut this fall
According to Gamefly's list of upcoming games, Ubisoft is following up their excellent My French Coach and My Spanish Coach with something that is going to excite a lot of you: My Japanese Coach, with a tentative September 18 release date. Hopefully it's a language trainer and not a game about, say, a tennis coach who happens to be from Japan. It's being joined by My Chinese Coach, with a release date of August 28.In addition, Gamefly lists two unannounced titles from Natsume. Cave's Princess Debut is apparently being released on September 26, and on August 28, Natsume will release Hi! Hamtaro Ham-Ham Challenge, recently announced for Europe by 505 Games. These releases are unconfirmed, of course, but likely.
How tranquil is this Tree of Tranquility trailer?
Lack of press? Lack of press? Why, that's all wrong ... now. The latest trailer for Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility has surfaced, in English and everything. Well, there's only five spoken words from the cheerful announcers, but the gameplay content features some items the harvesting hero is working with, like "perfect turnip" and "used hoe." It looks like a lovely, peaceful game (aside from the vicious attacks). The mix of farming and socializing has always been a great feature of Harvest Moon, and the wait for a full-fledged title on the Wii has been agonizing. Not long now -- August 26th is the time to plant to evergreen seeds of fun. And tranquility. %Gallery-3745%
North America harvests Rune Factory 2 this fall
In the best DS news we'll hear all day (depending on which DS Fanboy staff member you ask), Natsume announced that they're bringing Rune Factory 2 to North America this fall. While we predicted localization would happen eventually, it was always a matter of when, so we're glad to see it being taken care of. Considering that the first game in the series took a year to find its way over here, a nine-month delay (Japan got the game last January) doesn't seem too bad at all.While we initially thought this sequel would be too similar to the original Rune Factory, the premise adds some freshness into the RPG-Harvest Moon formula. In Rune Factory 2, you not only play as the main character, Kyle, but later you take over as his child. The game therefore spans two generations, providing us with double the fun.If you share our excitement, make sure to check out the first English screens in our gallery below.%Gallery-25983%[Via press release]
Why buy the Harvest Moon when you get the cow for free?
There's been a disturbing lack of press about Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. In fact, we've probably seen and heard more about Rune Factory: Frontier than we have about Tree, which came out in Japan last year.What we do know is that preordering the title through Amazon will get you an adorable cow plushie. Of course, it's difficult to tell when you'll actually receive the game and plush doll; Natsume lists "Summer 2008," Gamestop lists late July, Gamefly lists early August, and Amazon lists late August, to name a few of the scattered release dates. Still, for Harvest Moon fans who were planning to buy the game anyway, a cute cow plush is a nice bonus that might make preordering through Amazon the best way to go. It's certainly not the greatest gift ever, but we think it will definitely appeal to the Harvest Moon crowd ... mostly because we're in that crowd, and we want one for ourselves. Gallery: Harvest Moon [Via CAG]
Harvest Moon: Chicken of Happiness
Okay, the bad news first: it looks like that rumored delay for Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness was not only true, but understated: while GameStop still says July 29, Amazon now says August 26, and other recent updates to their listing seem to indicate that they know what's going on. Those "other recent updates" form the good news: if you preorder Island of Happiness from Amazon, you get this amazingly cute plush chicken and chick, both of which look like they came from the Pac-Man cartoon. We don't care when it's coming out or, really, what the game is: we just want the spheroid chicken. %Gallery-15230% [Via CAG]
Rumor: Harvest Moon: Delay of Frustration
Once mooted for a June 8th release, Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness now looks like being held up for almost two months, after Gamestop listed a revised release date of July 29th. Oh, sure, that's not the same as official confirmation from Natsume by any means, but we won't lie to you: we're all worried sick. Our cow, Clover (far right), is so concerned she's barely yielding any milk, the sheep are bleating more than usual, while mealtimes at the old farmhouse are now conducted in deathly silence. Even the chickens look sort of anxious. %Gallery-15230% [Via Go Nintendo]
Promotional Consideration: Moons, Zombies, Dodgeballs, and Tactics
Aside from its preview page tease and Time Hollow's localization, there wasn't much in the way of exclusive DS news in this month's Nintendo Power, at least compared to what we've seen in recent issues.Paging through the magazine, however, we spotted at least two advertisements that we wanted to share with you. As we were tearing them out to throw into our scanner, we thought, "Why not post all of the other DS ads (and the cover)?" Join us past the break for the scanned pages!
DS Daily: Tough choices
The next few months will be filled with a lot a great releases -- perhaps too many. Super Dodgeball Brawlers, Bangai-O Spirits, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Etrian Odyssey II, Space Invaders Extreme, Arkanoid DS, Rondo of Swords, Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles, Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, and The World Ends With You are just a few that we can name on the spot, and all of these will be out before July starts. Unless you have abundant amounts of currency, though, you probably can't afford to buy that many games in such a short period of time. Also, money isn't the only problem. Supposing that you could afford everything you wanted, you wouldn't even have the time to play them all. Narrowing down the field is tough, but necessary. What games that are coming out in the next three months do you consider must gets? And they don't have to be chosen from the games listed above, so go nuts.
River King: Mystic Valley heads on over to Europe
Rising Star announced today that they're bringing River King: Mystic Valley to Europe, a game that we're sure all you European folks have been aching for. More than likely, though, you haven't heard much about this title (which will be called Harvest Fishing over in Euroland). The game features touchscreen fishing, as well as a dramatic storyline (for a fishing sim).Your ultimate task is to rescue your sister, who has somehow fallen into an endless sleep. The only way to save her, though, is to find the River King, a big fish that knows what the cure is. As if that's not trippy enough, you also make friends with the magical creatures you encounter on your way to finding the big fella.A nice feature of the game is its online Wi-Fi, which allows you to have fishing tournaments with friends. The only problem is, though, that you may not know too many people who end up getting the title to make it worth it.In any case, should you be interested, River King/Harvest Fishing hits Europe in June (and the U.S. this April).%Gallery-19826%[Via press release]
Gamestop preorder bonus for Harvest Moon DS Cute is cute
Gamestop can be so cruel to our wallets. We try to resist their silly preorder bonuses that come with games, but at times it's too hard to ignore the temptation. The most recent battle of wills comes with Gamestop's bonus for Harvest Moon DS Cute. If you couldn't tell from the picture above, it's a plush cat! That may not seem like a big deal for many of you -- after all, what's another cheap stuffed animal? -- but here at DS Fanboy, we love cats (especially the "lol" kind). Maybe not as much as we love pugs, but we digress. We like the Harvest Moon series anyway, so normally preordering this game wouldn't be an issue. Yet, since two Harvest Moon games are coming out pretty close to each other, we were hoping to spend our money on Island of Happiness instead. Cute is essentially the same game as Harvest Moon DS, except that the main character is a girl rather than a boy (plus, a few other minor additions). Island of Happiness, on the other hand, is a completely new game with a Lost in Blue meets Harvest Moon concept. We probably won't waver in our decision to stick with Island of Happiness, but if you're a fan of the franchise and haven't played Harvest Moon DS yet, this preorder bonus might make the purchase a worthwhile one. [Via Siliconera]
VC Monday Madness video wrap-up 2/11/08
This week, we've added a bit to our coverage of the Virtual Console releases. Nothing major to alter how we do things here (we hear you're fine with how it is, but always feel free to let us know how we can improve!), but rather a small thing that we feel many of you will enjoy. So, hit up the video above, then be sure to head past the break for the rest of the coverage.
VC Monday Madness: Harvest Moon & Lords of Thunder
Today's Virtual Console offerins are in stark contrast of one another. On the one hand, you have a calm, some would say somber, title like Harvest Moon, where you'll settle for nothing less than having the best farm ever. On the other hand, there's Lords of Thunder, which tasks the player with shooting the crap out of everything on screen.This week's Virtual Console releases are: Harvest Moon (SNES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Lords of Thunder (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Be sure to stop back later for our video wrap-up of this week's Virtual Console games.
