I think people give Natsume too much flak

SNES, HM64, BTN, STH, A Wonderful Life, Another Wonderful Life, AWL:SE, Magical Melody, Puzzle de HM, Tree of Tranquility, Animal Parade, Frantic Farming, Hero of Leaf Valley, My Little Shop, Seeds of Memories, Lil' Farmers, Light of Hope, Popolocrois: SoS, and Doraemon: SoS.
ChaosAzerothCat
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Post  Posted:

Actually the name misspelling makes sense if you know the details. The press the start is a whole other animal.

No one is pretending they are perfect, but the outright venom they get for just making games isn't constructive criticism about their actual faults. There is legitimate criticism leveled at them, don't mistake what people are saying. But there's a lot of outright venom that has nothing to do with that.

Sarcasm and vaguely attacking language isn't conducive for actual discussion.
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KonekoChan
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Post  Posted:

don't come at me with "if you know the details". natsume should know how to romanize their own name. and that was just an example, there's tons more stuff like that. my point was the carelessness that went into their publishing.

if you think i was attacking anyone in this thread OR natsume, maybe some thicker skin is in order? pointing out facts and the poor way they handled the IP isn't an attack. i didn't word it in the nicest way i could have but why should i sugarcoat it?

i wish they WOULD start making good harvest moon games -- competition between brands is never a bad thing, and i could always do with some more fun farming sims.
ChaosAzerothCat
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Post  Posted:

I wasn't trying to come at you. I guess that came out different than I intended. That I apologize about.

To be honest though you keep coming across as a little abrasive. I don't appreciate both you saying I'm coming at you and telling me to grow thicker skin.

Personally between enjoyable and good, I'll pick enjoyable. The first Story of Seasons game, for example, simply isn't enjoyable for me due to the issues I have being too glaring. But I wouldn't say it's bad. Trio is a lot more enjoyable for me, but idk that it's a better game.
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VanillaCookies wrote:Honestly as much as I dislike Natsume's stance on censorship, being LGBTQ+ myself, I think we also need to consider the time in which many of these games came out. Cute was released in the States in 2008, the VERY same year the infamous Prop 8 passed in California and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry was everywhere to be seen. Wide spread support for us really didn't start gaining traction until /after/ that debacle as we were seen as deviants at worst and sometimes at best as caricatures like Jack from Will and Grace. From a business standpoint I get, but do not in any way condone, why Natsume likely thought that including the Best Friends system might cost them sales. It wouldn't be underselling it to say that it was a /very/ contentious topic back then and one I still have a lot of bad memories from in real life.

Was it cowardly? I would say so. But given the target demographic Natsume was trying to sell to I can absolutely see them wanting to appease the cantankerous soccer moms who would have blacklisted the game outright from being played by their children, instead of taking the moral high ground. Again, a case of understanding, while absolutely not condoning. Though as other posters have pointed out Marvelous has hardly been a saint in terms of representation either (Julius' Japanese dialogue is VERY much not okay in AP) and very much conforms to Japan's own societal issues surrounding the LGBTQ+ with their Best Friends system. In essence they throw bones to a niche market starving for representation whilst still segregating the feature under a non-romantic term that won't get their own conservatives angry. I don't know about other people, but while I'm happy to have the feature I'm still very put off by the fact that in 2019 they put it behind a back handed, slap of a name.

Personally while Natsume did a lot I didn't like, the name changing to name one of the many issues, I do wish they'd actually succeed given how much they've been struggling of late. As others have said they did unfairly take a lot of flak for choices made by Marvelous, while Marvelous remains this pristine company in the eyes of many fans. Which really isn't all that fair to hate a company for mistakes that aren't their own. I get disliking them for their personal choices, but too often they're the fall man by virtue of being the localizer.

Note: That isn't to say people are wrong to hate them or be mad. I'm just urging some consideration of the context first. If after that you still hate them more power to you.
ChaosAzerothCat wrote:Most people don't really seem to care about the best friend thing as much as you're implying. Especially since it's not like Marvelous has stepped up until the FoMT remake since. Neither party is really free of guilt there.

Plus the fact best friend absolutely isn't full on marriage. They literally refused to call it as much, even now they still don't.

Most people just consider them thieves, and that's where the venom parts come from really.

I also find it funny that things that absolutely would be Marvelous end have been blamed on Natsume since they started making their own games. You listen to a good chunk, Marvelous' « Puppy Doodoo » doesn't stink and everything (even things Marvelous did) wrong with older games is on Natsume.
Have I been licking Marvelous's « Mr.Gourmet's hat » throughout this thread? No, I've frequently aired my fair share of grievances and criticisms at them in the past. Just because one company sucks doesn't mean the other is automatically good and can do no wrong, that's an extremely simplistic view of thinking, it's not an either-or situation.

My opinion? Both companies suck and I acknowledge neither as the true owner of Harvest Moon. Only the now bought out Victor Interactive and Wada and his team are the true owners, they're the ones who really got screwed over in this situation neither Natsume nor Marvelous and I can't say I have much sympathy for either, especially when neither one's games are up to par to the original Victor games.

I will readily admit though that despite having issues with both companies I easily find Marvelous the "lesser of the two evils" because at least they're not outright homophobic trash like Natsume is and are at least trying to listen to the concerns of the LGBTQ community. Perhaps you two have a point, perhaps there wasn't much Natsume could've done but censor the Best Friend system in 2007 America. But they have no excuse today, in 20 freaking 19 where Gay Marriage has been made legalized in all states to still deny same-« Chicken Hugging » marriage in their games.

And keep in mind, even Marvelous managed to take this step and they're in a country where Gay Marriage still hasn't crossed the legal threshold nor has it been accepted yet among the mainstream. Natsume though is aiming their games at an American audience, where they should be having lesser barriers in place than Marvelous's main Japanese audience!

I ask again, what is their excuse in this day and age?!
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Post  Posted:

This is legit not the first time time I have seen this OP copy pasted everywhere. This was posted on Reddit, once on the LoH steam community, and even before on this very site. And every single time they get called out.

https://fogu.com/hmforum/viewtopic.php? ... 90&start=0



The OP of this Reddit thread wasn’t the OP of the Steam thread but the replies are interesting.

Also I am not fond of people putting Wada on a pedestal and saying his games are the only “real HM” games. As someone said on Reddit Wada and Hashimoto were friends for years and the latter was picked by the former to take over. Hashimoto trained under Wada. Sone fans really enjoy pitting one against the other and it is so rude to them both. Also the FoMT remake are being made by a different team from what I know, as Hashimoto now has his own studio and whether or not he will still work on SoS/HM is unknown.

Whether or not people like the direction the series is going is fine, it is when the fans judge what is “real” and what is not that I find unfair. I never played any of the Natsume games so I have no opinions on them but this whole thing is just tiring.
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Bluie
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Post  Posted:

Copypasta or not, I'll throw my two cents in from someone who doesn't mind the Natsume farming sims, but thinks they could do better elsewhere.

Natsume had been developing games far before trying their hand at the farming genre. Squishy Tank, Hometown Story, The Reel Fishing series, and some other phone games. While it can be argued that they're not great, they're not horrible either. However, I'm of the opinion that they should move away from development in general and just keep localizing smaller titles. I don't know the sale numbers, I won't claim to, but I prefer the Natsume who localize titles like Princess Debut, Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove, Wild Guns Reloaded, and A-Train.

I get that HM was probably their biggest money maker, but as things are now, people are eventually going to get smart about the split with Marvelous and the Harvest Moon well will dry up. It's probably cheaper to develop their own titles than buy licenses to already made titles to localize, but again, a slowly drying well is gonna still dry. I remember being very frustrated around when the 3DS was in it's prime - TONS of kiddy/family oriented games never coming over that I wanted to play so desperately that I ended up importing a Japanese 3DS.

I even took time to point them out to Natsume ( and a few other localization companies) via email, especially the titles that were actively seeking publishers with no bites, but alas, they must not have been worth it or seen as too much trouble. It just seems like their overall push into their Harvest Moon is going to burn them harshly in the long run, and I don't want to see it happen regardless.

The Natsume HM games are OK, but declining in quality. They either need to stop copy-pasting assets (every. single. title. has. done. this.) and figure out how to implement good QoL improvements or go back to focusing on localization. They brought me a ton of joy in my teen years and I respect them for that, but as they are now, it's worrying.

They've never been perfect and they could do better, but we're stuck in a waiting game now to see where their choices lead them. Here's hoping it's not bankruptcy, because there's still potential.
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nightshade2010
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Post  Posted:

actually if what I read is correct the only reason Natsume had hm for so long is because of wada and his loyalty from when the first hm game came out in the us as no one but Natsume would give it a chance

it was after wada left that marvelous finally ditched Natsume who never made a game of overly great quality see HM64 for an example of that or all the recalled copies of tree of tranquility


and it wasn't Natsume's idea to exclude the best friend thing as marvelous didn't like the execution( which has been described as between "horrible and your not missing much") of it in the jpn version of cute and it didn't have much to do with the game ......

and I admit the last game felt like it could of been a side game around the time of AWL like save the homeland (in fact that's what the lady at game stop said it felt like ..).. but we hadn't gotten a real hm or sos game on consoles in what almost 10 years?

maybe if the new mineral town revamp means thell finally make a totally new sos game ......
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SheyenneThunderstorm
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Post  Posted:

I do feel like people giving Natsume too much flak. But I don't disagree with anyone of these companies actions. I mean Natsume Marvelous and Xseed are a businesses that trying to making money and theirs workers are just make a living for themselves at the end of the day. I probably do the same thing, if I was in any of these companies shoes.

It is more cheaper for Marvelous to had their little sister company (XSeed) localized their games for them than having Natsume do it for them. XSeed changed the title cause of copyright law and didn't want a big lawsuit on the table.

Losing theirs main income, you can't blame Natsume holding the copyrights to the title (Harvest Moon) and trying make their own farming games with the same title. After all, Harvest Moon was their bread and butter. Maybe they should've work a deal with Marvelous and Xseed with the whole title naming thing. Like having Natsume named their Harvest Moon games (Natsume's Harvest Moon) and let XSeed used (Harvest Moon). Either way, Natsume is now in a rough spot cause of the times that we are living in. People want their games to burn or do impossible better than creator's of Harvest moon.

To me, SoS going be the real Harvest Moon since the creator of the series is working at Marvelous. However, I'm happy that Natsume making Harvest Moon games. I like having more anime farming games.

Light of Hope isn't that bad in my opinion. Just the look of the game is... Eh... and their other Harvest Moon games isn't that bad either. But their games isn't on the same level like Story of Season or Stardew Valley. Hopeful, Natsume being their A game with this new Harvest Moon game.

End of the day, I do hope for the best for all these companies.
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