Hey, all! Tom from XSEED Games here. Figured I'd pop in and join the discussion, if you don't mind having me. These forums seem really nice and friendly, and while I can't say a lot about other Bokujo games, I certainly know plenty about Return to PopoloCrois, and will happily answer any questions you may have (that aren't still under NDA or anything, of course).
For starters, I'll address some of the comments/questions from the last two pages of this topic:
Arcy wrote:The "Story of Seasons" stuff is somewhere between 95% to 100% optional from what I've been lead to believe from Tom's (lead translator) posts on the Marvelous/XSEED forums and from other importers. Yes, the story of Return to PoPoLoCrois is thematically appropriate for a crossover, and yes, you can get neat bonuses from doing the side quests (aka farming and socializing), but you can play through the game's story without touching it. (If there is a required farming or socializing tutorial, I haven't heard of it, but that's providing the margin of error.)
There are a couple short farming tutorial quests that are required, but they're literally 30-second affairs. So yeah, farming is very nearly 100% optional. What you've written here, Arcy, is entirely accurate -- this is a PopoloCrois game first and foremost, to be sure.
Farming does play an absolutely enormous role in the story, however, and I think most gamers -- even those who dislike farming sims -- will find themselves WANTING to farm because of the way the plot unfolds. You'll almost feel kind of bad if you don't, since your farmwork makes a lot of NPCs very, very happy.
I wonder... Is it that "tri-audio" thing? Or does XSeed have something else up their sleeve...?
He never "confirmed" dual or tri audio (and Marvelous Europe only confirmed dual, not triple), just said they were going to try to do it, but my money is on either a preorder feelie or a LE for NA. Or a release date that is sooner than expected.
I'll confirm the "trual audio" here, then -- that is definitely not what I was referring to, but yes, the North American release will indeed feature Japanese and English dual audio as well, with both Japanese audio tracks for Pietro and Narcia present and accounted for.
Sadly, though, there will be no LE this time around. We tried, but we just couldn't make the numbers work.
My teaser is about something I've never yet even mentioned as a possibility anywhere. It should be a total surprise, and I think you guys are going to really like it. Or at least, I hope so!
Gah, Tom's enthusiasm for PoPoLoCrois is so adorable. Its like he's fulfilling his life long childhood dream and he wants to tell the world!
Heh. Pretty much! Though technically, I only found out about PopoloCrois when I was in college, so it's not quite a CHILDHOOD dream... but it's definitely been a dream of mine for like, 15+ years. It's surreal to be working on something Popolo -- like I've come full circle.
He did confirm the simultaneous launch of NTSC and PAL versions of the game.
Not quite simultaneous. Just wanted to clarify that both we and Marvelous EU are targeting Q1 2016/winter, but our releases are not necessarily going to be timed to occur simultaneously. (They might be, of course! But as of right now, we both just happen to be targeting the same basic release window.)
Has he talked much about the animals and the special variants? Or any like, crop upgrade/hybrid systems if there are any?
I haven't, no. And truth be told, I'm not that familiar with other Bokujo games -- I did do some work on both Rune Factory 4 and Story of Seasons, but my work focused solely on character interactions. All the farming stuff was handled by other people.
That said, here's what I can tell you:
There are three types of farm animals you can have: cuckotti (chickens), sumoo (cows), and pacapacas (alpacas). Cuckotti lay eggs, sumoo produce milk, and pacapacas shed fur -- though if you don't keep the animals happy, you get NOTHING!
Eggs and milk are mostly shipped for profit, used in side-quests, or used in item synthesis. Pacapaca fur has all of those functions as well, plus a more practical use: you can use pacapaca fur inside a dungeon to warp back out to the dungeon entrance (according to the item description, the idea is that you've been spooling it out behind you the whole time you've been exploring, so when you "use" it, you're just following it back out to safety). This can be really useful, because while there IS fast-travel in the game (in the form of fairydust), you're not able to use fast-travel from inside dungeons -- only from overworlds and towns. So if you're in a dungeon and you want to go somewhere else quick, you'll definitely want to have some pacapaca fur on hand.
As special variants go, I know there are golden sumoo, and I think there are golden cuckotti and golden pacapacas as well. These essentially just look a lot cooler, and also produce much more of their respective byproducts. You gain these mostly through quests -- I don't believe there's any sort of evolution mechanic or anything like that.
Regarding crops, I'm not aware of any hybrid or upgrade system per se (the farming is fairly basic), but the relationship mechanics do play into this a bit. Since Pietro has a canon girlfriend in Narcia, he's not trying to romance any of the five "bachelorette" characters -- but he can still increase his relationship level to max with those characters, at which point they'll offer to come to his farm and help out. Once they've reached this point, their happiness will sort of... take physical form, I guess? And benefit your farming in various ways (shorter growth period, greater yield e.g. each turnip you pick is actually worth 2 or 3 turnips, better luck catching bugs, better luck quarrying for ore, or better luck with item synthesis).
There are also upgrades you can get through side-quests to your hoe, your watering can, your quarrying hammer, and your bug net.
...Like I said, it's all pretty basic, but it's fun and engaging, and the inclusion of multiple farms to tend means you'll never be at a loss for things to do, and you're always well rewarded for doing them.
I can't think of much he hasn't said about the game yet, but I'm also not watching much of other people playing it, because I don't want to get tired of it before I even play it, which definitely happened for me with SoS.
Better not to, I'd say -- since it's a more story-driven game, you'll get more out of it if you go into it blind. There are definitely plot twists and moments of high character development, and those will have a lot more impact if you know nothing about them before playing. I tried to be respectful of this in all my character descriptions for the manual and website, as well.
If you guys have any other questions about the game, please don't hesitate to ask!
-Tom
And if that's the case, then it seems like you've got something else up your sleeves then. Well, you've got me stumped as to what it could be.