About the Natsume HM games...

[Lenna36]

I agree with Kikki. You assume too much about people you don't know. I never played the DS games either with the exception of Tale of Two Towns. So I wouldn't know Pete either. Though with ToT/AP, it was only one repeat. Natsume is reusing characters for the 4th time. Is is wrong to reuse characters? No, but it does get boring for those who feel that the social aspect is fun. I like meeting new characters so this is my biggest gripe.

As for the HM vs SOS, I enjoy both. For HM, I like the farming mechanic. My personal years in game record is in Skytree. So Natsume is doing something right in my view. HM games keep my interest longer than SOS. They provided me with the right balance of risk and reward. With SOS I quickly lose interest after my MC is married. It happened again with Trio despite my efforts to continue. While in Skytree I continued on to work on mutations, terraforming, and villagers' requests.

So I'm just a bit more old school than I thought. I feel that Natsume needs to up the quality if they want to win over more fans. There's more competition now then there was before. So the strategy needs to change.

Edit: Wording.

[Bluie]

Well, coming from a person who's enjoyed the classic and newer games (both Bokumo and Natsume's), a lot of the arguments stem from those that Cher mentioned have 'aged-up' with the series. While there's a lot of new people here, there's also a lot of people who have been here for a long time (ie: me, it's been over 10 years now since I joined this forum.)

I feel like 'back in the day' we just took whatever HM game came our way and complained about stuff after release. HM64/BtN/FoMT all shared the same cast as iirc, the former two were close in development cycles while FoMT was their transition to the GBA and it seemed they were banking on people's nostalgia with familiar/loved characters.

Natsume hasn't really reached that point yet where we don't mind rehash casts, because they don't have the same install base + the characters aren't super likeable imo. To their credit, they did add new bachelors/ettes when Skytree came around and the only reused characters were the 'magical' characters and Sam. If their track record stays, they use the same cast for two games (LV=SOM, STV=LOH) and then they'll move onto a new cast, which is kinda normal. Games these days are always reusing casts or rehashing an old game into a better version.

As you haven't played them in the past, you can ignore the older HM games that reused casts, but they're still there, and I feel that's what Natsume is doing tbh. They're trying to make HMs that different, yet classic feeling, their target audience seems to be pretty different from the Bokumono crowd. Ever since they hit the 3DS, they stopped reusing casts (I believe the last time they did this was IoH/SI) and focused on a brand new cast with ever title, a cameo here and there (Amir, Pierre, Witch Princess, did I miss anymore? Probably.).

So while Marvelous is focused on bringing everything new they possibly can, from casts to mechanics, Natsume is more focused on trying to get their footing in the vast genre that farming games has become. If they play their cards right, 'Harvest Moon' may eventually become a force to be reckoned with, but not quite yet it seems.

And I enjoy both series, I do. I actually had to take a break from 'SoS' as I found it horribly boring, went to Natsume for a rekindle, enjoyed LV and STV, and then ended up enjoying Trio. I'm more of a 'I just like farming games' person, but as I said in my earlier post, I'm wary for Natsume's future as a company. I'll keep buying their games if they keep making them, and the same goes for Marvelous.

And while I understand there's always gonna be a dispute between fans, I hope we can all stay civil to one another.

[Getaris]

I do find it curious when people say the "the same cast for the 4th time" thing.

I mean, as the person above says, the only characters that were reused going from TLV to STV were the magical beings and like three regular villagers.

I guess to be fair, if we count the sprites, the repeated characters outnumber the new.

[Kikki]

Perhaps it is the weighty feeling of the old characters. I've never counted how many characters are in the games, but to me, seeing Sam, Doc, Naomi and Sally in every game (none of whom I liked even at first), along with such a large cast of identical magical characters, was a burden and made the game feel like it had just been sprinkled with new people. I barely remember the characters in any of the new HMs. Even the one I married my character to is indistinct in my memories...I just picked him because his squashy little sprite looked like a gold-fluff-topped dumpling with huge eyes that was vaguely like a little bean sprout and I thought it looked cute.

To be clear, I don't really like recurring characters in Bokumono, either, even though recent games use them less. It's one of the reasons why I only like the three latest bokumonos and not the ones that came before. One or two repeats is fine but I don't enjoy any more than that. I was sick of the Harvest Goddess, for example. I ignored her completely because I found her tiresome. I could have done without Dessie and Witchie returning in Trio, tbh, though I kind of like Witchie. (Just because I find tsunderes entertaining.) So when characters you don't like just keep coming back, it feels really heavy.

I don't know how many/which characters will be back for Light of Hope, other than Sam and the protagonist, but since I already want no Sam and a new protagonist, it hasn't been a drawing card for me. I also don't know how many people like recurring characters as opposed to how many dislike them...maybe the recurring characters thing is actually working out for Natsume the way they hoped. I'm on the dislike side, so that part has gone onto my 'con' list. So far Light of Hope only has one thing on my 'pro' list, which is that the players get to rebuild the town. (Oh and that it is for the Switch is on my 'pro' list, actually...forgot about that.)

[Getaris]

I think it's safe to assume that at least most of the characters that appeared in STV will be in LoH. Considering we know all the marriage options are returning, and we also saw one sprite.

At this point, I think we should be wondering "will any of the characters be new?".

[Kikki]

At this point, I think we should be wondering "will any of the characters be new?".

I would be quite surprised if NONE of the characters were new. As I've said previously on this thread, in my view, Natsume is working really hard to make people like their games. Personally I feel like they're getting it wrong because I like the games less and less as time goes by instead of more. (Though I only got to complete the fourth Skytree, I didn't actually finish the game unlike TLV.) But still, I think they're trying to hit the sweet spot where the highest number of people are happy, and there's no way they don't know that even people who like recurring characters would tend to also like some new ones. So I'm almost certain we'll see at least some new ones.

I think there is still time for Light of Hope to come out with something that will make me say 'oh, maybe I'll give it a shot after all', since I really want more games to play on Switch and I do like the idea of rebuilding the town. If they'd show me really well-developed characters, an awesome plot, or super fun events, I'd buy it. The more farming games there are out there to buy and love, the happier I'll be, so even if my hopes are low, I'm rooting for them to make a big splashy success.

[Lenna36]

I was referring to Sam, Naomi, Sally, Gareth, and Tabitha though the harvest deities would also count. This is their 4th and Doc's third. All assuming LoH has the same cast as Skytree of course. As much as I like Doc and Gareth the cast is going to feel stale. I'm one who would like a completely new cast each game. No repeats at all please.

[ChaosAzerothCat]

Y'all can pry Sam out my cold, dead hands. x3

They really need to bring his family in, that's a mehh point for me tbh... Oh I need to take care of my family more...I KNOW! I'll move them up here. AANNDD nothing!

Why even bother with that character arc then? Feels kinda cheap IMHO to do us like that.

I do get that if you don't like someone their return will be weightier, but at the same time I'm not impressed with Trio's candidates and honestly have gone back to ANB recently even though I'm lost as hell in it. Yeah I love Trio's gameplay but.. ehh... IDK at the same time new doesn't always mean better?

Weird that I'm even a bigger fan of Skytree's candidates considering the game is more about the farming stuff... But here we are.

Also is it just me or does ANB feel like a Natsume game? I got mixed up and was waiting to get to the part where I could take quests from villagers. ((Which every faring game needs sorely IMHO along with gifting. I've seen arguments against gifting making it too easy or whatever, but you don't have to gift so not sure why people are fighting to keep it out. IDK...))

[Getaris]

I really really hope this new game will include his family once and for all. At the very least his daughter or something.

[Bluie]

I've gotten so many gifts for his wife daughter, I feel I deserve to meet them at this point.

[Kam]

i kinda got the impression that the wife and daughter don't exist, and he made them up do get me to get me to sell him stuff for less than it's worth. granted, i never got very far with his requests i need to get back to skytree village. i'm too easily distracted

[Celestrian]

I was referring to Sam, Naomi, Sally, Gareth, and Tabitha though the harvest deities would also count. This is their 4th and Doc's third. All assuming LoH has the same cast as Skytree of course. As much as I like Doc and Gareth the cast is going to feel stale. I'm one who would like a completely new cast each game. No repeats at all please.

I agree with you. Although I don't mind if they do a former bachelor/bachelorette as a special candidate every once in a while. I did play Animal Parade but I played that before Tree of Tranquility and thus didn't know they were repeats at first.

[Lenna36]

I was referring to Sam, Naomi, Sally, Gareth, and Tabitha though the harvest deities would also count. This is their 4th and Doc's third. All assuming LoH has the same cast as Skytree of course. As much as I like Doc and Gareth the cast is going to feel stale. I'm one who would like a completely new cast each game. No repeats at all please.

I agree with you. Although I don't mind if they do a former bachelor/bachelorette as a special candidate every once in a while. I did play Animal Parade but I played that before Tree of Tranquility and thus didn't know they were repeats at first.

I played ToT before AP. Though at the time they were the only ones I could get so tolerated it a bit better (okay a lot better) than I would now.

[Kikki]

The single repeat characters are okay with me, too. Though I've only seen it once, with Kamil in SoS, and I hadn't met him before (nor Licorice) so they weren't really repeats to me anyway. But if just one candidate of each gender is a repeat, I don't mind that at all. In fact, it's interesting to see what changes between games in the same character, if there is anything (I'm given to believe that Kamil was slightly different from whatever game he first came from? ToTT? Not sure, though. But if Neil had come back like some thought he would in Trio, that would have been kind of interesting to me, to see what he'd look like in a new art style and if they'd change his clothing or his backstory or...etc. Maybe I missed some finer details, but I didn't find that Sam, for example, was any different in each new game than he was before...same old Sam, every time. No?)

More than one, though...not to my liking. ESPECIALLY if I didn't like the character to begin with. I've yet to get interested in any of the Natsume characters. I'm not sure if the events are just not interesting enough or what, but I'm not curious about them at all, and I never think of them when I'm not playing. Unlike, say, Sanjay, about whom I dreamt up an entire novel when I wasn't even playing.

EDIT: Actually, am I wrong? I think I heard that Amir is also a repeat/return character, in which case I have seen it twice. I don't know if that's true though, I don't remember him from anywhere. Though I've only tried a couple of pre-ANB games and only briefly...not even a full season in-game.

[Kam]

^amir was originally from bland bazaar