About the Natsume HM games...

[Guest]

The Natsume games need a new art style. I tried to find out about the new Switch game on Youtube and everyone hates it. They have a bunch of thumbs down and bad reaction videos. Most of the comments are either "Ew. Harvest Moon sucks now. Go buy Stardew instead" or "Guys, this isn't the REAL Harvest Moon. Buy Story of Seasons instead".

People call the art "soulless", "cash grabby", or "too mobile". I agree. It looks... bland. I like the character designs but the in-game design is grotesque. It's so flat looking and awkward. If you're gonna go 2D, use pixelart. If you're gonna go 3D, go full 3D. Don't make this bad looking 2D.5 thing.

[Getaris]

It's honestly not as bad as everyone makes it out to be... It's just... Simple.

[Guest]

Simple isn't always better. It looks too bland and cheap.

[Getaris]

Oh yeah, and they do cheap out on a lot of things. But the internet overreacts heavily to these.

[Guest]

I think Natsume desperately needs a new graphic designer. I've only played Skytree Village but as soon as I got it it felt like a cheap game, because of the box art and main menu design. It's a fun game to play, but I bet a lot of people will skip it because it gives a bad first impression.

A quality checker wouldn't hurt either, to fix those little things like the in-game character info pages having wrong titles, and the credits running out of names like halfway through...

[SakuraMota]

I actually like the art style they have going for Skytree. The chibi style in TLV was weird but functional. But I like Skytree's designs quite a bit.

[ChaosAzerothCat]

I actually like the art style they have going for Skytree. The chibi style in TLV was weird but functional. But I like Skytree's designs quite a bit.

I like they style, it is a little plain but not everything needs to be super fancy to look good either.

I'm not sure I have the energy to respond to most of this though, I know as soon as the Natsume forums closed anywhere else was going to have a lot of hate like the FB and YouTube comments have. I'd resigned myself to knowing that there were going to be some that weren't really fair and in fact really nasty. That's not to say that not liking it means the comments are unfair or nasty, and not exactly saying anyone has been but tbh there have been a few I look at and know there's just no point to say anything lest somehow it become an argument. Same old song and dance I've seen enough and not feeling it. But people do get VEHEMENTLY nasty about Natsume games, it's unavoidable unless you avoid talking about them altogether now.

[Guest]

Typed in "Harvest Moon Switch" on Youtube and this rant/criticism was one of the first results. I agree with him. I like The Lost Village but the Switch game just looks bad. It looks like a cheap $5 eShop game, not a full-fledged console title. AWL, STH, 64, and BTN all looked WAY better despite being over a decade older.

[Getaris]

I honestly doubt it is a "full-fledged console game" to begin with. It is certainly not being advertised as that.

I fully expect it to be a digital-only title, probably a "high tier budget game" thing. Maybe 10-20 bucks.

Anyway, 64 and BTN don't look better than this

[Guest]

Digital-only games count as full-fledged games too.

64 and BTN do look better. They're lowpoly but have a nice, clean look and good animations. The new game just looks garish, especially the players model against the background.

[SakuraMota]

I honestly have no clue where the 64/BtN looking better rhetoric comes from. Like...no? Like, the textures in those games are pretty rough. That criticism is absolutely bizarre to me.

[Getaris]

It's a probably a case of rose-tinted nostalgia gas masks.

[Noeh]

He has a good point about the game looking like a mobile game.

[Bluie]

Welp, Stardew Valley has been approved for Switch release and will be coming out pretty soon (was supposed to come out in Summer but the Nintendo testing took awhile).

I have a feeling Light of Hope is going to tank now due to it being outshined by what will be perceived as the better game. Natsume had better get their rears in gear with advertising if they want it to sell at all because as it stands, i'm buying Stardew, Picontier (look it up), and probably not touching Light of Hope until it inevitably goes on sale.

[Celestrian]

100% agreeing with Noeh and Bluie on this. It's very likely I'm going to skip this game altogether at this rate. I definitely want to try Stardew though!