Harvestella

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
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Shortybread
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I just got to Summer today!
Last night I finished up the first bit of the story in Nemea - such a pretty town ~ :heart:

Cooking Quests have by far been the best source of income for me so far, so if anyone hasn't tried them out yet, I highly recommend it!! Everything I own I owe to Cooking Quests, pretty much. :lol: Cooking in general seems pretty vital, so I've been hoarding a lot of my veggies which means less cash from harvests, so the quests have been a very welcome boost to my income.
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StormFire
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I just started playing Harvestella a couple of days ago and goodness, I am hooked! I wasn’t going to get it at first due to all of the subpar or mixed reviews, but I’m loving it so far. I’ve played JRPGs and other RPGs that never fully caught my attention, but this one pulled me in right away. I just finished the first chapter and I like how simple the farming system is, too.
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K8sMum
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KAE wrote: Nov 17, 2022 9:51 am
it took me a minute to figure it out, but you can move makers once you place them. give them a few swings with your hammer and they'll be right back in your inventory.
Thank you! It never dawned on me to try the hammer whacking thingie. Time to straighten up my farm.

I'm so glad to see others enjoying Harvestella as much as I am.
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Mikodesu
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I just got internet back (after losing it on Sunday) so Harvestella has been a lifeline this hell week. Needless to say I've played a lot -- I'm about 2/3 done with summer, and done with the first two (chronological) story sections after the demo.

More than anything I really, really want to see this dev team get another chance to make a game like this. You can see a lot of growing pains, but there's SO much good here. Lots of very smart, time saving tricks to help them focus on what they needed to get done. For 20% off, I feel like I got a good deal. Some of the side quests have even been good, which is always a nice surprise from a JRPG!

I did have the game chug a couple of times (massive frame drops for a few seconds) in the third dungeon, but otherwise its been great. Loads quickly, combat is smooth.

The only issue I've had has been with character quest triggers... which turned out to be an issue with the quest log, rather than the quest being bugged. Two quests would tell me to go speak to the quest giver, and there would be no quest marker when I got to them. TLDR I hadn't gotten the letters to trigger their quests, and just had to advance the plot to unlock it. (If the quest box is grayed out, you haven't received the letter.)

And if you find the game locking you into place after you plant things very annoying, you can animation cancel out of it with the watering tool. Just quick press the watering button, and move on with your day.
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Mabbie
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Can I ask about the game price for you people? The way you've been writing about it makes it sound awesome, but it's so damn expensive in Brazil. Right now it costs R$250, and I'm not willing to pay such money for a game...
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Kikki
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On the Canadian e-shop, Harvestella is standard AAA developer pricing: $80. I think on the US eshop it'd be, what...$60? Works out to the same thing. That's the same price as any new game from Nintendo or other large developers. Is Harvestella more expensive than a new (non-indie) game usually is, for you?

Since $80 CAD is around 320 Brazillian Real, it sounds like you actually have a good deal, but what price do games by big-name devs on your eshop usually cost? If this was a game by a smaller company than Square Enix, then the lowest I'd expect it to see it release at is about $60 CAD....which would actually be about the price you're saying it already is for you. I think?
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K8sMum
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It depends on your circumstances, of course, but as Kikki said it looks like a good deal for you.
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Kikki
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Basically, with currency exchange, it appears that your price is 25% lower than what we're paying in Canada and the US, Mabbie, and those are standard big-name dev release prices...and Square Enix is definitely one of the big ones...but it does depend on the usual price of games in your country. Is $250R higher than a normal game, where you are?
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Mikodesu
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I would guess what matters right now is less the price in numbers so much as how far that price could go paying for other things right now. :/ I don't live alone, and my expenses aren't all that high, so a small discount was plenty for me. I'm sure with the game being new, FOMO doesn't help. Especially seeing people on a forum you regularly visit talking about it. (I get that way a lot over big releases...like Pokemon.)

Either way I'm sorry. Maybe toward the end of the year sales will be good enough to look into again. It's small comfort, but the price can only go down from here.
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Kikki
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I took it as Mabbie asking literally what the price difference is between countries...if Harvestella is just really expensive for her, in Brazil, or what. That was how I answered, anyway...Harvestella's price is standard for a newly-released game by Square Enix, within Canada and the US. No idea about elsewhere, though. I haven't a clue what games typically cost in Brazil, whether they are indie, AAA, or something in between.

Some places may charge less or more depending on what games are perceived to be worth, so I was wondering if that might be a situation here, too. If that's confusing, then here's an example of what I mean: prescription drugs are much cheaper in Canada than the US, even if they are the very same drug, at least partly because Canadians are used to low medical costs and will not pay the prices that Americans will, not even under threat of death. My prescription for treatment of MS costs 23,000 per year in Canada, if unsubsidized (I actually get it free). The identical drug costs $107,000 in the US.

For games, in Canada, most indies probably average $20-40 as new releases. Bigger dev companies that are not MAJOR companies, particularly when dealing in more niche games or when putting out remasters/ports, are more about $50-60...that'd be dev groups like Marvelous. And stuff by major dev groups (Square Enix being one of them) and the gaming houses themselves (Nintendo, etc) are $80. Special editions are another matter, but I don't typically look into those. That's typical pricing in Canada...US prices tend to be 25% lower due to currency difference. (Or in other words: Can/US basically pay the same prices on games.)

That'd be my best shot at an overall summary of what we pay for games, here.
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Mikodesu
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My point is more that everything is relative. Like the argument that games are less expensive than they used to be because of inflation, and ballooning production costs. Numbers can be interesting, but without some social metric to measure them against, eg percent of income, they're just numbers.

I took Mabbie's statement the way I did by her saying she's not willing to pay that price for a game. Full stop.

As far as numbers go, games are legally required (globally, afaik) to be priced the same in physical stores as online, so for games that get physical releases (especially on Switch, cartridges are more expensive than CDs) they are going to be more expensive. They may be a little less than standard AAA pricing, but no more than 10%. I don't know for certain how AAA pricing compares globally, but to my understanding (unfortunately) it tends to be based on the price in USD. To the detriment of poorer and especially more isolated countries.

Edit: Part of the reason Harvestella is so expensive is because it has a physical Switch release. I don't believe the game could sell for less than 50 USD at launch (to recoup printing costs), which I think would still get complaints. As for why it's full AAA 60 USD, does Squeenix sell a new game for less than full price? I'd have to Google, maybe I'm just being biased. :lol:
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Kikki
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But she literally asked what the price of the game is for other people, so I took it as her wondering if the price was strangely high, or normal. Though I had no idea if she was asking because that's a higher than usual price for a game where she is.

If it's about the price of games versus income, then...minimum wage is $15.50 in my province (Ontario.) So a top-tier price for one game means about 6 hours of pay at minimum wage. For comparison: average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in my province is $1500+. Groceries are about $250-300 per person per month (I believe that's based on people who are living in groups rather than alone...it's cheaper to buy groceries for a family than for a single person, when divided out.)

Dunno if that's enough to give an idea of the relative value of a game in Canada or not. Harvestella has launched at $79.99 in CAD, and that's exactly what I expected. It's probably high for a farming sim, since that's always been so niche and couldn't command the same prices as more mainstream genres, but it's typical for Squeenix and JRPGs in general.

Though Squeenix tends to do great sales, and lots of them. At least on the NA eshop...not sure about anywhere else. Hope you can get it at a price you can accept, anyway, Mabbie. I'm waiting for a sale, myself...I'll snatch it up if I get at least 20% off. And I hope between the bunch of us, you managed to get an answer to your question, lol.
Last edited by Kikki on Nov 19, 2022 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Mikodesu
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Even just minimum wage helps (imo) because if you take it that way, one AAA game is about 5 hours of work in Ontario. Which is still a lot, but less severe than most places in the US. A lot of places still put minimum wage between 7 and 8 USD, which at best case scenario puts a AAA game at 7.5 hours of work.

And if you're on minimum wage, one game costing most or all of a day's work is a lot. If you plan on putting hundreds of hours into it, cool, but for a shorter game, I dunno. It's all very relative, unfortunately. But more information helps.
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K8sMum
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I can only judge if a game is worth it by its value to me. When my husband died in 2019 my income went down 33%+. Add in inflation now for rent, heating, food, gas and everything else and I have to really feel a game is going to have a lot of traction for me to spend $60 on it. The Switch is my only console. The demo of Harvestella gave me what I needed to know.

Nov 27 will be the 17th anniversary of our daughter dying of leukemia. She was 19 and had been diagnosed at 14. Gaming takes me to different worlds and allows my thoughts to go there and escape a bit. For me, the value is there. I'll eat cheap for a few days. It's just me so do-able. Price and worth/value are different considerations, imho.
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Kikki
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It may seem odd that I said 6 hours of minimum (or that I'm just bad at math, lol) but our games are $80 + 13% sales tax, so a total of $93 dollars for one AAA game. I actually never even thought to ask if you're charged tax on top of the price in the US or not...I'm so, so used to everything in Canada having sales tax on top of the listed price, but I know a lot of countries find that really weird and I can't remember if the US does it too, or not.

I agree on time. I remember a discussion with Kirie once (a person I like, for the record!) and she said she didn't believe in using hours-played as a metric for what a game is worth, I think because that didn't necessarily signify her level of enjoyment. But I very much DO believe that how many hours you get out of a game is very, VERY key to what it should cost. Or rather...to what I am willing to pay, since, on reflexion, those two things are slightly different. I, like most people, have my own metrics for what I'll pay for a game. How much time I'll spend enjoying it is one of the biggest factors in what I'm willing to pay.

EDIT: I hope you have something heart-happy to do on November 27th, K8sMum. I remember years ago that you said you always play these games using your daughter Caitie as the MC, which was an interesting thought I'd never have come up with on my own.
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