Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos (Prerelease Chat)

An open-world Harvest Moon game featuring a large volcano, a pint-sized goddess, and the great Doc Jr. [ Game Guide ] JP release = /shrug. NA release = Sept 2023. EU release = Oct 2023.
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Mikodesu
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After I made my last post about the look of the water in the game I've been itching to compare it to One World and not just what I remember One World to be, so I charged up my Switch tonight to have a look...

I think they may be revamped assets for the most part, polished up rather than just slapped in. The houses in Calisson look nearly identical to the ones in Providence Village, except for the roof tiles, which look INFINITELY better this time. The roof tiles themselves are still a texture (a drawing) but the model itself has been edited so it looks like uneven tiles at the bottom. (I think they're all using the 'shop' model, which is the one that has the decorative siding on the roof and shutters only on the windows on the longer end of the building.) I can't really tell for sure about trees, or the water, though from this angle it looks worse than the water in One World. Could be a lighting issue, though.

It may not be the leap everyone was hoping for but quite a bit of work was put into visuals. (Smart asset reuse makes me happy.) I'd say dynamic shadows are the standout for me, in this case. Helps blend everything together.

At this point as long as it runs at least as well as One World, the visuals pass in my book, my only concern is gameplay. I'd really like to see enough developments on One World to consider this a proper sequel. We know wisps are back (and obviously hybrids) but not much else afaik.

I'll go back into a holding period now. :lol:
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Getaris
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It would seem animal skills are back from The Lost Valley and Skytree Village

Assuming they work in a similar way, and for those not familiar with those games, these had multiple types of foods that, with constant consumption, would make your animal learn a skill. Stuff like an animal that grows friendlier during a certain season, or an animal that remains clean or happy for longer, etc.

They could also be inherited from a mother to their babies, I think.

Back then they were very time and money/material consuming, with effects that mostly affected friendship gains, so they were like… not quite worth the effort. So let’s hope they’ve been overhauled.
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Mikodesu
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Animal skills...

Had to really think about it to remember the animal skills system at all... I can't remember how many materials they took, just 'a lot'. I remember some of the quests for recipes, and being irritated with them. So I mostly ignored it and went back to terraforming. (No shot that's coming back, I miss it though.)

Assuming sprinklers are back, animal skills might not be a terrible system to bring back as-is. I reeeally hope we can unlock automated feeders at some point. No idea how that would work with special feed though... just the idea of having to plop food for half a dozen types of animals every day again. I do that in real life, I don't need it in my video games. :lol:
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JustABeautifulGuy
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That’s a nice catch. I really didn’t mind animal skills but it could use some improvements. I wonder if they will combine all the features they’ve done so far into this game. Imagine they bring back terraforming for select areas :lol: Also I’m slightly curious how they will handle ss marriage. I would love for them to somehow keep pregnancy events but the child being a gift from nature thing in SoS games might make its debut here.
Boogle
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The last 3 (SoM, LoH, and OW I think) games have been alright (not great) graphically, but not that great “technically”
In my opinion, OW was too easy to finish the main storyline; I finished it all within one day. Having so many towns was always annoying, and the tasks you got in your mailbox were repetitive. And the harvest wisps were… not my favorite.
I enjoyed the game, but it could’ve been better in more ways than the graphics.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the last 3 titles, but I’d like to see more improvement and a unique (er) story line. GB, SI, IoH even all had unique stories and unique tasks different from all other titles, but OW, LoH, and SoM all felt so similar in their tasks.
I’d love to see a gameplay trailer, and hopefully the towns won’t feel so spread out.
I don’t want to be so negative, but it would be nice if there was some more difficulty to the game.
Maybe I’m crazy, but does anyone else feel this way?
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StormFire
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Boogle wrote: Apr 08, 2023 2:46 pm The last 3 (SoM, LoH, and OW I think) games have been alright (not great) graphically, but not that great “technically”
In my opinion, OW was too easy to finish the main storyline; I finished it all within one day. Having so many towns was always annoying, and the tasks you got in your mailbox were repetitive. And the harvest wisps were… not my favorite.
I enjoyed the game, but it could’ve been better in more ways than the graphics.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the last 3 titles, but I’d like to see more improvement and a unique (er) story line. GB, SI, IoH even all had unique stories and unique tasks different from all other titles, but OW, LoH, and SoM all felt so similar in their tasks.
I’d love to see a gameplay trailer, and hopefully the towns won’t feel so spread out.
I don’t want to be so negative, but it would be nice if there was some more difficulty to the game.
Maybe I’m crazy, but does anyone else feel this way?

You are not crazy! I felt the main storyline was easy to finish as well in OW. It just took me longer to finish it (about 40 hours but that was also to get married) because I was side tracked and invested in the crop mutations, moving the farm around to different places, etc. I do like having more towns to explore because, for example, it gets boring just being in the same town like in A Wonderful Life and I feel theres’s not much to do after you reach a certain point. The harvest wisps are not my favorite, either, but I feel like they serve the purpose well because they help you “find” new crops. Despite this, I still bought the DLC (which I actually enjoyed and found it interesting) and I’m even playing it right now in order to have a child. I can say I definitely enjoyed One World more than the other Natsume games, so that’s why I’m hopeful for Winds of Anthos and I want to see a trailer, too. :)
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Mikodesu
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JustABeautifulGuy wrote: Apr 08, 2023 12:09 pm I wonder if they will combine all the features they’ve done so far into this game. Imagine they bring back terraforming for select areas :lol:
That sounds awesome! I'd love to see some combination of the old hybrid system and the new one. Having some open chunks of the world that we can tear up would be fun too, since I imagine this has to be the biggest game world Natsume has made to date. Designing orchards perching around terraced fields. Big fun. :)

If we're lucky maybe we'd be able to add stairs and ladders and stuff to open terraformed areas too, which isn't a complete crapshoot since tool crafting (or 'a crafted tool' to be exact) was in one of the screenshots this time.
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JustABeautifulGuy
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Yeah, it really would be cool to bring back terraforming, I think it was pretty fun to shape your own land. The early games really didn't have a good balance between editable and non-editable terrain which kinda drew away people including me which is a shame because I think the feature itself was a nice addition. I really doubt they will bring it back after the hate it received but who knows? The statement at the end of their press release kinda hints to them combining the features from previous games; "This new installment is the culmination of over 30 games!"

Other than that, I truly don't know what to expect from this game. They have promised "new features" but they haven't teased anything remarkably different yet and that's fine with me honestly. I just hope they fleshed out the content of the features they've planned.
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Getaris
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In The Lost Valley, I would take entire in-game months off farming to dedicate them entirely to terraforming projects :lol:

I’d love to have a little terraforming playground, though I doubt the concept will come back any time soon. It caused the game a lot of backlash back then just because people saw the squared terrain and immediately thought “Minecraft rip off lol”, so it’s probably on their list of no’s now.
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simside
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RE: Animal skills - I'd be interested in seeing these come back in some form. I liked that there were many different types of animal feed in OW to unlock and make, but I don't recall there being any use for them? Maybe they recovered health or raised affection faster, but the affection and health weren't difficult to maintain. I wonder if they were for a feature or system that wasn't implemented.
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Getaris
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I choose to believe they had multiple mostly so you could carry/stockpile more than one stack of fodder :P
Cocoon
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this is weird, i’m feeling more hyped for a natsume game than a marvelous game! well to be fair pioneers of olive town ruined the sos streak so badly and natsume just keeps getting better gradually. i loved a wonderful life as a child but i don’t know, i don’t feel much excitement for the remake. don’t get me wrong, i love that game so much but i just love the adventure type of thing natsume HMs have been doing more!

i don’t care about graphics tbh, which is why i loved one world despite its lack of visuals, but this game def has the best graphics for HM series. i like that they keep changing styles. i guess i won’t feel bored while traveling to other towns anymore. i wonder when they will release this game. they keep saying later this year and this summer simultaneously which is confusing. makes me wonder if it’ll actually come later than sos awl?
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Cocoon wrote: Apr 11, 2023 6:00 pm this is weird, i’m feeling more hyped for a natsume game than a marvelous game! well to be fair pioneers of olive town ruined the sos streak so badly and natsume just keeps getting better gradually. i loved a wonderful life as a child but i don’t know, i don’t feel much excitement for the remake. don’t get me wrong, i love that game so much but i just love the adventure type of thing natsume HMs have been doing more!

i don’t care about graphics tbh, which is why i loved one world despite its lack of visuals, but this game def has the best graphics for HM series. i like that they keep changing styles. i guess i won’t feel bored while traveling to other towns anymore. i wonder when they will release this game. they keep saying later this year and this summer simultaneously which is confusing. makes me wonder if it’ll actually come later than sos awl?
I agree that SoS was a little mistake, I mean, it was kind of like facebook rush game instead of a proper sim-farming, BUT I can't agree with Natsume getting better.... Every new Harvest Moon they release is so boring and dull. Personally, I don't have any hope that they'll finally do something playable.
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Today is the Nintendo Indie World showcase.. I wonder if this game will be showcased there? I doubt so because this title isn't Switch exclusive.
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FarmingForDaysMan
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Honestly terraforming in TLV really freaked me out and it’s the main reason why I’ve been turned off to playing another Natsume game. Maybe I’d feel differently about it now that I’m older (I think I was 12 or 13 when I had TLV), but I’m not very creative anyways and terraforming in ACNH really stresses me out 😂
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