I really hate Natsume, they quite possibly are one of the worst publishers ever. They take extremely too long to translate and localize a game, they will often leave glitches in the game, delay games like no one's business, and are well known for crappy translations and even misspelling their own name. My hate for Natsume is really unfortunate due to the fact that Harvest Moon is one of my favorite game series. By now I'm used to waiting a year for a single game, but Natsume is fucking with me this year, and I'm surprised. In a Pre E3 announcement Natsume announced that Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon will be coming stateside this fall. Now why is this surprising? Because there are already two Harvest Moon games coming out this year! So that's a total of three HM games in one year for Natsume, that has to be the biggest amount of work they've done EVER. And Rune Factory: Frontier is on deck for the Wii possibly next year. So I decided to just give a run down of what you can expect from the Harvest Moon franchise this year.


Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness
Nintendo DS - Aug. 26th


Where Harvest Moon DS was essentially just a rehash of Friends of Mineral Town for the GBA, Island of Happiness will fix that. IoH plays a lot like Animal Crossing Wild World and Phantom Hour Glass. Everything you do will be controlled by the stylus with the exception of the Dpad being used to select your tools. The game is set on a deserted island where you (either a girl or boy) and a family of four land and are forced to make a livable town for yourself. After a while more villagers will come to the island to live there after it becomes more livable. Over 100 people can come to live on your Island, but a lot of them are faceless NPCs where about 30 or so are actual characters you can befriend or marry. New crop additions are... RICE! Yeah... um maybe it's special? But hell it's rice. There will be a WiFi leader board to rank your farm to others and apparently there is voice chat for some reason?

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility
Nintendo Wii - Aug. 26th


The first Wii Harvest Moon comes complete with waggle! This one has been out for a while in Japan and is finally making its way over to the states. You will use the Wii mote to water, hoe, hammer, axe, and sickle your way through your farm. While it is not having you do crazy waggle movements really, only basic movements will be needed. Like in Island of Happiness you can choose to be a boy or girl this time, so no rerelease necessary. Not a whole lot is known by me. Apparently theres something with the tree and Harvest Goddess? Yadda yadda, standard Harvest Moon stuff. But it is known that your usually freeloading wife/husband and child will get off their lazy ass and help you on the farm.

Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon
Nintendo DS - Fall 08


Set years after the original Rune Factory, you play as a young man just old enough to go off on his own adventures. Then crazy shit happens, and you begin to farm AND dungeon crawl. If you didn't play the first one, you missed out on the fact that it added RPG dungeon elements aswell as the farming elements of HM. It was a real gem in the DS library, and this one looks to be the same. Apparently the game will take place in two parts, one as your original protagonist and one as the child of him. Not a whole lot is known at this point, stay tuned!