In Japan, at least.
IGN has reported details of this newest installment in the long-running farm franchise as found in the latest issue of Famitsu. The title, Bokujou Monogatari Series: Makiba no Omise, translates roughly out of moonspeak into “Harvest Moon Series: Ranch Store”. In addition to the regular farming and animal raising, players will be running a shop of some kind.
The Famitsu article shows off some of the stores that you can operate, including a juice bar, an ice cream parlor and an easter egg shop, which seems like an awfully specific business model with a very limited yearly profit window. Hopefully that last one is seasonal.
Products for the stores are made with the produce from the player’s farm and there are minigames to determine how successful you are in creating them. And, in keeping with the social aspects of previous games in the series, correctly filling customer orders will build relationships with them.
I’m a pretty big fan of Harvest Moon but I’ll admit that some of the recent games have felt a little stale to me. Hopefully, these mechanics will inject some new life into the series. No idea if it’s going to get out of Japan, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find it on other shores. It releases there on April 28 with a price of 1500 Wii points.
