Well folks, it's finally happening: Harvest Moon is making it's return to PlayStation... sort of.

As you can see from this page on the ESRB website, Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland, and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life - Special Edition have officially been rated for PS4. They're just remasters, sure, but it's a start. And I've honestly been wanting a PS2PS4 port of one of these games, simply because it breaks the dry spell of Harvest Moon games that the PlayStation platforms have seen for (as far as I know) over half a decade, and that's only if you count Rune Factory on PS3 which originally wasn't intended to be a Harvest Moon game.

This could easily be another way of grabbing some quick and easy cash for Natsume, or it could be — and hopefully is — Natsume testing the waters for a new Harvest Moon release on PlayStation 4. Regardless of the reason though, if these games can get good sales numbers it'll likely be the incentive that the company has been needing to push them to return to PlayStation platforms alongside their releases on Nintendo platforms.


The only regrets to be had here are that these are two of the least favored Harvest Moon games of all time, with A Wonderful Life easily being in contention for the most loathed entry in the series — Innocent Life being it's only competition for the undesirable title. The reception of these games will likely either make or break our chances of seeing a new Harvest Moon title launching on PlayStation 4 and/or PlayStation Vita, so let's hope they're received as well as a new one, or a crowd favorite like Back To Nature would have been.


I for one own both, but fully plan to grab Save The Homeland even though it isn't one of the best Harvest Moon's, but it's not without it's merits. As for A Wonderful Life, I've never pulled punches with this one: I don't like it. It's easily the worst Harvest Moon I've played, except for perhaps the first two Game Boy Harvest Moons which I had precious little time with. Even so, I'll probably pick it up as well, since I want to support the idea of Harvest Moon (or Story of Seasons if XSeed is looking) on PlayStation.


What do you think? Is Natsume testing the waters with this? And will the games get a warm enough welcome that said company will be persuaded to develop new Harvest Moon games for PlayStation? And will you be picking up a copy of either one? Regardless, it's good to see Harvest Moon returning to PlayStation gamers in some capacity.

Whether we will see any new Harvest Moon games on the PS4, I doubt these remasters would have any direct correlation. They're likely just being released with the hope of making some easy cash, similarly to how a lot of old titles have been ported to PSN and continue to be. They would likely be aware that they weren't the most well received too so using these games to simply "test the waters" wouldn't make much sense. Overall I really doubt we're going to see any new Harvest Moon games on non Nintendo platforms outside of ports. Accessibility seems to be what they're striving for, and the 3ds has a very wide audience (and most of their existing fanbase likely already own one). With hype building around the Switch and it's push to be a handheld/home hybrid that's likely what they will look to next.

I for one won't be getting either since I already have Stardew Valley which I prefer to the few Harvest Moon games I've played and is more than enough to satisfy my crave (and I'm not even closer to completing it). The only entries in the franchise I'd consider getting at some point if they ported them would be some of the older Rune Factory games, that is if they even count (not Tides of Destiny though as I've heard it's quite lackluster). Mostly because they seem to have a few intriguing ideas. I still have more than enough games to play at the moment and look forward to though so chances are that still wouldn't happen for quite some time.

Its pretty cool to see the old harvest moon games resurfacing again as remaster version. Sadly I doubt I would really get the game since...Zlinqx has summed up as of why. You know very well I have stardew valley, that I would play more than harvest moon. I'm sure they will add in new changes for the game to make it a little more better.

Zlinqx : That's entirely possible as well, still I don't see a big business walking away from, say, $20,000,000+ of sales and saying "That was nice. Oh well, no future here." So even if they don't mean for it to be a way of measuring sales potential, at the risk of sounding greedy: money talks.
Now I don't expect the games to sell a million copies each, this is just an example of "what if".

I don't think it's a matter of portability since the most beloved HM games of all time have been console games (64 especially). The only portable HM to rival them was Friends of Mineral Town, which was a port of one of the two games I'm referring to when I say the most beloved HM games. The reason, more likely, is that the DS and 3DS were the largest install bases with their target fan base before PS4 came along. This is also suggested by the fact that the Wii was the last console that saw much HM support, and look at it's install base size. Companies without exclusivity deals are free to publish anywhere, yes, but they also have to be able to anticipate big enough returns to justify doing so. If any system aside from 3DS can offer that, it'll be PS4. And Natsume is already turning to other platforms since the split with Marvelous, as they've hit Android, Wii U, and PC, so a PS4 port isn't too terribly far out of the question. XSeed on the other hand seems set on 3DS.


Eniitan : These are direct ports except for improved graphics and trophies and such, so I doubt they'll be improved, other than improved performance for the glitchy A Wonderful Life. And yeah...I'll pass on Stardew Valley, as you know. lol To each their own though, I know it's popular.

Eirinn : Thanks for understanding!. Don't worry I did promise I will play Harvest moon again just not as of now because its not the right timing for me at all.  

Well, if they can make the not-so-desirable titles to sell better than they did years ago maybe there's a chance they keep this up.

But well, it wouldn't be the first time that the developers follow a different path than what the rabble fanbase says. There is F-Zero, for example, missing a main title since the early days of the Gamecube and which has technically been replaced by a successor from the Wii-U on, no longer allowing us to enjoy Captain Falcon in an actual race instead of punching everyone away in Smash titles.

Following on the above example, said successor will also have a release on the Switch, which means it had enough following to justify a new game. Not sure how much following would Natsume want to revive HM, but it's not impossible.

Oh, and keep in mind we're talking about a company whose latest game release, coincidentally a PS4 game, was Wild Guns Reloaded, a revised version of an old classic of theirs. This means that they're digging up in their past and are willing to give a bit of new life to their old games, which are very good news.

EX Palen : I didn't realize that was a Natsume game. I do appreciate the fact that they're bringing back their old games though, since they're still as good as ever and might as well be enjoyed. I always like seeing older games brought back to PSN if nothing else.

And like I implied in my reply to Zlinqx, Natsume is on uncertain grounds with HM right now since they have to make a name for their game after the split with Marvelous (the old Harvest Moon is now called Story of Seasons, and as such the Harvest Moon franchise now has to make a name for itself all over again), and they've been trying out new platforms for the series, so utilizing PlayStation platforms to set themselves apart from their much more dominant competitor seems like an easy conclusion for them to come to. Hopefully this manages to show them that such a strategy is a viable one.

And I'll keep hoping for more classic Harvest Moon ports, but that's a stretch since most of the classics are probably bound to the eShop due to having released on Nintendo systems. We can still get yet another Back To Nature port though, and even Innocent Life and Hero of Leaf Valley. But let's take it one step at a time I suppose, and just enjoy what we have coming already.

I think its really cool to see older games getting new life,  I mean I'm super happy to have Assault Suits Leynos to play again.   My only real gripe to be honest is a fairly minor one but...  I do kinda wish they had the old games too.   Back when  Mickey mouse' Castle of  Illusion hit the ps3 I was able to get it and got the Genesis game as well, so I kinda wish they did that for the other remasters as well.  I personally haven't played any of the Harvest moon games, so seeing a remaster of an old title might get me to give the series a shot.   Description wise it reads to me like Animal Crossing,only Focused on Farm work and taking care of crops and animals.   Is that about right, or am I way off here?

Belmontzar : My apologies for the late reply.
I really can't answer that completely since I'm not familiar with Animal Crossing (Nintendo 64 was the last Nintendo system I really played), but I do hear Harvest Moon compared to Animal Crossing a lot, and most Harvest Moon fans that I know also enjoy Animal Crossing, so I'd guess they share similarities, but I can't say for sure.

What Harvest Moon is like varies tremendously based on what era of the series you choose from. SNES-N64/PlayStation/GBA was in my opinion, easily the best era. It was simple with a heavy focus on farming and relationships (both friendship and marriage). Also the cast in all of those were mostly loveable.
The PS2/GameCube/DS-present era is more focused on the relationships, especially the marriage aspect. The newer the game, the more true this is. Also when the newer ones do focus on making money, they're more focused on gathering items in the wild than farming. They're fun still, but disappointing to me personally, as a fan that enjoyed the original formula better.

Essentially it's a life simulation game where you live in a small village and can make money to expand your farm, raise crops and livestock, make friends, get married and raise a family.

Eirinn : Animal Crossing is a rather simple game concept.
Simply put your a human who moves into a town populated by a randomly generated group of animal neighbors, who you then interact with.   You mostly run around and do things around town such as finding lost items, planting things, digging up items, Fishing, and generally making the place look nice.   You Can find a lot of items to make your home look really, cool, and you can get super in depth with designs for clothes and how you customize the town.  Harvest moon sounds like it has a more in depth Farming side to things... where in animal crossing you, just kinda bury and water stuff and then cross your fingers hoping it worked.  AC is an adorable little game, with the game following your system clock.  So stores open and close, people visit or say when to visit, and you need to pay attention to stuff.

both games do sound like fun Collectathon sorts of games.  I just might check out Harvest moon sometime.