G-Mode announced that Bokujo Monogatari: Minori no Shima, an old mobile flip phone Harvest Moon (known as Story of Seasons nowadays) game, will release on March 29, 2025 in Japan. The game will cost 1,500 yen (or approximately $10) and will appear on the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. [Thanks, PR Times!]

To celebrate its release, the game will be 30% off on sale for 1,050 yen (~$7.07) on both platforms. The sale will last until May 27, 2025 on Switch, and April 11, 2025 on Steam. The original title of the game translates to Harvest Moon: Island of Crops, and the game originally released on 2008 as a digital for mobile phones exclusively in Japan.

The game was divided into a "for Boy" release which appeared first on April 3, 2008, and a "for Girl" version which released on August 8, 2008. The new port will include both versions of the game in a single package, which will be available only in Japanese. The re-release of the game will be part of the G-Mode Archives+ collection.

G-Mode specializes in ports of old Japanese mobile games that aren’t available anymore. The company already released ports of mobile game Bokujo Monogatari Mobile: Live & Love back in September 2024.

Bokujo Monogatari: Minori no Shima will reléase on March 29, 2025 for the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.

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G-Mode has released ports of Bokujo Monogatari Mobile: Live & Love in Japan. The entry, which is part of Marvelous' game series now known in English as Story of Seasons, originally appeared for feature phones in 2007. The new ports are now available digitally on Nintendo Switch via the Japanese eShop and PC via Steam.

Even though the Steam page also has an English description, the port is only available in Japanese. This feature phone game has the same protagonists who appeared in titles like Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. While the player can choose either gender version of the avatar, the game has a different set of characters who are available as marriage candidates.

In addition, this game also features the protagonist's mother who will live with them in their house. The player can have the mother cook a meal for the protagonist, and they can also ask her about the relationship levels with available marriage candidates.

G-Mode has also ed a trailer showcasing Bokujo Monogatari Mobile: Live & Love on its YouTube channel:

G-Mode has been gradually porting its classic feature phone games to the Switch and PC. The company was recently known for porting mobile games featuring side stories of Atlus titles like Megami Tensei in 2022, Revelations: Persona in 2023, and Persona 3 in 2024.

The ports of Bokujo Monogatari Mobile: Life & Love are now available in Japanese on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.

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The whole Harvest Moon Story of Season name change was quite a big deal in its time. Basically, when XSEED Games took over publishing duties, it couldn’t still use the Harvest Moon name. Natsume took it over and began using it with games it developed. So the original Bokujou Monogatari titles were localized with a new moniker: Story of Seasons. As part of the company’s 15th anniversary celebrations, an achievement marked in November 2019, it has revealed historical tidbits. Now, one is about other potential names being tossed around before Story of Seasons was settled on.

On Facebook, XSEED Games brought up three other possibilities from back when the whole Harvest Moon Story of Seasons change was going on. Two seem genuinely serious, while the remaining title is a little more lighthearted. Two had to do with seasons, specifically “Autumn Wind” and “Summer Solstice.” Both of these referenced the change in seasons in the game and how they influence farming. The third option, however, was “Plow & Propose.” This calls attention to two gameplay elements, which are the farming aspects and the ability to enter into relationships with villagers and marry them.

Story of Seasons was the name the company landed on. It has been used for five games so far. Three are the mainline entries Story of Seasons (3DS), Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns (3DS), and Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (Switch). The other two are the spin-offs Doraemon: Story of Seasons (Switch and PC) and Return to PopoloCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale (3DS).

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is immediately available for the Nintendo Switch in Japan, will come to Australia and Europe on July 10, 2020, and will come to North America in Summer 2020.

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Natsume president and CEO Hiro Maekawa shared a special New Year’s message for the fans on the company’s official Facebook page with some talk about the company’s beginning and Harvest Moon.   Here’s the full message:  

Happy New Year to our Worldwide Fans! The year 2017 was a very special and memorable year for us. It was the 20th Anniversary of our Harvest Moon franchise. Taking this opportunity, I would like to share my unforgettable memory about the birth of Harvest Moon with all our loyal Harvest Moon fans. It was 1996 when I first came across an unknown farming simulation game for the SNES. I played the game, and found it very unique and heartwarming, something I had never seen before. My instinct told me that this niche game might have great potential to grow in America, given that America is a large farming country. At the same time, I felt a sense of nostalgia about the game, since I was born and spent my childhood in the countryside of Japan. At that time, I was a newcomer to the video game industry, and I did not know much about the U.S. video game market. So, I decided to check with my associates in the industry to see what they thought about this game. To my shock, all the comments I got were extremely negative! Basically, they said that the game was very boring, there was no excitement, and there would be no market for this type of bland game in the U.S. All the negative comments were understandable in hindsight due to the fact there was no such video game genre as “Farming Simulations” at that time. However, it was my strong intuition that this non-violent, family-oriented game could have a big potential to resonate with fans in this country. Based on this belief, I decided to release, this game and named it Harvest Moon. And this is how Harvest Moon was born twenty years ago! In celebration of Harvest Moon’s 20th Anniversary, we have developed a new Harvest Moon title, Harvest Moon: Light of Hope. It is the first Harvest Moon title to be multi-platform, as it is for PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, and Sony PlayStation 4. The PC version of Harvest Moon: Light of Hope was released for Steam in November, and we are very happy with its sales performance thus far. Harvest Moon: Light of Hope for the Switch and PS4 are scheduled to be released early this year, both physical and . Thanks to the continued by loyal Harvest Moon fans worldwide, this once-unknown farming simulation game has grown to be one of the best-known family-oriented franchises for gamers of all ages! We sincerely appreciate all those loyal fans for their continued . We have several other exciting titles coming this year in addition to Harvest Moon: Light of Hope for Switch and PlayStation 4, so please stay tuned! Our company mission for the past 23 years has always been, and will continue to be, to “Make Everyone Happy” with exciting, interactive entertainment software for the entire family. At Natsume, “Everyone” means all of our customers, Natsume employees, and all of the people we work with, such as our development partners, our distribution partner, retailers, financial institutions, media, and all of the people who are directly or indirectly connected with Natsume and our products. We at Natsume are committed to continuing our corporate mission to “Make Everyone Happy,” and we would appreciate your continued . Wishing “Everyone” a very happy, healthy, and wonderful New Year! Sincerely, Hiro Maekawa President & CEO Natsume Inc.

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Natsume president Hiro Maekawa recently sent out a special New Year’s message over on the company’s official Facebook page. In the message, Maekawa reflected on the 2016 releases of both Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories and Harvest Moon: Skytree Village. In regards to Seeds of Memories in particular, Maekawa noted that both the game’s iOS and Android versions had “performed well beyond” their expectations.   Maekawa also mentioned that 2017 would be the 20th anniversary for the Harvest Moon franchise and promised fans that there would be “a few surprises” in store to celebrate the occasion.   In addition to Harvest Moon, Maekawa also touched on River City: Tokyo Rumble, which released for the Nintendo 3DS last year. He noted that “fans have been extremely appreciative” for the title, and that he hopes they will be able to do more with the series in the future.   To read Maekawa’s full message, you can go to Natsume’s official Facebook page.

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Over on Reddit, Harvest Moon (now Story of Seasons) and the Birthdays creator Yasuhiro Wada recently took part in an Ask-Me-Anything where fans were able to pose a number of questions to the veteran game director, designer, and President of TOYBOX, Inc.   First off, Wada was asked about his personal approach to creating games, noting that developing unique and interesting titles seemed to be the focus of his career. Wada replied, citing that, in Japan, the current state of the gaming market features the otaku market as its main focus. Because of this, he explains that his fear for the gaming industry is that developers who don’t create AAA titles or indie titles will eventually disappear. Wada’s full response is as follows:  

“The number one important thing for me is to provide s with a “new” experience. The game scene right now is lead by the super big AAA titles and indies games. In Japan, the domestic otaku market has become the center of game-developing attention. For the game industry I’m really concerned that those developers who aren’t really indies but also not big are slowly disappearing. Which is why someone in the middle ground, like us, would like to show the world that games that aren’t indie or AAA can still be fun. I think that the more people there are developing games the gaming industry well evolve into an industry enjoyed by more and more people.”

  Wada was also asked what kind of experience he hopes Birthdays the Beginning will bring to players.  

“I really want people to have a brand new experience that is unique from anything before this game. What’s really important to me is creating a chemistry where people can experience the three things I mentioned above with a brand new game mechanic.”

  Lastly, the subject of the “4:44 glitch” in Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town was brought up. The glitch features the television in the game displaying a time of 4:44 repeatedly when check at a certain time. When asked if this was simply a mistake overlooked in the US version of the game, Wada was able to clear a few things up about the “glitch,” replying with the following:  

“This is not a glitch and is working as intended. Originally we wanted to incorporate a “horror” aspect to the game but removed it when we localized the game, due to it not translating well into English.”

  For a little more insight, the number 4 is considered very ominous and even bad luck in Japan, since the number 4 shares the same pronunciation as “death” in Japanese.   Birthdays the Beginning will launch physically and digitally for PlayStation 4 and for PC via Steam in North America on March 7th and in Europe on March 10th, 2017.

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Marvelous, the makers of Harvest Moon, No More Heroes, and Senran Kagura, are moving into a new direction. The company started off as a creator and publisher which worked with external developers. Now, with the development muscle from AQ Interactive and social games knowhow from LiveWare, Marvelous AQL will have an expanded foothold in the Japanese market.

In this interview we spoke with Toshinori Aoki, Executive Managing Director of Digital Contents, and Daniel Kurtz, Business Development Coordinator, about the merger, their thoughts on new hardware, and publishing partners for North America.

Since Wada-san left Marvelous, how do you think that will affect the Harvest Moon series?

Toshinori Aoki, Executive Managing Director of Digital Contents: We’re very thankful for Wada-san’s work on Harvest Moon. Starting from the very first Nintendo DS game, Wada-san was not the director. At the time and presently, the series is handled by [Yoshifumi] Hashimoto-san. Because we have been running the series successfully on the DS and Wii, we think that will continue in the future.

Have you thought about making HD Harvest Moon to other consoles, kind of like how Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny is a PS3 game?

TA: The game has a large fanbase of both male and female gamers. I’m not sure if one is larger than the other, but we know it is a title female gamers cherish. And we really appreciate that. In the future we will release Harvest Moon on platforms we believe it will sell well, but right now we think female gamers don’t favor a HD version as much as they do with having fun with the series.

Maybe this is a series that is mobile focused? Right now we’re making The Tale of Two Towns for 3DS with Natsume. It’s not that we’re against bringing Harvest Moon to Wii U, PS3, or Xbox 360. It’s just that this is a series where we are thankful for fans and we don’t want to force them to buy a new system.

We want to bring it to where the fans are. Up until now, we felt the fans were on the DS and we think that a lot of those fans have gotten a 3DS. So, we want to bring it on those platforms first before we start planning bringing the series to another console. It’s not that we’re not thinking about it, but right now we are focused on working on The Tale of Two Towns for the 3DS.

While Marvelous has a number of long running series, your company is also developing new IPs. You may not be able to announce any new titles, but what genres are you considering?

TA: There’s nothing in particular we’re following like we have to make a TPS, RTS or RPGs. We want to work with our strengths, which is making unique games with a story and a world that players feel like they are a part of. Luminous Arc, Harvest Moon, and No More Heroes are like that. We want to continue bringing games like that to fans around the world.

From here on out, we really want to be focusing more on the global market. You may notice how our games may have a little less text you have to read, but that doesn’t mean want to reduce the depth of the world. That is something we consider to be at the heart of a Marvelous title.

Moving forward, Marvelous which used to rely on external developers, will have a huge internal development team from the merger with AQ Interactive.

Daniel Kurtz, Business Development Coordinator: For the AQL merger, for those that don’t know, it’s with AQI (AQ Interactive) as well as LiveWare. Liveware focuses mainly on online content and online social games. Whereas AQI has been fantastic at publishing games as well as development. Marvelous is going to become a company hundreds of people strong. We’re going to share a lot of power and we’re going to focus on bringing the core strengths of all three parties together in order to create new experiences that we couldn’t before even though we were working closely together up until this point.

Marvelous won’t just work as a publisher. Marvelous will work as a producer and in project management very closely with the AQI developers. And vice-versa, with the AQI developers, they will take on more of a production role to develop new games.

How does that affect our relationship with third party developers? It does and doesn’t. Are we going to have a lot of titles that are developed in house? Certainly, but that doesn’t it mean that we’re going to cut ties with Grasshopper Manufacture, Vanillaware, Imageepoch or any of the other companies we worked with strongly up until this point. They are very important partners to us and we plan to keep working with them in the future.

How does Marvelous pick publishing partners in North America? You started working with Natsume and Xseed, but then began licensing title to Ignition and now Konami. Since Xseed is owned by AQI, will Xseed handle Marvelous’ games in America again?

DK: This is tough to answer because it’s not that we do or do not want to do something. Recently there have been some titles we have not released with Xseed, but we still very much value Xseed as a partner and as friends. The reason why we can’t answer this question is just because we value this relationship so much we need time to discuss with Xseed and do something that makes everyone happy.

Are you interested in PlayStation Vita?

DK: Yes, for new IPs and old IPs. Wii U, we’re definitely excited about that too. Whenever a new platform comes along we’re excited about it.

Marvelous was a big of Wii and maybe that was difficult for your company since your titles were new IPs and the best selling games for that platform tend to be those tied to existing IP.

DK: Did some titles sell as much as we wanted them to? Maybe not. But any time we look back on a title we don’t wring our hands and worry about the platform and sort of point fingers or anything like that. We’re proud of what we brought out on the Wii. Those are titles we very much value going forward. Whatever platform they were going to be on, they were going to be on. It’s not going to be affected by their past history. We’re proud of what we brought out and are looking forward to developing for a new platform.

Are you going to be ing Wii U in the same magnitude as you ed Wii?

Tomio Kanazawa, Producer: For Wii U, we think it will be appreciated by casual and family gamers. We are looking forward to hearing how much it will target core gamers, as well. While we are planning titles for Wii U, in of how much we’re going to commit to it, we’re still thinking about that.

Check back tomorrow for part two where we discuss the future of Marvelous’ key franchises like Luminous Arc, Grand Knights History, and Deadly Premonition.

The post Marvelous Interview Part 1: The Heart Of A Marvelous Game appeared first on Siliconera.

Less than a year ago, two key producers from Marvelous Entertainment moved to Grasshopper Manufacture. Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon and the company’s former managing director, was appointed as Grasshopper Manufacture’s Chief Operating Officer. Yoshiro Kimura, creator of Little King’s Story and Chulip, was hired as the Chief Creative Officer.

That’s a photo of the luminary designers with Grasshopper Manufacture CEO Goichi Suda from Famitsu’s announcement. Wada and Suda met when they were developing Flower, Sun, and Rain – the PlayStation 2 version, which was published by Victor Interactive. Prior to ing Grasshopper, Wada left Marvelous Entertainment and considered working on his own. Because he felt his goals aligned with Grasshopper Manufacture he ed the company.

Kimura has not worked with Grasshopper Manufacture and wondered if Suda was a fan of pro wrestling before meeting him. He was thinking about ending his video game creating career when Suda approached him. Suda was honest and told Kimura the good and bad points about working at his company, which convinced Kimura decided to .

Siliconera learned that as of last month Yasuhiro Wada and Yoshiro Kimura are no longer at Grasshopper Manufacture.

While no Grasshopper Manufacture titles tied to Wada and Kimura were announced, Suda hoped having these visionaries at Grasshopper Manufacture would yield a more steady stream of games. Grasshopper Manufacture is currently working on Rebuild of Evangelion: Sound Impact, Sine Mora, Black Knight Sword, Lollipop Chainsaw, and the enigmatic Kinect game Codename D (which may be called Diabolical Pitch).

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DeNA are collaborating with five major Japanese game developers to create games for their Mobage service. The company held a press conference today where Yoshifumi Hashimoto of Marvelous Entertainment, Keiji Inafune of Comcept, Suda 51 of Grasshopper Manufacture, Yuji Naka of Prope, and Noritaka Funamizu of Crafts & Meister were in attendance.

Also present was the president of AQ Interactive. AQI will be publishing all of the above developers’ games on the Mobage service. You may recall that Marvelous and AQI will soon be a single company.

Three of their games were named. Hashimoto will be bringing a Harvest Moon social game to the service; Inafune will develop a game called J.J. Rockets; Suda 51 will be bringing a No More Heroes game. In a press release following the announcement, DeNa reveal that the Harvest Moon and No More Heroes games are planned for release this winter.

Just last month, DeNA announced that they are collaborating with Level 5 to create a Professor Layton crossover with Kaito Royale, titled Professor Layton Royale. That game is slated for release in Japan this fall, with a worldwide release planned sometime after that.

Image sourced from Impress Watch’s report of the conference.

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There’s been a fair bit of Harvest Moon-related news lately, whether it’s in the form of Rune Factory Oceans, or the future of the Rune Factory series in general, and with Natsume having announced Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns recently, you can expect more very soon.

On a whim, we decided to dig through an archive of Japanese software sales numbers to take a look at how the Harvest Moon series has been holding up over the years in Japan, ever since Marvelous moved it to the Nintendo DS back in 2005.

Here’s a quick visual aid to give you an idea of how Harvest Moon games from 2005 onward have done. Keep in mind that these numbers aren’t 100% accurate, but they should still give you a decent idea of each game’s performance relative to the others.

Food for thought:

1. PSP game sales:

•  Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon (2006) – 32,128 sold
• Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley (2009) – 49,370 sold

2. According to Natsume, who publish the Harvest Moon games in the U.S., A Wonderful Life on the Gamecube is the best-selling game in the series in America. While none of the console games have sold as well as the portable ones in Japan, A Wonderful Life is by far the best-selling console title in the series over there.

Sales data obtained from Media-Create archives at Geimin.net.

The post Here’s How Harvest Moon Has Fared On The Nintendo DS appeared first on Siliconera.

Natsume had a fun little activity on their Facebook page last week. First, they put up this image of a basket of Harvest Moon plushies. They then challenged their fans to give the image enough “Likes,” promising to reveal the future pre-order bonus for the Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns afterward.

Naturally, fans gladly took them up on the challenge and proceeded to give the image close to 400 Likes, which appeared to be enough. As promised, Natsume announced the pre-order bonus for The Tale of Two Towns today:

An Alpaca.

Pre-orders aren't up yet, but Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns is headed to the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS this year. Note that the Nintendo 3DS version of the game is not the same as the Harvest Moon 3DS title being worked on by the series’ Japanese publisher, Marvelous Entertainment.

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