Harvest Moon goes Minecraft

Have you ever played an older Harvest Moon title and lamented the fact that you had to walk a long ways just to get to a river to fish? No more. Natsume, the developers behind the very successful farming simulation franchise, launched a new trailer for their upcoming 3DS title, Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. While most of us assumed that Natsume would once again have to take the franchise in a new direction, I’m not sure many would have bet on a Minecraft knock-off.

Natsume now has a few trailers and screens available for viewing, and they all still point towards the classic gameplay. You will still have animals to tend to, crops to plant and harvest, and relationships to forge. Marriage is still a thing, upgrading your home has always been a fun, sometimes challenging, endeavor, and collecting stone and wood will once again consume the majority of your final stamina near the end of the day. However, it appears as if the stone and wood now takes on a new importance.

From the latest gameplay video released, it appears as if players will be able to use wood to create bridges, stone to create mountains, and dirt to create hills and grassy planes. The video shows the player creating a walkway through a meadow, creating massive mountains, and crafting winding rivers and waterfalls. The more you watch, the more you feel that perhaps you are just watching a higher resolution version of Minecraft on Twitch. You’re not. 

Personally, this is not the way I want Natsume to go, but with the success Minecraft has seen, I cannot blame them for going this route. Although I’m disappointing, I do believe Natsume has opened Harvest Moon to an entirely new group of people.

Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley is due out later this year.