Dear Natsume: You kind of Suck

[Snake]

(Disclaimer: I take that back if Freyashawk's information is wrong. Natsume is still awesome except for this one incident.)

Don't know if anyone heard, but the Best Friend system has been taken out of the game. Freyashawk got an early copy of the game and tried to marry Leia. Apparently you can still trigger their heart events, but you cannot marry them.

This might be an error, as she might not have triggered everything needed (although she said she did), but if it isn't then I'm not sure if it's even worth it to get the game. I can't imagine paying $35 for a game where'll I'll end up marrying the same character I married in MFoMT but with only 1/10 the personality...


Edit: A couple things to add. There's a preorder bonus with the game and there's also a Harvest Moon travel kit coming out. More Harvest Moon merchandise? Very yes!

Credit goes to Sango12592 of the Harvest Moon guild on Gaia for finding the travel kit.


Edit 2: All right, Natsume. You win this round. Next time I shall not cave to the sweet call of your games.

[Butterscotch]

I understand that Natsume was in a difficult position with this game: the best friends system has very obvious lesbian overtones, and by leaving it in they could upset certain groups, but they could also upset certain groups by taking it out.There's an old saying "He who tries to please everyone, pleases no one" and that's what Natsume has done here.

You can still trigger the heart events, and if you have the love bangle, you can see the girl's love points. This alone could be enough to piss off the more narrow-minded out there. But by removing the marriage part, you've pissed off gay-rights groups. Yeah, this one decision could potentially get bad press no matter what!

If they'd left it in, I'd be applauding Natsume. If they left it out, I'd shrug, grumble a bit, but I could understand their reasoning behind. I can't understand their reasoning behind this. It's totally half-assed.

But I want that travel kit! If only I had a DS Lite ;_;

[Snake]

Yeah, that's one of the things that bothers me. It just seems very lazy of them, but I guess this is a game localized by a company who misspelled their own company name in one of their games, so...yeah.

Really, though, what bothers me more is that this is a game where the main character can get drink and get pregnant. The BF system seems like it would be more geared towards children because it has no sexual undertones since you're just given a child, but I guess not.

And as for the travel kit, I'm honestly surprised that it's being released. I never thought Harvest Moon was popular enough to have its own merchandise.


Edit: And two more things to add:

1. Looks like there are still glitches. My game has frozen once so far, but it's been fine ever since.

2. They took away Flora's tildes! Too bad it's in the game where you can't marry her...


Edit 2: So I'm doing a social experiment to determine whether the sex of the child relies on your husband's affection. One season after marriage and...Skye's not feeling well!? Is there something about Skye I don't know?!