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Natsume announces new cheery, squishy games

by JC Fletcher { May 28th 2009 at 1:40PM }

Natsume's E3 lineup features mostly what you would expect from Natsume (Harvest Moon and lots of it, plus the previously announced Afrika on PS3), but the company revealed a few unannounced games, some of which are even surprising.

The WiiWare Harvest Moon game, Harvest Moon Ranch Store, is being localized as Harvest Moon: My Little Shop, which is pretty adorable. The company has also announced a new cheerleading game called Cheer We Go for the DS, as well as Squishy Tank, a puzzle game about little animate tanks. If it looks familiar to you, you were probably a really attentive DS Fanboy reader: it's a localized version of Yawaraka Sensha, a licensed puzzle game released last year in Japan by Success.

Gallery: Squishy Tank (DS)

VC/WiiWare Tuesday: WarioWiiWare

by JC Fletcher { Apr 28th 2009 at 1:15PM }

Between Virtual Console and WiiWare this week, Japan has seven new games to download. Well, six if you don't count Konami's WiiWare edutainment screensaver thing (which also acts as kids' introduction to offensive DLC) as a game. And 79 if you do, and also count each available minigame in Asobu! Made in Ore. It's a big week, is what we're saying.

WiiWare is especially sparkling this week, with the aforementioned Asobu, which lets players upload and play games made in the DS Made in Ore (also out this week), as well as the Japanese debut of Bit. Trip: Beat and the Harvest Moon WiiWare spinoff. As for Virtual Console, we're hoping to see Banamco's arcade sci-fi track and field game Numan Athletics make the long, long, long jump out of Japan!

Virtual Console

Kirby's Dreamland 3 (Super Famicom, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
Numan Athletics (Arcade, 1-4 players, 800 Wii Points)
Youkai Douchuuki (Arcade, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

WiiWare

Asobu! Made in Ore (1-4 players, 800 Wii Points)
Bit.Trip: Beat (1-4 players, 500 Wii Points)
Kodomo Kyouiku Terebi - Aiue-O-chan (1-2 players, 700 Wii Points)
Harvest Moon: Ranch Store (1 player, 1,500 Wii Points)

Marvelous Entertainment asks 17% of staff to retire, downgrades to 'Okay Entertainment'

by JC Fletcher { Mar 24th 2009 at 6:20PM }

Marvelous Entertainment, whose game division develops and publishes the Harvest Moon series, in addition to publishing games like No More Heroes, Muramasa, and Hero for 30Sec, is seeking "voluntary retirement" from around 20 staff members as a cost-cutting measure.

Employees are incentivized to take the company up on its "offer" between now and April 3 with a special severance package. The retirements will take effect April 30 -- right around when Muramasa comes out in Japan. That's kind of unfortunate, because it'll make playing this awesome-looking game in a bit more bittersweet for all those former employees.
[Via Edge]

Set up shop in the first Harvest Moon for WiiWare

by JC Fletcher { Mar 5th 2009 at 1:45PM }

Marvelous Interactive's first WiiWare Harvest Moon game is unconventional in more ways than its delivery method. Harvest Moon Series: Makiba no Omise (Ranch Store) allows players to open and operate their own store in the Harvest Moon universe.

Players can choose the type of business to run, design the look, and then man the store, making and selling the products. In the magazine scans, we can see a soft-serve ice cream shop, in which fresh milk is used to create ice cream, which is then dispensed and sold; an Easter egg shop (yeah, that's a little weird), in which the player decorates and sells eggs, and a juice shop in which you can turn the farm's fruits and veggies into juice, which you presumably sell back to the farmers.

Ranch Store goes on sale in Japan April 28 for 1,500 Wii Points. We feel pretty confident Natsume will bring it over here.

New Harvest Moon title coming March 2009 in Japan

by Alan Tsang { Dec 10th 2008 at 2:00PM }

According to Weekly Famitsu, a brand new Harvest Moon title will be making its way onto on the PSP this upcoming March in Japan. In Harvest Moon: Sugar Village, the third PSP title of the farm simulator franchise, you are responsible for the fate of a ... you guessed it, village. Gameplay elements include the ability to make home improvements to your house and to woo girls -- honestly, this sounds just like every other Harvest Moon game. No word yet on whether this game will see a release in the Western market.

[Via PSPHyper]

DS releases for the week of December 8th

by Alisha Karabinus { Dec 8th 2008 at 4:00PM }

Looks like everywhere is skinny on games this week. On the one hand, that's probably good; these release-heavy weeks can be hard on the ol' pocketbook, and this is supposed to be a season of giving, not a season of going out and buying all the games you want. On the other hand, if you're in Europe, you're looking at just one game this week. At least it's Harvest Moon and not Teddy Bears Go Shopping or something.

So who's up for C.O.R.E.?

Build-a-lot
Cate West The Vanishing Files
C.O.R.E.
Driver's Ed Portable
Left Brain Right Brain 2
Slingo Quest

Gallery: C.O.R.E.

Continued →

Harvest Moon: Welcome to the debut trailer

by Alisha Karabinus { Oct 22nd 2008 at 5:00PM }

Can you keep up with all these Harvest Moon games? It's getting pretty difficult, but the recently-announced Harvest Moon: Welcome to the Wind Bazaar should be memorable, thanks to the multiplayer elements ... but it's still Harvest Moon, and that means farming.

As with Animal Crossing, you can invite friends to visit your farm, but in Welcome to the Wind Bazaar, you can put them to work! You know someone's a good friend when they start taking care of your business.

Rune Factory 2 manufactures U.S. release date

by Chris Greenhough { Oct 21st 2008 at 2:25PM }

Marvelous has confirmed it will release Rune Factory 2 into the crowded, choppy waters of the Christmas games market, announcing a November 18th release date for the fantasy-themed farm-me-do.

As that's still four weeks away, we advise passing time by reading up on our hands-on experience with the title, planning crop strategies, and preordering at either Gamestop or Amazon for your very own plush squirrel. Oh yes, and saving money. We're not kidding. Have you seen the DS line-up for November 18th? Yowza.

Gallery: Rune Factory 2

[Via press release]

TGS08: Rising Star reveals four for Europe

by Chris Greenhough { Oct 13th 2008 at 7:30PM }

Rising Star Games just unfurled an official list of Marvelous games that it plans to localize for Europe, including Luminous Arc 2, Avalon Code, Rune Factory 2, and a fourth game that is yet to be announced for North America: Steal Princess. We expected most (if not all) of these to reach us at some point, mainly because Rising Star Games is totally awesome and we love them.

Previous evidence has suggested that Steal Princess and Luminous Arc 2 won't be appearing before the end of March 2009, but we can't be mad at Marvelous. The company has had an action-packed Tokyo Game Show, and this is the cherry on top of a whole pile of other excellent announcements for Nintendo fans. Make the jump for screens, screens, and more screens!

Gallery: Steal Princess

Continued →

Rune Factory 2 preorder bonus is nuts

by JC Fletcher { Oct 7th 2008 at 12:51PM }

Well, nut. Acorn, really. Plush acorn ... in the grip of a plush squirrel. Never mind. Chances are, if you're a fan of, uh, fantasy-themed farming simulations, you've already got a copy of Rune Factory 2 preordered -- if only because there are no games in that narrow subgenre that aren't called Rune Factory.

But hey, even if you don't care about growing whatever or tending whatever or fighting whatever, Natsume will give you this plush squirrel if you preorder their game from Amazon. They keep trying to use cute plushes to sell us games ... and it continues to have a shockingly powerful effect on our resolve. Marvelous is at least as talented at designing adorable, plush-ready mascot characters as they are at designing repetitive, addictive games.

Nintendo conference screen mega-roundup!

by JC Fletcher { Oct 2nd 2008 at 5:40PM }

Click for full-sized image

Nintendo announced a lot of games last night at their Japanese conference. Many of them, like Punch-Out!! here, were brand new. Some, like Supan Smasher and Cosmic Walker, we still don't know anything about. But we've got screenshots. So many screenshots.

After the break, you'll find galleries of all the new games, along with new screens of some upcoming games we've known about for a while. Of special interest to us: the previously-announced Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, coming to the US as Muramasa: The Demon Blade, because it looks super hot, Karaoke Joysound Wii, which appears to have art by Parappa creator Rodney Alan Greenblat, and Takuto of Magic (Wand of Magic), which appears to be a followup to Taito's LostMagic on the DS.

Gallery: Punch-Out!!

Continued →

Harvest Moon: Waku Waku Animal Puppets

by JC Fletcher { Sep 30th 2008 at 9:55AM }

Our Japanese is not quite good enough to ascertain the nuances of this dramatic scene, but what we could understand was self-evident anyway. In this ad for Harvest Moon: Waku Waku Animal March, the frog wants the cow to give him a ride like the animals in the game do.

The cow (spoilers!) relents, and the frog gleefully hops on, only to find the ride slow. The cow complains about being out of energy, and the frog cheers him on, telling him to summon his "cow power." Then the frog takes off on a date with Keromi-chan.

In the second part, after the break, the frog and cow decide to make use of Waku Waku Animal March's photo features. Wackiness ensues, culminating with the frog asking the cow to take some "sexy" shots.

And that's why you should buy Harvest Moon: Waku Waku Animal March.

Continued →

Draw Harvest Moon art to win a bumper crop from Natsume

by JC Fletcher { Sep 2nd 2008 at 12:40PM }

Do you like drawing Harvest Moon cows over, and over, and over again? We're not going to go investigating (for the same reason we try not to investigate any fanart on the intertron), but we suspect that there is a thriving Harvest Moon fanart community -- and they're going to love this.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the farming series, Natsume is giving away a pile of stuff, including a DS Lite Kit, a plush cow and chicken, strategy guides for both Island of Happiness on the DS and Tree of Tranquility on the Wii, and unspecified "additional goodies!"

All you have to do is draw a picture (like, on paper) featuring any character and any animal from a Harvest Moon game, and mail it in. Twenty winners will get stuff! Official rules can be found at the link.

DS releases for the week of August 25th

by Alisha Karabinus { Aug 25th 2008 at 2:00PM }

You want a game? We got your game right here, from titles that were already supposed to be out, to those featuring teeny, tiny ninja dudes. And ... what's this? It seems we barely heard a whisper of From the Abyss, both for its Japanese release and subsequent localization, and now here it is. That can't bode well for the ARPG, but we'll be keeping a few fingers crossed, just in case.

Commando: Steel Disaster
Digimon World Championship
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli
From the Abyss
Garfield's Fun Fest
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness
My Chinese Coach
MLB Power Pros 2008
N+
PictoImage
The Sims 2: Apartment Pets

Head past the break for the other major market releases for the week.

Continued →

Harvest Moon: Waku Waku Animal March uses WiiConnect24

by JC Fletcher { Aug 22nd 2008 at 7:29PM }

The official website for Bokujou Monogatari: Waku Waku Animal March has updated with new screens and art of all the super-adorable animals that will be featured -- the ones above can even be kept as pets. But even more heartwarming than cartoon pandas is the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection logo on the front page. The game supports WiiConnect24 in some as-yet-unspecified way -- sharing crops? Sending pictures of yourself riding a goat along the beach?

Marvelous has also announced the Japanese release date: October 30. Since this is a Harvest Moon game, we expect Natsume to pick it up for release here, but they've got to finish with Tree of Tranquility first. Less likely to leave Japan is the promotional campaign associated with Animal March, in which lucky winners will receive Harvest Moon stickers ... or yogurt.

[Via NeoGAF]