Rising Star Blog

Calling all Harvest Moon Fans!

You asked the questions, we've got the answers from the one and only Yasuhiro Wada. Check out if your burning question was answered!

What inspired you to make Harvest Moon?

The game without fight, the game nobody's going to make... this was what I wanted to make. Originally I was going to develop a kind of life simulation and the firming was just a background of it, not the purpose.

What future do you see for Harvest Moon?

I expect it to have more freedom which the player can do anything he wants to do but the game must be very characteristic and unique with the characters with new AI which shows the unexpected reaction even I can't imagine.

Why there aren't boy and boy marriages as there was best friends system in HMDS Cute? Boys can have best friends too~

I agree with you (laugh)! As it happens, this game is not to have that system.

Do you plan on making an Innocent Life 2?

No, I'm sorry.

The quality of the main Harvest Moon games has really gone downhill. DS, Island, Shining Sun, and Wind Bazaar for the DS are all games that either are not very good or do not look good at all. The only good DS Harvest Moon games are the Rune Factory ones. What do you plan to do about this lowering of quality of the main Harvest Moon games?

I think it's the matter of taste. From my side, as a creator, I believe Harvest Moon Shining Island (DS) is the best game in the Harvest Moon DS series and I'm proud of Harvest Moon Animal Parade (Wii) as I think this game is the masterpiece "magnum opus" in all the series.

It was announced a while back that Marvelous was working on an online Harvest Moon game. Has development really begun? How far are you in development? When can we expect to get information about the game?

No comment. But I believe "the day" will come in near future!

Lately, the male protagonists have become more and more feminine and younger and younger looking (take a look at Wind Bazaar! or the Rune Factory series). Can you please explain why this is the case? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an older, manlier main character (like, 20 something years old)? Working on a farm, you build muscle I would believe!

The player character must be ordinary character so that as much fan as possible can project on it. You might be able to create or customise the player character in near future. And you might be able to build the muscle then!

What part of the game's creation do you enjoy the most?

I really feel fun when the "armchair idea" (the idea which was on my desk) is just about to move actually in the screen.

Which game would you go back and remake if you could and what would you change?

It's not as if I am satisfied with all the products I developed and there were a lot of things I couldn't achieve by the reason of time or technical matter so I can think of a lot of things I'd like to improve. However, as a creator, I don't desire the remake. The real creator should be thinking of developing completely new games.

Would you consider mixing another game genres with Harvest moon like with Rune Factory?

No at the moment but I feel the possibility in future.

Customisation has been increasing in Harvest Moon games I was wondering how far this would go? Will we eventually be able to create our own village based on stuff we like?

I hope so but I don't want to develop the game which is too deep and only for the core gamers and which is designed like the normal players can't play.

In Wind Bazaar the style of the game has changed style. Will there be other games based on different locations around the world like a oriental, Egyptian, elven or maybe an entire village made out of sweets styled game?

I believe any possibility is there but I don't have that idea at the moment.

Will there be an animated HarvestMoon/Rune Factory series or film?

Unfortunately, no.

There have been games where two series have been put together or characters from one series appear in a series they wouldn't appear in. Kingdom Hearts and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. Would you ever do something like that for the Harvest moon series?

No, so far.

Why don't we have lots of events anymore? All the events that seem to happen now are between marriage candidates and rivals. It was just fun in older games how all the misc. background characters had plenty of events to expand upon their own stories and just generally make them more interesting beyond "shop keeper."

Please play "Animal Parade". Though still I'm not satisfied with the time for loading, we made much effort so that you can enjoy especially the events. This game has most events in the Harvest Moon series, which has nothing to do with love or marriage.

 

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