#🥺🙏 ty for the ask! sorry that my response might be A Lot

[bokujou-monogatari]

Hey! What do you think of Harvest Moon Light of Hope? I really like it but there's not much about it. Ik it's after the marvelous/natsume breakup but uh, I kinda love it.

Okay, first of all, thank you so much for the ask! I'm thrilled that you sent this and shared something you love with me. :)

To preface, I was asked for my opinion, and (usually) I do not solidify opinion without retrospective analysis. So this is some personal opinion, and some observant fact discussion based on stuff that came out with the release of it. I can't talk about this without addressing some glaring discussion points.

My short answer is: I'm not really fond of it, or Natsume titles.

My long answer is below. Please don't continue past the read more unless you're prepared. 🥺

I want to stress that this is entirely not meaning to sour yours or anyone else's opinion and I hope you continue to enjoy what you love.

Never thought I'd ever have someone directly ask me about this game, because in the past, I've freely given my opinion of it. Forgive my long-winded verbosity in advance.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of Light of Hope. Next to Little Farmers and Lost Valley, I'd rank it as very low on the list of games I'd ever willingly purchase out of the split. If you were curious, Winds of Anthos is the closest I came to feeling like I might throw $20 to Natsume, but alas I have yet to pay for any of their games. I don't need or want to - and we'll get to that.

If the game were named anything other than Harvest Moon, perhaps I'd have a less strict view of this game. Alas, it's a Natsume title. While being a "Natsume-published" title does not make a game bad by default, it's a Natsume-funded and outsource-developed title under a dead horse label. Light of Hope was, to dismay, released as the "20th Anniversary" title - as in "20 Years of Harvest Moon". I even have the book to speak to this.

As a consumer, and also as a game dev, I would not ever align myself with a company that seeks to obfuscate origin or take credit for others' work - as they so did when marketing this game, using this timeline to allude to sequential relation of their games and the originals under Bokujou Monogatari.

Separate to the name label debacle, there's clearly a progression of improvement across the board from the studio actually putting the effort in - Appci (formerly Tabot inc.) -- I will give them that.

From their previous games, players got a pretty similar experience of writing comparatively with Skytree Village, but there was still something to be desired about the overworld presentation. The overall gameplay loop did not regress but also did not particularly innovate anything. This title, largely, just felt like coasting on a household name without (perhaps intentionally) trying to stray too far to stand on its own two feet.

But this game is perhaps one of Natsume's most egregious offenders in the sheer amount of Questionable and Not Great decisions.

Among Questionable, Not Great, and perhaps Predatory decisions... there were DLCs present in their previous sole-developed titles of course, but this IP introduced:

Three release versions (Base, Special Edition, Special Edition Complete) with each subsequent release retailing for close to the same price as the first time

DLCs sold separately ($1.99, $5.99, $3.99, $5.99) - OR, $9.99 +tax for a "Season Pass" that contained all DLCs.

These DLCs were for tool upgrades, and extra marriage candidates that fans would have experienced to be Part of the Main Game experience if they played a Bokumono game.

Pure speculation on my part, but one of the pay-for-characters introduced was a clear point at Makise Kurisu from Steins Gate. It felt like they were really playing on that likeness to draw people in.

Perhaps the worst decision they made of all was a character known as Soleil. This character was introduced in Special Edition, as a character similar to Jamie (Magical Melody) or Inari (Trio of Towns) - originality be damned - and was portrayed as a gender ambiguous magical being that would be opposite to whoever you chose as the MC.

The kicker - this was a character you had to hatch from a crystal and raise yourself. The events between this character were more of parent and child, and ended with a confession of love from this being that imprinted on you. It was highly inappropriate. The pages are now deleted on their Facebook, but their social media manager took to responding to the criticisms. The responses did not help. You can find this discussion on Fogu for reference.

Soleil is also a new marriageable character once he is full grown! Wait a minute…wasn’t the earlier picture of him a male?! What’s the story here…?

Soleil is not a human! Soleil doesn't follow human aging…

Ring ring...Chris Hansen's calling. Just absolutely yikes. Deleting those posts was probably their idea of a smart move, but for those who were there, it is unfortunately very ingrained. People deserve to know the decisions they made here to make informed choices.

So what do I feel about the game?

It's among my worst rated games ever for sheer predatory practices and improper decision making. I'm glad there are people that can find it enjoyable, as I'm sure the team that developed this tried their best at the time. But damn.