Harvest Moon is a tricky story. The games were developed in Japan by Marvellous Entertainment, but while originally translated and localized by Natsume, is currently localized by XSEED Games (and by Rising Star Games in Europe). The problem, however, is that the name “Harvest Moon” is held by Natsume, not XSEED. So while XSEED continues to localize Marvellous’ Japanese games under the title “Story of Seasons”, Natsume and Rising Star continue to make games using the name Harvest Moon. So, to be clear, the newest game in the series, The Lost Valley, is not strictly part of Marvellous Entertainment’s main Harvest Moon series because Marvellous Entertainment had nothing to do with it, even though it shares many gameplay elements with the original Harvest Moon series. It makes sense, therefore, to analyze and review this game based not on the original Harvest Moon series, but as its own entity with the same name. Confused? Never mind. Let’s just farm through this review to see what kind of crops we reap.
