Even before Farmville arrived to engage gamers into rigorous field work, Harvest Moon portrayed the countryside profession with much vigor. The title which was first released in 1996 is coming back to consoles from the house of Nintendo. Namco Bandai Partners S.A.S has teamed up with Rising Star Games to distribute Harvest Moon: Animal Parade and Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands for the Wii and Nintendo DS, respectively.
Harvest Moon: Animal Parade is said to expand the horizons of the farm simulation series with greater emphasis on animal breeding. In this title, players will have to restore the earth by getting the harvest king back to the island. While accomplishing this mission, they will also need to maintain the farm as they advance in the game on their Wii consoles. Gamers can use the Wii Remote as an axe, shovel, fishing rod and more as they keep a tab over their animals.
“The Harvest Moon series has a very strong heritage of delivering consistently high quality games, so it’s with great pleasure that we will be bringing these two latest iterations in the series to our markets,” explained Alberto González Lorca, Vice President Third Parties, Namco Bandai Partners. “We’re looking forward to working with the team at Rising Star to maximise their potential and reach new fans.”
Martin Defries, Managing Director and COO, Rising Star Games, commented, “The Harvest Moon games have enjoyed a strong European following for over a decade. With Namco Bandai Partners we have a distributor with proven effectiveness in these markets who can continue to strengthen that position and grow the potential of this fantastic series.”
The other title namely Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands has been designed for the Nintendo DS. Gamers can step into this world on their handheld console to elevate the sunken islands for reviving the place which has been devastated by a powerful earthquake. In the game, they can also meet their true love, leading to another story in this chapter.
It is expected that Harvest Moon: Animal Parade and Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands will hit stores across the EMEA regions in November this year.