Square Enix is keeping its year-end release schedule extremely busy. Even if you rule out titles like Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium, its Switch lineup, which includes The DioField Chronicle, NieR: Automata, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, is a force to be reckoned with.
But all of those are cross-platform releases or ports, and we know we haven’t covered everything there, but there is one game that Square Enix is releasing that is exclusive to the Switch console. Harvestella was revealed during Nintendo’s most recent Partner Direct, and it seems like something a little different for the RPG developer.
Combining elements of life simulation, farming, and role-playing games, it looks like the company’s answer to rune factory. With its lovely pastel environments and lush character designs, we’re extremely interested. Today, Square Enix showed off some new details for the game on their blog, focusing on the main city, the game’s job system, character stories, and the different crops you can harvest.
So, let’s start with a recap straight from the blog post, shall we?
In everyday life, you can spend a relaxed day farming, fishing, or raising livestock, before heading into town to socialize and develop relationships with the residents. If you want to put your combat skills to the test, you can enter a dungeon to face hordes of monsters with a variety of weapons and jobs.
Whatever you do, time passes through the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter. But between each one there is a fifth season: Quietus! During this time, crops wither and die, and a deadly dust keeps people trapped inside.
You’ll have to plan for the changing of seasons and the grim inevitability of Quietus, as you try to solve the mysteries behind this season of death.
You will start your adventure in the city of spring, Nemea. This beautiful lilac-colored town is full of flowers throughout the year and at night, the cherry blossoms dance in the moonlight. But the appearance of a giant egg in Spring Seaslight has caused monsters to appear and attack the town’s residents.
Joining forces with a member of the Argus Brigade, Asyl, you will have to travel to Seaslight to discover why the egg is causing this discord.
Along with Asyl, you will also meet Istina, a teacher who takes care of the children in the town orphanage. However, she has a somewhat hidden past, hiding it from the townspeople and children, and much of it is kept secret. But your appearance in town will change all that for her.
We like Istina. She likes to read and is very intelligent, and she enjoys reading aloud to children, especially about the different places in the world. And we also appreciate her restlessness and her calm nature.
We’re also going to take a look at a new job coming to the game. Join Fighter, Mage and Shadow Walker (who is the More cool sound work ever, if you ask us), there’s the Sky Lancer.
ok maybe East sounds as cool as Shadow Walker. It is essentially a Dragon class that uses a spear and focuses on wind element attacks. Apparently he’s pretty good at crowd control too!
To learn new jobs, you must work together with another character who has that job. Good thing Asyl is a Sky Lancer, then! We’ll take it as soon as we can in our game.
Characters are also pretty important throughout the game, not just in battle. It’s an RPG, remember! And a life simulator. Talking to residents is wrench. These ‘Character Stories’ will focus on the character’s issues, and completing them will increase your closeness to the character, while also granting rewards and combat boosts!
But you’ll also need to harvest, fish, and ship items too! And you can make delicious dishes with the ingredients you grow, like Strawberry Shortcake and Nemean Bolognese. And this is just a sample of what you can do with the ingredients of the spring season! However, strawberries are called ‘strawbuddies’, and that’s totally noteworthy.
To make this more like Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon, you can harvest your crops and catch…fish, and then ship the produce to earn money. You don’t have to cook with them, and sometimes you’ll want to save the pennies to buy more produce. And you will need to craft some things to make other things like wheat.
We’re excited to see what the other seasons bring to the game and what other jobs we’ll get to take on at Harvestella. The game launches on November 4th, which means we don’t have to wait long for this one to sprout.
You can read more about the game in Square Enix’s blog post below. And make sure that ILet us know what you think of these new Harvestella details in the comments!