Image: Square Enix
Square Enix is keeping its year-end release schedule very busy. Even if you discount titles like Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium, their Switch lineup, which includes The DioField Chronicle, NieR: Automata, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, is a force to be reckoned with.
But they’re all cross-platform releases or ports, and we know we haven’t covered everything, but there’s one game Square Enix is releasing that’s exclusive to the Switch console. Harvestella was revealed during Nintendo’s most recent Partner Direct, and it looks like something a little different for the RPG developer.
Combining life simulation, farming and RPG elements, it feels like the company’s answer to Rune Factory. With its beautiful pastel environments and lush character designs, we’re very interested. Today, Square Enix showed off some new details about the game on its blog, focusing on the main city, the game’s job system, character stories, and the different crops you can harvest.
Let’s start with a summary straight from the blog post, shall we?
In daily life, you can spend a relaxing day farming, fishing or raising livestock, before heading into town to socialize and build your relationships with the residents. If you want to test your combat skills, 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, autumn 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 seasons and the grim inevitability of Quietus, as you try to solve the mysteries behind this season of death.
You will begin your adventure in the city of spring, Nemea. This beautiful lilac town is full of flowers all year round, and at night, the cherry blossoms dance in the moonlight. But the appearance of a giant egg in the Spring Seaslight has caused monsters to appear and attack the town’s residents.
Joining forces with a member of the Argus Brigade, Asyl, you must travel to Seaslight to find out why the egg is causing this discord.
Images: Square Enix
Alongside Asyl, you’ll also meet Istina, a teacher who takes care of the children at the town’s orphanage. However, she has a somewhat hidden past, which she hides from the townspeople and children and largely keeps to herself otherwise. But your appearance in town will change all that for her.
We like Istina. He likes to read and is very intelligent, and he likes to read aloud to children, especially about all the places in the world. And we also appreciate his trepidation and calm nature.
Images: Square Enix
We’re also taking a look at some new work coming to the game. Joining Fighter, Mage, and Shadow Walker (which is the coolest sounding job ever, if you ask us) is Sky Lancer.
Okay, maybe this is as cool as Shadow Walker. This is basically a Dragon class that uses a spear and focuses on wind elemental attacks. He’s also pretty good at crowd control apparently!
To learn new jobs, you must work together with another character who has that job. Hopefully, then, Asyl is a Sky Lancer! 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 simulation of life. Talking to the neighbors is key. These “Character Stories” will focus on the character’s problems, and completing them will increase your proximity, while granting rewards and combat boosts!
But you’ll also need to harvest, fish, and ship items too! And you can prepare some delicious-looking dishes with the ingredients you grow, like strawberry cake and Nemea Bolognese. And that’s just a taste of what you can do with spring season ingredients! Strawberries are called “strawberries”, but it’s worth noting
To make it more like Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon, you can harvest your crops and catch… fish, then ship the goods 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’ll need to craft some things to make some other things like wheat.
Images: Square Enix
We’re excited to see what the other seasons bring to the game and what other jobs we’ll be able to play as Harvestella. The game will be released on November 4th, which means we won’t have to wait long for this one to pop!
You can read more about the game in Square Enix’s blog post below. And be sure to let us know what you think of these new details about Harvestella in the comments!