News Harvestella (farming simulation RPG from Square Enix) announced for Switch and Steam, out November 4

[NabiscoFelt]

Some more information here, including a look at some of the characters and a brief explanation of the job system



https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/harvestella

 

[Dunban]

Take a fresh look at HARVESTELLA | Square Enix Blog

Want more information about the life simulation RPG from Square Enix? We look at the story, combat, fishing, cooking, selling goods and more.

www.square-enix-games.com

There's been an update revealing new details on the town and beautiful new artwork from Isamu Kamikokuryo.

 

[meatbag]

Here's the Treehouse presentation for those who missed it.

Personal thoughts:

• The player character has amnesia, truly Square has done their research on farming sims.
• The timer seems to be in a 10 minutes to 8 seconds ratio. An in-game 18-hour day would then take approximately 14-15 minutes. Not bad.
• The overworld is dainty, I dig it.
• Liking the UI for the farming, it has all the QOL features you'd want to keep things breezy. And the targeting system for the plots look less janky. Interesting that you need to till a square twice to prepare it for planting.
• The crops grow way fast! Like after a day. The farming is probably going to be more simplified than I thought. The battle system on the other hand looks decently fleshed out, so I imagine the gameplay loop is going to lean more on the adventuring. Seems like you can equip three job classes at a time, and changing jobs changes your movesets. That said the fights only seem a couple notches above something like RF, and I wonder if that's going to be good enough, especially if the farming is going to be less involved.
• Ugh, fishing looks like it takes way too long. It took the streamer a full minute before getting a catch. And it looks like pure RNG, you can't aim for shadows in the water or something.
• You level up when you sleep, and it looks like levels only apply to battle stats. The skill-specific levels are one thing I'm gonna miss from Rune Factory.

There's still a lot we don't know about the game, such as the crafting and the socialization, but right now I'm actually feeling a bit lukewarm to it. Might have been more excited if I hadn't gotten RF5 already.

EDIT: There's also a food meter, but I'm not sure if it's a cooldown timer (preventing you from spamming healing food items) or it's a needs bar that needs to be kept full. The latter option would be a better fit for the gameplay loop, though. Or maybe it's both?

 

[mazi]

 

[shoptroll]

Details on the Winter region and more mechanics have been revealed:

A look at Winter in HARVESTELLA | Square Enix Blog

What crops can you grow in Winter in Harvestella? Who is Brakka? What are Faerie Orders? We take a look at the snowy season in Harvestella.

www.square-enix-games.com

Also the full release includes the following changes from the demo (per Gematsu's coverage):

• Reduced time lapse speed on the world map and the field.
• Reduced hit time for fishing.
• Reduced cooldown time for job changes.
• Increased the Mage’s normal attack speed.
• Partially reduced loading time.
• Addition of a warning effect when a character’s HP is low.
• Modified UI during save and auto-save.
• Various assorted bug fixes.