It wouldn’t be E3 if Harvest Moon weren’t at the Natsume booth!
It has become a right of passage for me to go to the Natsume booth during E3. It just wouldn’t feel like an E3 if I didn’t go stop by and see the cow at Natsume. This year, I had my stuffed chicken in hand so I was ready to see what Natsume was showing off!
If I felt like it wouldn’t be an E3 if I didn’t stop by the Natsume booth, they probably felt the same way if they didn’t come to Los Angeles with a Harvest Moon game. They won’t have to worry since they have Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories for Wii U/iOS/Tablets/Androids/PC. These are the same characters from Harvest Moon: Lost Valley but it’s an alternate universe. Think the alternate 1985 timeline in Back to the Future and yes, I did just put a Back to the Future reference in a Natsume E3 review!
The controls have been simplified. The game won’t ask you simple questions like if you want to use your hammer if you have your hammer in your inventory, stuff like that. The “Seeds of Memories” are the memories of the townsfolk and you will be responsible to be the gardener and plant those seeds and get those folks their memories back. (I did write that sentence and we all have to live with it!)
Gotcha Racing for the Nintendo 3DS was up next and it reminded me a little of Mario Kart in terms of customization. It’s not nearly the same as Mario Kart customization but it does give you slight options. These are capsule cars where you can get you buy your parts out of vending machines/capsule machines. Driving is pretty simple as it looks like an old micro machines game, where you look down at the action. Drifting is as simple as turning the car!
Gotcha Racing has Streetpass features where you can get Ghost driver data from other drivers as well as unique Streetpass capsule parts for your car. You can have up to four cars in your garage so you can experiment with different models before you find the right speed machine! You can use in-game money to buy capsules as well play coins to purchase things as well! The better you place in the race, the more money you make. The more money you make, the better parts you can get and the better car you can have! The game should have about 40 hours of game play as well as release this summer.
Finally, there’s Brave Tank Hero which is going to come out for both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. I played the 3DS version and it was really fun. The two versions of the game basically play the same way with the top screen of the 3DS representing the TV screen and the bottom playing the role of the Game Pad. Game play sessions for Brave Tank Hero are 3-5 minutes so you can play quite a few in one sitting and there are at least 30 missions to complete. They range from Protection to rescue to blowing stuff up! Stats are upgradable by how well you do in each mission. You need stars to upgrade you tank and you receive those by how well you do in the missions so make sure you perform your best in the mission. 3-5 minute gameplay sessions not on your phone, so crazy it just might work!
