Fans of Marvelous Inc.’s long-running farming sim/RPG series Harvest Moon Story of Seasons have had to wait a little while for the English localisation of last year’s Nintendo Switch remake of STORY OF SEASONS: Friends of Mineral Town, which released in Japan in October. While the July 10th release isn’t all too far off now, any new information or insight is still a blessing to the (im)patient community.
Luckily, publisher XSEED has shared a fairly lengthy blog post from their English localisation team that shares some great details about how they’re approaching the translation of the game and some fundamental changes they’ve made not just to the game’s text but it’s core systems as well.
The whole thing is worth a read, even just for a glimpse into the wild world of localisation, but the hard-working people over at Nintendo Everything have drawn the community’s attention to one very important detail in the post. In the original Japanese version of the game, a relationship system would allow players to form lifelong bonds with characters in the game, dubbing them ‘Best Friends’.
In the English release, XSEED has decided to re-badge this status as simply ‘marriage’, in the process also tweaking a few of the game’s systems so that the game handles couples of the same sex exactly as it does those of the opposite sex. One example given of this in play is a small change where a ‘heart’ icon denoting a potential romantic partner will appear on a character of the same sex regardless of whether the player has shown interest, the same way it already did for the opposite.
Overall the tweaks seem minor, but they add up to a big win for fans that have been asking for complete support for gay relationships in the series for decades. It’s an important move in the push for inclusiveness in games, especially in a genre where the goal is simulating life and can more closely reflect the actual lives of its players.
Again, give the full post a squiz as it’s an interesting read and thanks again to Nintendo Everything for shining a light on this!
Kieron's been gaming ever since he could first speak the words "Blast Processing" and hasn't lost his love for platformers and JRPGs since. A connoisseur of avant-garde indie experiences and underground cult classics, Kieron is a devout worshipper at the churches of Double Fine and Annapurna Interactive, to drop just a couple of names.
