[springboard type=”video” id=”946953″ player=”nchg001″ width=”600″ height=”350″ ]

It’s been a confusing time to be a Harvest Moon fan these past few weeks. First we learned the amazing news that XSEED Games was localizing the latest in the series in Story of Seasons, only to learn that the Harvest Moon name was curiously dropped.

Then we were reminded that Natsume owns the trademark for Harvest Moon in North America, and since Marvelous AQL went with their new internal localization studio (XSEED), they decided to just drop the name.

And then, Natsume announced a new Harvest Moon game, titled Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. We played it at E3 2014, and it’s definitely like the Marvelous developed games, but it’s definitely a different experience.

Finally, we’ve gotten the debut trailer for Story of Seasons, only it doesn’t show any gameplay. It shows the box art for every Harvest Moon game ever made, in Japanese. Could this be a hint towards there being some real legal troubles/bad blood behind the scenes?

It even points to Story of Seasons as a “rebirth” for the series, meaning the name we’ve known for over a decade (and most of my life) is no longer associated with the development team who has crafted it.

Whatever the reason, we’re still getting the latest by Marvelous, and we’re also getting a brand new Harvest Moon from Natsume, so as a longtime fan of the series, I guess I have no reason to complain.