Hometown Story Releases This Week!

 

As always with Rising Star simulation games it seems, us folks over in the EU had to wait a good few months before we see games like Harvest Moon appearing over our side of the pond. Hometown Story was no different. From the creator of Harvest Moon Yasuhiro Wada; comes a new simulation game with music from the well known composer Nobuo Uematsu, so I am looking at the soundtrack being fabulous here.

Originally developed under the name “Project Happiness”, the story behind Hometown Story is that you inherit a store from your deceased grandma and it’s your job to take over and run it in your new town. You can see the Harvest Moon influence coming through already as you can interact with the people in your town and romance bachelors and bachelorettes, as well as make some new friends. Once your store starts growing, getting rarer and better items in stock, more people will move to the town apparently starting from 10 people and getting up to about 100 depending on your actions throughout the campaign.

You are able to personalise your character and your store somewhat and you’ll always have a friend by your side with Pochicha, the magical sprite. Go on a nice adventure outside of the town or catch up with your relaxation with a spot of fishing. However you decide to play the game, you’ll have a chance to unlock different characters and endings from your in-game decisions. The game already sounds like a combination of Recettear and Harvest Moon, though unfortunately the reviews from across the pond have not been all that amazing, but I guess we shall see once we get our hands on it before giving you our impressions.