Square Enix and Nintendo showcased the upcoming farming RPG, Harvestella at the August Nintendo Treehouse Live.
The Treehouse Live gave us a 30-minute look at the game, showing us an early portion of the game, the combat and farming mechanics, early story, exploration, and time management system as the game is always running on a persistent clock and the Job system that changes your class based on whatever weapon you have equipped. Let’s check out everything you need to know from the Treehouse showcase!
Harvestella launches on Nintendo Switch and PC on November 4.
▍Harvestella Nintendo Treehouse Showcase
▍Harvestella’s World Building
Harvestella takes place in a fantasy world, surrounding the town of Lethe Village. The town is next to a Sealight, and after a mysterious egg falls from the sky onto the Sealight, demons begin attacking the nearby inhabitants, threatening their daily lives. While there is an ever-present threat of demon attacks, it is not enough completely disrupt the daily lives of Lethe village’s inhabitants.’
Your player character wakes up on a hill near Lethe village, being saved by a doctor called Cres. You awake with no memories of your past life, and as you wake up a wounded omen falls from the sky. Omens are mysterious, powerful sentient beings and are said to be the cause of the world’s calamities and terrors, as such people fear them, despite not understanding them. You meet this wounded omen, unconscious, and decide to nurse it back to health, living in a vacant house on a hill.
To help supply your new lifestyle, you take on jobs, most notably, farming. As you begin getting used to your new lifestyle, word around town spreads that a girl traveled by herself to the Sealight, with none to turn to, it’s up to you to pursue the girl and bring her home before it’s too late.
▍Time Management is key!
But in Harvestella, you can’t do that right away, as everything in the game takes time! The game runs on a persistent clock that ticks away as you perform certain actions, with shops and events being available as time changes. Shops won’t be open late at night, enemies may appear at different times of the day, and most importantly, you will become more tired as the day goes on. Stay up too late, and you’ll pass out returning home, with time lost on the next day!
As such, you’ll need to manage your time carefully. With more time you spend doing one thing taking away time from another task, but possibly netting more fruitful results. Time also affects the crops you can grow, as the game progresses into different seasons over time, changing the appearance of the world, while also giving you access to new food items and recipes appropriate to the season.
Time also affects NPC interactions, with certain characters checking in on you with gifts after you’ve helped others, giving you food, or other useful items!
▍Harvestella’s Combat, and Jobs System
Good thing for you though, you’re not helpless against the various demons this world has to offer, as you can equip multiple weapons to change classes! The game offers multiple classes including the Fighter, Mage, Shadow Walker, and Sky Lancer, and even the Assault Savant, a class that combines science and martial arts to devastating effects, unleashing powerful attacks from afar and up close!
Enemies in the game also feature different elemental weaknesses. Attack them with their weakness to fill up a break-gauge, which when full, gives you access to a special attack to deal tremendous damage to an enemy! Breaking an enemy also causes them to be weakened for a while, letting you pile on the pain even more!
Special attacks can be learned by talking and creating bonds with your party members, so if you want to learn more, it’s best to spend time with different party members as you progress into the game!
▍Farming and Food!
Check out some of the delicious ingredients and recipes you can create in the game!
Farming doesn’t just require time and seeds, but also animals. You can tame animals to become pets or livestock, allowing you to build animal pens to obtain eggs, and rear the animals to collect their milk for cooking recipes. You will have to feed animals, however, and you can create a Feed Maker while tossing in ingredients to easily create Feed for them.
Are you excited about Harvestella? Let us know in the comments, and let us know if you’re a fan of this Harvest Moon meets Final Fantasy-style gameplay!