Hometown Story Proves even Work can be Fun - Preview
by Karl Koebke , posted on 14 June 2013 / 4,224 Views
I’m a huge fan of Reccetear and a moderate fan of the Harvest Moon series, so HomeTown Story for the 3DS seems right up my alley. Directed by Yosuhiro Wada of Harvest Moon fame, along with Nobuo Uematsu making the music, this star studded title tells the story of a young man/woman who has just inherited their grandmother's store.
You’ll run everything about your new store from the placement of the displays to what products you’ll put on them and what they’ll cost. Nicer displays can affect what kind of prices you can expect, and their placement can affect the flow of customers, so it’s good to keep Feng Shui in mind. Running a store mostly involves waiting for someone to buy something but once you actually have a willing customer you’ll have to man the register so they can actually purchase what they chose and restock the empty tables left behind.
At first you have to actually be in the store whenever you want it to be open but eventually your floating mystical sidekick Pochica will be able to man the store when you’re away. Each customer has their own preferences so it might be best if you man the store yourself as much as possible to learn what exactly these preferences are.
When you aren’t actively doing your job you can walk around town and get to know its inhabitants. Many of the NPCs are unnamed townsfolk, but that isn’t the case for them all. I came upon a young woman who was willing to sell me items I could mark up and sell in my own store. She even had some items she could make for me, given the right ingredients and a bit of money of course. Apparently she worked at Subway because all her crafting options were sandwiches, but I’m sure there are people with other skills around.
A representative from Natsume told me that like the Harvest Moon series your relationship with these townsfolk is a big part of the game. Your interactions will affect not only your own relationship with the town’s inhabitants but their relationships with each other. Eventually you’ll become an irreplaceable part of the town with a special person of your own. I’ll be interested to see if HomeTown Story can dethrone Reccetear as my favorite game about selling stuff ever. Look to gamrReview for more information on HomeTown Story as it gets closer to its release on 3DS later this year.
