It seems like an age since we've heard anything about the charming Project Happiness. Missing, presumed dead, Project Happiness was set to be a game very much in the vein of Harvest Moon, but with your acres of farmland being replaced by a small run-down shop - and much like our beloved farming series, it'd be up to you to build up your business, whilst building relationships with the many townsfolk too. Now stepping back into the online spotlight, details have recently splashed onto the internet, confirming a release later this year (yay!), a new name, in the form of HomeTown Story, and a rather strong team behind it...
As you may expect, the basic concept behind the game is the same as when we last saw it, tasking you with turning around a dying store with your commercial prowess - but it seems there'll be more of a focus on story this time out. As it's new name suggests, the idyllic town is home to all manner of stories, with each character that visits your store for a spot of retail therapy having their own tale to tell - which will presumably be revealed little by little as you get to know them better. Further your relationship with the townsfolk, and friendship, love, and potentially even marriage may be on the cards. As we saw in the very first trailer, you'll also be accompanied by your own floating fairy sprite thing, who can lend a hand with... well, we're not sure what. Either way, we think it looks very much like a long lost sister of the Pokemon Minccino, and it turns out there may be a reason for that similarity...
Wonder if there'll be any cuddly sprite pre-order bonuses?
You see, HomeTown Story is going to be a collaboration of several top Japanese games industry faces - art design done by the man behind Pokemon (hence the pink afro-ed Minccino), music from Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame, coupled with a game designed by the father of Harvest Moon, Yasuhiro Wada. That's three series' that are very close to our hearts here at Everybody Plays, which makes HomeTown Story all the more intriguing.
We've been assured that the game is more than halfway to completion at the moment, and that they're aiming to release HomeTown Story for the 3DS later this year - although whether that's just in Japan remains to be seen. Hopefully, the game will at the very least follow a similar pattern to the Harvest Moon games, with the game releasing a few months later in America, and then almost a year after that in Europe, due to the many languages the games have to be translated into. Either way, so long as we get it in the end, we're sure it'll be worth the wait. In the mean time, why not check out the trailer below:
