Natsume no stranger to the E3 scene always has the visually impressive booth last year with a giant Cow plush and this year with a small farm reminiscent of the infamous Harvest moon series they are known for, in a nice surprise they also appeared for the first time at Anime Expo with the same farm but also for the first time ever a Bazaar like shop selling the hard to find Harvest Moon plushies that have only been available via preordering titles so some collectors must use ebay to find them. This year line up for Natsume focused on 4 upcoming DS titles:

 Harvest Moon: the Grand Bazaar

   Harvest Moon: the Grand Bazaar is the newest Harvest Moon title that is coming to the Nintendo DS. However, unlike its many predecessors, this game has a very different approach to the farm life. Up until now, all of the Harvest Moon titles have the players only handle the process of growing and gathering materials that needs to be sold, but in this game, the players must take on all aspects of the work. This time around, the selling aspect of the game is not taken care of by other NPCs of the game, but rather the players must sell it themselves. The town has a Bazaar, which the player can get a spot and set up shop at to sell the items they have gathered. With the money that the players will make, they will have the option to either buy seeds and/or animals at the Bazaar to make more money, or spent it on expanding the size of the space they have to sell things. From what is shown at the floor, the game has a new special feature. The character can now walk backwards to backtrack onto the spot that he or she just planted or plowed to easily perform the next step necessary to plant and/or to harvest. The game is in the final stage of development, releasing July 27^th, 2010.

Rune Factory 3

   The newest to join the family of farming RPGs, Rune Factory 3 contains everything we love about the original with a few more extra add-ons. Rune Factory, for those who doesn’t know, is a dungeon crawler RPG with elements of Harvest Moon’s farming feature and money making ways. The newest feature added to the game is the new weapons in the game. Things like the duel sword are brand new additions to the game. The duel sword offers the players options to be either fully offensive with the two swords, or go with swords and shield for the more balanced battle. People who have already played this series of game will definitely like this new release, and people who hasn’t already tried but is a fan of RPGs, will definitely want to take a look into the series. Release date:.TBA 2010

Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove

 It’s probably the most amusing and silly game just by walking past it but for you Music fans this is a true eye catcher. Gabrielle is just your normal girl but when she sneezed her soul came out of her body…..that must have been on really big sneeze, now she must dance her way through stages in order to find a way to return to her body.

 The game is similar to the Ouendan or Elite Beat Agents as you must follow the beat of the music with your stylus and keep in rhythm, sadly it was too hard to hear the music of the DS to hear the beats but wasn’t too hard to follow the rhythm since the demo song was on easy. The game looks fun for fans or Ouendan or EBA so it’s worth picking up to play.

 Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals

   Every old school RPG fan should easily recognize this game back from their SNES days. Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals was one of the most exciting games to play the prequel to the first Lufia creating a whole back story to the sinistrals and the heroes who defeated them. The game was originally created by Taito who is now part of Square Enix where they published in Japan but didn’t bring it over to the states, instead Natsume picked up this classic RPG releasing it to the American fans and this is one game fans who played the original or even if you have never played Lufia series before this is a game to pick up, I know I am pre-ordering mine as soon as I find out a release date which should be Q4 2010 right alongside Golden Dun Ds.

   For those of you who don’t know Lufia Rise of the Sinistrals followed the story of Maxim. A swordsman who must journey to fight the evil eventually known as the Sinistrals but this time the game will not be a simple port instead will be a full on remake of the game from the ground up and spicing up the game with a whole new age feel including characters and story, my hope is this game will do so well it will fans wanting the 1^st title to get the same treatment, stay tuned for more information as the game is released and expect a full review.