A lot of people must think I hate Natsume, but like, it runs deeper than that. If anything I’m more upset and sad than I am angry. Sometimes I’ll say that I hate Natsume, but in honesty I’m just super disappointed.--

--I’ve seen the potential in Natsume-made games, and I know that if the company puts all its eggs in one basket that a good thing can come from it.

Why does this matter? If you’ve never heard of Princess Debut, I’ll give a brief run-down in this thread. --

Maekawa (CEO of Natsume NA) had an idea for an otoge/rhythm game that focused on ballroom dancing. Brilliant idea. It was 2006-2008, which was the peak time of the DS games. Maekawa pitched the premise to CAVE (Japanese game studio known for shmups), to which they agreed.

Maekawa’s idea and CAVE’s game development came together to make one of the most unique music rhythm games on the DS at the time. The graphics of the game are early DS era so models look pixelated (”crunchy” even), but all of the animations --

-- are mocapped and the music selection is perfect for a ballroom dancing title. For a (North American)Natsume-conceptualized title, this hit all the right marks. --

Fast-forward to today, and Natsume (NA) is using their resources to publish games using the “Harvest Moon” IP which are only shadows of the actual Bokujou Monogatari series. I am not using shadows as an adjective, but rather as a noun. --