We gaming fans are a stubborn lot. I had already accepted that Shepherd’s Crossing was a dead series outside of the gacha game, but I still stalk the developer (Success Corp) every couple of weeks, juuuust in case they change their minds. Imagine my joy when I checked in today to find out they’re porting the original Shepherd’s Crossing to the Switch, coming out on 10th November! 😍
Here is the official website. The official name is Hakoniwa Bokujo Hitsujimura (箱庭牧場ひつじ村) which means something like umm “Miniature Ranch: Sheep Village.” “Shepherd’s Crossing” is just the name the localizers came up with. If you’ve never heard of the series, that’s no surprise. It’s pretty obscure but it’s a series of farming simulation games. You can think of it like Harvest Moon‘s poor cousin which leads a much more interesting life. It had things like beekeeping, hunting, meat products and combat before those things were popular in farming games.
The original started out on the PS2 and was ported to the PSP, where I played it for a while in 2011. The most unusual feature was the complete lack of money, requiring you to barter goods for everything you needed. Interesting idea, pretty frustrating. The Switch port is going to add more item slots and a guide to make placing fences easier (only those who played know the suffering). Hope they make seeds easier to get as well. And do something about those frustrating battles.
After the original came Shepherd’s Crossing 2 on Nintendo DS. I won’t say too much about it because it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I have written several posts about it. To be honest, 90% of the reason I’m so excited about the updated port is the potential for a similar release of SC2. Day one buy. Then there were about three different online browser games, the most recent of which I played for a long time and really liked until it got too predatory. It’s in maintenance mode now.
So the good news is we’re getting another release of Shepherd’s Crossing. The originals are out of print, at least in English, so if it gets a localization then that’s a new way for people to experience it. The not so good news is that despite the game’s launch being just over a month away, there is barely any news on the website about the characters, systems, animals, nothing. That’s just not how marketing works. You can compare it to the extensive promotion that Square-Enix is doing for Harvestella, which also launches in November and is much fancier and better known. IDK why Success would want to launch their farming game in the same month. That’s just setting up for failure. And then when it bombs they will say “See, we knew people didn’t want more Shepherd’s Crossing” and then refuse to make any more. Waaah.
Still they’ve done the bare minimum, which is to put up a website. And adding content won’t be too hard since it’s an old game. And they did make some Youtube trailers, if you’re curious about what the game looks like in action. Japanese only, though.
Goodbye Harvestella, I need to buy the Shepherd’s Crossing port to make way for my SC2 port. Ideally I’d like to get it in English but I don’t know if that will happen any time soon. Looking forward to this!
I was just thinking about this game the other day…
Such an interesting take on the farming sim genre. As someone whose family has quite a few farmers (though I’m not one myself), it’s cool to see a title where animal husbandry isn’t pushed to the wayside just because of the unpleasant reality that eventually you’ll need to slaughter your livestock.
As for the second game… I’ve never played! Just seen screenshots and videos. It’s a shame to hear I might never get the chance to play*, unfortunately.
*Okay yeah, I could spend 400$ on ebay. It’ll be on my bucket list next to “send a postcard to purgatory” and “go commando while skydiving”
I’d say just emulate the second game, it’s not like Nintendo would get the money anyway. I’ve been looking into DS emulation myself to sweep up any lost gems and replay some old favorites like the original Rune Factory.
Looking back on Shepherd’s Crossing 2, one of the things I really liked (in retrospect) apart from the unabashed butchering and animal husbandry is the self-sustaining and unsociable nature of the people around you. Back when I first played it, fresh of Harvest Moon, I was disappointed, but with time I really came to like not having to mess around with long dialogues, heart levels, festivals and all that jazz.
“Yo, I want a wife, here’s two sheep, send her to my hut.” End of romance. XD Sometimes people move to the countryside because they just want to sit on their porch and watch the corn grow. Ah, now I’m waxing lyrical about SC2 again. I should play it again soon.
Just saw yesterday that the original is being ported to the switch after watching the Frost Fatales run and thought hey I really want to replay this game, and now they have announced that there will be an English patch!!!!!! I immediately ordered the physical copy.
Whoo, seriously? I was holding out for an English version, but I didn’t know it would come this soon. Nice!
I was just playing this game again earlier today! I think I’ve got 6-ish full runs of SC2 by now…I think I got this game forever ago as a teenager, and at the time I could NOT figure out how to play. (Something about the firewood? lol)
I say this because your blog posts somehow unlocked for me the logic behind this game. I’ve come back to them multiple times over the years now. Aside from you, there’s, like, a loose handful of game forum threads and maybe one other blog post that even discusses this game. I appreciate that you still have them up even years later. They’re really helpful!
I haven’t bought the switch version of SC1 yet…I’ve only played 2 on repeat. Have you had a chance to try it yet? Does it have any notable changes from the original?
Thanks for reading! I haven’t bought the Switch port either. SC1 was kind of rough, and the only major change the port made was allowing you to hold 5 items instead of 3. It’s on sale right now so I’ll get it soon, but more to show the publishers that there is demand (so they bring Shepherd’s Crossing 2 over!) than because I want to play it again. I still check Success’s website very regularly, but there’s no word of an SC2 port yet.