Square Enix has out today on nintendo-switch and computer via Steam the game Harvestellaa “fantasy x life simulation RPG” developed in collaboration with LiveWirea Japanese studio that participated in the development of the dark fantasy action RPG ENDER Lilies: Quietus of the Knights and who wore the shoot ’em ups Mushihimesama, DoDonPachi Resurrection and Spain II of Cellar on Switch. In addition to the game, Square Enix Music also just released the full soundtrack in digital format on itunes, mora and OTOTOY. There are 70 songs in totalall composed by Go Shiinaexcept for a single track, the theme playing when a character joins the team (simply titled “Character Join”), composed by Junnosuke Usui (who is also Sound Designer within the Osaka Sound Team of Square Enix, see his page VGMdb).
Real name Masaru Shiina, Go Shiina is famous for his work on different games of bandai Namco between 1997 and 2017 (the composer having left the company in 2017, 20 years after joining Namco). Even though he no longer works at Bandai Namco, he was still found on God Eater 3 and Resonant Ops, Code Vein and Tales of Luminaria. After joining Namco in 1997, he quickly composed music for many games, starting with hammer Field, World Stadium 98 EX and Quick & Crash. He also very often worked with other composers on the soundtrack of several titles, such as Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere, Joint Assault and Assault Horizon Legacy, Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, Taiko no Tatsujin 3, Apparatus Sandaime and 11, The Idolmaster 1, Dearly Stars, One For All and Stella Internship, Pro Baseball Nechu Star 2006, Tekken: Dark Resurrection, 6, Tags Tournament 2 and 7: Fated Retribution, Kyou Kara Maoh! – Hajimari no Tabi, Golden Time: Vivid Memories and Layered Stories 0.
Go Shiina is also very well known for his work on a large part of the games Tales of. He had started on Tales of Legendiathen continued with Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (with Motoi Sakuraba and Takuya Yasuda), Tales of VS. (with Motoi Sakuraba), Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 and 3 (with Motoi Sakuraba, Takuya Yasuda, Kota Nakashima and Kazuhiro Nakamura), Tales of the Heroes: Twin Brave (with Motoi Sakuraba), Tales of the World: Tactics Union and Dream Unitia, Tales of Zestiria (with Motoi Sakuraba) and Tales of the Rays (with Motoi Sakuraba, Eriko Sakurai and Kazuhiro Nakamura). With Motoi Sakurabahe also composed the music for the anime Tales of Zestiria: Dawn of the Shepherd and the X. On his own, he composed the music for the series Mr Driller and God Eater. After leaving Bandai Namco, we found him on Sound Voltex Vivid Wave, Yume Utsutsu Re:Master, Various Daylife and 9-nine-.
Go Shiina is also a composer heavily involved in anime soundtracks. Recently, he composed with Yuki Kajiura the music of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Right now he is working on the anime Eien No. 831. Before Kimetsu no Yaiba, Go Shiina composed the music for anime Sakura no Ondo, Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack, Kyosogiga, Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene, God Eater, W-dimension (with Yoshiaki Fujisawa), Juni Taisen: Zodiac War, Layered Stories 0, Fate/Grand Order x Himuro’s World: Seven Most Powerful Great Figures Chapter, Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family and Million Arthur. His involvement in the latter is quite interesting, since Million Arthur is a franchise created by Square Enix. Harvestella is therefore not the first Square Enix work on which Go Shiina has worked.
A word from producer Daisuke Taka
In an interview with Eurogamerthe game producer, Daisuke taka, who is also a game designer, spoke about the choice of gender for our character at the start of the game. As discovered in the demo, there are three choices: male, female and non-binary (a first for an edited game by Square Enix). He states that these days he thinks it’s completely normal to include non-binaries in gender selection. The visibility of gender non-conforming people has become much more common, so the development team felt it was important to reflect this in-game and show that all players are welcome in Harvestella.
He also points out that using gender-neutral pronouns takes relatively little effort, but the positive impact is enormous, as it means making the effort to include everyone, and the game of Live Wire and Square Enix is just right for everyone according to the producer. There’s no major impact to the game other than changing the pronouns, but the developers are hoping this will mean everyone feels included. Moreover, the protagonist of Harvestella is the embodiment of the person who plays. So they thought it was important for the player to create their own character, selecting different elements including gender, appearance, voice, and name. The creators felt this was important so that players weren’t restricted and felt free to express themselves however they wanted and, therefore, felt much more attached to their character.
As a reminder, Harvestella is available with translations in French, English, German and Spanish in addition to Japaneseand also benefits from a physical edition for the Switch version. To learn more about the game, we invite you to consult our old articles which can be found at this address.