So which is your personal favorite game in the series?
Wada: (Instantly) Harvest Moon 64. The main reason is that I was more involved with the everyday production and development side of things, so that's why I'm more attached to that one. It feels more personal to me.
If you have a favorite game, then surely you must have a favorite Harvest Moon wife?
Wada: (Laughs) Ohhhhhh, that's a very difficult question! (Thinks for a good ten seconds) A girl called Karen, in the N64 version. Or maybe Nami in A Wonderful Life. She's quite cool with you at first, but once you get to know her, she opens up more. I'm not sure she'd make a good girlfriend, but she's a good wife in the game! (Laughs)
Are any of the HM characters based on anyone in your life?
Wada: There are some characters which have similarities with people I've met, but there's much more to each person - because if they were only based on my own personal experience, then it would be biased. I try to counter-balance this by creating characters which are purely from my own imagination, and to develop their personality in a new direction.
Speaking of new directions, Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon sees a shift into more fantastical territory. Was it a conscious decision to try and develop the series in such a totally new way?
Wada: Well, it's another creator for Rune Factory, and he wanted to move away from the core series into a different sort of area. It's what I'd call a different branch of the main series - I create the original stories and oversee the production on all the mainstream Harvest Moon games, but whatever the creator of Rune Factory or [new PSP title] Innocent Life want to do with their games, they can.
With Rune Factory and Innocent Life taking the series in one direction, have you considered making an ultra-realistic Harvest Moon, one without the Harvest Sprites or Goddess for example?
Wada: At the moment, I don't have any plans to go in that direction, but if a new creator had the idea of doing so, then I'd certainly go along with that.
Can you tell us a little about the new Harvest Moon on Wii, Tree of Tranquility?
Wada: Yes. One new element is the family life in the game - the children grow up and help the father tend crops, the wife can cook lunch, that sort of thing. There's definitely a new dimension to the family life in the game.
