The first thing that struck me about Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns, is that it looked suspiciously like a DS game ported to the 3DS. In fact, this is exactly the case. At first glance this is yet another Harvest Moon game with simple graphical presentation and immediately recognizable gameplay tropes.

The Tale of Two Towns' title reveals its primary gameplay hook. Players take on the role of a young farmer with the goal of resolving the feud between two neighboring towns. What is the source of the quibble, you ask? The towns are fighting over the quality of their food. One town cooks using a Western style, and the other with Asian influence. One town prizes the quality of their livestock, and the other reveres produce. In this oddly biblical quarrel of two towns, the Harvest Goddess has destroyed the tunnel connecting the two farming villages.

The two town element drives the player's progression through the story. One is eventually able to own a farm in each town, and befriending everyone is critical to bringing the two towns together. Also important to Two Towns' structure is the addition of a quest system. Quests are a feature previously reserved for the Rune Factory: Harvest Moon titles, and while they start as simple fetch quests, they will eventually require the player to replicate complex recipes or farm rare crops. Of course, players will still be able to get hitched to a townsperson of the opposite gender.

Harvest Moon titles are known for inundating the player with a high dosage of tedium. This time around, the player will be given a horse-pulled cart to store their items, seeds, and crops in order to reduce the number of trips back to the farm. It remains to be seen if there is a feature allowing the player to send items directly from the cart to market.

While one would assume the 3DS edition of Two Towns would feature a more robust multiplayer experience, the primary differences are the inclusion of a street pass powered item exchange, and a resolution bump. The street pass feature sounds like a great idea, but players cannot set a minimum or desired trade for items they put out to exchange.

Both versions feature a multiplayer farming element. Players are able to cultivate a special online field that they can then put up for sale. Essentially, one can put any desired price on a field and sell their friend the opportunity to pick all of their available crops.  There will not be cross platform multiplayer support, so the chances of using this mode are already slimmed.

Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns launches for 3DS and DS this fall, and at this time no pricing information was discussed.