When I first started Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, I thought to myself that this looks like a Harvest Moon knock off. (I mean more than your typical farming sim)
After a little digging, it turns out it is a remake of a Harvest Moon game (that is also a remake). Confused? Let me explain.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a remake of the critically acclaimed 2003 Game Boy Advance title, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and its follow up, Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town.
These games were themselves a remake of the 1999 PS1 title, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.
Still with me? Good.
OK, but why the name change? In 2012, the game’s developer Marvelous split from the series long-time publisher Natsume, who owned the Harvest Moon name.
At this point, Marvelous decided to change the name of the series to Story of Seasons in the West. A rough translation of the series’ Japanese name – Bokujō Monogatari.
Clear? As mud. I thought so.
All you need to know is that Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a ground-up remake of the 2003 GBA titles, with everything that entails; improved graphics, quality of life improvements, and gameplay tweaks while keeping to the original’s narrative, characters, and overt wholesomeness.
Friends of Mineral Town opens with a flashback of the player spending an idyllic summer helping their grandfather on their farm on the outskirts of mineral town.
Years pass, and they receive a letter from The Mayor of Mineral Town asking them to return. It turns out that your grandfather has left you his farm, which has seen better days, in his will.
Thus, it is up to you to return the estate to its former glory. The rest, as they say, is up to you.
If unlike me, you have played a Harvest Moon title (or Stardew Valley) in the past, you will know what to expect.
The player starts with a basic set of farming tools and must earn money by clearing the overgrown fields, planting and harvesting crops, mining, or foraging. This cash can then be used to buy other things, like livestock, and other items, to help improve your business and expand the farm.
When you are not ploughing your fields, you can navigate a different kind of furrow by wooing the locals. By chatting up the girls and guys in town, you can unlock new items and eventually get a free farmhand by marrying your bo. In a great, new addition, you can marry anyone you like regardless of their gender (good to see even in the digital world, love wins).
However, the most challenging part of the gameplay for me managing my character’s stamina levels. To begin with, you can only perform a few actions at a time before your happy little farmer is completely knackered and needs to sleep, I can understand the need to limit the amount of farming you can do in a day, but forcing my character to rest when I was ready and raring to g, just felt arbitrary.
Now graphically, you would be forgiven for thinking that a 3D remake of an 18-year-old game portable game, would take great strides to improve the visual quality of the original. While the visuals aren’t awful by any stretch of the imagination, they do feel a bit dated at times, and more could have been done to bring the game into the modern era.
The UI is also tiny, and often it is hard to see what is in your inventory. For example, it is hard to tell what fish you have caught without pressing your face up against the TV screen, as many of them look a lot alike, and aren’t clearly rendered.
Though Story of Season’s chibi style 3D models do a fine job of replicating the art style used in the GBA original and certainly are not without their charm. I much prefer the images of each character, which accompany Friends of Mineral Town’s dialogue sections that are beautifully drawn in a classic anime style. In many ways, I think it would have been better if this same style had been used for the whole of the game.
For me, though, Friends of Mineral Town’s shifting seasonal score is by far the best part of the game. The games varied themes, which match the time of year perfectly, helped keep me immersed in the world and slogging away in the fields.
This is why it pains me to say that I just could not get on with Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. I am also fully aware that Story of Seasons is one of the most beloved farming sims, and I really wanted to enjoy my time with it. But as much as I tried, it just was not for me. Let me explain: Like the coming of Halley’s Comet, or being struck by lightning, my opportunities to sit down a game for more than five minutes are rare.
When I finally have a day off from work, the kids are in bed, and the wife is safely distracted watching her favourite TV shows, I dig my controller out of the back of the sofa and hold it aloft like Link finding the Master Sword. The very reason I game is to escape from reality. I want to be in deep space battling aliens. I want to be a medieval knight fighting for his kingdom. I want to be blasting zombies in the face with a sawn-off shotgun. If I wanted to pull weeds up and improve my familial relationships, I would go help my mum with her garden.
That being said, I can see the appeal and value of this type of game, I really can.
If you are the kind of person who enjoys the thought of tending their crops and still fantasises about Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Darling Buds of May, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a game you are bound to enjoy. It is a solid remake of a landmark title, and, if you are into that sort of thing, a relaxing and peaceful way to waste a few hours of an evening.
Maybe it is just me. Maybe, I just do not have the patience for farming sims. Maybe, I just enjoy the fast pace of city life too much. But my enjoyment of Story fo Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town lasted about as long as my character’s stamina bar did in the early stages of the game – I was digging fields for about 20 minutes and then I just wanted to go to bed.