Thoughts on Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town
I've decided to start off this blog, by sharing some thoughts on Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town.
SoS:FoMT came out in 2020, and is a remake of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which was also sort of a remake of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, which was also a remake of Harvest Moon 64. This game has a lot more history behind it, because for the longest time I thought it was just Friends of Mineral Town, and then this remake!
I enjoy playing this game! For me, it's the most low-key farm sim I own. It's a lot simpler than games like Stardew Valley, or later entries in the HM/SoS series, which can be a downside for many people, but I think it gives it a special space to just chill, and not worry about all the quests and things you have to do. Basically, it's the cozy game for when you're too low-energy for cozy games :P
And by simple, I mean there are very few quests, and there's no storyline. The town isn't dying, you don't need to be a hero. You are here work on your farm, go to festivals, get to know the townsfolk, and get married.
But I don't think it being simple is a bad thing. There's a difference between simple, and shallow.
I haven't played any of the games this was based on, so this was my first time meeting the Mineral Town cast. Even though it doesn't go too in-depth on the characters (Apparently Back to Nature did better on this), they're all still memorable and interesting! I get why they're so beloved. They did give everyone a redesign for this remake, and I'll admit I kind of prefer their original designs. There's just something about the older style that I prefer.
The cutscenes are so funny! Each marriage candidate (except for the special hidden ones) has different cutscenes depending on their heart level, and I always get excited when I enter an area and see one start up.
This game does have it's bumps. It's added some quality of life updates that were missing in previous games, but frankly it feels like they did the bare-minimum. You can customize your character's skin tone between two shades of white, and one tan... and that's it. You can't customize your character in any other way (not even hair color or style), except with two sets of outfits, that come in several colors. (Technically there's more outfits, however all but one of them are literally animal costumes, and one is a fairy outfit. Not regular clothing :( )
The farm animals feel poorly done. I have a hard time lining up to pick up the eggs, but other than that the coop animals are okay. The barn animals though... for some reason they don't collide with each other, so while they wander around in the barn they will most likely overlap each other. And you have to interact with each animal three times (Petting, brushing, and then milking/shearing), but if they overlap you have to wait for one to move out of the way. They also have really small hit boxes for interactions, so you have to be right up against the animal, and hope it doesn't start to walk away before you're done interacting with it.
While this is most noticeable with the barn animals, you can still see it in other areas so I'm giving it a separate section. The main characters animations! Are too long! From what I've seen in videos, they are longer than they were in previous versions. If the cow moved a step away before you could brush or milk it, it still. plays. the brushing/milking animation. in full. It's only a few seconds, but it happens so often it's frustrating that you can't break out of it when you see that you've missed. There's also the animations for when your character is tired. This happens at three points as you use up your stamina, and you are likely to see at least one of these every in-game day. You see it a lot, and it gets tiring seeing it over and over again.
While I do have those complaints about the game, everything else is pretty fun! And even the things I complained about aren't too big of a deal once you get used to it, they're just things I wish had gotten more fine-tuning during development.
If you're thinking of getting this game, I would definitely recommend getting it on sale. The regular price is $40, which compared to the amount of content you get in it vs Stardew Valley ($15), or Fields of Mistria ($14), it's a bit too much in my opinion.