The day to night cycles are smooth with daylight gradually fading away as the sound of distant wolves howling begins. Going to the library to figure out which seeds I should plant in the Spring versus the Winter or walking around and picking up stray logs to craft with are slow moments but feel comfortable and familiar. Those are the parts of the game that I love and have always loved. It’s a small piece of immersion that both slows down the game and makes a simplistic mechanic feel meaningful. You have to work the land and forage in order to get better tools. Getting money quick in an attempt to min-max the leveling system in Friends of Mineral Town won't' work. Each tool starts at level 1 and has to be used enough to then be upgraded with money and materials. Time passes quickly and simple chores chip away at the amount of stamina you begin each day with. and a house that has the barest of minimums. You start with an overgrown plot of land, a single animal. You pick from four characters (two men, two women) and three skin tones (the range is negligible) and off you go.įriends of Mineral town functions like most any farming sim. I’ve personally never gone to Story of Seasons games for an incredibly strong narrative, so this wasn’t surprising, but it was the first indication where I felt a remake in 2020 could have been a great opportunity to expand on that. The storyline doesn’t really evolve from there. With a promise to return, many years pass and it becomes your responsibility to take your grandfather's farm and to restore it to its former glory. The main story of Friends of Mineral town begins with a flashback to your time as a child, visiting your grandfather’s farm one summer and befriending another child who lived in town. With all the time that has taken place between now and then, it’s valid to wonder if in 2020, can Friends of Mineral Town hold its own amongst a large variety of farming simulation games in the modern landscape? In some ways it does, but in others, it really does not. It’s been over 20 years since the original Harvest Moon game was released and 17 since Friends of Mineral Town first made its way to the Game Boy Advance. It makes for an interesting history lesson if you want to see what inspired Stardew Valley and how far things have progressed since then, but perhaps it’s time to put Mineral Town out to pasture.Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is the newest game in the Story of Seasons franchise (previously known as Harvest Moon in the US) and a remake of arguably one of the more popular games from the series. It’s been 17 years since the GBA version and while it’s great that they’re trying to recapture that nostalgia that made people fall in love with the genre in the first place, things have moved on. Why not go further and have an actual character creator? Being able to better make a farmer in your own image won’t take anything from the original experience. You now have some creative control over your character, but with only four avatar options (two men and two women), and three skin colour options (pale, paler, ambiguously tan) it feels out of touch. Some of the modernisations don’t go far enough. Mostly, though, this is a completely faithful recreation. You can save anywhere you like rather than just at the journal by your bed, have the ability to change outfits, and there’s an easy mode that gives you a gold boost to shipping items. You can befriend harvest sprites to help you out with the workload, but getting them to do so is yet another daily grind of plying them with appropriate gifts. The relaxation found in this routine is the one thing that still holds up, but even that starts to feel like a grind when there’s not much else to keep you going. Progress is slow and hard-earned as the stamina bar depletes surprisingly quickly, but every tool upgrade helps you open up just a little bit more of your plot. Despite not taking to the town, I still found myself in that comforting loop of ‘just one more in-game day’ spent brushing my cows and feeding my chickens. The cycle of tilling the earth, planting and nurturing your vegetables every morning is a compelling one. But hey, at least the animal design is super cute, and all of the old game guides will work when you need to look up the townsfolk’s daily routines or figure out how to actually get the fishing rod.ĭespite all of that the act of farming is a pure joy. The mines are basically empty so there’s no real sense of exploration, and the events feel forced upon you rather than a fun change of pace. Other gripes include the farm being mostly static-the barn and coop are pre-built so there’s not a lot of layout management or customisation to do aside from crop placement.
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