Current Obsession: Nintendo 3DS Story of Seasons

I recently purchased the Nintendo 3DS game Story of Seasons. It’s made by the same company that makes the Harvest Moon games (repping Harvest Moon since SNES yo), and I would even put this game in the same universe as the Harvest Moon series. So far, I’ve logged about 40 hours into the game, and I’m at the tail end of the Fall season of the First year. I know… it’s exactly how it sounds… I spent 40 real life hours playing a game where I’m a farmer on a farm in a quiet little town. I actually named my character after my cat, and my character’s hairy brown cat after me. 😀 So technically, my cat is living the farm life, and I’m living the life of the cat.

Harvest Competition – Serious business

The objective of the game is to run a successful and competitive farm, boost the town’s economy by opening trade with other countries and increasing tourism. As a new member of the town, you’ll also want to make friends with the townspeople and even marry one of the eligible bachelors or bachelorettes of the town.

My character’s waifu. Check out those pink flowers. 

It’s insanely addicting.

There are a few subtle differences between Story of Seasons and the typical harvest moon games, some I like and some I don’t.

Things I like:

• You can choose from two difficulty levels (easy and normal). I’m playing on easy mode, because apparently I like to farm to relax.
• There is so much character customization! This aspect is a bit lacking in the Harvest Moon series. In Story of Seasons, you can change your clothes and your physical attributes (hair color and style, face type, skin tone).
• There’s also a world building aspect. You can change the appearance of your farm, your home, and the town.
• I’m not sure if this is entirely a new function (>_< I actually haven’t played the last one or two releases. I think the last HM game I played was The Tale of Two Towns.), but I like that you can see your friendship levels with the townspeople by pressing the upper left button when near the npc. Very handy.
• Similar to the HM games, there’s a lot to do. Farm life is not idle life.
• There are reverse confessions! And reverse marriage proposals. That’s got to be a first.

Things I’m not too keen on:

• There aren’t any love rivals. In some of the other HMs, you can trigger cutscenes between one of the potential marriage candidates and your respective rival in love. These cute romantic cutscenes enrich the game, and I like to see that the NPC’s  lives don’t revolve around my character. Without this aspect, I feel like the lives of half of the characters remain stagnant after my own character chooses her path.  I guess it’s just as well. I always found it both hilarious and sad that there was always one female NPC without someone to marry, all because my character decided to uproot her life and come waltzing into town, making the total number of young people uneven. LOL.
• There’s no mining cave… just a single sad little vein to “mine” from that’s like a cornucopia of gems and stones.
• There may even be too much going on – I’ve noticed an influx of new animals you can own, you can rent crop fields, there’s a safari (kind of like the safari in pokemon, except way smaller, and mostly used for scavenging), you can own your own trading stall, you can edit the appearance of your home, your farm, and the town, and that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. I mean, I’m not even through year one and I’ve already logged a ton of hours.

Here are the games I’ve played in the series: /humblebrag

• SNES Harvest Moon
• GB Harvest Moon GB
• GBC Harvest Moon 2 GBC
• Play Station Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
• GBC Harvest Moon 3 GBC
• GBA Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
• GBA Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town
• NDS Harvest Moon DS
• NDS Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness
• NDS Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar
• NDS Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns

/end humblebrag

My next 3DS game purchase will most likely be the new Animal Crossing game, which if it’s anything like it’s predecessors, is a game about paying off the mortgage to your house :D.