Hey guys! I recently bought and played Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, which is a remake of the classic Harvest Moon: (More) Friends of Mineral Town, which Stardew Valley has a lot of inspiration from. considering that common ground, i wanted to talk about my experience in case you might be interested but want to know more about it first. I played a LOT of More Friends of Mineral Town so that's where my knowledge lies the most. I played the original Friends of Mineral Town when I was a teensy little kid who just gifted weeds to everyone because I thought that's what you were supposed to do oops.
There are a LOT of great additions in comparison to the original, and also a few downsides (but IMO they are big downsides). There are some gameplay spoilers here, but nothing specific about events or anything of the like.
So first off I'll talk about things that are the same and some subjective changes that don't change the game much, how much you care about them depends on your preference.
Some additions in the game I thought were good:
Some additions in the game I didn't like:
I may add to this later, and if anyone else has any changes they'd like to bring up, please do! This is just my experience and off the top of my head, but hopefully it helps you decide a bit better. Overall I would recommend the game, especially if you enjoyed the original. I've had a blast playing it and I plan to play it for a long time yet. I think if you've been playing other farming games including other Story of Seasons games, it might feel a bit bare in comparison since it is more of a remaster than a remake, but it personally didn't bother me. I think people who enjoy Stardew Valley would enjoy this game too, and you can still see parts of the original game that Stardew Valley took inspiration from.
There are a LOT of great additions in comparison to the original, and also a few downsides (but IMO they are big downsides). There are some gameplay spoilers here, but nothing specific about events or anything of the like.
So first off I'll talk about things that are the same and some subjective changes that don't change the game much, how much you care about them depends on your preference.
- If you want the same amount of challenge that the original game gives, it's pretty much about the same. The bigger challenges are still there (such as marrying Harvest Goddess or Kappa, both of which require you to do a LOT) and the mines still have 255 floors, which are pretty difficult to get through. There are a list of achievements you can keep track of and earn in the game, and earning affection is the same
- Raising animals are the same, it's good to let them graze in the sun etc. and the items they give you increase in quality as they like you more.
- Some people have different names, Won is now Huang, Mary is Marie, Ann is Ran, Gotz is Gotts, and there might be some other ones I forgot about but those were the ones that stuck out to me
- You have the same marriage candidates from the originals + two new ones, Brandon and Jennifer (idk if they were in any previous games.) The same 4 special marriage candidates: Harvest Goddess, Kappa, Huang, and Bon Vivant. All of the events in marrying them are the same
- A huge chunk of the characters got overhauled in appearance, some of them I love (Huang....
) and some of them I'm not a big fan of, but there's a ton of character variety which I think is pretty cool - Festivals are the same, with some tweaked to allow the newer animals to participate
- You don't start out with a pet dog, but on the flipside you can unlock/choose what animals you want later. There aren't wild dogs in the game, so the pets don't have much use other than loving them and playing fetch in the summer
- Your character doesn't make any expressions at all, personally I think this is really lazy and makes my character seem like an android but it's just an artistic gripe i have
- The game is currently $50 which IMO i thought was fine considering I knew how much I'd play it but it's way too steep for most people so just be aware of the price. Unsure if it'll ever go on sale but it's at least accessible and you don't need to hunt for super old cartridges or emulate it
Some additions in the game I thought were good:
- You can choose 2 different male styles and 2 different female styles when starting the game, and you can wear any clothes that the same gender has
- You have a stamina and fatigue bar
- You can walk over crops and automatically hop over tiles
- You can summon your pets outside by ringing a bell placed outside of the coop/barn, and they automatically return at 8pm
- When your horse grows up, you can ride it anywhere except in buildings
- Grass spreads, and when starting the game there is a patch of grass in the southeast corner of your farm, making saving up fodder a lot easier
- YOU CAN MARRY ANY OF THE MARRIAGE CANDIDATES, this is a big one and i think something most people would be concerned about. You can be gay in this game, go hog wild, the characters' heart levels are visible in the US version (except for special marriage candidates) and they will approach you on the "romantic" festivals regardless of your gender. In example, the girls were giving me chocolates on Valentine's Day despite my character also being a girl. You can only lock yourself out of marrying Harvest Goddess or Kappa because you have to pick between them. You can have a kid regardless of gender and you get all of their normal heart events.
- You can have up to 5 pets at once on your farm (cats ,dogs, capybaras, and penguins)
- There are new farm animals you can own, including different flavored cows, angora rabbits, and alpacas
- There is a 'Simple Mode' you can choose to get a boost in the beginning, and villagers will be more affectionate towards you
- When you upgrade a tool and it takes 1 day, the day you send it in counts so you can just get it the very next day rather than plan for a rainy day
- The stuff that you needed a Gamecube title for (Like Van's shop) are just included in this game thank christ
- You can't litter, and you can only give Kappa cucumbers-- say goodbye to accidentally throwing something on the ground when you were trying to gift a villager!
Some additions in the game I didn't like:
- There are NO rival marriages in this game. This was a huge bummer to me because I never got that far in the original games, so I was excited to experience post year 4 content. You can only see the marriage candidates first 2 rival events, provided their heart level for you is low enough. They will be single forever. They will suffer. Super super disappointing for me, but apparently rival marriages were unpopular so they removed it. I can kinda understand it the same sense as to why Stardew Valley might not have rival marriages-- you can marry any of them regardless of your gender, and if they marry off, they're all straight or bi, which can be a bummer for people too. Though I would've made an exception here since you can't divorce in this game and it was nice IMO to get married and see other characters live their lives independent from yours. A ton of events were taken out because of this change as well.
- They didn't change the dialogue. Like, at all. It's nice in an authentic sense, but in another sense, especially since they removed a lot of events due to no rival system, talking to characters gets stale FAST. It's something you get used to since there's a lot of challenge and fun in the game already, but this is one thing I really hoped they would add to and improve on and they didn't. It also makes marriage feel a little less rewarding too, especially special marriage candidates-- I married Huang (no regrets, 10/10 love him) and was pretty disappointed with how little dialogue there is even with the knowledge he was a secret marriage candidate (which I knew would mean he has no romantic/heart events). The least they could've done is to just like... idk, reward the player a bit more? If you feel Stardew Valley's dialogue gets samey, then you probably couldn't stand it in this game
- While I'm fine with wild dogs being gone, I can't help but notice that there is no animal medicine at the shops, which tells me that animals can't get sick or die in this game, and I also haven't come across any severe weather that was in the original game. I dislike this from a challenge perspective, but after snooping around on the internet, apparently animals can get sick and there is severe weather, so it's possible they pushed this to be post year 1? So I guess consider this a negative if it's not there, and a neutral if it is (I totally get why people wouldn't want their animals to get sick etc.)
I may add to this later, and if anyone else has any changes they'd like to bring up, please do! This is just my experience and off the top of my head, but hopefully it helps you decide a bit better. Overall I would recommend the game, especially if you enjoyed the original. I've had a blast playing it and I plan to play it for a long time yet. I think if you've been playing other farming games including other Story of Seasons games, it might feel a bit bare in comparison since it is more of a remaster than a remake, but it personally didn't bother me. I think people who enjoy Stardew Valley would enjoy this game too, and you can still see parts of the original game that Stardew Valley took inspiration from.
