 Today I am reviewing Story of Seasons, Friends of Mineral Town. Thank you for the review code from Marvelous. Does this game play as Stodgy Valley? Yes, so that means if you ever liked Stodgy Valley, you're gonna like this game most likely. This is a game that I absolutely adored on the Gameboy Advance, then named the Harvest Moon, Friends of Mineral Town. Yeah, there was a name change from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons. So sometimes I just call it Harvest Moon Steel, but this game is now fully remade for the Switch. And I didn't see that coming. It is a farming live simulator game originally released in 2003 with a focus on making money, racing livestock, growing and selling crops and produce and racing your relationship levels with the villagers of the town. It is a relaxing and casual game for some people and for others it's a satisfying money-making game where you can build up your empire of real estates and workers, upgrading your small starter shack to a big mansion and fill it with expensive things. That is how I play this game. I have actually previously reviewed this game and I had forgotten all about that. So I rewatched my review and it is actually still holding up and it's still relevant. I'm leaving that old review in the top comment and in the description. That was actually one of my first reviews on this entire channel. So should you buy it or not? Let's find out and I will also tell you all the differences from the original to the remake later in the video. Story. You inherit an old beer farm and you love it. You decide to move there to start in your life and you've actually start out with very little. There isn't much to say about the story. It is more or less just set up to be the story that you want it to be. Because you inherit the farm and the story sort of begins there. There is, however, quite a bit of characters and backstories and village lore to dig up all around if you're looking for it, even with a library of books you can read and, more importantly, building up your friendship levels with everyone to trigger a bunch of character dialogue cutscenes. You have, for example, the shy traveler, Cliff, who won't say much to you unless you befriend him slowly over time. You have Gray, who works at the Blacksmiths' place and has low self-esteem issues. And you have a bunch of different personalities such as the bubbly ingirl Ran, which previously was called Ann. That is one of the differences to this game. Some name changes all around. And the egg chick with the pink hair, Poppery. Whichever gender you choose to play as, in the beginning of the game, you now have the option to date and marry whichever bachelor or bachelorette you like. It's no longer restricted to being the opposite gender of what you chose and this is great news. Gameplay. In the start of the game, you can choose between simple and normal mode. And I recommend going with the simple mode. Now, listen up. That makes it easier to raise friendship levels. It takes a lot of time to raise friendship levels, even with the simple mode. So I can't imagine how the normal mode is gonna go like. So, anyways, you choose your gender and you're thrown into the farm life. You start out with the hoe and the axe and the hammer, sight and the watering can. And they all do exactly what you think they are gonna do. You grow your crops the regular way by tilling your soil and planting the seeds and watering and waiting a few days and then you get, you know, crops. And you can ship that off to make money. It is pretty much like what you're expecting in that regard as well. And it is really good. You have the shipping bin, which is being emptied every day by a guy. That is the way of selling items in this game. Friends of Mineral Town also has great maps, the world map, very detailed. And it was also really good in the original. And I just enjoy this map. I don't know what it is, but on this map, you can also check all the opening hours of all the shops and facilities. You also have a super decent map over your field where you can have control over what crops you grew, where and where all your animals are at. All the shops in town has opening hours. And often I feel like they're always closed, but you can check the times on the map so that you don't travel all across town for no reason. In your house, you can save your game in the diary. You can sleep in your bed. Watch several TV shows on your TV or read your lists in the bookshelves, which are really good. I love these lists. They help you keep track of everything that you have shipped off all sorts of things. You can also store your items and even change your clothes. I enjoy that as well. That is new. Later in the game, you will be able to upgrade your house and eventually get a kitchen with a refrigerator. And you can collect all the kitchen utensils to cook a bunch of recipes. And you get these recipes from raising friendship levels with the villagers. And they will eventually give you a recipe for cooking. And this is actually something completionists can delve into. Since you can only complete the goddess list in your bookshelf by making all these recipes and offering the dishes to the harvest goddess in the pond. The game goes by the in-game calendar with the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter. The calendar will also show you birthdays and festivals, because this town has a lot of them. Festivals. There are several name and character changes between the original and this remake. Like, for example, harvest sprites from the original are now called nature sprites. And I messed that up a lot. And another change is that the postman no longer looks like postman part. So about the nature sprites or harvest sprites, they are your workers. It is essential to befriend them. You know, every day bribe them with honey. They love honey. They're sucker for honey. And when you are befriending them high enough, they will help you out in the fields, help you out with your livestock and watering crops and harvesting crops. And so convenient. Every farming game should have slaves like this, but they work for you. You give them payment through honey as I do and they love it. The way that I do it is that I have actually color coded them so that I use the red and orange nature sprites as animal helpers. And I use the yellow and green for harvesting crops and I use blue, purple and teal for watering. Because they level up within these things. So I found a really cool way to just know which nature sprite is working with what, if that makes sense. By raising friendship levels, you will unlock a bunch of cutscenes, like I said, and you should keep a special lookout for the person that you want to marry. This time, I am going with a blacksmith guy. Not that guy, but the boy. All your actions will deplete your stamina. And you can replenish said stamina by chilling in the hot springs, for example, or just simply going to sleep. You can also collect these power berries. You get some of them from festivals. One of them you can buy from the store and I don't remember the rest, but I found like four of them. And that will increase your total stamina. The menus are decent with all the info that you need. You can also check things like how much you have shipped off, how many days your sprites are going to help you, and your tool level summary. You can upgrade your tools at the blacksmith if you have leveled them up enough and also have the required mineral. These minerals can be found in the mines. And the mines works like this. You can break rocks and use your hole to find the stairway to descend a level. And you descend endlessly down. Sort of endlessly down. And the further down you get into the mine, the rarer minerals you're gonna find. When it comes to animals, you can have chicken, rabbits, cows, alpacas, and the new cows such as fruit cow, coffee cow and strawberry cow. Oh and sheep. Yeah, sheep too. However, you also get a horse in the beginning of this game, but I gotta tell you this. Don't freak out if the previous horse owner comes and collects your horse back. You're most likely not gonna raise the friendship level high enough to keep your horse the first year, but don't worry, you get several other chances down the road. So I freaked out. And of course, you can name all your animals. I love it. Also, the gameplay requires a lot of grinding for lumber and stone. Every day, I never go to bed without having spent all my stamina on nearby lumber and stone grinding. This game looks good. It has nice colors and it's so weird to see an older game that I'm used to from Gameboy Advance and Remade. It's... But you can somehow feel that this is a Gameboy Advance remake from how the town and world designed is and you know, how everything is set up. You can kind of feel that and the world isn't very big, but it is staying pretty much true to the original. However, I have to say I like and prefer the original character designs from the original game. The pictures that appear when you're talking with them. I prefer the older ones. This time all characters has a chibi style in the graphics, which is fine. I don't mind chibi style. And it also seems like they have made the top and the bottom of the screen a bit blurry to make it more like pretty. And it looks pretty. There is one place in this game where you will be experiencing big frame drops and that is by Kappa's lake around the bamboo trees. Really big frame drops. But that is the only place in the game that I've found out. There are many details to be found each season. Like for example, in winter there are snowmen and lights in the streets. Music. Some of the music is really nice. Like this one. And some of the music simply drives me insane. Like this one. But I love how the sound effects are close to the original sound effects. This game has no voice acting. And to be honest, I feel like the music could have been better. Verdict. What? It is a very good farming RPG. I am addicted. And the most important thing of a game in this genre is the feel and pacing of it. And that you find yourself constantly planning ahead of what to do next because there's always something to do and look forward to and improve on and upgrade. Giving gifts and leveling up friendship levels gets tiresome and repetitive. I gotta say. That is also why I highly recommend Simple Mode because I'm giving gifts to everyone every day for almost one entire year. And they still don't completely love me. Anyways, this is a super chill game. And you will find exactly what you are looking for here in Story of Seasons, Friends of Mineral Town. This game is an 8 out of 10. Because it does the farming genre well. It is executed well. You constantly feel that good feeling. I have played bad farming games. So I have played a lot of farming games. But I can say that this one. That's why I'm saying it is Isha Gaming Approved. Thank you so much for watching. Hit like on the video. And if you leave a comment, I'm trying to respond to every comment. I will see you later.