Topic: Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

@Eel
I just thinking what about HM One World when i heard not so good reception from Pioneer of Olive Town.
Two farming games launched on March 2021 with different dates and different treatments from the developers before release date.

Marvelous tried so hard for Pionerr of Olive Town this time by providing a lot of trailers but still the gameplay quality isn't really strong enough.
Meanwhile, Natsume open the pre order, provide the Special edition with plushie and other things but they didn't really provide many trailers and left us in wondering. Natsume was too busy with the toys rather than providing more information about the gameplay.

I do have that one predownloaded. I know someone who has played and said it was good, so that's a positive impression so far.

I'll find out myself tomorrow.

@Eel
I got confirmation from other user here about One World, No same gender marriage in the game. Straight marriage.
Well, not really big deal. Older games also straight marriages.
I will disguise as female player to find the future husbands.

I've cancelled my pre order of PoOT. I hate the idea of having dozens and dozens of makers strewn about, the inventory system is horrendous and I'm hearing the character interactions are very lackluster.

I just wish more info about One World was released. I don't understand the secrecy, other than they got hammered pretty badly when they first released footage.

I’m still going with day one. I am not a social farmer after decades of playing celibate so I’m not bothered by many of the complaints. I have heard that there are multi item makers in game and i tend to keep my farm small and focused as I care about animals more. I’ll report back once I have it.

I'm sure some of the issues are probably caused by people trying to do everything as fast as possible, so I'm positive it should be possible to play it nice and slow without ending up in a 24/7 menu loop.

@Eel agreed. The more let’s plays I watch, the less worried I become. At this point I am back to being impatient over the release date.

Gameplay video. Chinese version with English commentary.

So for the 10 of us that care about this game ...who is getting their farm on?

I canceled my preorder and will try to see if i can get it cheaper at Walmart. If not they have the collector’s edition at my local Best Buy. Will check on Friday.

Since I have several games on preorder already (and I did also buy the Harvest Moon game earlier this month), I think I can comfortably wait for this one to go on sale or something. The upside will be that by the time I get it, it'll probably have the dlc available and all the patches they promised.

Got message today that my copy is on the way. Wont Get it before early next week i think.

I have a whole list of things that need to be fixed.

The festivals are lazy and boring. I thought the games would actually be games and not cutscenes. There's also no animal festivals, harvest festivals, or cooking festivals. :L

The seasons are all bland and similar. The camera angles when talking make characters like Ralph hard to actually see.

The progression on unlocking content is stupidly easy and you make money too fast. There's almost no motivation to do anything beyond unlocking clothing which isn't even that hard.

The makers suck.

Stuff regrows too fast.

Customization is bad. The paths don't connect to the bridges well at all, and you can't even decorate around your house. I don't know why they went with such a clunky and out of place looking outdoor design. The buildings and structures should all be facing the same way. Mineral Town is so much better in this regard.

Housing customization is lazy, and you can barely place anything too.

This game is a big fat dud.

So disappointing.

I just started another run of Friends of Mineral Town, and I think I'll stay there lol

So far I am enjoying the game. I’m not a social farmer, so the parts I care about (farming, ranching,cooking, mining, foraging) are all on point for me. I don’t mind the fishing minigame (I usually hate fishing if a minigame is involved), and while it is like stardew’s it feels easier so I fish more often (fishing stalled my progress enough in stardew that I stopped playing). I actually like how aggressive nature is as it keeps me in a nice maintenance loop which keeps my makers humming (likely why they did it that way). Loving the crop variety and the sprite system (can we keep them? Way better than the harvest sprites and harvest goddess). I love that you can hit the ground running in this one.

That being said I am getting into the social aspects since I can marry in this one (same as I did with mineral town). But it’s slow going as I would rather work. So I don’t have the issues others have with dialogue and such. I’m just glad these games are getting better at skin color options.

My only real complaint is the slowdown but I’ve been spreading out my makers to mitigate that. So far so good.

I can see the complaints from gamers that may primarily play farming sims because they look for a challenge in this type of game. As this is my relax genre I just enjoy the work/upgrade gameplay loop. Will still bounce between this and mineral town I think. I also think my long stint in My Time at Portia helped make this loop way more sustainable. With the makers I have that mindset to work off of.

@HarvestGoddess
Well, i'm not surprised if Bokumono games always be like that.
Their progress was slow and their games always have some issues.
I think it depend on who is the developer that handled the game.
Did you still remember how abysmal Harvest Moon Animal Parade ? I think the subtitle Animal Parade was a huge mistake as the storyline was not about the circus animals.

Oh, wait.
What are the Festivals in Olive Town ?

@Anti-Matter Animal Parade is one of my favorite games in the entire franchise. I never got what people disliked about it.

@HarvestGoddess
Actually i have ever played Animal Parade twice (USA and Japan version) 10 years ago when i still played with pirated copies and modded Wii long time ago (but not anymore, i got the original game and unmodded machine after i removed the pirated one).
From my experience with Animal Parade, the issues i found were so many:
1. Framerate dropped to 20 fps for almost entire game, compared with ToT that running on smooth 30 fps.
2. The subtitle itself was wrong because since the story was about awakening the legendary bells and summon the Harvest King so the best subtitle is Legendary Bells or Enchanting Echoes. The missing animals circus was not really related with the main storyline.
3. There were some worse character design in 3D rendering such as Owen (his body looked shorter and wimpy in Animal Parade) and Luna (she was same tall as Candace).
4. The island map design was completely wrong. I wasn't surprised why the island was dead because from geographic aspect, the distance between town and village was very far away and how did you think it will bring good economy growth when the town and the village design itself was separated far away. Compare with ToT that every buildings are not separated very far away.
5. There were limutation in having livestocks (only until 3 different livestocks) while in ToT you can have them all.
6. The weather chart in Animal Parade was predetermined from beginning and you couldn't even change the weather whatsoever, compare with ToT that you can change the weather by quit from the game and reload your save data.
7. There was No mini games in Animal Parade
8. This is the worst nightmare experience in Animal Parade, your child could disappearing entirely from the world (Not Missing Child event) by glitching if your child's birthday on late seasons (20 - 28).
I have experienced in both USA and Japan version, your child will be sent into None Area Name even on Japan version (written in English, not in Japanese words).
I have tested my theory by trials and error and i could prevent the glitch by having my kids born in earlier date (1 - 9), but it still made me nervous to getting married and having kids on my original copy when i start to play again from beginning so i decided to be single forever, not getting married for the third time playing.

I admitted there were some improvements in Animal Parade but there were some backwards in the game that made me less impressed.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Interesting. I tend to be more of a social farmer in these games, so I know the lack of dialogue would really irk me.

The fact that I can't make an animal pen because trees and rocks grow like weeds is the worst, then the number of makers needed & the lack of dialogue