Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town will come to the Switch in Japan this Thursday, the 25th February, but for the western world, we won't get our hands on it until the 23rd March. We will, of course, be covering the Japanese reception here on Nintendo Life, but until we can play it for ourselves, it's just not the same.
In an interview with Nintendo DREAM, a Japanese magazine, the Director, Assistant Director, and Producer of the latest Story of Seasons discussed the upcoming game (thanks to Fogu for the translation and summary).
Firstly, they note that 2021 is the 25th anniversary of the Bokujou Monogatari series, known as "Harvest Moon" and later "Story of Seasons" in English. It's an anniversary that's been forgotten amongst all the Mario and Zelda 35th celebrations, but that doesn't mean it's any less important, right?
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has apparently been in the works since 2018, with an original concept that was scrapped for being too dark and overwhelming. The game focuses on farming and nature, with a particular bent towards building the farm up from scratch and finding treasures in the surrounding wilderness.
The developers seem to want to make the game a little easier for players in the beginning, making it much quicker to get high-powered tools, and to craft items rather than buy them. The game will also include sprinklers to water the crops, although this isn't the first time sprinklers have made it in to a Harvest Moon game.
A totally new feature is the fact that rain will now collect on the ground, forming puddles that can be cleared up with a bucket. If the farmer doesn't clear them up, the area could become swampy - although they don't go into detail about what that means!
One particularly interesting new tidbit is the camera view, which can be manipulated to find secrets - some which are only visible from particular angles. We already know there's going to be a photo mode, so it'll be fun to mess around with the camera - and get some practice in for New Pokémon Snap.
However, we saved the bad news for last. Something that will probably disappoint die-hard fans of the series is that the Witch Princess and Harvest Goddess will not appear in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town - the developers wanted to prioritise all-new characters.
Has any of this raised your hype for the new Story of Seasons game, or do you already have it pre-ordered? Give us your thoughts below!
[source fogu.com]
Comments 36
Seeing this game in movement really gets me excited for it!!
Interesting game
Longtime Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons enthusiast who is just meh about this installment. The art style is drab and uninspiring — particularly in comparison to the two other SoS games on Switch — and I worry that the crafting element will detract too much from the core game play. I'm also turned off by "kiddie" aspects such as riding unicorns and wolves. All that said, I have, of course, preordered.
Pretty cool that the Witch Princess is back. I did like the bizarre route to marrying her back in DS.
@nessisonett Um...article says Witch Princess and Harvest Goddess will not return...
@NESlover85 Hahahaha I’m an idiot. That’s what I get for skimming the article.
Cribbing from Stardew Valley a little, the game should include gay marriages instead of sprinklers to water the crops nor best friends BS ceremony to celebrate the differentiation based on sexual orientation.
The people of Olive Town forsake my blessings and worship false animal gods.
I had no choice but to abandon them. Not even the disgusting witch princess wants anything to do with the town. It's heretic magic will drive anyone into cultist madness.
Do not go near Olive Town. The King and I cannot protect you.
That is some surprisingly dark concept art. Does the artist look at the finished product and scream out in agony because the devs scrapped the original vision? Also come on Marvelous, innocent life and rune factory have their dark moments. We can take it.
Also, I am so ready for this game. I do like the finished product artstyle though. It feels like a modernized version of AWL or the first SoS game.
Thinking about the rainy weather effects has me also thinking about hurricanes and blizzards in SoS games. I better stock pile my wood.
Anxiously awaiting my preorder!
"Cribbing from Stardew Valley a little, the game will also include sprinklers to water the crops."
Previous games in this series have had sprinklers though, many years before Stardew Valley.
@Friscobay
Gay marriage is already confirmed and the FoMT remake already had it. It was only called a best friends ceremony in Japan.
@benchan
Yup.
@Verg actually this is my point, dear verg
I would have loved seeing where we could have gone with a darker style SoS!
A bunch of us over at Fogu have expressed reservations about the art, marriage candidates etc. I love the buildings but am not crazy about the minimalist landscape. Of course we're all getting it, nonetheless.
I've pre ordered off the eshop as there's a bit of a discount on the DLC components. Plus, Raeger's back later if none of the bachelors ring my bells.
looks really good. another relaxing game for the switch. I am glad now that there is a variety of games, not just for the core players, but for the casual players as well.
This looks great but I'm already deep into Story Of Seasons Friends Of MIneral Town,my very first game in the franchise which I'm absolutely loving plus a daily visit to Animal Crossing and wanting to go back and check out the update for Stardew Valley that I can't see myself getting this any time soon.
Damn,I forgot I'm also 50 hours into My Time At Portia on Ps4 so any more of these games and I'll be sick of them.
Should had gone the direction of the original concept art, the finish game looks like mobile garbage.
@Verg yeah it’s a little disconcerting that so many people are giving credit to Stardew for things that Bokumono did first.
I actually think that is the reason why even though I like stardew, it didn’t blow me away (beyond the marriage candidates and character creation-and that’s a free pass for a western dev); it’s a fantastic game, but it is still just a distilled version of many different bokumono games chucked into a blender.
A darker story may have brought people back to the series. I may get it, but I'm also pretty likely to just skip over it and get Rune Factory 5
It is kind of a shame, I find the original Friends of Mineral town to have a really great art style. Very vibrant and pretty, and it's a GBA game, but the direction they go for the art style anymore just doesn't look that appealing to me. It doesn't need to be high fidelity, but the art style should actually look nice
@HarvestGoddess If you’d stop cheating at the New Year’s game show, and didn’t require so much work to marry, we might have worshiped you more. All hail Buffy the Buffalo!
@Kieroni
I think it's depend on who is the character designer.
The character design on 3DS and Switch looks like drawn by female illustrator in my assumption as the boy characters looks wimpy, skinny and very bishoujo style.
If it drawn by male illustrator, maybe we will see some different design like Akira Toriyama style or Tetsuya Nomura style.
The character design on Wii was very different, somehow there were some good looking characters but the other just meh in my opinion.
I would like to see character design like Monster Hunter Stories 2 style, both male and female characters looks very appealing from head to toe.
@Anti-Matter I mean, the same generalization could be that male artists draw the girls as waifish with big boobs. I don't think gender of the artisthas anything to do with the quality of the designs. I like the bishi look, personally. And I mostly meant the game's model art style, not the portraits. I tend to like the portraits in the SoS games no matter the style, it's the models themselves that look not-great.
I have to agree though, MHSt2 has some awesome looking characters. I just played the first one, and I was impressed at how well the characters looked and how well the artstyle worked with the MH universe.
@Friscobay It's "best friends" in the Japanese release, not the English releases.
@Pixel-Florist isn’t it sad ?
@kategray not to be that person but bokumono did sprinklers first. 25 years ago. Please update your article. There is enough misinformation due to the localized name change as is. Thank you!
Umm, I thought hm GBC 3 is the first one to introduce sprinkler mechanics?
@PlayTest Harvest Moon/bokumono 1 had them too.
@ryu_niiyama ah yes, the snes one had it too
@Ryu_Niiyama changed! Cheers for the heads up (and to others who pointed it out) <3
@KateGray Nice! Also thank you for not being testy about it. Some of the writers here are a little rude or a lot rude when users point out issues with the articles...even when the user isn’t being rude first. One of the reasons I spend more time in the forums.
@Ryu_Niiyama I always worry that people expect me to know everything about every Nintendo game, which is definitely not the case - so as long as people are pointing out errors in good faith (and not being mean!) it's all fine with me
@KateGray I understand, that would of course be impossible. Devs and creators don’t even remember everything they made. Except maybe Kojima, but he is...special. The fact that you were willing to engage and update is what matters. NL is a little less rabid than other places. ...mostly...
I’m just glad sprinklers are back... even with all the pop in I am seeing on YouTube. Let the countdown begin!
I was going to say I’m new to the franchise, but if Harvest Moon and this are one and the same then I’m not. I played the Harvest Moon DS game but never successfully married anyone. Anyway, I’m looking forward to this, I’ve pre ordered the collectors edition, I’m hoping it turns up on the 23rd though and not the 26th like the pre order says
You can grow rice!!! I feel like an expert after Sakuna. Bring it.
@Friscobay Im pretty sure you can marry whoever you want in SOS since Mineral town
@PoisonStar long story short SoS is Bokujo Monogatari which until 2007 was known as harvest moon outside of Japan. Natsume, owner of the name not the franchise started making spinoff games with outside devs in 2007 but the official split was in 2013 with SoS being released in the west.
Of course for the Japanese the perception is reversed as the game retains its original name (often shortened to bokumono) and “Harvest Moon” is this brand new franchise.
If you liked any pre 2007 harvest moon, any rune factory, hometown story, river king, innocent life or the doremon and popolocrois crossovers, then you like SoS. As that is all the same dev (Victor, now Marvelous). That being said, the creator departed the series in 2009.
@Ryu_Niiyama the only HM version I’ve played came out in 2006 and I loved it. Kinda tempted to jump back on and actually finish wooing the woman I wish to marry cause I think that’s the only thing I never actually finished doing. Or I might start a new save cause I’ll have time to finish the game between now and the 26th (or 23rd cause I’ve seen two different release dates)
Tap here to load 36 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...