Sometimes it’s hard to grade a remake. See, the thing with Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is that Harvest Moon is so fucking good. It feels so good to see the money coming in; to sheer a sheep, to collect an egg from a coop, to brush a horse, to harvest crops. Seeing a grey heart turn to purple gives me more serotonin response than most entire games do. It is really impressive to create a gameplay loop full of monotonous tasks that build to a big enough prize to keep me going and going and going. Because of that, it is undeniable: I think Harvest Moon is fucking good. However, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town kind of stinks.

Now, when judging a remake it’s kind of hard, so let me set some parameters: okay, there’s really, mainly, only one. Has the team behind the remake made the quintessential way to play this game? With a remake, especially one that keeps so true to the gameplay of its origin as much as this game has, you can really only judge on presentation and added content. Now, I can't talk of all the additions to this title except for gay marriage, which legitimately accounts for an entire star of my rating. Mainly so because I honestly can see myself going to past Harvest Moon titles that have romancing only to disinterested in the romance portion of the game because there's no lesbians!

Okay, now presentation. While gay marriage accounts for an entire star being added to the rating, this game's presentation accounts for the missing two stars. The worst thing you can do is make an ugly Harvest Moon game, and from what I’ve seen of Marvelous’ modern work, this installment is far from its worst, but this art style isn’t doing the job for me. It’s that kind of smoothed-over 3D art that just squeezes all the charm out of designs that maybe would be cuter with less polygons, lol. I will say, though, the 2D watercolor-style portraits are really charming. Another big thing is sound design and response; something I can’t really put my finger on, but this is lacking a lot of polish, even disregarding plenty of small glitches that may or may not mostly revolve around navigating tight spaces while nearby an adult horse.

When I got a Playstation Vita, it was mainly in hopes to play, for cheap, all of the Playstation-exclusive JRPGs that had stayed away from Nintendo and Xbox. I played a lot of classics for the first time on that beautiful handheld that had such a thankless job. One of those classics was Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. I played a lot of it just willy-nilly, and the thing about this series is that it is not friendly to casual players (or teens with no sense of a series’ particular vibes). You better have a notebook, ready, motherfucker, and even with a walkthrough at the ready telling me what to give Ann everyday to get her to like me, I just did not have the discipline to live a successful farm life.

So, even though I thought this game, as a remake of one of the quintessential Harvest Moon titles, was just average, it still was such a joy to be able to tackle this as an adult and really develop the fuck out of an anime farm. I was racking up the coin, raising animals that loved me back, and I got freaking gay married, whores!!! It wouldn’t be the first time I sunk a bunch of hours (I had one day where I did 10 hours straight) into a fun game with rough presentation (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), but I wanted to clear this from my backlog, since I’ve had this for nearly two years lol, before getting into older installments that I hear good things about on here. I went through two full years in this game, and I definitely am excited to get into this series a lot more and see what's out there in its past installments after playing this one.

A pretty rudimentary entry but it's an incredibly faithful remake as far as I know. Character portraits are sweet and expressive, there probably won't be a townsfolk you don't vibe with. Being able to enlist sprites as your laborers instead of waiting until your child is just old enough to walk is a nice addition. Time flies in this game so it'll take half the time to get to noteworthy events than you'd expect. This won't blow your balls off or anything but it's still charming and cute and very cathartic.

I never had a GBA growing up. I tried playing the GBA More Friends of Mineral Town emulated a long time ago, but found it to be anything but enjoyable. the GBA being limited to so few buttons, the very small amount of backpack space, and so on made it really painful to play. I know there's the basket item, but that's honestly just another nuisance. my first Harvest Moon experience was Another Wonderful Life, which has no inventory limit, and way more buttons to work with. hearing that Friends of Mineral Town was so good, I totally didn't get it, honestly. it was cute, but... eh.

after hearing about how this remake improved things, I decided to just buy it. and playing it, it finally... kind of clicked. kind of. this game still isn't that great. but it's not actually bad, either. just, compared to others old and new, it's... dare I say... mid. sorry! I married Huang and played until some time after my character had the baby. so, I did put a lot of time into it. and I'm sure I'll play it again someday, it's a chill time. can't hate that.

this game has a lot of content that requires putting in a lot of time and effort. but it's not even anything really worth having. there's the town villa which requires 10 million G, there's the mountain cottage which requires you to play the game for 50 in-game years... there's also a beach cottage, but that one only requires giving the harvest goddess 150 presents. won't take you as long as those other two things, anyway.
anyway, then there's all the stuff in the mines. there's a lot of stuff in the mines. both mines. you can unlock elevators for these mines, but it does require giving the harvest goddess 100 gifts. and even then, it only takes you to certain levels. so unless you've made it to at least floor 50 in either mine, it's not going to be of any use. so that really sucks tbh. there's lots of stuff in the mines. none of it is really needed. but it's there!

basic gameplay is like... well, pretty much any other farming sim. as this is a remake, there's a lot of QoL here compared to the original, but it's just fixing problems of the original. the really nice thing about this game, for a Harvest Moon title, is you can marry whoever you wish regardless of the player character gender you choose. it's a shame I am... personally not a fan of most of them. wasn't in the original, either. I do like the newly added ones, Jennifer and Brandon... especially Jennifer. Huang is cute and great once you marry him, but that's about it.
the other special candidates besides Huang require ridiculous amounts of time and effort to make it happen. I like, half get it... and half don't. even worse, they don't live at your house or anything. I don't get it, really. even as a "just for the heck of it" thing, for all the effort, it's a shame. I know that is just how the original games had it but I think that makes it even worse somehow. but that's just what I think, soooooooo

the graphics... well, they work. nothing special. some of the chibi models look terrible. the redesigns of characters is something I'm mixed on. some of them are very cute. some of them are... uhhhhhhh.(Duke and Harris.......) I'm not sure why some of them were changed as much as they were, namely Jeff. I dunno, just feels weird. music is ok. as with many remasters/remakes, the vibes of the new music are not the same. but in this instance, it's closer than what other games manage.

overall, underwhelming, but not an actually bad experience.

Harvest Moon on PS1 was a cornerstone of my childhood, so I was eager to play this remake. Honestly, it did a great job modernizing the game and trimming some unnecessary elements. Sometimes, I find the animals even cuter. Nearly all the changes were for the better, except for not receiving a puppy at the start like in the original. While this one might not carry the same emotional weight, and I've played better games in the genre like Stardew Valley and Coral Island, it was still a nice and enjoyable experience.

Review on Reddit with Images

IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE

-Farm sim

-Endless gameplay with no ending

-No voice dialogue

-Main character's gender and name can be picked, but has no actual dialogue

INTRODUCTION

Friends of Mineral Town is a remake of a GBA game from many years ago. Having never played a Harvest Moon, Story of Season or Farm Sim game, FOMT is my first so this review won't go into any comparisons with other similar games.

What's new in this Remake other than the graphics are that there are updated character portraits, two new dateable/marriage candidates, name reverting back to the ones in the Japanese version, the removal of "Rival Marriages" while keeping some of the events in and some QOL features like being able to walk on crops and a mining elevator to name a few.

STORY

The player character was acquainted with a farm owner when he/she was a child. At the beginning of the game, the farm owner died leaving the farm to the player who decides to start a new life in Mineral Town. That's pretty much the entire plot of the game as there are no other main plot lines continuing from there. As such, it is as basic as it gets which isn't too bad considering the type of game it is. Having said that, a goal of sorts like paying off the farm debt would have been appreciated and a good drive to move the game forward.

CHARACTERS

Despite its small size, Mineral Town has a good number of citizens living there. Other than some mandatory moments, players are free to interact with them how frequently they want. None are really deep characters and most of them are one-note, but they are all still enjoyable to interact with and learn more about. There are some optional story lines to get invested in like the sickly mother of the chicken shop, the daughter who was left in the care of her grandfather as the mother left town, the former rich girl who threw away everything to be closer to nature and the young man who wanders from town to town without a purpose. The characters are all charming in appearances and personality.

The game does a decent job at creating this fictional close knit community, but one issue is that there's very few life developments with them. What I mean is that they don't really grow older or have any change in their lifestyle. The sole exception is the one guy who gets a new job in town. Other than that, the lack of relationship building among is the characters hurts the game. No longer will the non-married love interests get married with somebody else. The effect makes it as if the town is frozen in time.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is where's it at with this game though. There's a lot of freedom to do whatever you want whether to work on your crops and farm, mine ores, fishing, interacting with the townspeople, or gather materials.

The farming mechanics aren't incredibly complex. As long as you plant a crop that's in season, then it will grow and be ready to harvest at a fixed date. That's assuming that they are watered everyday of course.

Farm animals and livestock just need to be fed everyday by manually feeding them or let them out to roam outside during the day. They can be brushed and talked to for further affection points.

If there was one aspect of the game that's a chore, then that would be mining. To get the high quality ores needed to upgrade the farm tools, then you need to dive deep into the mines. My problem with the mines is that it's heavily RNG reliant. The ladder for the next floor is randomized every time so you could waste vitality and stamina trying to find it. Not to mention that the appearance of rare ores are also RNG too.

This game is great to dive into every now and then due to the nature of the game. There's no real ending to this game so you can advance as far as you want and stop. That said, by the end of the first year, you'll see about 80% of events and things that the game has to offer. The subsequent years recycle most of the dialogue so there's not much to look forward to then.

FINAL REMARKS

The game is a decent entry to those that want to experience one of those farm sim games, but don't know where to start. While it does lack some of the deeper farm mechanics and other related features that one might expect, it still is a solid experience overall.

The original Back to Nature is by all means one of the greatest games I have ever played. I love that game dearly. This is a decent attempt at recreating that feeling but it feels lacking. There's a charm that is lost with a lot of the modern touch ups. Harvest Moon always felt at it's best with the clunk. Something about fighting the system to grow your farm added to the experience. The important atmosphere is still there. The characters still breathe the same air of quality. It's just not quite the same.

[European Portuguese - Nintendo Switch - Dated 08/07/2020]

"Seja a colher uma mão cheia de tomates, cortejar um interesse romântico ou participar num dos vários eventos da cidade, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town é um excelente jogo que faz jus a um adorado por todo o mundo. É uma fórmula simples e viciante que prende o jogador durante horas a fio a todos os pormenores que sacodem uma eventual monotonia e repetição. A vida em Mineral Town é divertida, encantadora e uma recomendação que se faz sem hesitar, tanto para fãs de longa data como para novos interessados."

See more @ https://www.starbit.pt/2020/07/08/story-of-seasons-friends-of-mineral-town-analise/

I feel like Rune Factory has ruined me for the traditional Harvest Moon experience, honestly. Like I can’t really say the farming itself is bad even if the animal breeding mechanics are absurdly grindy, as the sprites are reasonably helpful. At the same time, while I can’t really say the actual characters and their relationship storylines are necessarily bad, I’ve been super spoiled by how much variable dialogue there is in the Rune Factory end of things. Like, if talking to the townspeople every day to improve their friendship is a game mechanic, you should probably change it up often enough that the characters are interesting and have some fun things to say, right? And the game actively punishes you by decreasing people’s friendship if you don’t feel like mashing through the same dialogue every single day.

This also applies to the sprites, who can fall below a given friendship threshold at which point they won’t help you with farm work, which means you won’t be able to make the big harvest bucks. Also, their dialogue is harder to mash through because it keeps bringing up menus! I’m sure it’s probably easier to just shove gifts at them but it’s still a real pain. In terms of characters I ended up settling for the Doctor, but like, honestly, I wound up liking Carter way more than the rest of the cast and wouldn’t you know it, you can’t marry him! It sucks! I mean I guess it makes sense given he’s of the cloth even if there’s no reason to assume the Harvest Goddess requires a vow of celibacy, but I loved his absolutely unhinged dialogue. I want more sermons from that weirdo.

Aside from that I think the game’s pretty solid, and there is a whole lot of game there to keep you going. Like, it’s definitely not bad by any means, even if there’s a little jank and grind in the way (don’t talk to me about the horse’s hitbox), but damn, I did not feel terribly compelled to keep playing past my character getting married. Maybe I’m lacking some of the nostalgia factor, but I kind of just wish… I’d been playing the princess and demon lord tv show… that shit slapped honestly let me play that shit.

Also the game should warn you if the name you enter is the same as a character in the actual game because holy shit using “Ran” like I usually do made things confusing. I guess that’s a me problem but lmao.

When I finished up my play of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I didn't think there be a game out there that would fill the void New Horizons gave me, but thankfully I am wrong. Friends of Mineral Town may be a remake of an older GBA game, but with enough fixes to make gameplay easier, and the access to gay marriage has enhanced this little GBA game to be just tops.

Honestly it's shocking how good a game can be by simply adding Lesbians into it, and along with the simple yet addictive nature it is to make crops and build your farm from scratch really makes you feel like you accomplished something. There is still plenty of game to be made, but it's nice to know that I have a wonderful wife, a neat little town to visit, and a farm to build even further.

first things first: i am far from finished with this game, but i still decided i wanted to write a review for it already.

lets start off with the positive things: this game showed me that i actually really like farming simulations like these. i remember playing harvest moon on ds when i was younger but it didnt stick with me all that much. i am very happy i gave this game a chance and now wanting to get into this franchise a whole lot more. i tried playing stardew valley but it really wasn't for me, as a beginner in these kind of games.
but this one was a lot simpler and beginner friendly, making it easy to fall into this kind of "hole". tutorials are straight to the point and the game being restricted made it actually accessible for me.
now for the negatives.
this game looks pretty ugly. and, as far as i have seen thats not the only sos game having that problem. its sad because i also started playing the first game on the 3ds which already stood out just with its graphics to me.
i see what they were going for, it is kind of just the pokemon pearl remake style with a little less budget. maybe thats just me but the chibistyle is not doing it for me anymore and im pretty sick of it.
also the games characters are absolutely boring. i know that the dating aspects of these games are also a big thing in these games but after being interested in one person and wanting to get to know them more, just to only ever get the same textbox when talking to them EVERY.SINGLE.DAY... it scares me off.
ive read into it a little and know about the gift giving and heart events, etc.
but i still think this remake would have done a lot better if the characters had some or maybe even a lot more dialogue.

but for starters this is quite nice. c:

Having played the original in my childhood and wanting a "chill farming sim" game after burning out on Stardew Valley earlier this year, I thought to myself "why not?" only to find myself predictably regretting this impulsive purchase shortly afterwards.

My problem with the game isn't its simplicity. If anything, that's what I was looking for. It's that the game lacks any of that chill, relaxing vibe it should strive for. Sim games need a good art style, music and overall atmosphere to keep you going. This game just doesn't cut it. The art is serviceable at times, but why the hell do the bachelorettes look like 8 year-olds? Actually, don't answer that.

The music is all out of whack, instruments that should be rhythmic at most are holding the main melody. Some of the tracks, notably the new ones not present in the original such as the summer holiday steel drum one, are way too upbeat and feel like they trigger an underlying anxiety due to being at odds with the laid-back gameplay, not unlike a big chunk of Animal Crossing New Horizon's soundtrack.

Just listen to the autumn song yourself. Does this evoke the relaxing atmosphere of a beautiful fall day when you hear it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7rsLCKo7g&ab_channel=HarvestMoonAllSeries

And what really bothered me was that there's only one footstep sound effect. You spend the whole game running; over grass, dirt trails, hardwood floors, cobblestone streets, and yet it all sounds exactly the same. It may sound like a nitpick but it really plays a big role in taking you out of the game IMO.

The gameplay elements are basic, yet solid. There's a good game underneath, but it needs to be a complete package for it to work.

I honestly can't tell if I'm judging this game too early and harshly, or if it really is as simplistic and dull as it seems. I've spent at least ten hours on it, but there just doesn't seem to be much game there. You have a tiny farm that's really effectively only a crops field, as well as a couple of extra screens that are pretty boring, and all you do is boring or poorly balanced. Watering crops costs way, way too much stamina, doing a daily visit to the town to talk to everyone takes way too long and everyone has way too few lines (but must be done for relationship-growing), your worker elves are really slow, crops take forever to grow which leaves you broke and with little to do most days until it's crop time and you get a bunch of money at once. Fishing is too passive and slow. The dungeon is super boring and samey and they have to be kidding with that trophy for reaching floor 100. Worst of all is I think cooking utensils are unlocked at random, or maybe I bought the stove too early, because I can't cook anything because the store won't sell me a knife, but it did randomly sell me a pot so now I guess I can boil things. I don't know, I could go on, but really, I think more or less everything here more or less sucks. I guess because these games are 15+ years old, but this is a remake and this game just doesn't cut it in today's market. The other PS4 one is getting a shot too, but I'm really hoping that it's a major improvement on this overly simplistic game.