Friends of Mineral Town the OG of farming sims has gotten a total remake and finally, after half a year out in Japanese, we’re getting the English version next week. Out on the 15th for both the PC (Steam) and the Nintendo Switch. If you’ve played the original Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town you may be wondering what has changed in the last few years. We’ll go through all the major changes to get you pumped for the release. Don’t worry though the main gameplay still remains the same!
If you’re getting the game or are playing through SoS: FoMT, be sure to check out our guides for the game. Including the best crops to plant each season and a list for where all the Power Berries are. Gotta get that gold and stamina.
New Art Style
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town has gone for a more chibi art style and I’m here for it! It’s a definite upgrade to the original Harvest Moon version which enjoys the lower poly look of the PlayStation 1. I just gotta say I can’t get enough of these round cows! KAWAII. The colour palette remains the same with its bright, cartoony art style but do expect some redesigns of the original characters.
Customisable Charcters
In the original Harvest Moon games, you could only choose to play the stock male character. Later versions released a Harvest Moon game where you could only play as the stock female character. Eventually, the series evolved so that we’re now able to choose whether we want to be either a male or female. No choices for non-binary or asexual though, Story of Seasons aint woke enough for that. In this new game in addition to choosing between those two genders, we’re also able to change our skin colour. I know it’s been a long time coming and hardly touches on real character customisation, but it’s more than we had last time!
Farming Changes
There are a few here. First of all the fertilizer mechanic has been removed. So instead of trying to mutate or chancing to grow bigger crops with fertilizer, your crops will now have a star rank based on the field level of your farm. They can be ranked from 1 star to 5 stars.
When it comes to crops generally everything is about the same, except yams now take one extra day to grow. I mean if you guys can even remember how long it took to grow yams previously lol. And there are now two more fall crops – soybeans and chilli pepper. Amazingly now you’re able to walk on top of your crops instead of zigzagging around them.
Inventory Stacking & Upgrades
Remember how annoying it was running out of backpack space? Then you could buy a basket and throw things in there? Well, now the basket feature has been removed while the rucksack can be further expanded. Additionally, items now stack in groups of 9 in the backpack, making inventory management much much easier. This is really the quality of life upgrade I wanted to see.
Mining Upgrades
The repetitive task of mining has now been made easier with pitfalls and elevators. In the first game you had to find a ladder while digging to reach the next level and this happened pretty much everytime you went to the mine. You could skip I think 5-10 floors once you originally explored there. But now there’s an elevator that will bring you to the lower levels that you’ve manually reached on your own. You’ll need to give 100 gifts to the Harvest Goddess to unlock this.
Additionally, some floors of the mine contain hidden pitfalls that will drop players up to 5 floors. Not every mine floor has pitfalls though, so there will be some areas that floors must be descended one at a time.
New Barn Animals
There are 6 new animals for rearing in SoS: FoMT! They include the Angora Rabbit, Brown Chickens, the Alpaca, Strawberry cow, Fruit cow, and Coffee cow. Do note that the wool from the Angora Rabbit and the Alpaca will be converted into plain yarn. And only normal cow’s milk can be converted into cheese. You’ll just be selling the specialty cows milk.
So remember that horrible time in Harvest Moon when you had to herd your animals in and out of the barn. It took basically the entire day and if you left them out at night wild dogs would attack them?! My poor cows and their little bulging eyes. Now however there’s no more wild dogs and there’s a herding bell. Located on the exterior of the barn, ring it and it will gather all the animals outside. Then the animals will return to the barn on their own at 8pm.
This is nothing short of a miracle.
Same-Sex Marriages
One of the main aims in Friends of Mineral Town is to make friends in town and eventually fall in love and get married. You do this in the same way, talking to them every day and giving them gifts. You can then trigger two new romantic heart events instead of the previous one. Originally in the first game had you only being able to marry a member of the opposite sex. But just like in real life, same-sex marriages are legal now! Yay! Wave that pride flag and get it on with whoever you want. Rest of the world, get on board.
New Marraige Candidates
In addition to same-sex marriages, we also have a number of new marriageable candidates including a bunch of secret ones. The first two are Jennifer – an explorer who has left the city for an adventure. She’s very positive and lives out in nature in a mountain tent. And the second is Brandon – a genius artist who lodges at Gotz’s cabin. He’s got a whole tortured artist vibe going on so you’re going to have to be persistent in winning this beau’s heart.
Lastly, you’re now able to marry Won – the travelling salesman, Gourmet – the potato looking cooking festival judge, Kappa – a Kappa creature and the Harvest Goddess. This is a pretty interesting turn of events and I think I might write up a marriage guide for all these ones.
New Pets
Instead of just one pet, you can now have FIVE pets on your farm! Thank you XSEED Games, you finally received all my fan letters. In the original Friends of Mineral Town, you were limited to choosing between a dog or a cat. Now you can choose between a dog, a cat, penguins or a capybara! People normally always picked the dog because they were useful at chasing away wild dogs. Now however your pets are purely there for cuteness purposes and won’t be helping on the farm. And you’ll need to have at least 8 hearts of friendship to purchase a new pet from Van. Totally worth it.
You’ll still get your horse and now you can use it to ride around town! Essential.
Friendship Level Tracker
This is a short one but one of great importance. There is now an in-game menu that displays your friendship levels with all the villagers so you no longer need to guess what your friendship is. I’m not wasting all my hard-boiled eggs on you Popuri you already like me! Now all I really need is an in-game notebook so I can check off all the things they like and don’t like.