So, what's the best game in the Story of Seasons series? I have no idea which one to get.

>>713879848 (OP)
Harvest Moon 64.

>>713879848 (OP)
Harvest moon DS (jp version, it has less bugs)
Harvest moon friends of mineral town
harvest moon its a wonderful life

don't bother with any of the new harvest moons. The remakes now under the story of seasons moniker are alright if you can get past the ugly visuals

>>713880384
>less bugs
fewer*

>>713879848 (OP)
Harvest Moon 64, last game worked on by series creator, no other game has that same level of charm or difficulty even though it's quite light on features.
Stardew Valley is legitimately bad, but Story of Seasons is so bad that it makes Stardew Valley look like an example of excellence in comparison.

>>713879848 (OP)
The nigga of mineral town

>>713879848 (OP)
Animal Parade on Wii back when the series was called Harvest Moon or Trio of Towns
Harvest Moon DS which was the first DS game is also very fun albeit buggy if you played the first release. And Magical Melody was good too

>>713879848 (OP)
Harvest moon DS Cute (jp)
you get to romance a witch

My personal favorite is A Wonderful Life because of hybrid crop autism and you see your child grow up to be a man. Celia/Cecilia is also a cutie.

So will the Grand Bazaar remake be good do you think?

>>713883550
It's a remake?

>>713879938
even as slow and QoL-less as it is, this is still true. The future games using the same characters ruined everything and so 64 remains King.

>>713883953
It’s a DS game

>>713884121
Thanks, I didn't know
(ffs make a new game)

>>713883550
The original isn't even good to begin with.

>>713880625
i don't think that's right

>>713882659
>Can't romance the witch in the regular EN version because of a glitch
>Can't marry the witch in cute EN version, because they removed the Yuri
incredible

still weird how the english localization team intentionally removed the same-sex ceremonies from the game. wasn't even a marriage either, it was a best friend ceremony, but they still gutted it out. Didn't stop them from making the game a buggy mess in the process though. don't know how the localization team managed to do this bad of a job, but it's commendable

Are the AWL and FoMT remakes worth playing? I kind of feel like reliving memories that will make me cry all night.

>>713879848 (OP)
Harvest Moon DS of the most unasuming but wildest ones in the franchise with a fair amount of content and customization thanks to trinkets, harvest spirits and fuck hueg mine, lots of bachelorettes and events. There's a 1.1 english version with the bugs fixed.

Hero of leaf valley for the PSP is another underrated entry, the game has multiple ways of resolving the main conflict which lends it to be fairly replayable, also you can marry the antagonist. It's dated in its controls and how slow it can feel but if you don't mind emulating it and using the emulation tools at your disposal it's surprisingly a very enjoyable entry, it also has probably one of the most fun fishing mini games in the series.

>>713882760
Same

>>713885006
SoS AWL is worth it
SoS FoMT is trash, don't even bother

>>713885390
>SoS FoMT is trash, don't even bother
Damn it. And that's the game I can't find, too.

>>713883550
After Guardians of Azuma being pretty good I have faith in Marvelous again and think the Grand Bazaar remake will be kino.

Story of Seasons was the last good "new" sos and it's in 3ds hell

>>713885670
>Story of Seasons was the last good "new" sos
You mean Trio of Towns.

>>713885826
No.

>>713885885
>Nigga actually unironically prefers the original Story of Seasons over Trio
SOS1 has a better art style but Trio is superior in nearly every other way, most notably dialogue variety, family life, events, and festivals.

>>713879848 (OP)
>HM: Friends of Mineral Town
>SoS: A Wonderful Life
>HM: DS
That is the top 3.
I heard "A New Beginning" was good, the last game before the split. Going to check it out next.

>>713886238
>A New Beginning
Looks like a phone game

You might want to check out "Hero of Leaf Valley" on a PSP emulator. That game is underrated as hell.

>>713885390
>>713885616
I played it on Gamepass and liked it, it's much more convenient than the original

>>713880384
those are the only ones I've played and I played them a lot

>>713886348
Shit yeah actually looks pretty good, i'll give it a go

>>713885616
SoS FoMT is trash. HM FoMT is kino. Is based on HM BTN but has some QoL improvements although they took some things from BTN out.

Best HM/SoS games are;

HM Animal Parade
HM 64
HM BTN/FoMT (put them together cause they're the basically the same game)
SoS Trio of Towns
HM Snes

I played them all, so I know what I'm talking about. SoS Pioneers has to be one of the worst ones, only better than HM Island of Happiness which was just outright unplayable because of the awful control system (it was the first HM game done for DS and they went full stylus) Even Natsume One World and Wind of Anthos was a better game than Pioneers. In fact both those games made by Natsume are better than SoS FoMT and Pioneers by Marvelous.

NuNatsume games always lack something that makes them feel incomplete. One World was one big souless world with absolutely nothing, and very poor post-marriage stuff. But there were cool characters (Malika being my favorite). Wind of Anthos had a nice world, good farming mechanics and competent story, but characters were beyond soulless. None of the bachelorettes felt had any personality. They were literal background NPCs. Anyway, both Natsume and Marvelous know what players want, they just don't deliver. Maybe with Xsneed taking a backrole in SoS gamed it will improve? Natsume just doesn't seem to have the resources to make a complete game.

>>713885390
>SoS AWL is worth it
The AWL remake is censored slop though, they turned the Bar into a “Cafe,” redesigned both Muffy and Murray, and got rid of the scenes where you get chewed out by the girls if you cheat on them/lead them on and hit your kid.

SOS in general seems to be full on baby-tier now.

>>713886929
Marvelous did it for the CERO ratings

>when you insist on recommending Back to Nature instead of FoMT
The GBA game is just inferior. This isn't an 'old good, remake bad' argument either because I actually played the latter first. Back to Nature just does more with its settings and characters while FoMT guts it all. Even getting all the blessed tools felts like an empty waste of time because it all leads nowhere at the end of the day. Only reason to play FoMT is if you have AWL so you can hook the games up and unlock content between them. Outside that Back to Nature is a better experience.

>>713885006
I still can't get over how wonky everybody looks in the AWL remake. It's too sterile for me. On top of that I don't fully agree with some of the gameplay changes they made. I got through the first year (marrying the best girl of course) then stopped.

>>713887087
They didn’t even fix the thing where you get so old you die of old age but nobody else ages as quickly as you do.

>>713886983
>CERO ratings
Did Japan’s CERO rating system get stricter or something? I remember 64 was a straight up E and that game was the most mature HM/SOS has gotten yet with straight up alcoholics, wife-beatings, and even an in-game death.

>>713883550
I hope so. It looks good.

>>713879848 (OP)
Back to nature for ps1 is unquestionably the best, its only drawback being load times.
The people saying friends of mineral town or 64 probably just have nostalgia for those games, they are objectively wrong though. Also the Switch remake is garbage and removes content.
Next, Animal Parade for the Wii, incredibly underrated for some reason, amazing game and still carries the original charm.
As others have said, Harvest Moon DS is also great, though it's more on the grind autism side of things.
HM/SoS A wonderful Life is an acquired taste, I personally didn't enjoy the aging mechanic, you might though and if you do this might be one of your favorites.
As for the SoS DS/3DS games, it would take too much time to go into detail, the only one genuinely bad is island of happiness and that's only because of touch controls, the "remake": sunshine island is different not always in good ways but it has regular controls so it's superior by default.(Also the last game with rival marriages, which was a GOOD mechanic)
A new beginning is a town builder which once again is an acquired taste, I wasn't fond of it, but others swear by it.
Original SoS for 3DS is way more anime than previous entries but like HM: DS has massive autism potential. It also has drill ohoho oujo so it's peak
Trio of Towns has a lot of story if you are into that.
I have only played Tale of two towns a little bit so I can't say too much about it.

Any games I mentioned and didn't bash are recommended in some form or another.
All the recent releases are pretty ass, so if you are new and don't want to play older games I'd say wait for Grand Bazaar, the DS game is good and the remake looks promising.

SNES, 64, PS1, PS2, AWL, FoMT are all good.

>>713887318
I know probably no one on /v/ likes the bland change in art direction for the series, but does the general audience like it? It's just so soulless.

>>713887185
They couldn't. It would have been a completely different game then. Anyone that remembers AWL fondly is still riding in that hype we felt 20 years ago. Fans in GameFaqs cope hard but at the end most understood it was a dissapointing game. Technically better than HM STH, although it's weird STH is sometimes looked back more fondly than AWL.

>>713886924
>tfw enjoyed Olive Town after a long hiatus from the series
I really wish I could tell you why, but I've gone through five save files and sunk hundreds of hours into the game. The DS era is when I started losing interest in the series because it seemed more concerned about making itself a hackneyed RPG by making you realiant on wonders and accessories and shit. Tree of Tranuility was fun, but AP's framerate being dog shit kept me away from it. I would get the 3DS games and they are better, but again I just couldn't stick around for them either. Olive Town is the first game in years to really hold my attention, which is ironic because I avoid games like this which rely on aping Minecraft mechanics.

Probably helps the bachelorettes weren't bad looking, but that's never been a problem for this series miraculously enough.

>although it's weird STH is sometimes looked back more fondly than AWL
Where do I find these people because it feels at though I'm the only person's that played STH.

>>713887562
I like the greater challenge of 64 over BtN. Also, the character personalities and relationships make more sense.

>>713887185
>when a woman already in her 70s when you meet her manages to outlive you
I understand the message, but come on. There's no reason for Romana and Sebastian to stay alive while Nina bites it after year one. Hell they could've made it a thing where Lumina moves away and occiasionally visits if you don't marry her or something.

>>713887795
>the character personalities and relationships make more sense.
That's usually something people who played one first say about the other, makes sense since it uses the same characters and the change /is/ incredibly off-putting.
Also 64 is still peak I probably should have added that, I realized I might have sounded dismissive.

>>713887562
I played Back to Nature first but vastly prefer 64.

>>713879848 (OP)
trio of towns

>>713887729
STH was a weird experiment sure, but you can still find old school HM fans praising the graphical style which still looks good today. Controls were solid. Music was pretty good too (autumn theme slaps). I often hear less complaints over STH than AWL

>>713888560
>>713887729
>>713886924
>STH
Hero of Leaf Valley was a massive improvement over STH, I wonder why most people never heard of it? Was it because it's on the PSP?

>>713888730
Its just not the "same" game. I played it, but it felt like a different game.

>>713887640
>They couldn't. It would have been a completely different game then. Anyone that remembers AWL fondly is still riding in that hype we felt 20 years ago. Fans in GameFaqs cope hard but at the end most understood it was a dissapointing game. Technically better than HM STH, although it's weird STH is sometimes looked back more fondly than AWL.
AWL is a victim of being made when Victor Interactive was on the verge of bankruptcy and was in the process of getting absorbed by Marvelous to save them, that’s why it kept being delayed. It feels unfinished because it literally IS unfinished. Similar story to why RF5 turned out the way it did as well.

HoLV was funny in that you could lock yourself out of dating the goddess if you did TOO well because to get her she needed to be the waifu with the highest love points in the end of the 2nd year when the big story ending happens so you get a special romantic cutscene with her, but if you overachieved too hard and maxed everyone out then Main Antagonist-chan will have priority over everyone else, even her as to who shows up in that romantic cutscene.
All that being said, Alice was best girl anyway so it's fine

>>713889083
>Original Harvest Moon developer and Rune Factory developer both eventually went bankrupt
Where did they fail when something like Trannydew Valley is able to roll in the millions? It’s just not fair…

>>713889165
>Alice
She needed to be corrected

>>713889483
stardew was ported to everything, has multiplayer and has mods

>>713888730
I wouldn't call it a "massive improvement". It is indeed the better game, just by virtue of having more content, however, it also did fuckup a lot of stuff from STH:
>Characters feel more one-note and flanderized compared to their STH counterparts
>Taking care of animals is janky due to fucked up hitboxes
>Less stylized graphics means the characters aren't as emotive, the lack of portraits for multiple emotions doesn't help
>The new characters are fine, but they are overused in scenes to the point that it overshadows the other characters (I swear Chester shows up in like 80% of events)
>The way the events play off in HoLV just isn't as good as in STH
In short: HoLV has better gameplay but lost most of the charm and soul.

Harvest Moon 64 or Harvest Moon Back to Nature. 64 is the definitive edition of the classic game they basically remade a handful of times up until then. Back to Nature took the same characters to a new map with more to do and a less repetitive soundtrack. Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town is a GBA remake of that, with more features but shittier controls because less buttons. There’s a remake of that with the new name, Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town that maintains those features but the new art direction and redesigns really change the game’s soul. I wish I still had my PS1 back to nature copy…. I usually pick up SoS FOMT on PC once and a while but it just makes me want to play Stardew Valley, which is a just a better game in almost every way than any HM/SOS game. The only thing I don’t like is the woke themes in it that slowly come out as you increase your villager relationships. Like Sam being a fag and the purple haired chick giving you a black baby if you marry her.

>>713880384
>harvest moon its a wonderful life
Gamecube version If I might add, the new version not only is uglier but it has LGBT crap in it.

Also add.

Harvest moon hero of leaf valley
Harvest moon 3D

>>713889703 (me)
Oh and one thing I forgot to mention: The Music is worse and less varied, they have one song that plays during every event.

>>713889483
Concerned Ape made HM but with proper Quality of Life implementations to make gameplay smoother, something foreign to japanese developers.

>>713889703
Nah HoLV is extremely soulful, it excels in making it's characters likeable.

why are people suggesting games under the old name? is there anything worth playing since the name change?

>>713890054
>it excels in making it's characters likeable.
The new characters maybe. Because the returning ones are all a downgrade from how they were in STH.

>>713888730
HoLV is its one game and can be argued as the beginning of when the series started homogenizing its art style. It also followed FoMT's design philosophy where in getting more content the trade off was every character's personalities being put through the ringer and not even being close to how they originally were. For shit sake Magical Melody's incarnations remained truer to STH than Leaf Valley did.

>I wonder why most people never heard of it?
People heard of it, but it's just not as memorable. Having to complete the game in less in a year is a challenge, but what came with that challenge is depth to the characters and the valley itself, which is important. HoLV is mostly sunshine and rainbows despite the impending doom of the valley being destroyed that even the extra content doesn't stop your endeavors from feeling flat and unearned. Harvest Moon/SoS is a series where the villagers are just as important as the MC because they each have their own stories to and tell and their own trials. You get rid of those and it's not a village anymore, it's just a bunch of husks that you talk to because it's required of you.

>>713890058
SoS Trio of Towns was the last good game

I miss... I miss the old HM games.
The old games had too much SOVL in them that I can't find in the newer SoS entries. I wonder if it's because they catered to much to the American audiences and forgot their roots...

>>713890058
There are only five games under the story of seasons title and three of them are remakes of harvest moons

>>713890058
SoS and SoS Trio of towns are perfectly fine games

>>713885670
wdym by hell

Story of Seasons should bring back the witch princess and the harvest goddess

>Dessie, Flik, Gusto, Mora, Pepita, Torque, Witchie
Bring all of these back

>Navi-Sprites
I want all of these gone. The one who thought of this concept needs to get fired.

>>713888560
Fucking love STH's art style. It just oozes with soul.

>>713890510
Last I heard Natsume holds some rights to the Harvest Goddess, the Witch and I think the Harvest Sprites. Is the reason why in Pioneers there are no Harvest sprites and they have some ugly ass nuggets

>>713890651
They're literally in SoS, albeit renamed

>>713890510
>hey anon, have this child we found in the woods somewhere
>they're your kid now no ifs and or buts
>no you never get to fuck your wife you cuck

>>713890651
So, they're lost forever then? Marvelous should make cuter Harvest Sprites, a new sexy goddess and an evil tsundere witch.

>>713890718
I want to actually fucking kill of these stupid looking creatures.

>>713890198
>I wonder if it's because they catered to much to the American audiences and forgot their roots...

It’s because both teams went bankrupt and then eventually fired from Marvelous.

First was Wada’s team, the one in charge of SNES up to Animal Parade.

Then Hashimoto’s team, the one who did A New Beginning through Trio of Towns.

Both teams eventually got replaced, now POOT and the SOS remakes are being developed by literal-whos.

Rune Factory is back to being good, so I have decent hopes for future SoS games

>>713890830
They should hire an old Japanese boomer from the province desune

>>713890705
They are in SoS FoMT. In SoS the Goddess had another name. Maybe for FoMT Natsume allowed it or a deal was reached

>>713890651
I don't see how they would have those rights except for maybe the name. But they could just rename her to "Nature Deity" or some crap like that and they're good to go.

>Always miss the story of seasons threads or post when theyre about to die
game has not much to discuss anyway, but im playing olive town with the gf these weeks, its like heroin to her. shes only played mineral town with me before, my fav is animal parade tho. really wish they are working on that one for the online anounced game.

>>713883550
>rune factory using the weaboo aesthetic
>grand bazaar keeping the western sos aesthetic and going for the weird german alp setting of the original
I think if it keeps the craftng aspect of olive town with qol changes its gonna be a kino game for me. probably gonna wait to get it on ps5 tho.

>>713890898
>so I have decent hopes for future SoS games
Not if they keep censoring and babbyfying SOS. I don’t have high hopes for the Grand Bazaar remake already considering I see that they already censored the Wine festival into the “Juice” festival. Plus, furigana being used in the Japanese screenshots. For those who don’t know, furigana being used in games means it’s literal baby-tier, like for preschoolers who don’t even know how to read. Regular games aimed at a teen and adult audience or even just older elementary schoolers all use kanji without any furigana in their dialogue.

It’s looking like to me that Marvelous’s strategy is to make Rune Factory for their teen and adult audience, while SOS is their “family friendly” brand.

Trio of Towns is the best actually. I never get tired of the scenery because every town is great and all of the bachelorettes are cute. I chose Iluka btw. I'll definitely buy this if they decided to remake it.

>>713890198
you’re just retarded

>>713885006
>FoMT
im still mad at all the retards that told me FoMT was great and pioneers of olive town was a shit game. the mineral town remake is cute for an in-year game but after that it has to be the most empty lame game ive played in the series. it has even less content than the original since they removed all the rival candidates weddings and cutscenes.

So where does My Time At Sandrock rank compared to all other HM/SOS (not including Natsume’s knockoffs) and Rune Factory games in terms of dialogue variety and married life?

>>713891359
why?

>>713891359
He's right, retard. Marvelous shouldn't cater too much to redditroons like you.

>>713888730
HoLV plays vastly different from most HM, it's mostly story driven and each chararacter has it's own mini story line and also it's balanced very thighly around stamina and low money values.

>>713891449
'My time at' are their own thing, Stardew is also it's own thing and by no means it's a spiritual successor.

New story of seasons art style kinda sucks

>>713891296
I haven't had the chance to explore more of the Harvest Moon games but yeah, Trio of Towns is incredible.

>>713892154
>olive town
>all the bachelors and bachelorettes look basically the same
>all the hags,not marriable candidates and harvest goddess look like pure sex
what where they even thinking, also the secret ninja, motorcycle dude and his tall as fuck brother have all the women wet since the game released. its the game with the most missed chances ive seen

>>713891805
>when you’re in your mid 30s showing your friends a Harvest Moon game and their immediate response is ‘just like Stardew Valley’
I expected this and it still feels like I’ve been shot in the gut. Imagine being the literal pioneer of fantastic farm sims yet the major population doesn’t know you exist.

>>713892501
>the village seems lifeless
>character models lack expression
>events aren't even fun
>infinite makers (fixed)
The grind was fun, I'll give them that, but the social aspect of this game is severely lacking. I even forgot most of the villagers.

>>713892501
>>713892859
And people say RF5 was bad… It was still more memorable than Oliveslop.

>>713893116
It had to follow RF4 and they're new to the 3D thing while using a custom engine that sucks. I had a lot of fun looking back and I had no optimization issues coz I was playing in PC. It's decent, I prefer it over RF1 and RF2.

>>713893428
Is RF4S's AISlop backgrounds worth the minor updates? Game is fucking hideous.

>>713887210
I feel like someone told me what is actually going on with these stricter restrictions once and I think it had nothing to do with CERO but some other entity, but I can't remember what it was because it's been a while.

>>713892779
And even if someone makes an indie that actually captures the essense of early SoS it will still be considered a Stardew-like, we're stuck in this timeline

>>713893534
Marriage is no longer an ungodly RNG-fest so there's that

>>713893813
I'd rather get wife roulette than the game being piss ugly for the whole duration. Thanks, anon.

>>713893908
There are mods to fix it, but you do you

>>713893990
I looked for a bit and the best one I found is still kinda muddy AI upscaled bullshit, unfortunately. Not nearly as bad, at least.

This is the only Story of Seasons game that I've played and it was pretty fun. I need to try some of the other ones sometime.

>>713893428
>It's decent, I prefer it over RF1 and RF2
It’s better than Tides too.

>>713893428
I thought Rune Factory 1 was dogshit, so that's not a hard bar to clear.

>>713887729
POT just felt like a massive step down to me after 3oT. I wish I could get into it, but it really left me disappointed and I haven't checked out a single other SoS game again since.

>>713897201
They booted Hashimoto’s team off SOS and hired a literal-who developer Three Rings who’s only pedigree to it’s name are One Piece shovelware games. That’s why POOT was so bad.

Grand Bazaar looks great, but the portrait designs seem rather lacking.

>>713899431
Are they training the new devs? Are the new devs improving? Are they hiring talented people into the dev team?

>>713891079
I want to have that feeling of that top picture. Very cozy.

>>713884693
Fewer bugs is right, ESL

>>713897201
That's understandable when it's clearly harping on Animal Crossing and Minecraft. I'm actually the exact opposite with Trio of Towns, having issues with the fact it felt everything was arbitrarily time gated off instead of unlocking via my own merits. It's probably why I went onto play through Olive Town more than once, because progress and features are literally unlocked by what resources it meant there was value in starting over and tryng out new strategies and layouts to go better and see if you can't unlock things quicker. Also it's a quick game to start as you can skip most of the cutscenes and just play the game while discarding any text based tutorials. It's one of the bigger reasons I enjoy the older Harvest Moon titles, objectives and goals based on your skills and the games welcomed experimentation to thanks to not halting your progress or plans becuse your access to town 2 won't be unlocked for an X amount of days.

>>713902008
>Are they training the new devs? Are the new devs improving? Are they hiring talented people into the dev team?
You would hope… We’ll see, I’m not sure if this Grand Bazaar remake is being developed by Three Rings again or not?

Speaking of, where’s the daily Rune Factory: GoA thread? I don’t see it in the catalog?

>>713907970
ded

>>713882760
I hated AWL because even for a Harvest Moon game, it was slow. I legit got bored playing it as a kid.

>>713908491
yeah i also ran out of things to do on my third year

>>713908729
That's about as far I ever got into it. There was just nothing to do.

>>713908057
Well then someone make one, we should at least be able to have daily threads up until the end of the first month of the game’s release, it’s only been 3 weeks so far.