Quick Look: Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town

Oh cool! Something to watch before I go to bed.

hello vinny, hope your voice and neck feel ok

not enough AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHs in this quick look

Very happy to have Vinny with us again.

This game feels like something I kinda need right now in my life. Thanks for the Quick Look!

Thanks for this! You're sounding good, Vinny, I hope you're taking it easy!

Wow. vinny is totally back to normal with his voice! awesome, i hope he gave himself enough time to rest though

I feel like Stardew and Graveyard Keeper really poisoned the well for these games. The OGs just can't match them.

Looks like Stardew will be king for a long time.

Man I could go for some olives

EDIT: Holy shit Vinny is sounding great. Awesome!

I do enjoy the legacy refresher Vinny recounts every single time he talks about these games and it's amazing that I always instantly forget all of it.

Struggling to see how this improves on My Time At Portia, which did a lot more to make its third-person world fully realised. I guess if you're into this sort of game you don't really care about what differentiates and just want more of the experiences.

@kryplixx: @dya: I adored Stardew but personally don't agree with this at all. Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns was the contemporary release with Stardew and I ended up enjoying it a lot more. It's 100% down to preference because they're actually fairly different games, and Stardew definitely has way more Western sensibilities, but performance issues for this game aside I don't think there's any stark gap in quality between SoS and Stardew.

Wow, Vinny's voice sounds basically normal again. :)

Good to have you back!

Glad Vinny pulled through okay.

But I miss the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! In this quick look. Too quiet.

Welcome back Vinny! Hopefully your recovery went /is going great!

Wow, Vinny's voice is back!

Not really a fan of those maker machines. Makes the plot of land you manage feel more like a factory than a farm. Other than that this game seems fun to play, although it's facing stiff competition from Stardew Valley.

Also: Welcome back Vinny!!

Okay, Coop DeVille has me in stitches.

Is there no sort button on the inventory/in the chests? Seems like something I'd spend wayyy too much time moving items around for no other reason than I like things to have some sort of organization.

That being said I'd probably still play this on Steam on sale at some point, seems pretty fun. I got really back into Stardew Valley after the 1.5 update and played a bit of Doraemon Story of Seasons, so I'm always down for another chill farming sim type thing after work.

@imhungry: I'd agree with this too. Stardew is fine, but I've enjoyed both the original SoS NA release, as well as Trio of Towns. Being driven towards the mine in Stardew always sapped my desire to play it. It's great that people love Stardew, but I don't want my farmer to be a swordsman as well.

Been waiting for this bad boy since the Harvest Moon quick look

Shame about the performance, this dev has a bit of a history with poor performance in their games although the last 3DS game had finally gotten that under control.... then we are right back at it it seems. Hope it comes to other platforms.

This game kinda slides right off my brain.

I don't know too much about this game, but I know in Stardew the makers required a mod to be automated...it was never added in (as of yet). To be fair though, the makers being automated just "broke" the game (only in the sense that it makes everything super easy for your farm, and removes a good chunk of the management required).

Farmer Vinny back at it again \o/

correc-SHUN: technically the series is known as Bokujou Monogatari, or Farm Story in Japan. Story of Seasons is the new localized name

Does Simon own a guitar, play country and western, and has the propensity to advocate his love for a certain herb?

is see you timing the ending with the music

Welcome back, Vinny!

Husky present in game

5/5 stars.

Also, this game IMMEDIATELY seems light-years ahead of the "Harvest Moon" game reviewed earlier, and Vinny sounds like he's actually having fun. Hopefully a patch can fix the slowdown issues - it certainly doesn't seem like there's anything going on in-game that would beyond the Switch's capabilities.

Vinny and his kids really know how to name things

VINNY I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE OK

Vinny is back and better than ever!

looks like a fun time :] i'll probly get this

Mining has been with Harvest Moon since almost the beginning. Harvest Moon for the SNES had a cave you could collect herbs from but nothing more than that.

Harvest Moon 64 had a mine that was only accessible in winter. H M : Back to Nature (PSX) had a Normal Mine to get ore to upgrade your tools and a Winter Mine that had rare materials to get your tools up to max.

Now that Vinny sounds nice and healthy again I can admit that his chain-smoking radio DJ voice was VERY funny. Also, looking at this game, it being on the Switch is no excuse whatsoever for it performing the way it does.

Thanks Alex and Vinny! Vinny, I'm glad you're back from Cybertron. You sound like you feel much better and I'm happy for it! Stay healthy, everyone!

Vinny "Soundwave" Caravella taking a break from trying to contact Megatron to let us know what's up with Story of Seasons! Love it, appreciate it, happy to hear you back.

@gravatix: Also, these names are Grade A Prime and you should praise the kiddos on their taste and choice. Manbun is my favorite.

It's sad this game runs so poorly, I think it looks really good.

Vinny sounding good. Happy to have him back.

@vinny the expansion pass details can be found here http://www.storyofseasons.com/PoOT/expansionpass/
i'm happy to hear you are doing better vinny

Alex, thanks for the Chick Corea tribute! RIP.

If you're from the future and wondering about the Vinny situation everyone is talking about, watch the first 7 minutes of this:

The Giant Beastcast: Episode 304 - Giant Bomb

I loved Stardew - logged about 500 hours total in it and still play it regularly.

Bought this game and love it too so far. It’s a different experience even if the basic task chain and foundation is pretty much the same. It’s got some performance issues, but for me it’s nothing breaking my experience.

I’ve seen plenty of comments here and elsewhere that this game is shite because... Stardew.

I don’t understand the “don’t get this because another game did it well”. You can say that about every single genre out there.

@utdevildog said:

For an outsider looking in, the impression I get just from looking is, "why would anyone get this farming game when the older one that has been expanded out the wazoo appears to be the better game." What I'm missing is the little details, such as whether or not Stardew Valley is taking more from Rune Factory rather than Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons.

Also what's missing from the comparison is the thought that a fan might jump between farming games or games with detailed farming systems. For sure when I think about First-Person Shooter games, I tend to think that fans of those tend to just stick to a game or series for the foreseeable future.

The animal names, goddd *wipes tear away*

I wonder just how they'll patch the maker-stuff. Aside from that overkill, this game looks really neat.