Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town - I Farm For My Friends
Friends of Mineral Town was originally Back to Nature, a popular if jankily isometric entry in the Bokujou Monogatari (AKA: Harvest Moon) farming sim franchise that took the base content and characters of Harvest Moon 64 and reshuffled them for the Playstation 1. FoMT, its updated remake on the GameBoy Advance, went on to be one of the most beloved entries in the franchise, giving the game some much-needed quality-of-life improvements and the benefits of portable gaming.
Now, years after the name Harvest Moon was left behind in favor of Story of Seasons, the game receives another remake for modern consoles and PC with a fresh coat of chibi paint, even more quality-of-life improvements, and controversy over what's no longer on marriage candidates' heads. But we can be lesbians now, so we'll deal.
Join myself, Skippy Granola, and YamiNoSenshi as we rediscover the "classic Harvest Moon" formula with our farming hero, Best on the Ew Farm.
The LP
This is not a 100% LP, whatever that even looks like for an old-school Bokujou Monogatari game like this. Rather, my goal is to show off as much of the game as I reasonably can in the span of two in-game years, on the way to my ultimate goal of buying the town villa for a whopping 10 million G.
In full transparency, this LP was originally released to my Patreon patrons in full before being uploaded publicly. I don't do this with all of my LPs, but I do for special ones like this as thanks for their support. Patrons also voted on who I marry and gave name suggestions for the animals.
---------------------------
---------------------------------------------
Fanart
(By BrennaOkazaki)
Last edited by ThornBrain on Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:00 pm, edited 15 times in total.
It's a reference to my first-look stream of the game. And also to this great piece of fanart by Brenna Okazaki:
Am I a bad person for hearing you say you can date multiple people and immediately wishing I could form a polycule with Kai and Popuri partly because I like their characters and their relationship dynamic, but also partly because it would probably piss off Rick to no end?
Ahhhh, FoMT. I remember downloading you and playing you through slow days in my Library Aide elective class. I also remember getting sick of how dense some mechanics were and how I had NO IDEA ABOUT ANY OF THIS FRIENDSHIP STUFF, HOLY CRAP
Like seriously, I only ever gave gifts to the character I was trying to marry and sometimes a rival I liked that I wasn't competing with. I had no idea there would be any benefit to actually befriending these people because I had no inkling that anything would ever happen with them and nothing ever changed daily (which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy but shhhhhh) and I especially didn't know anything about the Harvest Goddess other than some vague idea of the method to marry her, which I didn't care about.
It's so interesting seeing all this in an updated state that looks like it would actually encourage me to try and befriend everyone thanks to the meters and feedback to the player that "Yes, things are actually happening, keep doing it until something happens," though I don't think I would play it myself; there's options out there if I really do want a modern farm game, and this Let's Play is a joy to watch to get that fix partially sated.
Like seriously, I only ever gave gifts to the character I was trying to marry and sometimes a rival I liked that I wasn't competing with. I had no idea there would be any benefit to actually befriending these people because I had no inkling that anything would ever happen with them and nothing ever changed daily (which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy but shhhhhh) and I especially didn't know anything about the Harvest Goddess other than some vague idea of the method to marry her, which I didn't care about.
It's so interesting seeing all this in an updated state that looks like it would actually encourage me to try and befriend everyone thanks to the meters and feedback to the player that "Yes, things are actually happening, keep doing it until something happens," though I don't think I would play it myself; there's options out there if I really do want a modern farm game, and this Let's Play is a joy to watch to get that fix partially sated.
For anyone watching who also enjoyed our Harvest Moon: Animal Parade LP back in 2017, I put together a Best Of compilation for it! Part 1 premieres at 12PM Pacific, 3PM Eastern, and Part 2 premieres on Wednesday, same time.
If you're still looking for which game which songs come from https://fogu.com/sos3/mineral_town/van_store.html has it listed:
Outset of Seasons = Harvest Moon (SNES)
Flower Bud Village = Harvest Moon 64 (N64)
Moonlit Girl = Harvest Moon for Girl (Ps1)
Sugar Village = Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland (Ps2)
A Wonderful Season = Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (GC)
In general fogu.com is a really good source of info relating to Bokujou Monogatari games and has been doing guides for them for 21 years now
Outset of Seasons = Harvest Moon (SNES)
Flower Bud Village = Harvest Moon 64 (N64)
Moonlit Girl = Harvest Moon for Girl (Ps1)
Sugar Village = Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland (Ps2)
A Wonderful Season = Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (GC)
In general fogu.com is a really good source of info relating to Bokujou Monogatari games and has been doing guides for them for 21 years now