Should I play Story Of Seasons: Pioneers Of Olive Town now? – Characteristic

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town was a disaster at launch. Unlike its predecessor, the Friends of Mineral Town remake for the Switch, PoOT was a bit lackluster, with an empty world, zombie-like NPCs, and a crafting system so slow that you’d save time pressing coal into diamonds yourself with your hands. naked. Add in the long loading screens, frame rate issues, and a pinch of bugs, and it just wasn’t a game I’d recommend to folks, farming fans or not.

But six months later, we are now on patch 1.0.8, and many of the more serious issues have been fixed or improved. With Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town free for a week on the Nintendo Switch Online service, you might be wondering: is it good now? Or at least it is better now?

The answer is a “kind of” cautious and gentle. Many of the problems are still present, such as the extremely boring and basic museum, where the fish are just shadows in a tank, and the woman who “values” the treasures you find while mining still has you hand them over one by one. one. Likewise, the city is still boring and the villagers still don’t seem to have much to say beyond simple compliments. The scenes, even with potential partners, are short and end abruptly, and that includes the DLC characters.

But let’s focus on the DLC a bit, because many of you, like me, may have been hoping that the new characters (who are actually fan-favorite characters from previous Story of Seasons games) would inject a bit of a lot. Spice needed in the game.

For me, it was Ludus, my husband from Trio of Towns, who goaded me to get the DLC, but sadly, PoOT’s version of the blue-haired beauty left him just as lifeless and unblinking as the rest of the inhabitants of Olive. Town. Without the character portraits, it was difficult to interpret any emotion in their idle animations, although patch 1.0.7 added expressions and something called “Chat Camera” as a feature that could be activated, which shows a close-up of the villager. you are talking.

As you may know from interacting with real-life people, emotions and expressions are a big part of socializing and growing up to like someone, so it was quite difficult to connect with this Ludus-type cardboard cutout, even after we had married. in a previous game.

Ludus’ house on Twilight Isle, which looks like a new color from my own farm, is also completely separate from Olive Town – you have to take a boat to get there and no one ever leaves. It’s basically just a waiting area for future marriage candidates.

Windswept Falls and Terracotta Oasis are the same – although each of the new locations has fishing spots, there are no new items to search for food or interact with, no new animals, no areas to explore … nothing new, de In fact, except for the characters, who wander aimlessly and never visit Olive Town, not even for festivals. There is little reason to visit these DLC areas beyond finding someone to marry and take him away from his boring existence to live on his farm.

The DLC also offers costumes, which allow you to dress the protagonist and marriage candidates in fun outfits, but, and this really is a big but, DLC marriage candidates cannot wear the costumes. Considering that DLC candidates are the main reason someone would buy the DLC to begin with, it’s a huge oversight.

To get the protagonist’s outfits, you will have to go to the workshop and request that they be made, and you will have to do it one by one: open the menu, select the one you want, have Karina tell you ‘I’ll be ready tomorrow, rinse and repeat. The outfits are mostly cute (and free!), And while they’re labeled “boys” and “girls,” you’ll be able to wear them all regardless of your character’s gender. However, and this may be a personal preference, cat and dog costumes are hideously spooky, and the fact that you can’t choose which one your partner wears (for whatever reason it’s predetermined) only makes it worse.

There are some welcome changes, of course, like the fact that recipes now vary in the amount of time it takes to cook, but you still can’t cook more than one dish at a time. You can also dump path more materials in the Maker Machines, which is easily the best change of all since it takes a lot less time to convert your 999 ore into ingots when you can put 50 in each machine and just forget about it.

But honestly, these changes should have occurred from the beginning. Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town may not have been as terrible as Harvest Moon: One World, which came out around the same time, but it still lacked much of the charm and soul of previous Story of Seasons games. I had. Adding in old and beloved character DLC only serves to remind us of the fact that this is a rather disappointing installment in an otherwise great series.

But, listen up: if you’ve already played a ton of Story of Seasons games and don’t mind dropping 40 or 50 of your country’s dollar version on this game (plus 20 more in the DLC) just for a twist. try, then go ahead. Likewise, if you played the free demo and had fun, that’s great too! But, if I were to recommend a Story of Seasons-style game on Switch, I would recommend Friends of Mineral Town, Garden Story, Slime Rancher, Kitaria Fables, and Cozy Grove before recommending Pioneers of Olive Town.