Ever since the original Harvest Moon series rebranded itself as Story of Seasons, the games have gone through a number of changes. While most of these tweaks have been beneficial quality of life improvements, some of these changes are more like a step backwards.
For many fans of the farming sim genre, Harvest Moon was where it all started. For all the confusion that the sudden name change brought about, it isn’t too hard to tell that Story of Seasons continues to hold the spirit of the older Harvest Moon entries, with the latest Friends of Mineral Town remake even carrying the new name. Despite that, there were a few features which made early Harvest Moon games so unique that the Story of Seasons games seem to have dropped. Without them, Story of Seasons games feel a little more shallow and bland than their predecessors, especially when new games in the genre are becoming more and more experimental.
Rival Marriages
For many fans, the social and romantic aspects of the Story of Seasons franchise is as important (if not more) as the farming itself. Nearly every game since the very first has allowed players to find their favorite bachelor or bachelorette and woo them with gifts until they eventually get married. It’s a series staple that likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. What has gone away however, is the ability for players to watch their rivals get married.
In most Harvest Moon titles, eligible characters often have another character interested in them. If players are too slow, they could find their rival sharing a sweet moment or two with the person they were looking to marry. This added a sense of realism to earlier Harvest Moon games that newer games lack by giving the feeling that the town’s inhabitants have lives that don’t revolve solely around the player.
It’s likely that rival marriages were removed from Story of Seasons to eliminate the feeling of competition from the game, something players likely wouldn’t want in their stress-free farming sim. Rival marriages however, don’t have to have to be viewed as a battle of affection. Titles like Harvest Moon: Animal Parade had players befriend their rivals over time which would lead to them marrying one of the other marriage candidates after the player. A feature like this could give the same sense of progression, expanding the social dynamics between the characters, bringing them to life in a way that Story of Seasons could really benefit from.
Aging Children
Much like marriage, being able to have a child has been a staple of the Harvest Moon series for a long time now. After being married for a little while, the option to have a child becomes available in most games. This is no different with Story of Seasons games as players can do the same in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town. That game even expands on the feature slightly by having the baby take on physical features of its parents. Unfortunately, Story of Seasons games don’t do more with the concept of having children beyond simply having them, which is a shame when compared to earlier entries in the franchise.
In Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, players could watch their child grow, while influencing the type of person they become by befriending different characters in town, taking them to different places, and giving them different gifts. This could lead to them taking over the farm or following one of the five other possible career paths, and can even affect the character they choose to marry themselves.
This made having a child in Harvest Moon have a major impact on gameplay, effectively changing the entire game to balancing working on the farm and raising a family. While Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life only gave players a handful of options, a modern Story of Seasons game could expand greatly on this concept.
Other games in the series might not have taken this feature to such an extreme, but they still offered a lot that Story of Seasons could learn from. Combining with the feature of rival marriages, rivals could have children as well. The player’s children would develop through a number of stages and could form friendships with the other children in addition to helping players with the farm. Rather than simply including the ability to have children, Story of Seasons could focus on developing relationships between the player and their children to turn them into real characters, possibly through the way that players spend their days on and off the farm.
While Story of Seasons has improved in some areas, it can be argued that newer Story of Seasons games haven’t moved the series forward as far as they should. Bringing life to the towns players spend so much of their time in by letting relationships form over time, and expanding on the family aspects, may be exactly what Story of Seasons needs to freshen things up.
