Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns – Spring, Year 1

We are back! If you remember when the last Story of Seasons game launched on the Nintendo 3DS, I did a number of diary entries breaking down what I was doing each month. With this new release, Trio of Towns, I plan to do the same, instead of doing a traditional review. So, let’s not waste any time and get into this!

Slow Start

If you load up Trio of Towns, make sure you give yourself 30 – 45 minutes just to get onto your farm. The opening to this game is incredibly long – shorter if you don’t care about the story involved. The story is alright in my opinion, better than most farming simulation games. You are an older child still living at home. When your dad announces that the family will be moving again to persue a new job opportunity, you decide it’s time to move out. Despite pressure form your dad that farming probably isn’t the ideal life, you somehow persuade him and, voila! You are a farmer.

The intro doesn’t stop there, however, as now you need to be introduced to the people in the towns surrounding your farm, as well as the farming basics. I say towns, but I should say town, singular. While Trio of Townes does focus on, well, a “trio of towns,” only one is available to you from the beginning. As your progress through the first season you will open up a second one, but more on that alter.

Once you get past all the intros and tours, it’s time to farm.

Farming

This is one area where I think Marvelous has made Story of Seasons better. While traditional Harvest Moon style games rely heavily on farming, this particular release is a more open affair, allowing players to focus on a multitude of things. In fact, you could do fairly well in this game without every farming in seriousness. That being said, single crop plots are gone in favour of 9-crop plots, which are planted all at once, watered all at once, and harvested all at once. It really takes the repetitiveness out of farming that plagued previous titles, and frees you the player up to do more other things.

Other Things

Trio of Towns is FULL of extra things to do in any given day. Outside of the traditional mining, fishing, chopping trees, etc., Trio of Towns brings in a new revenue option, part-time-jobs. These jobs range from weeding a garden, to chopping wood, to partaking in medical experiments – which are incredibly lucrative at 1500g per trial!

Money in Trio of Towns, at least in my first month, never seemed to be a problem. I always had plenty of it, and when the season had ended, I had over 35,000g, which I think is unheard of in this type of game. However, having the access to the money makes the game as a whole more enjoyable, and allows you to ‘pay to play’, virtually. Upgrading your tools can cost a lot of ores, which aren’t readily available when mining the various spots around town. These can be purchased form stores, but for a hefty price. If you want to save your money, you can wait on the ores to become available via mining .If you don’t care, buy ’em up!

I still have a few days to go in Spring, but so far it’s been great!

First Season Info

Crops Planted – Grass, Radishes, and Potatoes

Favorite Crop – Potatoes

New Tools Acquired –  Hammer, Fishing Pole

Tools Upgraded – None

House Upraded – Level 1 (Small Kitchen, Change Room)

Towns Available – 2

Money – 26,890