Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Switch Review

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Switch

Release: January 1, 1970
Publisher:
Developer:
Genre: Adventure, Switch Reviews
PEGI:
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Remakes on the Nintendo Switch have become incredibly popular, and the team at Marvelous (Europe and Australia) and XSeed (North America) have worked with the development team to bring this remastered classic to the west. Friends of Mineral Town was LOVED by fans when it was originally released back on the GameBoy Advanced, as it hearkens back to the hay-days of when Harvest Moon was a solid franchise. With a new name, the game is looking for a second lease on life with the Nintendo Switch, pulling in longtime fans and new players in the process. But does it deliver? Let’s check it out!

If you haven’t checked out all our great preview content, you can find all the articles here! This is where you can find all our game play impressions, and more! In this review, we will look from 10,000 foot level and answer the most important question: is it worth your money?

Friends of Mineral Town on the Nintendo Switch stays true to the original in almost every way, and those looking for a classic Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons experience are in for a real treat. All the complexities (whether good or bad) from future games in the franchise are mostly stripped away, but quality of life improvements have been retained to make the overall experience more enjoyable. For those who have been spending a ton of time wandering the streets of Stardew Valley will be in for a much more relaxing and manageable experience. Friends of Mineral Town is a nostalgic-filled journey that I enjoyed every minute of.

Scratching that nostalgic itch does come with a pretty hefty price tag, and while a slew of things have been changed and added, I wonder if it is enough to warrant the price tag. To be fair, this isn’t just a new coat of paint on an old title. Things have been reworked from the ground up, and that takes development power and resources to complete. While the core of the game was there and finished, making it an appropriate release for 2020 was not. And to that end, the team has done a great job stripping away the horrid user interface and controls from the original, and replacing them with more modern controls, ones we’ve become familiar with while playing farming simulation style games.

If you remove the price tag, I’d easily argue that Friends of Mineral Town is an easy pickup on the Nintendo Switch. It’s fun, it’s relaxing as the more stressful tasks of previous games seem to have been stripped away, and frankly, it’s easier than most farming simulation games to get going, thanks to an easy mode as well as the ability to quickly obtain Nature Sprites to help you along your way. My daily routine in Friends of Mineral Town was easy to pull off, and even if I wanted to add more daily chores to it, it was hard to do. I never had the stress of missing out on providing gifts to my girl, missing out on plucking some coloured grass to keep my Nature Sprites happy, or the host of other small tasks I wanted to complete each day. Using Nature Sprites to water and harvest crops, as well as take care of my animals, made the entire experience relaxing, and fun.

Bringing price into the equation complicates things just a bit. Currently in Canada, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is going to cost 59.99. While not the same price as other titles (usually it’s 69.99 in Canada), I still believe it’s a tad high for what you are getting at the end of the day. If you are a huge fan of the franchise, it might be easy to swallow the 10 or 20.00 that I think is above what the game should retail for. If you haven’t played this before, however, your dollars could be used on an equally as fun experience like Doraemon Story of Seasons, which is currently retailing for 64.99.

Whether you pick this up now or later, the overall experience is top notch, and generally at GamesReviews we score games based on experiences, over price (as this fluctuates over the years). That’s why Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town gets a resounding 8.5/10 from us!

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