Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town Review – A Disappointing Start to a New Series
As a child, have you ever been given something to play with only for it to be taken away moments later? The first few emotions of shock, confusion curl inside of you, and then the taste of frustration and bitterness… That’s exactly how I felt when playing Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is the very first new title for the the Bokujo Monogatari series, originally known as Harvest Moon in the West. The premise of this game is simple and familiar: you end up leaving the city to start a new life on your grandpa’s old farm, where you meet the mayor and the citizens of the town that’s set to be your new home. It sounds peaceful, and I think all of us can relate to anything that’ll let us feel something even remotely resembling peace.
I’ve never played anything to do with Harvest Moon before, but as you can guess from my love of everything Stardew Valley, I’m fond of farming life sims. There’s something about the rural lifestyle that, while has been falsely made into something a bit of paradise, I can’t help but long for. In video games, the farming life is simple, fairly clean, and ticks all the boxes for my brain that just wants to design absolutely everything I own without forcing me to get off my arse to do just that. Love that about video games.
Unfortunately, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town fails on a lot of things that I look for in a farming sim game. The first incident that made me let out a frustrated ‘huh’ came when I discovered that, despite having a variety of different townspeople to talk to, there was nothing that was even remotely fascinating about them. They felt static to me, just little placeholders that I could talk to once a day to get their approval, and then dash off to do more important things: trimming my bushes, milking my cows, and any other farming activity that I could make into a euphemism to be added to this review.
My feelings on these placeholder people only soured as I realized that, while improving your relationship can give you special cutscenes that let you know more about them and even marry them regardless of your gender, there were little dialogue choices that involved me as a player. I don’t necessarily mind not being the focus in these cutscenes, they are there to introduce me to the quirks of the townspeople and I respect that, but instead of it making me feel as though I was part of a community, it felt as though the game was painting me as an outsider. Sure, you start off as someone people barely know and I don’t expect to be part of the community straight away, but if you’re not going to let me get involved in an Egg Hunt game and get to know people, then why bother putting that event on in the first place? Make it make sense, XSEED.
Worst still, even when I was actively included in cutscenes with the other townspeople, my dialogue choices felt like nothing actually mattered. In one conversation with Gloria, the curator of the museum of Olive Town, I was given choices on how best to improve the look and feel of the museum. Even Stardew Valley didn’t give me choices on the look of the town and, spoilers, there’s very little that I liked about this game, so I was eager to find an interesting mechanic that linked dialogue with environmental changes. Unfortunately, my excitement was squashed down soon enough as no matter what dialogue option I picked, Gloria completely ignored everything I had to say and went with her own thing. Even after this conversation, the museum looks the same. I’m not sure whether I need to wait further on into the years to see any sort of outcome, but it did not leave a good impression.
With my mind turned against the blank slates that were the people of Olive Town, supposedly the heart and soul of the game, I instead looked to the design of my farm. That was at least one thing that I could plan out, and for the most part, it’s went well! I have a beautiful garden dedicated to flowers, two cow bushes, a variety of friendly chickens, and I even managed to add my own Bernese Mountain dog to the game, Sansa. There’s a lot about my farm that I love, and it’s still just a work in progress! Even if I can’t find any joy in Olive Town, creating something that I can say that’s mine, even in a virtual world, scratches the itch that I have to buy my own place and settle down.
The joy I’m able to find in curating a place that I can shape into something that’s recognisable and almost familial says a lot about Story of Seasons: Pioneer of Olive Town. The game really nudges you towards creating something not just for yourself, but for a family. After all, one of the most important aspects about this game is creating your very own family and providing for them. I’ve been a carer for most of my life – I do that on the daily already, but something about this being my choice, with my own personal touch, meant a lot to me.
And then I realized that the Maker system – machines designed to help create your farm materials like iron bars, lumber, cloth, etc, felt as helpful as a chocolate fireguard. Even worse, the machines took up way too much room, and I was unable to place them on flooring that wasn’t grass. While progressing through your farm, grabbing the materials that you need and getting to work is a reward of its own – the Maker system is just plain unfun and makes your farm look like an industrial factory with how many of them are scattered about. I can’t even take any of these machines down either, because it takes 2 hours for the Makers to ‘make’ anything. So, while half of my farm is an absolute dream, the other is a complete eyesore. I’d wack poetics about what that says about nature vs machine but honestly, I can’t spare the time when one of my Maker machines might go off any moment now and if I don’t insert my next lumber piece then I’ll be on this game all day.
Jokes aside, I’d like to at least clarify that XSEED has confirmed that they are planning to improve Story of Seasons: Pioneer of Olive Town. They’ve stated that the plan to revise and add dialogue, add more meal variety, fix things that ruin immersion, and even improve the maker system. So I expect that when I next play this game, after I’ve got over how frustrated it’s made me, there will be a game that I actively want to play. It’s just a shame that for the very first new game in this series, it’s such a disappointment.
Right now though? I think I’m just going to stick to Stardew Valley.
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This review is spot on. It’s pretty soulless. I desperately wanted a new game like Stardew Valley, and this just wasn’t it…and it cost three times as much. Meh.