What goes good with second chances?

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town was a work in progress when it was released in North America for Nintendo Switch in March of 2021. The Japanese release a month earlier was met with criticism as fans pointed fingers at long loading times, poor dialogue, and a wide assortment of bugs. Patches that were in the works for the Japanese version weren't ready when the game hit our shores. The result: less than stellar reviews. It needed a lo?t of work, and to their credit, the developers saw to it?? to right the ship.

A year and some change later, Pioneers of Olive Town on Switch is the game it should have been at launch. Various updates and patches have fixed nearly everything players complained about. If you haven’t visited your farm in a minute, now is as good a time as any to download the latest update and see how much things have improved. Not only are th?e Switch and PC versions of the game better today, but all of those updates are present in the PlayStation 4 port launching this week.

If you want to know how much has changed with Olive Town since March of last year, Marvelous has a detailed list of all the patches it created for the game. A lot of it is squashing bugs, but the key improvements include rewritten dialogue, the ability to sidestep, post-game activities, new artwork for the different meals you can eat (though this does not apply to what any?one else in the game eats), the first-person Chat Camera feature, and the much-needed changes to the game’s signature makers.

Updates can make a difference

Pioneers of Olive Town tries to take a modern approach to farming by mechanizing almost everything you do through the use of its makers. Any raw ingredients you find or grow on your farm can be thrown into a maker to become something? more useful, like turning wood into lumber or sage into mixed herbs. This is about as crafting-heavy as the series has ever been, and when it initially launched, all those makers resulted in an excessive amount of waiting. The game’s 1.0.0 version featured makers that could only craft one item at a time. For my farm, this meant building a ridiculous nu?mber of machines that I would have to run around to collect my items and load in new ingredients. The Version 1.0.5 update improved the makers�capabilities by allowing you to load up to 10 items worth of ingredients at a time.

Like the Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ, this allows players to set it and forget it.

When the game first made me aware of this change, I thought it would lead to there being fewer makers on my farm. And while there aren’t nearly as many as I have scattered about on my Switch, the limitations of the makers do necessitate more being built than I anticipated. For starters, no matter how many ingredients you load into your make??r, each item it produces is crafted consecutively rather than concurrently. So if you’re really in a hurry for some silver ingot, you’ll need a couple of makers at the ready. Secondly, you can only load one type of ingredient at a time. If you have three different types of logs that you want to turn into lumber, you’ll either need three separate makers or the patience to deal with each item getting crafted one by one.

The change to the makers doesn't drastically alter the Pioneers of Olive Town formula �and really, nothing that has been tweaked through its updates and patches does �but it does give players a lot more freedom to enjoy the ?game at their leisure. With all of my makers loaded up with ingredients, I didn’t have to worry about tending to them. Instead, I could go enjoy all the other improvements that have been made to the game. The conversations with townsfolk are legitimately better than they ??were before and the ability to lock in your farmer's movement makes watering your crops a breeze. I don't know if I would have appreciated those changes as much if I were still handcuffed to the original makers' implementation.

Smooth like butter

That level of freedom from the get-go made my time with the PS4 port far more enjoyable than what I remember from my initial playthrough. But I can't dismiss one other factor that largely contributed to this time around being the superior experience. On Switch, Pioneers of Olive Town never really hit a steady 30 frames per second, and it would routinely drop well below that when you had a farm full of sprinklers going off in the morning. The PS4 port is a far smoother experience with a framerate that rarely takes a dip. Admitte?dly, I am only in the autumn season of my first year on the farm, so I haven’t quite pushed the game as much as I did on Switch. But even wi??th a dozen sprinklers and 15 makers all going at once, the framerate remains solid.

Arguably, an unflappable framerate is more than enough to make this the superior version of the game. But really, no matter which platform you choose, you're going to get a good farming sim with the updated Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town. I was hesitant about using my limited free time?? to revisit the forested fields of my farm when there are so many other games I could be playing right now, but I’m glad I did. In fact, I think I'll stick with it a little bit longer to c??heck out the post-game content that was added after I stopped playing on Switch.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town releases July 26 on PlayStation 4 for $39.99.

_{[This impressions piece is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Coming soon to a farm near you

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town didn't have the best start when it arrived on Nintendo Switch earlier this year. The final product was just lacking in those early days. To the credit of the developers, things have changed over the past few months. Pioneers of Olive Town has seen several free updates that make the game more enjoyable to play, while the expansion pass has broadened the base game with visitors from past entries in the franchise. All of that post-launch work must have paid off because Pioneers of Olive Town has sold one million copies on Switch. To celebrate, the deve??lopers are giving out some f?ree DLC for the game.

At the e??nd of this month, players will be able to download the Ver. 1.1.0 update, which will introduce several new features to the game. This includes Spirit Quests, which will challenge players with new town requests that reward you with new outfits, hairstyles, and farming abilities upon completion. In order to trigger these new events, players wil?l have to unlock all Town Development Events and save up enough Town Development Points.

The update is also adding more post-marriage events, and all of the marriage candidates introduced in the DLC will be able to attend Pioneer of Olive Town's couples events. The Ver 1.1.0 update will be made available on No??vember 29 for Switch and PC.

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Meet your Maker

Reviewing Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has been an interesting c?ouple of weeks, to say the least. When I first got my review code, I was told there would be a day-one patch that would aim to alleviate many of the issues that have plagued the title since its initial release in Japan. While those who buy it on day one will get all of the updates at once, I’ve been playing through it as it’s been slowly fixed in a piecemeal fashion.

It’s real shame the developers have had to spend the past month scrambli??ng to fix the game because it's is supposed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series. And generally, when you’re cel?ebrating a milestone year, you don’t want a public apology to be part of the festivities.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town (Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Marvelous
Publisher: Xseed
Released: March 23, 2021
MSRP: $49.99

Like the many Story of Seasons of yore, Pioneers of Olive Town starts with an escape from the city to a more laidback life in the country. The titular Olive Town was founded years before by your character’s grandfather, who set up the local farm you’re about to take over. He’s no longer with us, but there are those in town wh??o remember him fondly and have high hopes for you to get his old farm back up and running. The only thing standing in your way is the quic?k passage of time, a low stamina meter, and a fickle-beast known as Mother Nature.

Unlike what we've seen in past Story of Season titles, the farm in Pioneers of Olive Town isn’t rundown; it’s nonexistent. Whatever your grandfather built all ??those years ago has been reclaimed by nature, and a forest now stands where his fields were once laid. I almost feel bad for even trying to rebuild the farm because I’m going to have to decimate an ecosystem to do it. But that’s the name of the game, and to its credit, the flora is ready for a fight.

What was most surprising to me about Pioneers of Olive Town is that for the first year or so of my time on the farm, growing crops was the least of my concerns. I had a small garden outside my house, sure, but most of the early days were spent trying to get ahead of what nature threw at me. Trees grow at an alarming rate, rocks appear everywhere, weeds fill my farmland, and puddles show up whether there was rain or not. I know the elements t?hrew farmers curveballs in past titles, but the way nature regrows and stifles progression here is almo??st aggressive. The only way I could make progress of any kind was to dive head-first into the game’s expansive crafting system.

Olive Town's progression loop places a heavy emphasis on the use of Makers, machines you put ingredients into to make items that can be sold, crafted, cooked, or inserted into other Makers. Outside of the basic crafting recipes you start with, you’ll need a Maker to convert just about everything you grow, chop, collect, or mine into something more valuable or useful. Want to turn that honeycomb into honey? Put it in the Honey Maker. Somebody asking for a gold ingot on the request board? Mine some gold ore and put it in an Ingot Maker. Want to buy a new outfit? First, get some grass and put it in the Thread Maker to make thread. Then put that thread into the Textile Maker. Don’t forget the dye. You can make that in a Maker as well. Makers are not new to the series with Olive Town but they are more prevalent, and you sh??ould't be surprised if your farm has a lot of these machines taking u?p space as you expand.

Tying progression to the Makers certainly gives the game some long legs, but it makes for a frightfully slow first four seasons. As I said, I didn’t get a lot of farming done until I was in the spring of my second year. Most of my first year was just preparing myself for when I could actually find the time to farm. I can’t remember the last Story of Seasons game where I spent so much of my time upf??ront in the mines, but it's necessary to even have a shot of moving things along in a timely fashion. It was also the only ?way I could help the town improve.

There are a few small storylines your character is a part of in Pioneers of Olive Town, but the central narrative has to do with imp?roving the town to boost its profile and attract tourists. No matter how small, when changes are made around town, they are visible and do indeed class up the joint. Not only do your efforts help give the town a glow up, but they also add some su??bstance to it.

One of the central locations in this little burg is the museum, and if you’ve played Animal Crossing, this will sound ve??ry familiar. When you first get to town, the museum is all but barren. In order to fill it with exhibits, you’ll need to donate fish you catch, treasures you find buried, and ph??otographs of wild animals you take that are turned into little statues. There’s also a woman there who’ll analyze the unknown items you bring in.

Like the Makers, the museum adds a hefty dose of content to the game as it’s unlikely players will be able to fill it up too quickly. Unfortunately, despite all the work that goes into completing it, it’s not a rewarding endeavor. The museum is rather bland with tiny di??splays that don’t really show you the details of the artifacts or fish you’ve donated. It’s one of the clear indicators that, despite this being the game to celebrate the franchise’s 25th anniversary, it’s still a budget title like all the ones that came before it.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being a budget title as the industry needs more games that aren't AAA bank-breakers. But, with Olive Town launchi??ng in the state it did in Japan, and the issues t?he game still has as it nears our shores, it’s not hard to think this game could have used a few more weeks in a Maker of its own.

Dep?ending on your tolerance for loading screens, the biggest issues you’ll probably deal with if you play this day one are the frame rate and occasional instances when the game will freeze momentarily. If you’re? like me, it won’t be that noticeable at the beginning. But as you continue to build your farm, build those Makers, and build the new sprinklers that can take the pressure of watering large fields off your back, the frame rate starts to slow more often, and those momentary freezes begin to happen with concerning frequency. In other words, the more I played, the worse the game ran. I also keep running into a bug where the sound effect from my moped just won’t stop until I move on to the next day.

Bugs and performance issues aside, there are also smaller elements that could have used more time. Take food, for instance. You can order? a variety of dishes at Olive Town’s two restaurants, but it doesn’t matter if you’re having a four-course meal or simply a cup of coffee, the developers created just one model for food: a four-plate meal with fish, soup, salad, and bread. That’s it, for every meal everybody eats in this game.

There is also the matter of tourism. While tourists do show up during the game and walk around the town, they sure do s??eem to be absent whenever there is a big event to be had. None of them bother checking out the museum, and despite the fact I’m told my farm is part of the re??ason why we’re getting visitors, nobody seems very interested in stopping by for a little agritourism.

I would have like to have seen the effects of increased tourism beyond just watching people wander aimlessly through Olive Town’s pristine streets. Get them into the restaurants or the hote??l or the salon, something to adequately illustrate how their presence here is a boon.

I only say that because I truly want what’s best for this village. I think Olive Town is probably my favorite location since Grand Bazaar’s Zephyr Town. And I've come to enjoy the dynamic theme songs and personalities of the town's residents, but those only shine through when you raise your relationship with t??hem high enough to unlock one of their events. Any other time, they fall prey to how residents acted in past games: standing lifelessly and speaking in short, personality-free sentences or just referencing whatever town event is coming up or has just passed.

It would be nice if there were context-based dialog sewn into the game, like when I’m riding my moped around town or wearing a g?iant buffalo costume. It would also be nice if there was a secret way to unlock Jacopo as a bachelor because he really is the best marriage material here.

I get that my complaints probably sound like I’m nitpicking the game, and maybe I am asking too much of a budget title, but really, these issues illustrate that despite the fact Pioneers of Olive Town marks the silver anniversary of the franchise, the developer didn't really go out of its way to make this entry something special. This is a safe and standard Story of Seasons game. It doesn’t rock the boat, it doesn’t try anything groundbreaking like when Marvelous released Rune Factory to mark the franchise’s tenth anniversary; it’s just more of what we’ve seen before with a few small twists on the formu?la.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Rated E for eww

We're a week away from the launch of Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town in North America, and if you've been following it all in Japan, you know things haven't been going so well. The game released there with a slew of issues that were so bad, producer Dai Takemura actually issued a public apology over the state of the game.

That hasn't stopped people from playing it and exploring one of the chief new features developers created for this entry. Photog?raphy plays a pretty decent-sized role in your farming life as you're asked to snap candid photos of wildlife. Of course, you can take pictures of whatever the hell you want, as evident by the photographs that p??opulate the loading screens.

Most of these pictures are no??thing out of the ordinary. There are shots of the town, shots of ??animals, and shots of people, about half of which are out of focus. There is also a nice collection of glitches people have captured, like this boulder owl.

That's all good and fine, but every once in a while, I'll run into a loading scree??n that has a real creeper vibe to it. The first one I came across was this shot of Laura, one of the bachelorettes you can woo in the game.

Not r??eally the worst thing to pop up on my screen, but photos of sleeping people are just kind of unsettling to me. That's definitely a picture a stalker would send to their victim with the message "I'm always watchi??ng."

But that was just one picture. The next few loading screens I got had some nice photos of the? different dogs and cats you can adopt in the game, real pleasing-on-the-eyes shit. Then, as I went to turn in for the night?, I got this one.

Yep. That's Laura again, but this time, whoever took this picture decided to just go straight for the no-face boob shot in a game that's rated "E for Everyone." Not only did I get that loading screen photo when ending the day, but it was also the first loading screen?? I saw the next morning.

After that, I was treated to three loading screens in a row with the image of bachelorette Blaire's b??oobs you can see at the top of this article. In the game's defense, a ??lot of the pictures you see in these loading screens repeat multiple times in a row, so it's not just the weirdly pervy ones.

At this point, I was ready to just accept that I would randomly get a photograph of boobs in my laid-back, family-friendly farming sim, but the boob shots actually started to die do??wn about then. They were replaced by a lot of extreme close-ups of faces and spoilers for things I'll be doing later in the game. Just when I thought I'd maybe gone through all the questionable pics, things took a hard right directly into Reina's thighs.

That's right, zettai ry&Arin??g;iki. And if you're thinking, "Well, that's not nearly as shameless," I present to you exhibit A and exhibit B.

That's right, those are two different attempts at upskirt shots of Reina. Are there normal pictures of her on?? the loading screens? Sure, but those ??ones don't really stand out as much as the ones that look like they were taken by some dude riding the M train.

To be fair, these are just a handful of the loading screens I've come across during my review so far. Most of the pictures are harmless, and you can avoid them entirely by opting to not enable the intern?et connection when you play. However, some photos are quite good and have been something of an inspiration to me in my own photography excursions. I don't want to miss out on those gems, so I guess I'll just have to put up with more exhibits from the creeper collection, which as of last night, also includes a bunch of crotch shots of Olive Town's male population.

Yeesh. Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town&nb??sp;will launch in North America on March 23, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.

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It'll also take you to new places

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Bokujo Monogatari/Story of Seasons franchise, and Marvelous is doing what it can to keep players hooked to its upcoming release throughout 2021. The next entry in the series, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, is slated for release in the west this March. Starting in April, players will be able to download DLC expansions? that will add new locations and scenarios to the game, as well as some returning faces.

The expansion p?ass will include five parts, with one part to release each month from April through August. Included in this DLC are:

Part 1 (April 2021)

• Animal Attire costumes.
• Olive Town Mystery Files: A new scenario featuring Mikey and Cindy as they investigate the mysteries around Olive Town.

Part 2 (May 2021)

• Windswept Falls Expansion Pack: Four characters from a previous 3DS title return in a brand new area players can explore. Includes two marriage candidates.

Part 3 (June 2021)

• School Uniforms costumes.
• Terracotta Oasis Expansion Pack: Four characters from Story of Seasons return in an exotic oasis location players can explore. Includes two marriage candidates.

Part 4 (July 2021)

• Yukata Set costumes.
• The Legendary Sprite Dance: A new scenario featuring the sprites attempting to revive their legendary dance and feast.

Part 5 (August 2021)

• Twilight Isle Expansion Pack: Four characters from Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns return in an island location covered in twilight. Includes two marriage candidates.

Looking at the list, I am all for new scenarios and locations, but I'm not quite sure how interested I'm going to be in new marriage candidates when I'll definitely be married by the time the first pack hits. Nevertheless, it'll be fun to see which characters from those previous 3DS games -- Harvest Moon 3D: A New Beginning, Story of Seasons, and Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns -- will return. I mean, I'm going to have to assume the Windswept Falls pack is for A New Beginning and not Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns.

If you are interested in getting more out of Pioneers of Olive Town, the expansion pass will retail for $19.99 or as part of the Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town + Expansion Pass set for $69.99. If you buy the DLC before March 23, you will receive three sets of costumes from Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town and Trio of Towns.

Xseed Games Details 'Expansion Pass' and Post-Launch DLC for Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town on Nintendo Switch [Xseed]

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Seasons of Love

We're just a few weeks away from the launch of Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, and Xseed Games wants t??o get you thinking about love. Specifically, which of the 10 eligible bachelors and bachelorettes you want your farmer to spend the rest of their life with.

E??arlier today, ?the publisher dropped two new trailers for the upcoming game that detail the beaus and belles of this quaint farming town.

On design alone, I'm already leaning toward Ralph or Laura, though that decision will ultimately be made when I find out if there will be same-sex couples or not. Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town releases this March on Nintendo Switch. Preorders are open now for the standard edition and the premium edition, the latter of which inc?ludes ?a cloth poster and an adorable buffalo plush.

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