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Happy Farm'n Friday! Since I had been working on filling in missing pages on the Sunshine Islands guide, I decided to pop my 'ol game of SI into my 3DS to look up some shop inventories. But on the title screen there was only the option for New Game o.0 Apparently 10+ years ago I used my JP copy of the game and never started a game of the EN version! So it's like I'm playing for the first time, which has actually kind of been fun. Raised a couple of islands, unlocked Will and Lily, built a chicken coop, and just about to upgrade the farm house.
I've also been playing Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure. That game had an unexpected difficulty jump once I reached the Tropical map (Arapaima are tough to catch!) and I'm finding that I don't have enough materials to craft the necessary fishing lures for the next challenges. Fishing isn't as simple as I assumed it would be! Gotta catch 'em all!
Today's the day that Doraemon: Story of Seasons is out in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The game is available on both Nintendo Switch and Steam/PC for $49.99 USD. The game is digital-only in North America, and both digital and physical in EU. The physical copy of the game comes with an actual package of tomato and basil seeds for players to plant; though this time of year is not the best time for growing tomatoes. The digital copy requires 788 MB of SD card space.
The Nintendo Switch edition also has a free demo available for those who want to give it a try before deciding to commit to buying a Doraemon game. The demo content is the same as the Japan version demo, which gives Noby the task of growing a Turnip in 3 days to present to Mayor Ryam of Natura.
The game languages are English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. All of the little audible spoken phrases are still in Japanese ("Ohayoooo!") but the game's dialogs and user interface are displayed in the game's chosen language. The character names in the English game are based on the US version of the Doraemon anime series (Noby, Sneech, Big G, and Sue), but in other languages the names will be the Japanese names (Nobito, Suneo, Gian, and Shizuka).
Keep in mind that this game is not a full Story of Seasons game, but does have the feel of an SoS game. There are crops, festivals, bug catching, fishing, friendship bonds, and so on, but it does NOT contain a marriage system. Noby and friends are children and not married in the anime series.
In Japan, two new fix patches for Doraemon:SoS were released last night, bringing the game to version 1.0.5 and then to 1.0.6. The version .5 patch fixed a gadget event with the magical spirit Vera, and version .6 updated the caught bug list trophy from "catch the largest size regardless of quality" to "catch a 5-star." No idea if these updates are in the outside-Japan version that was released today.
I'll be playing this here and there over the weekend and into next week, though it may have to be put aside for the upcoming SoS:FoMT game. I don't have any plan to make a thorough Fogu guide for the Doraemon spin-off game. I'm only one person who farms on the weekends, and there's a mainline SoS game coming up!
The latest edition of Famitsu Weekly contained a 2-page article about Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, which is scheduled to be released on Nintendo Switch next week in Japan. One of the notes in the article says that pasture grass will regrow without water. Basically as pasture grass grows, it will spread to other non-tilled areas but not onto already cultivated soil.
The mirror inside of the farm house can be used to change the color of your basic clothes as well as put on costumes such as the pre-order bonus cow costume. In Famitsu's screen shot there are listings for overalls colors as well as colors for the new-protagonist parka outfit.
Another confirmation is the existence of Ruby and Van from A Wonderful Life into the GBA remake. In the original game, players used the GBA-to-Gamecube link cable to unlock these two characters in their GBA game. Van would open his shop in Doug's Inn on Wednesdays, where he would sell the Record Player, music records for the player, and some common ores. If you happen to give him a Van's Favorite item (that randomly appears in your mailbox as a lottery prize in MFoMT), then he would give the option to purchase some very high-end items like the TV Remote that allowed you to watch every episode of the television shows. When Ruby would visit on Sundays at the Inn, she would give you cooking recipes.
For their Switch appearances, after the currently unknown criteria for them to unlock in the game, Van will open his shop on Wednesdays at the Inn. Also on the 15th of every season, Van will open a pet store in the Plaza. The Famitsu article shows his inventory of a Pet Treat for 1000 G each, a blue Penguin for 30,000 G, and an Orange Penguin for 30,000 G.
As for Ruby, the Famitsu article simply says that she comes to Mineral Town from Forget-Me-Not Valley once a week to buy ingredients.
Next Thursday (the 17th) another farm'n themed game, Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Island, will be released on all three consoles and Steam/PC. In this game you play as the child of an exploratory sea captain whose ship crashed on a deserted island. Finding yourself suddenly responsible for a crew without a ship, you explore the islands to locate materials that can be used to construct a boat to escape the cursed islands. Players will also be tasked with growing food at the shipwrecked camp by finding seeds while out exploring the islands. The food can then be eaten raw or cooked to restore stamina.
A separate demo of the game is now available for free for PC users from the Roka Publishing website. This prologue demo is 640 MB in size and begins one day before the story of Stranded Sails.
The prologue starts out with you learning about how you'll sail the next day with your father and his rambunctious crew, but until then you've to sleep until morning. During the night you dream of an island adventure with a talking parrot as your guide through your dream. The prologue basically teaches you how to use the controls, grow crops, and so on.
Until next time! - Cher (I keep catching myself spelling the game's title as "Stranded Sales." Doh!)Feedback: Add | View (2)| << Previous | Next >> |