Ushi No Tane Forum

I'm contemplating getting a second copy of Story of Seasons, however, I'm not looking forward to waiting all the in game years again to unlock the animals and what not.

Has anyone slept for months at a time? How much did it kill the game for you (if at all)? Did you eventually regret it and start from year 1 again?

I have two copies of the game and I'm loving it! I'm still waiting for the animals in my first copy, so it doesn't bother me.

I've considered sleeping the years away. The only thing is I want to see Eda's events. But after them I'll still be tempted to sell all the animals I have and just sleep until I unlock everything. I'm not sure if it will have a permanent negative effect on anything. You'll still have to do the work for all the vendors/blueprints/outfits/recipes, only you'd be able to unlock all the animals. To me, it's a plus.

Besides Eda, does anyone know of any reason not to sleep through the years?

You will have to start from square one with affection/relationships. Less than, as you can't gift a person you've ignored right away.

You won't have any conquest fields.

You'll be missing out on several chances to remove items from the prize pools of both Festivals and the Traveling Salespeople.

Also, those festivals? You're going to start out with them being incredibly difficult, as they do get harder over time, capping out in Year 5. Kiss your dreams of high-priced (things like) flax and cotton goodbye, because you might not be able to increase their brand. They lack a "Fresh" status to artificially increase their winning potential.

In addition, you'll miss out on years of Birthday gifts to you, some of which are pretty unique, like Energy Drink and Angler's Dream.

You won't have any countries unlocked to buy the things you want/need, negating any advantage of "unlocking animals early".

Honestly, for Original Mode, the most I'd recommend sleeping through is the first two years, possibly up to three on Seedling Mode. Gathering/creating the specific items for Ice and Tropical unlocks takes most of a full year of going full out, gung-ho, playing every second available. And that's on Seedling Mode. It took me a little over two years on Original.

I've never done that in this game. I would like to be at a point of the game where I could have access to all the animals, but just instantly having them all at once would ruin the game for me. Progressing time normally gives me time to raise the animals I do have, collect materials to make my farm house nice, finally do something with Eda's land (a field sized pasture with a eastern theme), work on unlocking Ice Country, seeing the children grow (they will be almost fully grown by the time the last animal is unlocked), etc.

If I just slept the time away, I would just get all the animals I want. I would probably play a couple of days to see what the animals were like, and how much money I could get off their produce, put the game down and never play again.

I don't see how you could ever gain anything from sleeping the years away.

Downsides:
- No unlocking of vendors
- You will have zero money to even afford these animals
- No friendship building
- No festivals
- No progress on getting crops
- No public fields since you would lose the only one you get for free
- Years of missing out on collecting materials
- Years without making a single G
- Missing all of Eda's events
- No progress on getting married

Upsides:
- You have all the animals unlocked
- ????? Nothing else

Well, I guess if they want to sleep through everything, they can always get some stuff by trading, but that's it. Like you said they'd miss out on building FP and stuff...

I couldn't sleep through the years, what a waste of time....

These severe handicaps actually intrigue me further, since I always felt weird that on veteran mode my newbie year 1 farmer roflstomped the competitors (not just the faceless filler farmers) at the festivals. The only time I ever save scummed was for the fishing festival and when Elise showed up at the fashion show one year. Other than that I've always won.

As for zero friendship, I never gift npcs. And I pretty much ignore villagers unless they are in my direct path.

For me, having no money so late in the game means that each purchase will have to count instead of me just buying whatever I want, whenever I want because I've basically had a surplus of money since winter year 1 and never had to use discretion with my purchases. I didn't even do the flax cotton trick, I limited myself to a single plot of each and stopped growing them entirely spring year 2. The only time I've ever had money problems is when a ton of blueprints unlocked all at once but even then I was able to make it back in a couple of days.

Things to think about. Thanks for your feedback, guys

I'm glad for the feedback too.

If I was to sleep through years, it would only be until year three. Some of the things you guys mentioned are helpful to me, but others aren't things that I worry about. I'm not a completionist most of the time so having all the blueprints/outfits/recipes isn't usually something I tackle. As long as I can have the ones I'd like. I do however love all the animals. They've always been my favorite part of these games and waiting this long for some of them is what's hard for me.

As far as kissing flax and cotton goodbye can someone explain that a bit better?? Why would their branding not increase if I began growing them after Sleeping Beauty woke up? I haven't slept through a thing yet (well besides going to bed at like 1 pm on rainy days after I've fished and caught so many bugs they won't respawn) so I'd love to hear more about this one.

I know everything would be like starting out from the beginning. That's the point. As far as festivals, I'm never lucky enough to win in the first year anyway so for me personally it would be just like playing through year one. Relationships too, I guess, since like OP I don't usually give gifts or talk to someone unless I'm trying to trigger an event or that person pops up somewhere I am. I definitely don't hunt them down.

If I were to sleep through it, for me it would be like starting the game with all animals unlocked. I definitely wouldn't expect to have something different than others had when they started out, minus being able to go in the barn and look at the cute alpaca hopping around.

I did explain the Brand - seasonal crops have a temporary boost when picked, called "Fresh". Crops which grow in multiple seasons don't have it. As Festivals do get harder over time, you might struggle more to win contests with items that lack that boost. Conquest also increases in difficulty over time.

It is almost ridiculously easy to win almost all festival contests in the first two years, the only one I have had a problem with (over 5 New Games and multiple Festival reloads) is the very first Cow Festival. Most Conquests are really easy to win early as well, the only problem I had with it was too many going free for all at once, with a limited amount of ways to win them available.

Also, as you will only have Silk Country unlocked, because you haven't been shipped anything, not all of the animals or crop seeds will be available instantly when you stop sleeping and start playing, as one might assume. Sure, they have time restrictions, but you also have to ship a million Gs worth of stuff for the first five vendors to show, and a lot of items/seeds have weird sub-conditions as well, like owning a specific field or shipping 500 of another, related crop.

There are also a couple of villagers you need to stop sleeping and unlock, which would be 4 days out of whatever sleeping you do, so not too bad, just keep an eye out for those unlock windows if you want them to be immediately available when you start playing.

It isn't really a big deal, but my preference is to play from the beginning. If you think the game will be more fun starting after a few years of sleeping in, then go for it! And please, report back on how much you liked doing it. I really do love reading about how people play the same game in different ways!

It's true that you'll only have one country unlocked, I'd suggest use flax to unlock the others. Like what Arcy said, I personally prefer to start from the beginning, but have fun otherwise.

Thanks for going more in depth with the fresh thing Arcy! That's what I was confused on. I wish I had your luck with these festivals but it seems the game doesn't like me. Entered in a 3 star crop for the first crop festival and I lost to fritz. Chicken had 2 hearts and I lost to Fritz. Fishing? Let's not even go there haha. You can probably guess who I lost to. Starts with an F and ends with a Ritz. He better watch his back when I get that seed maker and I'm pumping out 5 star crops like no tomorrow.

Shan, on this first file I probably won't do it. But if I did decide to do another then I know I'd test it.

I already have 2 vendors unlocked. Met the requirements for the 3rd, just waiting for fall. So if I start sleeping now it might be a pain in the butt later, instead of if I had started sleeping through the beginning. Besides, since I want Eda's events at least once I'd have to wait until I finish them.