A New Beginning vs Story of Seasons

SNES, HM64, BTN, STH, A Wonderful Life, Another Wonderful Life, AWL:SE, Magical Melody, Puzzle de HM, Tree of Tranquility, Animal Parade, Frantic Farming, Hero of Leaf Valley, My Little Shop, Seeds of Memories, Lil' Farmers, Light of Hope, Popolocrois: SoS, and Doraemon: SoS.
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Terra575
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Hey everyone, I have a bit of a random question. I was wondering which game is all around easier; A New Beginning, or the first Story of Seasons game? By easier I mean how long it takes to make money, get married, expand your farm, that sort of thing.

I've started both games recently and am not sure which one to focus on. I'd prefer to go to with the 'easier' option since I'm a little burnt out on grinding in other video games.

Thank you!
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Kikki
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A New Beginning is easier. In fact, some complain that it's a little TOO easy, for example, to max all your brands at the festivals and so on, to maximize your money on crops/etc. You can also get married quite early in ANB if you're organized enough, depending on who you want to marry. SoS1 is locked so that you can't propose to anyone until Spring Year 2 at the earliest (because Dessie has to be unlocked for you to hear the steps to marriage, which is what unlocks the blue feather for purchase, which you need to propose with.) and that's on top of all the usual array of requirements for marriage, so it's just one extra barrier. Not a huge deal, but it still means that no matter how efficient you are, there is no way to marry before Year 2.

SoS1 has a lot of time locks, such as unlocks on livestock and facilities that go all the way to the end of Year 4. And SoS1 is famous for the crazy-high requirements for unlocking the final two vendors to complete the story. By comparison, ANB is a lot more flexible. (This is not to say you'd like it better just that you can do things faster and more easily if you're determined to in ANB, but it's impossible in SoS1 due to time locks.)
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Anna_Lynn
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Man I haven't played both in years, but I think I remember Story of Seasons' tutorial being wayyy better paced compared to A New Beginning. ANB felt like never ending tutorials being drip-fed over the course of the first year, where as SoS just condenses a ton of tutorials in the first week. Also I did like how SoS improved the crops being back in 3x3 trenches, and unlike both ANB and latter 3oT, you can simply till the ground wherever to plant. ANB limits you to 2x4 preset fields that you must place down everywhere, and I think seeds are 2x2, so you'd need 2 bags per each field. I think another important thing to point out is how SoS has a town from the start, unlike ANB. ANB doesn't really have a town, you have to collect materials to build the buildings and decorate the town as you see fit.

Both games are pretty sucky with grinding to complete the story and/or get married, but the nice thing about SoS is that there's a "Seedling Mode" and I don't think that was in ANB? Personally I play seedling mode since there's literally no penalty to using it, it just makes the experience more peaceful. Prices are 30% cheaper in shops and stamina consumption is halved so you don't get tired as easily.
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Kikki
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I've got to object to 'ANB doesn't really have a town'. ANB has the biggest and best town of the series, imo! Yeah, you have to provide the materials and place the buildings, and some don't enjoy that (I LOVE it) but the town is PACKED with shops and homes you get over the course of the story. (A handful of shops and homes are in from the beginning, but you do build most of them yourself via story progression.)

But that part isn't speaking to which is easier and faster to complete. If you want to get everything (all facilities and animals), you will HAVE to play nearly to Year 5 in SoS1, with no way around it. Most people seem to take until Year 3 or even 4 to complete the story by unlocking all the vendors. (I'm a bit of a min-maxer and have always managed to get all the vendors by the end of Year 2/beginning of year 3, though it's a struggle. Having to ship TEN THOUSAND each of fresh crops and cooked dishes/etc...and that's on the EASY mode, it's 15,000 on normal...is a loooooot to wade through. I think it proves how grindy SoS1 is that they added the 'seedling' mode first in SoS1 because of the high requirements.)

But as I mentioned, it being faster to complete ANB's story and get married doesn't necessarily mean I think you'll like it best. I'm one of VERY FEW people who count ANB as their favourite Bokumono game. Between SoS1 and ANB, I think there are more who prefer SoS1. (But even so, ANB is faster to complete, no way around it. I always gun it, trying to complete things as fast as I can...and there's just no rushing SoS1 past a certain point due to time locks and insane shipping requirements.)

Most people consider ANB to have a 'tutorial month', because the story doesn't start until Summer, so all of Spring is verrrrrry slow, like the game is on hold all that time. It's a bit long even for me, tbh, though I do like the scrimping and saving part of the game where you're scrounging up even bugs and twigs to sell for pennies, to try to get enough to buy a chicken or whatever. But the actual TUTORIAL part, where you're actively being taught how to do things, is pretty short. Not really sure why they didn't allow the story to begin until summer. But I can still always finish the story of ANB quite a bit faster than I can the story of SoS1, and I can get married faster, too.

Of course, it also depends on what you think is easier. Sometimes just being faster to do doesn't feel easier, depending on how you like to play. Both games are very grindy, though in different ways. In SoS1 you have to grind like crazy to fulfil the unlock requirements for the final 2 vendors, which means shipping literally tens of thousands of items, and in ANB you have to material grind for building materials. I found SoS1's type of grinding more tedious than ANB's, but that's a personal preference thing. I'm not sure how to numerically total things up to give a statistical, factual answer on which game requires more grinding. To me it's SoS1 because I dislike that type of grinding more, while ANB made it more fun for me and less of a chore. But again...I'm almost certain I'm in a clear minority.
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BlueSkye
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Post  Posted:

hi there. i happen to agree with Kikki
SoS seemed to take along time for me. i gave up on the 1st SoS. i much perfer SoS:Trio of Towns. tho if this is between The 1st SOS, ANB is definitly easyer to get though. spring is slow, but the rest goes by quick. what i did to speed it up abit is to sleep earlyer to end the day. it helped ^^
in spring you can basicly do everything before 11am; talk to everyone, seed/water crops + collect the items. i slept at 9am for each day untill the 9th of spring (when you get the free cow) and then you still have plenty of time left to stock up on spring items. in the later months, i still did the daily things before 3pm then i slept, so the days went quick for me. i got married on the 17 of spring year2. the items grinding is really the main time comsumer, but its still a faster game than the original SoS. even tho its faster, its alot of fun! you can customize the whole town/farm areas you get. (im a sucker for customisation) i dont even find it that tedious. you get to add more to town after a few tasks then with completing them, more people move in, so you have new people/areas to explore often.
i do really recomend this game. out of all the 3ds Harvest Moon titles, ANB is my fave (besides SoS:ToT)
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Somerandom
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Your mileage may very with both games. I hated the start of ANB because there was nothing to do at the start of Spring but didn’t mind the time locks in the original SoS because I had enough to do at the time and was just a beginner going through the game quite slowly and was in no rush to complete the trading posts until later on. In contrast I got into ANB after playing many other games that had lots to do at the start, so I wasn’t a big fan of Spring or summer year 1 for that matter in ANB. Once you reach late game however, ANB has a few grindy quests but not as much as SoS and better festivals (that you have to unlock) and SoS has the infuriating Ice and Tropical country unlocks, which are annoying and take years even on seedling mode, festivals are also scaled by what year you are in so you need to farm to even stand a chance in them, which I like better because of how challenging it is!

But in all honesty, your choice should come down to A. Which characters (namely the marriage candidates) do you like the look of best and B. Would you prefer a game focused on unlocking festivals and marriage candidates, building up the town yourself and has a set shipping bin or a game more focused on farming, gaining new fields to grow more crops, most events and all candidates already unlocked bar 4 and only be able to ship items on certain days in early game but potentially get a bigger payout from them?

I’m not going to suggest one over the other because I am biased towards the first SoS, but choose the game that would suit your play style the best.
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Kikki
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If it's down to the individual merits (and demerits) of each game, that's going to be completely subjective, though as I mentioned, I think there'd be more people saying they prefer SoS1, overall. But Terra575 just wanted to know which game was easier, and gave specifics as to what made a game qualify as 'easier', specifically: how long it takes to make money, expand your farm, and get married (and 'that sort of thing'). I don't think there's any way to say that SoS1 is faster than ANB. The pregnancy stage feels brutally long in SoS1, so it takes forever to get your kid. And the story takes longer to complete by a large margin. (Particularly if you're comparing your own playing hours, as opposed to in-game hours. The difference doesn't seem quite as big if you say that you can complete ANB's story by early-to-mid year 2 (at earliest) but early year 3 (at earliest) for SoS1. But that's in-game days. The actual time it takes the player to complete ANBs story is much lower than to complete SoS1's story.

Still, there's a lot that goes into 'easier', and that's down to preference, too. But going SPECIFICALLY on the things that were asked about, then I don't think there's any question that on those standards, ANB is easier (easier meaning 'faster', in this case, it seems.)

MIND YOU...you can get very rich quite quickly in SoS1. Basically as soon as you have flax seeds and the sewing studio, so that you can make golden (or silver) linen cloth. That's a massive money-maker, the likes of which ANB doesn't have. Being rich helps you complete other things much faster, but it doesn't help you complete the story much faster, though. A tiny bit, since you can afford to buy all the carrots available in the shop every day to help with your cooked dishes and fresh crop requirements, but it speeds things up by...5-10% at best, I think?
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