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Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons/Stardew Valley/Etc Speed Farming Thread

Pajaro Pete

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Yeah, I've heard that this update has been a little weird with mods so it's good that they're gonna try and get that corrected. Stardew Valley has a thriving mod scene, for those not in the know.

Speaking of updates, Pioneers of Olive Town (now available on Steam, which is probably a better place to purchase it for performance sake) also recently got an update with some post game quests, post marriage scenes, and the ability for the DLC marriables to show up at the couples festivals (the DLC is still a scam do not buy). None of it is particularly exciting, but I did notice how some of the quests/rewards are things I specifically have said I wanted.
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

I'm about halfway thru the second year of Olive Town. I like the game a lot but I'm playing on Switch and it's slowly turning into an unplayable nightmare. I'm getting to the point where I literally can't go 30 seconds without the game freezing for 5 seconds. I suspect it's mostly just a performance issue, where the Switch isn't happy/can't handle that 2 of the three zones of my farm are completely filled to the brim. But it's still rather inexcusable. I literally can't play! And I want to keep going. If I could just transfer my save file to a different platform like PS4 or PC I would go out and rebuy the game this instant. Oh well. I did get a credits roll and am running out of things to do/unlock, so I guess I've just played the game through its natural course. But this is still very disappointing because I'd like to keep playing it still! In the future, I should probably play games of this nature on PC or my PS5 instead.
 
Pajaro Pete

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
I finally got around to finishing Pioneers of Olive Town's new post game, which is more expansive than I realized and basically amounted to a second story line. Unlike in the first story arc, where the story missions would only require you to complete one of three options, the second story arc requires you to fulfill all requests to proceed, which is kind of what I wanted? One of my criticisms of the first arc was how the missions were all really easy to complete and mostly just involved stuff I had in my storage anyway, so it was nice that I had to actually work at these a bit.

Although it's a long series of missions, only four of them give you tangible rewards, and three of those are from the first three missions.

The new post marriage scenes seem to have been "eating dinner with your anime spouse" and "eating lunch with your inlaws" which are both nice ideas but it's sort of sad that those were basic gameplay mechanics from the 3DS games. I guess it does highlight how all the Local Singles In Your Area have actual family in town?

I think they're officially "done" with updates to the game, and I'm a bit disappointed they never patched in the ability to rotate furniture in your house, a feature that's been in the franchise since like the Gamecube era.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Just rolled the credits on Pioneers of Olive Town. MAN does it run better on PC (in my case Steam Deck - follow instructions on ProtonDB to actually get it working) than on Switch. It still rains/snows FAR too often, though, it's ridiculous. Not sure why I bothered getting the oricalchum watering can first when I barely get a chance to use it.

Still plan on playing it a while, only in spring of year 2 at the moment. Working on breeding animals to get better stuff from them. The final house upgrade is going to take forever - mirage wood is very hard to come by unless I spend all my coins at the sprite shop (same with oricalchum, though the rock island helps a little. Wish it'd spawn more oricalchum ore).

Farming games! Why do I like these so much
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

Kazin said:
Just rolled the credits on Pioneers of Olive Town. MAN does it run better on PC than on Switch.
Click to expand...
It is more than a little frustrating to me that a game that's as visually and graphically as simple as Olive Town, struggles so hard while running on the Switch. Like, I'm pretty confident that if you throw out a few polygons here and there, this game would be playable on a PS2. Instead you get massive load spikes and screen stuttering doing the mundane activities of walking across your farm. It's actually upsetting to me that Rune Factory 5 is a Switch/PC exclusive, instead of literally any other game console that could probably run it better without the framerate just collapsing.

I've been playing Harvestella and I'm enjoying it so far. The story feels very FF throwbacky in ways that probably enthralled a teenage me. If this game had come out in the early 2000s or late 90s, it would be hailed as a masterpiece. Instead it's just kinda what if you had farming in FF Crystal Chronicles. Which is fine. I'm just kinda not really gripped by its story, despite the story being the thing that will take up the most of your time while playing it, since farm progression is fairly linked to world exploration/story completion. I just made it out of the first Spring into the Summer, and so far it feels like for every minute I'm doing farm stuff, I'm doing at least 10-20mins of something not farming. And I kinda just want to farm! It's still a decent looking/playing game; I wish Olive Town had this level of production quality. Just wish there was the ability to skip cutscenes/text.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Started playing Rune Factory 3 after only having played (and enjoyed) 4 and 5. Wanted to play it now, not whenever the remake comes out next year. In any case, play it on an actual DS - the art looks terrible if you uprez it. Looks pretty good on my DSi XL though.

Anyway, so far, it plays just as well as 4 and 5, and doesn't make you awkwardly place your cooking utensils a foot apart, it just installs them for you. I don't particularly like decorating in farming games anyway, so that's a bonus for me. Story is anime nonsense, but I got through 4 and 5 so I'll be fine lol
 
Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
WisteriaHysteria said:
It is more than a little frustrating to me that a game that's as visually and graphically as simple as Olive Town, struggles so hard while running on the Switch. Like, I'm pretty confident that if you throw out a few polygons here and there, this game would be playable on a PS2. Instead you get massive load spikes and screen stuttering doing the mundane activities of walking across your farm. It's actually upsetting to me that Rune Factory 5 is a Switch/PC exclusive, instead of literally any other game console that could probably run it better without the framerate just collapsing.

I've been playing Harvestella and I'm enjoying it so far. The story feels very FF throwbacky in ways that probably enthralled a teenage me. If this game had come out in the early 2000s or late 90s, it would be hailed as a masterpiece. Instead it's just kinda what if you had farming in FF Crystal Chronicles. Which is fine. I'm just kinda not really gripped by its story, despite the story being the thing that will take up the most of your time while playing it, since farm progression is fairly linked to world exploration/story completion. I just made it out of the first Spring into the Summer, and so far it feels like for every minute I'm doing farm stuff, I'm doing at least 10-20mins of something not farming. And I kinda just want to farm! It's still a decent looking/playing game; I wish Olive Town had this level of production quality. Just wish there was the ability to skip cutscenes/text.
Click to expand...
I've been holding off on it. Doesn't really sound like a reco. Maybe it will get better. Or maybe once its $15 or so.
 
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

Falselogic said:
I've been holding off on it. Doesn't really sound like a reco. Maybe it will get better. Or maybe once its $15 or so.
Click to expand...
I dunno. I think it's a pretty well made game and it has some charm. It feels a whole lot like Rune Factory just with way better production values and an FF-skin on top (but with the serial numbers filed off for some reason). There's even some nice quality of life additions like strategically scattered save points also being teleporation points so you don't have to eat up game-clock waddling from place to place all the time. I just have lost a lot of my patience for RPGs in general in my old age. Even worse, when I'm playing while vibing on an edible, I do not have the attention span for the game's story/reading a bunch of text and just wanna bop monsters and plant turnips unencumbered. But I'll keep playing it. If you've somehow run out of farm games and still want to play them, this wouldn't be a terrible one to pick up. I do feel though like it's the game's destiny to hit $15 at some point sooner rather than later tho so waiting might be fairly prudent.
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Just rolled credits on Rune Factory 3. Unless they absolutely ruin it, I recommend the remake and will be picking it up myself. It might be my favorite in the series - I've played 3, 4, and 5, and enjoy them all, but 3 is well balanced and doesn't take an eternity like 5, which I liked, but dragged on and on by the end, holy crap. Those three games all play very, very much alike, so much so that I'm struggling to think of differences besides their individual plots and the aesthetics. So, if you disliked any of the other games, I would avoid 3 lol
 
Neo Skimbleshanks

Neo Skimbleshanks

Started a new Stardew Valley playthrough. Simply one of the best games... I can speak with the dwarf, which I don't think I've been able to do before because the scroll never popped up. At least not on my first playthrough. I managed to get ancient seeds so with the greenhouse and a seedmaker I should be set. I'm spending my first ores on Iridium sprinklers. (if my mining were high enough I would've built a second crystalarium, but it's not) I guess I'm saving up so I have what I need for the Skull Caverns. (apparently a hundred bombs and a few dozen stairs?) Not really a fan of this part of the game. Not quite able to finish the Community Center yet but it's almost Summer of year 2 so I'll do it soon unless I get lucky with the travelling cart.

Apparently there is a "Ginger Island" now. Has been for years, I suppose... I guess I'll see what that is at some point.
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
I've long appreciated Stardew Valley from afar as a really impressive indie take on the farming/life sim genre, but recently my wife pulled me into a co-op game. Having a lot of flashbacks to long-ago time with SNES Harvest Moon, though of course there's lots more going on. Nice thing about co-op is I can derp around clearing land and foraging while my partner worries about things that will actually make us money in the long term. Though it's a little janky in that some critical cut-scenes are shared (taking over your play area when another player starts them), while others, even though plot-related, still need to be triggered by each character individually to unlock various abilities.

So far my only real complaint is it's so faaaaar to walk to things like the mine. I understand we'll eventually be able to get things like horses but assume that's a way off. I'm still looking forward to having enough money to expand the dang backpack. Though I'll admit being pretty limited in your initial abilities makes it feel so cool when you get some little useful thing, like I randomly found a slime in the mines with a gold start over it and it dropped a glowing ring and holy shit I can finally see what the hell I'm doing at night, sweet.

Speaking of night though, we're both inveterate procrastinators and ADD-havers and dang it's embarrassing how many times our asses have had to be carried home at 2am. Like we keep being simultaneously up too late in the game and in real life, dangit.
 
Pajaro Pete

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Please look forward to Stardew Valley 1.6, coming Soon.

TEoRTjy.png


Also please look forward to My Time At Sandrock, launching out of Early Access and onto consoles next month
 
Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Until they update the android version of the I think I'll have to hold off. Unless I get a Steamdeck before then...
 
Pajaro Pete

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
So far I'm really enjoying it - the new farm map makes the early game smoother (not having to spend money on a Coop or Chickens, being guaranteed 100G/day from day 3 forward, and I guess also guaranteed 20 farming XP per day, it all adds up). The "main" plot of tillable tiles is about how much farmland I usually use for crops anyway so it doesn't feel like a particularly limiting factor.

The Trout Derby is cool because it's basically "hey, go drop your Pickaxe off for upgrades and spend two days working on your Fishing skill levels," and speaking of fishing, the new Deluxe Bait increases your Fishing Bar by 12 pixels (for comparison: each Fishing level increases the bar by 8 pixels), so this has really made the fish tank bundle way easier.

The Big Chest is great.
 
Baudshaw

Baudshaw

Unfortunate doesn't begin to describe...
(he/him)
I need to play this soon, but the only available version I have is an Xbox edition. I do wish there was some sort of New Game+
 
Kazin

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Looking at the list of games on sale there, I think Rune Factory 3 the best of the five main numbered Rune Factory games (haven't played the Wii/PS3 games), and the remake is really good. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is probably my favorite Harvest Moon game (it's a remake of the GBA game, which the remake completely replaces in terms of quality of life imo).
 
q 3

q 3

here to eat fish and erase the universe
(they/them)
Harvestella is a fantastic fully fledged JRPG with a simplified and relatively stress-free farm simulator stapled onto it. I loved the story, characters, visual atmosphere, and music, and if you're up for "lite" action RPG and farming aspects then it's a complete package.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Falselogic said:
Steam is having a 'Farming Fest' (https://store.steampowered.com/category/farming/) anyone have recoes for great or overlooked farm games I should be playing?

I'll put in a plug for Eastward's DLC, Octopia, which is a small 20 hour or so farm sim that I enjoyed that uses the characters from the main game in this little pocket cozy farmer world.
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I'm bummed the Eastward DLC isn't on Xbox/Gamepass. I didn't like the main game that much but this DLC looks like it would fit the game world really well.

I loved the first Cattails so I'm excited for Wildwood story, but want to hold out for Switch as the game would be much better suited for that. The art is goofy and the game was janky but there was something super cozy about it. I dunno! There's a demo for the new one.

I enjoyed Research Story's demo but it's also very much in my niche.

I've heard Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is good but haven't played it myself.

If someone hasn't played Stardew Valley yet they should! I'm debating starting a new farm since the recent new update added so dang much.
 
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