Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is the most recent installment in the Story of Seasons franchise, which was originally known as Harvest Moon. Though Story of Seasons and Marvelous created the popularized format seen in most farming sims — players tend to a farm, raise livestock, and romance a villager — this gameplay ironically became far more mainstream thanks to Stardew Valley.
Stardew Valley was created solely by Eric Barone so that he and his girlfriend could recreate the original Harvest Moon games after deciding that the new ones didn't invoke the same feelings. Looking at the original Harvest Moon's gameplay on SNES, it's easy to see where much of Stardew Valley followed in its footsteps, from the animations and the art style to the many gameplay mechanics. Interestingly, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town borrowed back some of the enhancements that Stardew implemented, as have many other farming simulators inspired by Eric Barone's creation.
Stardew Valley's Inspiration
Despite being a recreation of the original Harvest Moon, Eric Barone did what most other Story of Seasons games haven't been able to: perfectly balanced mechanics. After Stardew Valley then unexpectedly expanded into a major commercial success, many other indie farming sims began cropping up on the market, such as Kynseed, My Time at Portia, and the upcoming Coral Island.
This is likely because Eric Barone, with little experience in game coding and no experience in design, artistry, and composition, was able to create an amazing game with minimal tools at his disposal. This meant that nearly anyone could just as well create their very own video game with affordable programs like GameMaker Studio. Especially when done in pixel art, farming sims are more accessible to indie developers than other action-packed genres. Naturally, farming sims with many mechanics inspired directly by Stardew Valley are still coming out as a result.
Stardew Valley's inspiration was seemingly strong enough that Story of Seasons also directly copied many mechanics, such as fishing, encountering enemies while mining, the format of the player's inventory, and seeing which villager has already been given a gift that day via the Notebook. This highlights an interesting problem that farming sims, especially going forward, need to confront: most aren't special and therefore, it's difficult to justify their purchase if players have already played and own Stardew Valley, or other similar farming sims.
The Problem Stardew Valley Unintentionally Created
This isn't the case with some others that, while being inspired by the classic farming sim format, still implement their own style, narrative, or characteristics. For example, Ooblets features very unique and beloved graphics. Though it's still a farming sim, players grow Ooblets on their farms which can later go on to do dance battles with other Ooblets. Similarly, Kynseed implements the interesting idea that everyone dies, including the player character, which puts an interesting twist on the regular life-sim style. There aren't other games on the market just like Ooblets or Kynseed, but there are many games out there just like Stardew Valley.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, while still enjoyed by many farming sim fans, doesn't have any unique elements. Rather, it's copied and pasted the same mechanics regurgitated again and again. The genre has now become packed with both indie and triple-A titles that are mostly the same experience, but with different graphics and a different town name.
Unfortunately, while games like Stardew Valley, Kynseed, and Ooblets have their own charm with complex NPCs, intriguing dialogue, and hidden side stories, Pioneers of Olive Town misses out on what makes those games great. And many other farming sims going forward, possibly the successful Kickstarter projects Ova Magica and Coral Island, could exhibit the same problem as well.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is out now for Nintendo Switch.