The newest edition to the Story of Season series, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town offers a relaxing experience as you rebuild your farm and make Olive Town into a popular tourist spot. You can do a range of activities including, fishing, farming, mining, cooking, crafting, and much more! Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town allows you to play at your own pace and decide what to do with your day. It includes a charming cast of characters with witty dialogue and many memorable moments. This game is perfect for those who are new to the Story of Season franchise and those who are veterans of the series.
Littlewood is a farming life sim that was developed by the company XSeed Games.
Moving to Olive Town
The beginning of this farm stimulation has the player moving into Olive Town, a coastal town, to take care of their grandfather’s rundown farm. The farm has been taken over by the wildlife, and it is your job to restore it to its former glory. Alongside rebuilding your farm, you are also tasked by the townspeople to boost the popularity of Olive Town. The game starts the same way as many of the previous entries in the title. The player is moving from the city to a small remote town to take over their grandfather’s farm. It does add in more backstory this time, as your grandfather was one of the original settlers in Olive Town. However, I would’ve loved it if the developers had changed up their story formula and implemented a new and fresh idea.
Fans of previous Story of Seasons games will be glad to know that Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town offer the same experiences as past games, but with a couple of new additions. Many of these additions include quality of life changes like the inclusion of the sprinkler and cosmetic changes like the new paths system.
A feature I enjoyed about the game was its customization options the developers added to both the player and the farm. Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive follows a recent trend where gender isn’t defined by your sex at the beginning, but rather the player has the choice to fully build up the character that they want. You can make your customized character masculine, feminine, or a mix of both. Another added change that I enjoyed was the voices of the characters. The game isn’t fully voiced, but adds in character sound effects that make both the player and other characters feel more alive. Players are even allowed to date and marry any of the eligible candidates regardless of gender.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town includes a Normal Mode and a Seedling Mode. The Seedling Mode is designed for beginners and will allow players to gain more money, along with other benefits. I recommend players try out the Normal Mode first, as it will feel more rewarding to accomplish the many tasks the game has to offer.
Your Farmlife
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town adds in many new items that players will be sure to enjoy and improve their quality of life on the farm. One of these items is the sprinklers that will water your crops every morning. This new item will save players from the tedious task of watering their crops every day. The ability to crafting sprinklers can be obtained by leveling up your farming skill. You will also have access to fences and paths that will make organizing your farm easier.
At the start of your new farming life, you will only have access to one field. You will also be forced to stay in a tent as you work to collect enough resources to build your house. This development allows the player to feel a sense of accomplishment as you must work your way from the bottom and become successful with your own hands.
Management of your field is still crucial to the success of your life as a farmer. Your field will be full of trees and rocks at first. You must work to clear away the field and start planting crops to gain money. Random plants and crops can also be found laying around that can be sold for money or cooked into dishes. As you work around your farm, you may even find animals walking around that you can tame or take pictures of! Certain buildings like the barn and chicken coop can also be found around the fields that can be fixed up and used.
Compared to previous entries, the field in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive is more vast and open. However, this does require players to constantly maintain the large fields by themselves. Each day you will find a new tree that has sprouted or weeds that need to be cleared out. The only way to prevent this is to place paths or objects, but resources to craft these items will be limited in the beginning. As a result, you will be forced to spend a couple of stamina each day maintaining your fields or it will look cluttered and messy.
The Bag
As you collect more resources, you will find that your bag will constantly be full. This was a problem that I often ran into, even with the maximum upgrade for your bag. There is a tool bag that you can use to store your tools in to get more space in your bag, but it becomes less convenient when you constantly need to pull your tools in and out of that bag to use it. It would’ve been great if the tools were kept separated from the main bag and you could use the tools from the tool bag itself.
Tip: Make sure you have chests crafted. These chests will allow you to store your resources that you don’t want to sell, allowing you to free up space in your bag.
Money
The main goal of the game is to build up your farm and boost the popularity of Olive Town. To achieve that goal you will be required to earn money as a lot of the upgrades and buildings require money. The most profitable way to earn money was through planting crops and harvesting them. While you wait for your crops to grow, it is best to spend your time collecting resources and materials.
Like all Story of Season games, you will gain money by shipping items into your shipping bin. You won’t automatically gain the money right away and will have to wait until the next day. The only problem with the shipping bin is that it has a limited number of spaces that you can sell every day. This limits the amount you can sell each day as you are forced to keep the item until the next day if you run out of space. The game would benefit from a shipping bins upgrade that will increase the capacity of the items sold.
Skills & Upgrades
Throughout your time in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive, you will gain experience and level up your tools. Skills such as mining and farming will unlock new items and benefits like less stamina consumption when using that tool. I recommend leveling up your woodcutting and mining skills first as you will be spending a lot of time and energy gathering wood or resources in the mines. Some of the new items you unlock will also help you run your farm like the auto feeder you can obtain by leveling up your animal skill.
Stamina
There are tons of activities to do that will surely fill up your days. Each action with your tools will cost you stamina. Make sure you stock up on dishes to restore your stamina or you will pass out!
Upgrades
Like the previous game, you are able to upgrade your tools. These upgrades really come in handy when you have to gather harder to break materials like Supple Wood or Silver. The ax and hammer should be your number one priority as they will make collecting additional resources easier.
Makers
Makers make a comeback in this series in a major way. As you collect resources, you must also craft makers that will convert these resources into something useable. This will be how you obtain lumber and ingots to obtain better tools There are a lot of different makers that you can craft. The most important ones will be the Lumber Maker and the Ingot Maker. I would make sure you have at least 5 of each planted somewhere on your farm. There is also the Brick Maker that is necessary to make bricks for some of the quests and buildings. Depending on the resources, makers will require a couple of hours to convert their items,
Follower Sprites
Another added feature to the game is the Follower Sprites. Finding these sprites are random, but they will often pop up when you perform tasks on your farm like breaking rocks or fishing. Once you collect 25 of them, you unlock the Earth Sprite Village.
In the Earth Sprite Village, you can split the sprites up and have them perform different tasks from collecting wood or grass. Every couple of days you can talk to the leader sprites in charge to obtain materials. You will also have access to a shop where you can buy items with a special currency. This shop includes some hard to find items like the Olive Crystals that you will need to complete some quests.
The Characters of Olive Town
Olive Town is home to many unique individuals with their own set of personalities and goals. You do need to make an effort to talk to the townsfolk as they do not go out of their way to interact with you. They were hard to keep track up, but the menu screen does include a map that will show all of their locations. The game has over 30 characters that you can befriend, including 10 characters that you can date and eventually marry. You may have a hard time remembering them in the beginning, but you will come to love them in time.
On an average day, you can gift and talk to the people living in town. There is a set of preferences that the characters like, but I found that you could give them most items like crops or flowers and they would accept it without any problems. Their dialogue could also use some spicing up, as the characters usually don’t have anything interesting to say besides a quick hello. This could be that I’m not good friends with them yet, as I still have 2 hearts for most characters.
The main reason you will come to love these characters will be the cutscenes that will occur within the town. They include many memorable moments like helping the mayor’s son Jacopo find a lost item in the ocean, but you end up almost drowning and having to need help yourself. The cutscenes don’t involve just your character. Some cutscenes will involve other characters and their relationships with each other. This makes the game feel more alive as your character isn’t the main focal point of the town.
Instead of the traditional portraits used in past games that will display when talking to a character, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive uses 3D models. The models are nice, but feel awkward when you talk to a character. The cutscenes are fine, but when talking to a character, the model is boring to look at. With the portraits, you can gauge the character’s express and watch how they react.
Events
Each season, your player will be invited to festivals held inside the town. These events usually are random mini-games that compete against the other residents. The first player prize is 5,000 Gold and a trophy!
A lot of the contests from previous games are also not included in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town like the Crop Contest or the Animal Contest. Without these contests, the town lacks a connection to your farm.
Building the Ratings of Olive Town
As you work to build up your farm, you will get additional requests for the town like replacing the town’s benches or renovating the town hall. Most of these quests require you to gather a certain material and submit it to the bulletin board in the town hall. A lot of these quests blend together and are forgettable, but work to build up the atmosphere of Olive Town. As you work to boost the town’s popularity, tourists will start to be attracted to the coastal town. They will even appear within your town, making the town feel more alive and less empty!
Your farm isn’t a viable part to the success of the team. However, you are in charge of gathering the resources needed for the town. Apart from that, only your character will ever set foot in your farm, apart from a couple of cutscenes that involve other characters. I would’ve liked if other characters started to visit your farm more often, but they are usually stuck in the town.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Expand and build your farm the way you want | Character dialogue needs improvement |
| Ability to marry any of the bachelors and bachelorettes. | A lot of random objects spawn on your farm |
| Many different activities within the game that reward you by leveling up a skill | Character portraits are replaced with 3D models |
Conclusion
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town offers a fun and relaxing experience for all lovers of farm simulation games. Each character within the game is unique and has their own sense of humor and style. The characters all come from different backgrounds, but come together to make Olive Town more alive. No day will be the same, as you work to build up your farm and give Olive Town the tourist boost it deserves!
Rating
Story: ★★★★★ 3.5/5
Although the story remains the same as past titles, Olive Town feels a lot more alive as the residents work together to boost its popularity. Your farm doesn’t play a major part in the town’s storyline, but you are required to collect the resources the town needs to renovate itself. Your farm also has a separate storyline involving awakening a sleeping goddess and restoring your farm back to its former glory.
Visual & Audio: ★★★★ 4/5
The 3D models are nice to look at and the character’s expression shown in cutscenes bring the townspeople to life. The only downside is that the character’s expression aren’t fully bought out, outside of the cutscenes. You are also able to customize the layout of your farm and decorate your house the way you want.
The soundtrack offers a relaxing composition that sets the tone of the joyful nature of the game. It never felt overused or repetitive. Each character also has a custom voice effect when you interact with them, adding life to the characters.
Game Mechanics:: ★★★★★ 5/5
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town offers many activities that will keep you busy throughout your days. You can take care of animals, plant crops, mine, fish, and much more! The game does have a stamina system, but as you develop your skills you will consume less stamina when using your tools. The skill system is another great game mechanic that feels rewarding as your gain traits and unlock new items as you progress through the game.
Enjoyability: ★★★★★ 5/5
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a great game to play in your downtime. You can decorate your farm the way you want and play at your own pace. The main bulk of the story quests do require you to obtain certain items, but they never feel repetitive as you will have to accomplish different tasks to obtain the materials. Overall, I enjoyed befriending the people of Olive Town and working to build up my farm.
Overall Rating: 87.5/100
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Developer: XSeed Games
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The Informal Gamer 