Looking back on my gaming career (can you call it a career? If so, then a lot of us can say we have a beautiful and fulfilling carreer!) I can safely say that there are some gaming series that have held my interest for years. The Harvest Moon series, currently called Story of Seasons here in the West, is one of them. I couldn’t even imagine running a farm in real life, but a virtual farm is right up my ally. I pull weeds, collect branches and stones like the best of them. Sowing seeds, watering dutifully every day and doing building or renovation projects when the game wants me too. I brush my animals, make sure they have enough food and put them outside when the sun is shining. Yes, I’m quite the serious little gamer (don’t listen to Bessie’s complaints that I’ve left her outside at night at times….)
There’s one aspect of the Harvest Moon games though that fails to keep my interest. Those Bachelors! I can never force myself to really put an effort in that, while I know that it’s one of the most enjoyable pursuits for a lot of fans. I mean, this week the new bachelors (and bachelorettes) for the newest Story of Seasons game were revealed. And let me tell you, that was a hot topic this week on Siliconera. Don’t get me wrong, they look fabulous, as you can see in some of the examples that I’ve pasted below. But those guys are such a lot of effort! You have to chat with them every single day. You have to show an interest in how they are doing. They sometimes give the same answer for days on end. They don’t even bother with being original. Plus you have to give them their favorite gift. Not once or twice, but many, many times. And then when the one you are after has finally warmed up to you, there are still many hurdles to take. For instance, there are several events for each bachelor to romance them properly, but don’t screw up, otherwise you will lose his eye again. Talk about high maintenance!
Over the years the numbers of bachelors have increased. And they are made more and more detailed, such a lot of finesse seems to go into creating them. They have specific characteristics, you can go for the arrogant one, for the grumpy one, for the happy go lucky one. Just like going to the store to get yourself a guy that will be just to your liking. But still, a lot of the fans absolutely drool over them, and I never really got that. But then, maybe it’s because I’ve never managed to snag me a bachelor. Maybe I’m not as romantic as I thought! At least, my little YvoCaro isn’t. I’ve tried playing the game being the lone farmer who runs into town every now and then to sell her stuff and then retreats again to fish, farm or be sociable with her animals. But somehow that doesn’t work either, you miss out on a lot of the game that way. Aside from the fact that villagers don’t warm up to you and look at you with suspicion in their eye.
So I guess I’ll just give it a go again, for now, let’s look at the eye-candy that the developers of Story of Seasons are dishing out for us in the next game, Cherished Friends of Three Towns. Here are the bachelors and bachelorettes known so far. Enjoy!
So funny 🙂
Ludeus looks dishy 😉 and the gals are all very cute.
Thanks Britta! Almost makes you wish they were real!
Please note that Harvest Moon dating strategies do not work in real life. Girls seem to get scared when I give them the same present every day.
Hahaha, excellent observation! Plus if you’d say the same thing to them for days on end, they might think you’re not exactly right in the head!
Please note that Harvest Moon dating strategies do not work in real life. Girls seem to get scared when I give them the same present every day.
I always look at Harvest Moon relationships as a means to an end. You have to get married in this game in order to have a cute baby. (Yet another aspect of this game that is not quite the same IRL!)
Lol, no it certainly isn’t!
They sure are a pain in the butt to romance. I enjoy developing the farm more so then the romance. I was annoyed when my gifts were not good enough for the guy at the restaurant. So I moved on to Klaus who seemed alright with butterflies XD
Personally, I look forward to romancing my husband in each game. But lately I’ve found myself annoyed with one thing: the requirements to get them to ask you to go out with them/marry them (for a change). I find those proposals very cute, but they take so long to get. They require 100 and 150 gifts to trigger (and for the marriage one at least 30 of the gifts have to be their favorite one) and that takes sooo long. Even if you gives a puny gift each day, you’ll have them at a red heart long, long before you reach that number of gifts, which means it’s way easier to ask them. But I love having them ask my farmer out so much. I wouldn’t mind so much if other things didn’t take so long too, i.e., having a grown child. It takes at least 2 years to get one, so if you want to get the reverse proposals it will takes 3 years and half, at minimum. Poor soul be you if you like one of the bachelors that only come in year 2, like Kamil in SoS. Which, coincidentally, is the bachelor I like. This is the main reason I haven’t started SOS yet.
I also dislike how the villagers get mad at you if you don’t talk to them for a lot of days. It’s fine at the start of the game, since I have the time to around to talk to them all, but later on when your farm gets bigger it’s impossible to do so. This was fine in A New Beginning though, since there were so many festivals per month and they gave so much affection if you won, that you had no need to talk to villagers except on festivals and their birthdays, and yet they would all still end up loving you. Not so much so in SoS, since they decreased the number of festivals by combining a bunch of the animal ones and made winning be a lot more random.
I think my romance problem could be easily fixed though: just have them ask you to go steady when they’re like, at a pink or red heart, and then have them ask you to marry them only when you give them at least 30 good gifts after that. Still requires some more work than normal, but it would go by way faster. As for the child, they did well by shortening the length of the pregnancy to two seasons in SoS. Maybe make them grow a little faster? Or at least keep it to year instead of increasing it to almost a year and half like they did in SoS
You know that’s what annoyed me in Story of Seasons, although I enjoyed the game otherwise: to unlock all the vendors, you had to sell a crazy amount of items. Like when you wanted a guy’s affection. You know, I understand putting certain barriers in the game, but when you talk about 150, 500 or even more items, that’s just weird.
Or maybe it’s just me, because with a harvest moon game, I get annoyed by all the chores after some 50 hours and I quit. Often I pick the game up again after some time, but still.