Doraemon Story of Seasons – Early Tips and Tricks Guide

A few of us have been putting some hours into the recently released Doraemon Story of Seasons, in-between other games. So having reached Summer, we’ve compiled some important things to keep track of for your first month or so of the game.

Shopping

One of the first things to take notice of is the shop hours which you can find here. They have different opening hours from the usual SoS games. Also that on festival days the shops won’t open. You can check your calendar in the menu with the – button.

Asides from ensuring you have enough money to buy new seeds, the first thing to save up for would be a  backpack upgrade or two. That can be bought from the general store.

Another thing to buy early  is the bug net, which also is bought at the general store. You can catch bugs for selling, but keep your honey bees in storage. In Summer, you can use the honeycombs that appear in the right top side of your farm to make a beehive at the carpenters. Which you will then place your honey bees in.

Rest: get that stamina up

While you might not have much aside of foraged goods to eat (until you upgrade your home and buy cookware) there is another way to restore stamina. Noby can nap anywhere outside for at least one hour at a time. Each hour of napping restores ten stamina. You can nap until the nearest hour, so even a half hour rest could still give you points. So if, like me, you planted far too many crops, there’s still a chance to water the rest of them with some nap time.

You can stay up past midnight but you can’t nap after that. If you stay up until 6:00am you will pass out and be at the doctors clinic until noon.

Fishing uses up no stamina, so once you’re done with the farm chores you can fish to your heart’s content.

Mining, Upgrades and Builds

Head up the mines next to the waterfall to unlock the mines and get your pickaxe. In there you can dig up ores, fossils and junk.

With ores you can upgrade your tools at the blacksmith. Unlike other games the upgrades are instant so you don’t have to wait for a rainy day. Beth, my fellow writer, recommends to upgrade your pickaxe and watering can first. This is because the upgrades allow you to do more at once, or when it’s the the pickaxe, it hits the harder spots.

At the carpenters you can have him build various furniture of different styles. Check his store to see what you like, as you might need to keep weeds or fossils for different sets. Junk pieces are also used to make phonographs so don’t sell all of them just yet.

Normally in a game like this I would build the Silos first but they require gold pieces. Instead I focused on building a stable. You can cut trees you find out in the forest way for materials. Once it was finally complete, the day after I headed into West Natura and was given a horse by Ram. The only care a horse needs is being brushed and talked to. This saves plenty of time making your way around town (which you need for napping). Unless you’ve managed to hit gold yet, I’d recommend the house upgrade so you can start cooking sooner than later.

Weather and Socializing

Once you have an animal or two, make sure to check the noticeboard every couple of days. As this will show you the weather for the day and one after. And you don’t want to leave your animals out into the rain. Or have to run all the way back to put them in the barn because for instance you just started mining before the rain started.

If you check your stamp collection in the menu, you’ll find one is to be a little friendly with each villager. This can easily be done just by talking to them every time you pass them, only needing to go out of your way for a few people.

The reward for that is a farm decoration. But it helps highlight how important it is for the game. Many things you can unlock require you to have certain friendship levels with the villagers. Especially the mayor as he has taken a few of Doraemon’s gadgets. If you’re having trouble finding someone open the map in the – menu.

Last But Not Least

Noby makes an “eh” noise every time he uses a tool, so I swiftly decided to turn the voice volume down in the menu completely. As there is no English voice acting it’s not much of a loss.

The game does have an autosave, however you aren’t prompted to save at any point, so you must do it yourself. Make sure to save every couple of days at least in case you really mess up, or just turn it off without thinking.