The Story of Seasons franchise from developer Marvelous has seen a lot of ups and downs ever since the very first entry, which was not even called Story of Seasons in western markets. It was originally launched under the title Harvest Moon in the West, but was later renamed into Story of Seasons by the parent company due to some publishing issues.
Still, if you enjoyed the Harvest Moon games from the late 90s and early 2000s, Story of Seasons is something you should not miss out on. To have an idea of what has changed in the franchise in the past 2 decades, check out the trailer for its latest mainline entry (which is on 3DS) below:
Yesterday, Marvelous announced that it had licensed the Story of Seasons (In Japanese: Bokujou Monogatari) IP to Tencent to bring the franchise to mobile. With this deal, Tencent will be responsible for the making, distribution, and operation of the new game. That said, both parties will work together to deliver the best Story of Seasons experience to players on the mobile platform.
A major question, however, is how such a game will find a place for itself in the mobile market. Right now, on PC or even consoles, Stardew Valley is the titan when it comes to the farming simulator genre. It even got an iOS version last year and has made its way to Android recently. So, how will this newcomer compete? The most likely answer is that Tencent will make it a free-to-play game as opposed to Stardew’s premium pay model.
Story of Seasons received a lot of praises on 3DS, and even its follow up Trio of Towns is held in high regards as well, so it’ll be interesting to see how it fares on mobile. No release date is announced so far, but given that the game was just revealed, it probably will be quite a while before we can actually get our hands on it. Are you excited for a Story of Seasons experience on your smartphone, or would you rather stick with Stardew Valley?
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