The New ‘Story of Seasons’ Is ‘Animal Crossing’ for Post-Lockdown Life

When it came out last March, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the best match to weather conditions a pandemic: It provided new degrees of electronic relationship when people felt extremely much aside from 1 yet another. Each individual day, there had been new tales about gatherings within Animal Crossing (I’m however sad Elijah Wooden never came to my island). Slack and Discord communities sprung up to allow people to trade recipes, barter furnishings and other domestic items, and discover the highest turnip cost each week. A friend of mine even held virtual reserve events within the match. 

One particular 12 months later, a lot of individuals are however grappling with Covid-19. For the most component, everyone’s existing inside of the socially distanced standing quo. But in spite of the way it appears to be, issues are incredibly distinct in March 2021. The entire world feels a tiny a lot less out of manage, a lot of of my vulnerable cherished types are vaccinated, and I can see a mild at the close of the tunnel. I however discover the fashion of Animal Crossing calming, but I want a tiny additional complexity from my gameplay now. Hence my obsession with Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.

If you haven’t played a Story of Seasons match (or Stardew Valley, because that match is based mostly on an old installment of Story of Seasons), it’s sort of like Animal Crossing, but with additional depth. Like AC, Pioneers of Olive Town is what you make of it, but as opposed to that match, there is so considerably to do. As soon as you total the main storyline of Animal Crossing, you can increase your island and interact with your villagers, but there is no additional ahead movement. It’s up to you to make your have story it’s not really meant to be played in binges, but relatively in modest doses throughout various times, weeks, and months.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, on the other hand, starts off out with you, the main character, inheriting your grandfather’s old, overgrown farm. It’s your work to get it up and running—this incorporates planting crops, repairing the barns (cows! alpacas! chickens!), and fixing up old bridges to access new components of the farm. But wait around, there is a total ton more—your farm is adjacent to a quite sizable city. Not only can you go purchasing, have a drink at the café, invest in new clothes, and get a haircut, you can strike up friendships and even get married.

I just cannot overemphasize the amount of money of stuff there is to do in this game—and that is why it’s fantastic for appropriate now. If Animal Crossing: New Horizons outlined the pandemic and shut-down lifetime of 2020, then Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is the we-can-see-a-glimmer-of-reopening-hope match of 2021.

A 12 months back, Pioneers of Olive Town would’ve felt overpowering. It would not have labored for me because I desired anything to settle my nerves, and the prospects would have seemed also unlimited. Now, it’s the fantastic amount of money of engagement. I’m however anxious (that is my key, I’m often anxious). I’m not declaring almost everything is good but it’s gradually obtaining greater. I have the electricity and means to be a tiny additional engaged in my gaming and to deal with additional complexity.

Also, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town can be as considerably or as tiny as you want it to be. Animal Crossing emphasizes reveling in the innovative, and that is incredible (and necessary—I’m glad it is the way it is), but not everyone’s mind finds lengthy-time period gratification and aid in that. At some stage, I desired additional than the match was capable to offer. Pioneers of Olive Town delivers that.

I need to also increase that, at periods, Animal Crossing felt like fast paced work—the obligation to check out in each day, to show up to invest in turnips and then market them (why had been my costs often awful?), grab people Nook Miles. I resented emotion tethered to the match by chores. Pioneers of Olive Town is compulsively playable—I’ve dropped a ton of time to it, in a good way—but the time in the match isn’t tied to true lifetime. I can pick it up and place it down at my leisure, and regardless of whether I have put in a day, a week, or a month away, no 1 is giving me a guilt trip for getting absent (and my pristine farm is not overrun by cockroaches).

That’s not to say that Story of Seasons is greater than Animal Crossing—they’re two thoroughly distinct ordeals, and it’s up to you to discover which 1 will work greatest. But if you’ve operate out of issues to do in Animal Crossing and are deeply lacking that contentment you felt when you played it, if you want additional of a feeling of accomplishment in your entertainment, then Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town just could be your beloved match of 2021.


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