For Animal Crossing players starting to look for an alternative sim game to help during self-quarantine, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is nearing. This past week, publisher XSEED Games revealed Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town's latest release details. Nintendo Switch gamers can look forward to the game's release on July 14.
The physical edition of Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is currently available to pre-purchase (not pre-order) through XSEED's game story. The full game retails for $49.99. Purchases through XSEED's story will come with a cute Strawberry Hanako plushie toy. The pink cow plushie is also available through Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart in the US.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town will also be pre-purchasable digitally through the Nintendo eShop, but not yet. Fans will have to wait until closer to release. Pre-purchasing digitally through the Nintendo eShop will also allow buyers to pre-load the game so they can start playing as soon as Friends of Mineral Town goes live.
As a gift for Story of Seasons fans so excited for Friends of Mineral Town's release that they're willing to pre-purchase digitally, XSEED's offering the adorable cow costume. The cow costume is rather self-explanatory. It's a full outfit for Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town's main character that looks like a dairy cow. It even has cute yellow bandanna. Those unable to pre-purchase will be able to buy the cow costume separately post-launch for just $1.99.
For those unfamiliar with the Story of Seasons franchise or the Friends of Mineral Town release, it has an interesting backstory. Story of Seasons is actually the Harvest Moon franchise of life and farming simulation games. A licensing issue in 2014 led to the Story of Seasons rebranding.
Friends of Mineral Town isn't actually a new game, either. It's a 3D remake of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, which was released on the Game Boy Advance in 2003. Friends of Mineral Town is one of the most popular and successful Harvest Moon games, so Marvelous and XSEED are perhaps hoping to recapture that success. The more recent DX and 3DS Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons titles haven't been received anywhere near as well as titles from the GameCube era and prior.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town releases July 14 exclusively on Nintendo Switch.