Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town Reviews
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town continues the same charming cutesy aesthetic as its predecessors, although at times feels discombobulated in organisation. A decent enough farming management addition to the genre, the game features a depth of gameplay but is light on narrative. Prepare and expect to be in it for the long haul if you want to see any real results from your hard work.
Anyone who has played a Story of Seasons or Harvest Moon game will feel right at home with Pioneers of Olive Town. It doesn’t break any new ground for the series, and is perhaps a bit too slow paced for its own good, but it proves that the series’ core loop is still engaging and addicting even after so many years. If you have an itch for a charming game that will take you back to a simpler time, it’s definitely worth your time.
Overall, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a relaxing game where players can spend hours tending their farm without even realizing it. The experience never gets frustrating but there are a few design decisions that stop it from being great, mainly the machines that become time wasters while players wait for resources. The residents of Olive Town could be more interesting, but then the point of the game is to build a farm rather than socialize into the night. There are far worse farm sims out there, but this isn’t the best of them either.
For fans of the genre, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a great example of a life/farming sim at its finest. There’s a mixture of everything here: farming, town building, exploration, relationship building, fishing, cooking, crafting – and it’s all blended together so well. If you’ve got the time to sink into it and you’re looking for something seriously relaxing, you really can’t go wrong.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is everything you could want from a farming simulator, whether you are a beginner or a longtime player. After all these years, Marvelous Inc. and XSEED Games maintain their ability to capture the audience by making you feel like a farmer, regardless of your real-life personal experience.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is not exactly an example of innovation within the farming management genre, but it beautifully summarizes all the main qualities of the franchise in a charming and addictive way.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a stunning showcase of the classic Harvest Moon series, now available on PC. With its release on the platform, players can also purchase DLC for the game, with new areas to explore and customization options. The result may be cute, but it's not without its problems.
My fondest memory with my PlayStation 2 is buying games with my pocket money from Bromley Shopping Centre, whenever I went to visit my late grandparents in London. On one of those occasions, the game in question was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. I read the manual (I really wish games still had those!) front to back while I visited since I had to wait to get home until I could play.
Still, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town gets it right in all the important areas. The characters are definitely serviceable and are full of personality. I’m still absolutely in love with the aesthetic, and I can admit that I’ve definitely stayed up too long playing this game. It is missing any online functionality though, but if you are looking for a new solo farming game, definitely take a look at this one.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a bit far from reaching its fullness as the protagonist of a genre, but it is on the right path. In technical terms, its greatest merit is in the gameplay, especially due to the crafting elements, although it still suffered too much in the setting, narrative and game atmosphere.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Assuming that you're not playing this kind of game for the relationship aspects, Pioneers of Olive Town is a good farming RPG. It continues many of the long-established trends of the Harvest Moon series, whilst adding in some welcome quality of life improvements. Although perhaps not quite on Stardew Valley's level, this is still a game that is worth playing and one that genre fans will enjoy. As a bonus, thanks to it now being on PC you don't have to deal with the Switch version's various performance issues.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is an ambitious game that suffers from some technical shortcomings but has no shortage of content.
Though some flaws hold it back from greatness, this is a solid addition to the franchise.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has potential, some good ideas and a certain unfulfilled ambition hidden behind some layers of performance problems and strange game design choices. The game is fun enough as a farm simulator and will likely please fans enough, but certain issues are glaring and hinder the fun. Story of Seasons became more daring, but at the same time it forgot some basic elements. If you are very curious, at least wait for the updates, which will certainly improve the experience as a whole.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Pioneers of Olive Town is a good game, but it is hard to recommend when Stardew Valley continues to dominate the farming sim genre.
Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is the most barebones of a farming simulator. While updates have been promised to fix the technical issues and inject some life into it, it's not worth playing in its current state.
With promises from the game’s producer to support the game by patching more issues and DLC releases being staggered throughout the year, Pioneers of Olive Town will become a bountiful entry in the series. For now, despite its flaws, it’ll woo a sizeable portion of the series’ fanbase and hopefully blossom into a polished game before these farmers move to greener pastures.
A good game for tourists in the Story of Seasons franchise, although not the great place to live longtime fans would like.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Story of Seasons: Pionners of Olive Town is a nice game with rough edges. It's well tailored for younger players or gamers new to the genre.
Review in German | Read full review
There’s some good here. There’s some bad here. There are a few odd choices that don’t quite lend themselves well to the overall experience. If you don’t care about getting access to everything you can so you can become a mogul the experience is great. For me, I like options. I like being able to find that one niche for goods I thrive in and making it my focus.