Doraemon Story of Seasons Review (ClassicalCherg)
Once you get over the 65 minute tutorial hurdle, the game is a lovely, slow-paced farming simulator.
What you need to keep in mind going in to this game, is that it's based on an anime, so there is a LOT more dialogue than your typical SoS/HM game as the story is generally a bit richer. This pads out the tutorial a lot, hence you will see so many complaints about the elongated tutorial time.
The story itself is refreshing and beats the usual 'inheritance' and 'amnesia' tropes you always see in these games and the art direction is beautiful, with gorgeous watercolour effects used.
The game itself is a typical, basic farming simulator. Grow crops, tend animals, befriend the townspeople, go mining and fishing...you know the drill.
It's far slower-paced than other HM/SoS games but I like the pacing in this game far more, there's no real 'hurry' or sense of urgency with certain tasks and I love that. The addition of napping to refill a portion of your stamina is also great and honestly should be implemented in further instalments.
The one thing that is irking me a LOT in this game is the menu system. I hate that I have to go into the menu to see how much stamina I have left. I don't know whether this can be changed, but I'd prefer it to just be on the screen constantly. I also find that the lock-on/highlighting for plots/trees/weeds/rocks etc are very sensitive, meaning i have to stand in exactly the right place before it picks up that I want to plant/whack/hoe/etc something.
On a side-note, I've never been a fan of Doraemon's voice cast, I find it a bit grating in general, but I've turned voices off to combat this. Think very nasally, typical Japanese children's programming voice casts.
These things are not deal-breakers for me so I'll be continuing my Doraemon SoS journey.
For context, I have played a lot of HM/SoS games, my favourite being Harvest Moon: A Tale of Two Towns