He states that although this game is a remake, it is also a new game. Matsuyama goes into a lot of detail about this in his personal blog. He also recently worked on the character design for Little Dragons Cafe.
Igusa Matsuyama is the artist responsible for every entry in the main Bokujou Monogatari aka “Ranch Story” series (including FoMT, which carried over character designs from ’64 and Back to Nature wholesale), except for Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade. Good for him! But let’s take a minute to talk about some of the other villager changes. Rick received a serious glow-up, and honestly, I’m here for it. How Can You Marry Popuri And Not Feel Like A Pedophile? Popuri Comparison
This is a very small complaint, but I’m not convinced that starting the game with eight slots and being able to upgrade to a much larger capacity is necessary, especially since items will stack. You can see your inventory slots on-screen now, which is incredibly useful, and I’m thankful for that change. In Harvest Moon DS items in the inventory was stackable, which seemed really overpowered, honestly. That’s a lot, and items stack in the remake now, so I’m not sure how eight slots is necessary… except to make the game easier. In the remake, we have four tool slots, and eight item slots. Items didn’t stack in the original Friends of Mineral Town, so it was incredibly time-consuming if you were trying to make money in the mines, but you only have three item slots, and you have to keep throwing items away/traveling back-and-forth from the mine to your shipping bin. The second upgrade is available a week after purchasing the first upgrade, which is similar to the original game. There are two available upgrades, sold by Jeff at the Supermarket. In the original version of this game, your initial rucksack only holds two items, and you can carry one more in your hands, making the total three slots. Remember when I complained about how I would go crazy if they gave us three inventory slots again? They didn’t, but I’m still not happy about it. Overall, I’m not too happy at all with these easy-mode changes that have been made, and I’m not entirely sure what compelled Marvelous to remove certain aspects from the 2003 GBA release. I fell 20+ floors in the mine with 0 left in my stamina bar before passing out. It’s also significantly more difficult to pass out in this game.
I’ve since discovered that animals on your farm can’t die-if you don’t feed them, they’ll be just fine, they just won’t produce byproducts for a day or two. UPDATE: It’s been two weeks since the release, and in retrospect, the only change from this list that I’d keep is rival marriages being removed the other changes have grown on me and I like them. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (and the female version of the game) holds a very special place in my heart, as do most other games in the franchise, so I’ve decided to be whiny and petty and write an article about how discoverable they’ve made this remake, and how much easier it’s become. After the announcement of the Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town remake, I became increasingly curious of what changes, if any, would come to the remake.