Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a full remake of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town that both debuted on Game Boy Advance nearly two decades ago. It is the first mainline entry in the series to arrive on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam and an excellent game so far. With this being the first multi-platform launch for the franchise, it has been great seeing how a remake built for Nintendo Switch scales on PC with a few additional graphical features across my time spent with both versions over the last few days. Here’s what you need to know about Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town on both Nintendo Switch and PC.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Nintendo Switch vs PC graphics
Out of all the aspects of this remake, the new visuals are definitely a point of contention within the fanbase. While I was initially skeptical from the reveal screenshots, I only dislike some of the chibi character models and have grown to like the rest of the style. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town forgoes a pixel art style for clean 3D aesthetic with some post-processing like depth of field. The graphics aren’t amazing by any means but they look nice in motion alongside the new interface.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town was built for Nintendo Switch and it looks good both docked and handheld targetting the native resolution in both modes. I only noticed some minor flickering issues with shadows under certain situations and for bloom around light sources in the evening and night in-game. While these were noticeable on Nintendo Switch, they don’t really detract from overall experience.
On PC, these issues are non-existent and the game even has a depth of field toggle if you aren’t a fan of that effect. Given the simple art style, there really isn’t a huge difference between both versions when you look at how many other games run on both platforms. The developers have done an excellent job overall with both PC and Nintendo Switch.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Nintendo Switch vs PC frame rate
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town targets 60fps on Nintendo Switch and has no trouble hitting it. On PC, the situation is the same. There aren’t any frame rate settings in the graphics or display settings though. The game runs flawlessly at 60fps on my laptop with an Intel i7-4750HQ at 2.00 GHz, 8GB RAM, and a GTX 950M with 4GB VRAM on a 1080p display. There are no in-built options for render scale like Persona 4 Golden though.
Barring frame rate that is excellent on both platforms, load times are another aspect to consider. Thankfully, the situation is the same with load times on PC and Nintendo Switch. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is a very well-optimised game that has no trouble at all when it comes to load times and frame rate.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Nintendo Switch vs PC features
The content in Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town on both platforms is the same but given the additional input possibilities on PC, the Steam version has a few more features.
In addition to the visual options letting you tweak post-processing, the PC version is fully playable with mouse and keyboard controls if you’d prefer not using a controller. The PC version also has Steam achievements.
Having no touchscreen support is very disappointing in the Nintendo Switch version. The game has mouse controls and there is a virtual pointer when using the map on Nintendo Switch with the analog stick which makes the lack of touch support for the interface and inventory even more baffling.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Nintendo Switch vs PC price
While the Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town price is $49.99 in the US for both PC and Nintendo Switch, the pricing on PC is likely lower in many regions thanks to Valve’s recommended regional pricing.
In India, the PC version is priced at Rs. 1,099 on Steam while the Nintendo Switch version is only available digitally on the eShop at $49.99 (approximately Rs. 3,812).
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town Nintendo Switch vs PC – What to buy?
In most comparisons, the PC version ends up being the one to recommend because it is almost always cheaper and offers much better visuals and performance. For Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, both platforms are much closer and games like this often are suited more to portable play making the Nintendo Switch version a much better option.
If you don’t care about portability at all, get this on PC through the Steam version. When it comes to price, the PC version will be a much better option in many regions given regional pricing. Barring that, for Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, I’d go with the Nintendo Switch version for being able to play on TV and on the go seamlessly.
