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Welcome to Oak Tree Town.
And a new series name.

Story of Seasons (Bokujō Monogatari: Tsunagaru Shin Tenchinote ) is the 2014 installment in the Bokujō Monogatari (formerly localized as Harvest Moon) Farm Life Sim franchise for the Nintendo 3DS, developed by Marvelous and localized by XSEED Games. Due to former localization company Natsume owning the trademark for the Harvest Moon brand, Story of Seasons is the new international title outside of Japan from this title onwards. (More on the name change is explained here.)

As with most of the series' games, the story begins with your character moving to a farm to start a new life. Or as the opening puts it:

"One cold winter day, as you were going about your daily routine, you discovered an unassuming pamphlet in your mailbox:
NEW FARMERS WANTED!
Join us and help Oak Tree Town grow as you work the land!
It seemed so different — a world apart from the life you'd been living. But at the same time, it held the promise of being just what you needed to shake up your life and find the direction you'd been looking for.
That same day, you wrote up an application and submitted it to the address on the back of the pamphlet — a small hamlet called Oak Tree Town.
One week later, you received a letter of congratulations. It turned out you had been selected as Oak Tree Town's newest up-and-coming farmer!
As you packed your things that day and arranged travel to Oak Tree Town, you felt the buzz of excitement at the opportunity you'd been given. You don't know what awaits you out in the countryside, but you can't wait to find out!"

You have your work cut out for you when you arrive: your home high up in the mountain is a disused shack in need of repairs, your field is full of rocks and overgrown trees, and the town's economy has all but dried up due to lack of trade. But your next door neighbor, Eda, is willing to show you the ins and outs of farm life. You'll have to farm, fish, forage, and develop your land if you want to revitalize local trade—and you'll also have to develop your relationships with the townsfolk (and the magical beings who have taken up residence near your farm) if you want to truly bring the town back to life. You may even discover the spark of romance with one of the villagers!

Along the way you can customize your avatar, renovate your home, and decorate parts of town. You'll raise crops, take care of animals, and explore the charming world of Oak Tree Town. Complete challenges for the visiting merchants, participate in festivals, win cooking and fashion contests — show the world that you've got what it takes to be the best farmer in the valley.

The game was released in Japan on February 27, 2014 (and in the Nintendo E-Shop on June 24 of the same year), in the US on March 31, 2015, and in the EU on December 31, 2015. The game was followed in 2016 (2017 worldwide) by Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns.

Tropes you can pass the seasons with include:

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    # to C 

  • 100% Completion: The 'Trophies' option on the bookshelf in your farmhouse allows you to keep track of this. There are dozens of trophies to unlock. In order to achieve them all, you will need to keep your farm going for at least thirty years (in game).
  • Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
  • Adapted Out: Certain features in the EU version. Wines can be made and sold but not drunk, and Turtle Stew can't be made at all; soft-shell turtles aren't even allowed to be stored as food/fish and have to be stored like bugs in the general storage. The Variety Channel also doesn't exist.
  • Affectionate Nickname:
    • Once you confirm a romance with another character by the giving of a promise ring, you can select a pet name for him or her to call you. You can continue with the same name or change it after your wedding.
    • In the non-romantic vein, Fritz fondly addresses Madam Eda as "Granny" despite not being her grandson.
  • Ageless Birthday Episode: Everyone in town has a birthday (and gifting them their favorite thing that day will grant a 3000 point boost in friendship). But no one will get any older with the exception of your children after a certain point. Veronica laments getting older, but she doesn't. Your spouse, once you're married will also celebrate your birthday, and you theirs—and you can celebrate your children's birthdays.
  • All or Nothing: You don't win any awards for less than first place at the festivals and contests. You get 500 relationship points with everyone, but you get that much for a decent gift. And for someone trying to get all the recipes and blueprints that are contest only, second place might as well be fourth.
  • Americans Are Cowboys: Wheat Country has natives dressed as cowboys and the booth displays a blue and red rug with white stars on it as part of its stand. The merchant talks with a stereotypical Dixie Accent.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes:
    • The rewards from winning the Spring or Fall Fashion Shows are patterns to make various outfits.
    • Speaking to the vendor of Sakura Country at exactly 17:55 (5:55 pm) will let him offer to sell you the Dragon Tee Outfit for 5500g. (This is likely a reference to Dragon being the fifth animal in the Eastern Zodiac.)
    • High friendship with Witchie will unlock the pattern for the Witch Clothes pattern at Mistel's shop. This makes a replica of the Witch Princess's outfit from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning.
    • High friendship with Dessie nets you the the White Habit, which looks like the habit Alisa wears from her debut game, Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness.
  • And Your Reward Is Parenthood: If you get married, you and your spouse will eventually be blessed with a pair of male and female twins if you have all the prerequisites.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • Tilling the ground to plant crops has you till it in a 3x3 square. Watering, fertilizing, and harvesting also work on the same 3x3 square mechanic, meaning that you can work more crops more quickly.
    • One bag of seed for the majority of plants gives nine crops at once when harvested, making money making much easier rather than it being one-for-one.
    • The watering can finally has an on-screen meter to show how full it is. In the same vein, a meter appears and fills up while milking dairy-producing livestock.
    • Once you acquire a horse, you can ride it anywhere. This is very helpful for getting to and from the specialty crop fields without knocking down your stamina.
    • Seedling Mode is this in a nutshell. The stamina cost of using tools is halved, all products that you can buy cost 30% less, and the number of products you need to sell in order to unlock the last two Trade Depot vendors are reduced by 30%.
    • Previous games had fruit tree seedlings for sale only on the season during which the tree usually bears fruit. Due to the time trees take to grow (at least one season), that made players unable to have any kind of fruit before the year following the one during which the seedling became available. In this one, the seedlings can be purchased outside of their tree's flowering season, which allows the player to get fruit as early as the first summer instead of having to wait for the second spring to get fruit from a tree purchased three seasons ago.
  • Anti Poop-Socking: If you talk to talk to Kamil while wearing glasses, he might lean on the fourth wall and say this:
    '''Hmm, do you need those glasses, though? If so, you shouldn't play video games so much. Take a break once every hour.
  • "Arabian Nights" Days: The little we see of Silk Country makes it look like that sort of setting. The cart is pulled in by an elephant, the merchant's skin tone is expected from a Middle Eastern/SWANAnote  native, and the stand is gold with dashes of bright colors. Additionally, the Streets of the World feature on Silk Country paints a picture of a city with both outdoor bazaars lined with a variety of stalls and a huge indoor market with many types of shops.
  • Artificial Stupidity: If you talk to an NPC in another character's walkway, they'll always try walking through the NPC for a couple of seconds before going around you.
  • But Thou Must!: During any of the tutorial events, you can't leave the area until you finish doing whatever Eda (or anyone else who might be teaching you) has instructed you to do.
  • Call to Agriculture: According to the game book, you were living a perfectly satisfactory life in the big city when you learned about the vacancy in Oak Tree Town and jumped at it.
  • Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Once you upgrade your house enough, it includes a bathroom where you can optionally use the toilet or take a bath for a small restoration of Stamina. Your character will comment on the action, but at no time is it ever required to do either one.
  • The Cat Came Back: Once you acquire a horse, it becomes a living Clingy MacGuffin. It constantly wants to be near you. This is handy in some respects, as it makes the creature difficult to lose, but it can be downright annoying when trying to attend to other livestock in the same barn.
  • Cheap Gold Coins: The standard of currency in Oak Tree Town. Purchases and sales are measured in G, for gold. By contrast, the three kinds of coins (shiny, old, and regular) you can find while fishing or foraging are not good as currency, and can in fact be sold for gold.
  • Cherry Blossoms: During the month of Spring, cherry petals will occasionally blow across the screen.
  • Chocolate of Romance:
    • Lillie and Elise both have different chocolate-based dishes as their best-loved gift—chocolate ice cream and chocolate fondue respectively.
    • On Valentine's Day, female characters can gift all the bachelors chocolate treats for a boost in friendship/relationship, and unmarried male players will receive chocolate as gifts from any bachelorettes they gifted on White Day and/or who have enough friendship with them.
    • Averted with Kamil, who despises all sweets—Chocolate Cake is actually his horror gift. He'll only take chocolate items as relationship boosts on Valentine's Day, which is more out of politeness than anything.
  • Clean, Pretty Childbirth: The birth of your children isn't seen, regardless of whether you're the male or female player; the camera focuses on the father who's off pacing in the lobby, and only comes to the back room after the twins have been cleaned up and are ready to be named.
  • Commonplace Rare:
    • In the beginning, bricks can be this. Until you unlock the vendor who sells them, acquiring them is a Luck-Based Mission.
    • Inverted with precious gems, which are comparatively easy to find by diving. Once you unlock Agate and start visiting the Safari Park with its free public mine, becoming wealthy through the acquisition and sale of gems and ores is a no-brainer. But you'll still need the bricks to upgrade your house.
  • Competition Freak: Elise and Giorgio both seem to be this, judging by their reactions to the beginning of the Land Conquest competition between the farmers.
  • Conflict Ball: The two older love interests have these with their flower events.
    • Klaus's final flower event has you reacting badly to seeing him and Iris together, despite them always being together and you never having a problem with it until now.note 
    • Iris' final flower event has you visit her and Iris blurting out that she wants to break up with you, because she thinks you are wonderful and would be happier with someone else. Whatever your answer is, Iris admits that she wasn't being serious. She was merely acting out a scene for her latest novel, trying to get rid of some writer's block.

    D to H 
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: A minor example. Although your entire inventory can be accessed by pressing X or touching the icon on the touch screen, you can access a short list of your tools and seeds by pressing the right 'shoulder button' of your DS. The tools are always listed in the same order, which makes it easy to become used to pushing the up and down arrows a specific number of times to equip those tools. But if you add more tools, you can equip the wrong thing - which can be frustrating if you want to fertilize your crops and accidentally pull out a balloon.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Elise has five rivalry scripted events which you can complete as your friendship strengthens. You help her become a better farmer, and she in turn gains greater respect for you. Eda, Giorgio, and Fritz, your other rivals, also have scripted events related to your friendship. Completing all of the events for each character unlocks trophies on your bookshelf.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • If you rush your way to getting into a formal relationship before the first winter when Eda dies, Eda's congratulations will mention she'd like to see your future children someday.
    • Given that several components of outfits like the mascot costumes won't have their components or patterns available until later years in the game, it's not typical for a player to be able to wear certain outfits in front of Eda as she dies by the start of the first winter. However if you do get them—such as being gifted by another player via multiplayer—before then, she has commentary on them programmed in.
      Eda (if you're wearing the Penguin Costume): ...You're <player>, right? That's a cute outfit, but where did you get it?
    • When you upgrade your house from the basic shack to the first level, your first barn is added on at no extra cost. Shortly after, Eda—the farmer that trains you—brings you Hanako, the cow you trained with, for free. She also walks you through basic cow care. If you somehow manage to not upgrade your place until after Eda dies in Winter Year 1, then it's Guild Master Veronica who brings you Hanako instead—having held on to her until you had your barn as Eda wanted you to have her, and asking you to care for her in Eda's memory. The flavor text after Hanako is received even changes slightly.
    • Should Eda have possession of any of the rival fields in the fall before she dies, there is a special scene where Veronica will call you to the guild and let you know Eda's letting go of the field(s) she has and allows Veronica to register any of them to you. Doubles as Foreshadowing as after she dies, she'll bequeath her entire farmland to you.
    • While the wife of the married couple is giving birth, her husband is off to the side, pacing and panicking; when the baby is heard crying, he darts towards the delivery bed, only for Angela (the nurse) to tell him to wait because the delivery isn't finished (as the "baby" ends up being a surprise set of boy and girl twins) and only when they're both born does she come and get him to let him know. However, if Angela is the one giving birth, then it's the head doctor Marian who shoos the male player away and then walks over to let him know about the twins. Obviously she would be too occupied to do so.
    • If you're married to either Fritz or Elise and challenge them for a public field, they'll bring up your being married to them—and how that won't change them trying their hardest to beat you anyways. They'll also have unique dialogue if you manage to negotiate them out of it.
    • If a blizzard or typhoon hits during the day of a field challenge, the challenge will be cancelled and you'll have to go back the next day to reapply. You shouldn't be out in this weather!
    • If you and your spouse have the same birthday, the dialogue for your birthday event will be slightly different so that you share your birthday dinner.
  • Dialogue Tree: The romance/flower events and special random events that you can trigger in the game play out as cutscenes with limited dialogue trees. Your answers don't affect the plot or overall events of the game, only your friendship level with the other characters.
  • The Ditz: In the cutscene where you first learn to fish, Otmar forgets what your name was for a second, then apologizes and says its because his "head was in the clouds"
  • Dub Name Change: Averted. XSEED Games was originally going to give characters new names, but switched it back to the translated Japanese names after listening to fan feedback. Inverted with Kamil and Licorice, the two characters returning from Tale of Two Towns, whose names are changed back to their original Japanese names from the Natsume-translated "Cam" and "Reina".
  • Equipment Upgrade: When you first move to town, Eda gives you a hoe, a watering can, an axe, a hammer, a milker, and a brush. All of these (along with the sickle, fishing rod, pitchfork, and wool clippers you buy at the general store ) are "Old Style" tools: the most stamina-depleting, inefficient tools in the game. You'll have to purchase blueprints and scavenge for materials to upgrade them to Normal Style, then Copper Style, then in sequence Silver Style, Gold Style, Master Style, Orichalcum Style, and finally Philosopher Style tools.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles:
    • Using fertilizer on crops (or perfume on the beehives) creates a shower of sparkles.
    • Creating an item combo on your farm while in "Edit Mode" results in the items that make up the combo giving off sparkles, accompanied by text that gives you a clue as to the combo's effects. Creating a jewelry combo while changing your character's outfit results in sparkles appearing around the accessories panel in the clothing menu.
    • Giorgio has a unique character portrait surrounded by roses and sparkles when he talks about beautiful things - interacting with him after events/contests and on sunny days has about a one-in-three chance of triggering the portrait and accompanying dialogue.
    • Walking and running over the dirt paths between your farm and the town results in little puffs of dirt and grass clippings kicked up behind your character. Walking over the snow in wintertime creates a trail of sparkles.
  • Express Delivery: After marriage and once the house is large enough at two stories, the female half of the pair will feel ill and go to the clinic with her husband, and they'll be informed by Marian that there's thirty days until the baby (that they didn't know about before then) will be born. The time from marriage to learning about the pregnancy is determined by the expense of the wedding, with 30 days for a cheap wedding, 20 days for a modest wedding, and only 15 days after you're hitched if the most expensive wedding is done. Regardless, there's 30 days—a little less than a season—before the babies are actually born. You can in theory be/get your wife pregnant a mere two weeks after you get hitched and be parents only about a season after you find out.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The game has stand-ins for real life countries that come as the vendors.
    • Silk Country is a Middle Eastern country mixed with India in a form of "Arabian Nights" Days.
    • Wheat Country is Cowboy-themed America. Vendor Kenneth wears a cowboy hat and an outfit helpfully labelled "Cowboy Outfit."
      Streets of the World Reporter: -this week, we're going to Wheat Country! As the name suggests, here we are in a sea of wheat. Yep, nothing but wheat. Look, there's a field. And… another field. Annnd another field. Just wheat, from horizon to horizon. Nobody else here. I don't even see any houses.
    • Sakura Country is Japan pictured as the Far East.
    • Cabin Country is Switzerland, stereotyped as Yodel Land.
    • Rose Country is Western Europe in a combination of France and the United Kingdom, with a kilt-wearing vendor who sells you wine and other luxury goods.
      Streets of the World Reporter: What do you think of when you hear "Rose Country?" Old rustic houses, cute, fashionable stores, rivers flowing everywhere, and of course, flower gardens, right?
    • Ice Country appears to be Russia or another country bordering the arctic circle. It's a frigid landscape with sleigh rides and polar bears, and the vendor Katrina wears a long, fur-lined coat and an ushanka.
      Streets of the World Reporter: Welcome to Streets of the World. Get your coats! Today, we're going to Ice Country! I'm Leela, and I'll do my best to guide you through this winter... wonderland. Now, the first thing you need to know about Ice Country: It's cold. So cold I need to get indoors right now.
    • Tropical Country is somewhere tropical, such as Hawaiʻi, Tahiti, or another similar Pacific island culture. Vendor Yolanda wears a "Tropical Pareo" and sells items like banana, mango, and pineapple seeds as well as the only fishing pole upgrade.
  • Fantasy Metals: Alongside the traditional platinum, gold, silver, copper, and gemstones, numerous fantasy metals can be found at the mining point. Later in the game, they can also be bought from the traders in the depot:
    • Orichalcum: Necessary to create the Orichalcum Style hoe and watering can, which perform better than the platinum-based Master Style tools but not as well as the Philosopher Style tools.
    • Mithril: Treated more as a gem than as an ore, and required for crafting several high-end garden decorations and some jewelry (but not much else).
    • Adamantite: Treated more as a gem than as an ore, and required for crafted some high-end garden decorations and jewelry (but not much else).
    • Philosopher's Stone: Treated as an ore in the game, and necessary to create the ultimate Philosopher style tools. It's essentially useless for anything besides crafting and can be found for free at the mining point and purchased for 777,777 G from the Ice Country vendor, but only has a resale value of 1 G.
  • Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: In a minor cross over with Super Mario Bros., there are the Mystery Seeds from Wheat Country. They take up a whole field alone and will either grow into a Fire Flower, Super Mushroom, or Super Star (which isn't known until fully grown). When picked, they have a different effect on the regular plants around them: Fire Flowers clear out any wilted plants and boost the star quality of healthy ones, Super Mushrooms boost the growth cycle two stages (which can allow cycling crops to give a new harvest) and add six to the crop yield, and the Super Star makes crops around it last fresh for longer.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook:
    • When the Harvest sprites introduce themselves to Witchie, each states their name and their skill. The Girly Girl of the Harvest Sprites, Pepita, mentions cooking as her job.
    • Averted with Iris—she's one of the most feminine bachelorettes and is a terrible cook.
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: After Eda's death, nobody ever mentions her ever again. Almost. If you have children, once they are old enough, there's a line of dialogue with your son where he mentions the villagers told him about the old lady who taught you farming. Also, once you unlock all seven vendors, Veronica will invite you to a party in the Trade Depot with the other farmers and vendors, where she remarks that she wishes Madam Eda were here to see what you've accomplished. Afterwards you'll receive a letter in the mail from Eda that she wrote in advance.
  • Far East: Anything you consider typically Japanese? Sakura Country probably has it. Rice, bamboo, cherry tree branches, blueprints for a chicken coop designed to look like a pagoda... Additionally, the Streets of the World feature on Sakura Country begins with the host in a busy metropolitan city, but after taking the subway a little ways away she finds herself swept up in a parade filled with portable shrines and women in yukatas.
  • Fetch Quest: An optional side activity. As the game progresses, the different vendors can post requests for specific crops, foods, fish, and other items you can grow/catch/make. There is no time limit on fulfilling a quest once you take it, and the rewards are usually pretty good.
  • Fishing for Sole: Occasionally you'll run across a boot, can, or fish bones while fishing. They're all trash, but the vendors will pay minute amounts for them.
  • Fishing Minigame: During your first summer, Otmar will give you a rod and teach you to use it. You can fish off any dock by equipping the rod. note 
  • Floral Theme Naming: Several of the love interest characters have flower or plant names. Iris and Lillie (lily) are the most obvious; Kamil's name shares its origin with the camellia flower; Mistel is German for mistletoe; and Licorice is the root of a plant which provides a sweet extract. Nadi also counts in a roundabout way, as he shares his name with a region in the very floral islands of Fiji.
  • Flower Motif: As noted elsewhere, the color of the flower on a potential love interest's speech bubble indicates the level of your friendship. Additionally, once you have confirmed a relationship with one of them, he or she adds a small white flower next to the colored one, as a symbol of their status.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Harvest Moon players realized very quickly that Eda would most likely die within the first year, since the game series had already done this kind of thing several times in past games. Those who never played Harvest Moon games and came into this game blind, however, were taken painfully by surprise.
  • Foreshadowing: In your first autumn, Eda will complain frequently about aches when it rains. She also stops traveling into town and attending festivals. If your friendship and rivalry level with her is high enough, you have a scripted event in which she talks about getting older and how perhaps someday you'll take care of her farm. Then, when winter comes, she dies on the first day.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • It's quite possible for Fritz to have ownership of a public field, not grow anything on it (as he only grows specific crops, and only per season, and doesn't fill the field) and yet be standing in the field, watering can out, wondering if he's watered the space that's full of nothing.
    • During nasty storms or typhoons, everyone stays inside to avoid the bad weather including your spouse. However if you say, pop down to Mistel's shop or Raeger's restaurant while married to them, they will pop behind the counter long enough to sell you whatever and then pop right back home.
  • Girls Love Chocolate: A lot of the female bachelorettes and villagers like chocolate dishes and foods. For Lillie and Elise chocolate dishes are their most favorite food (Chocolate Ice Cream and Chocolate Fondue respectively), and chocolate dishes are also highly liked by Corona, Melanie, the otherwise uptight Margot, the female nature Sprite Pepita, and your daughter. Two of the few that defy this are Iris (who only likes chocolate dishes for neutral levels) and Dessie the young Nature Goddess, who only likes desserts based on her favorite crops (and that doesn't include chocolate).
  • Going Through the Motions: The character animations, most of which are carried over from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, are limited and exaggerated.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • The Trade Depot vendors are progressively unlocked depending on what you ship and how much of it you ship, and the game never tells you the specifics. The first four unlocked vendors are primarily based on money made and passage of seasons,note  but the last two are much more difficult. Ice Country requires shipping hundreds of different farm decoration items, while Tropical Country requires shipping up to tens of thousands of farm-produced goods. The game also neglects to tell you that this is the primary goal of the game: New Game Plus unlocks when you've finally unlocked every merchant. Your only hint to this in game is that Ennio will say after he arrives from Rose Country arrives that you should try shipping things besides farm products, and Keith from Wheat Country will suggest that you ship more "beautiful" things. The game also doesn't track any of this for you.
    • Many of the patterns you can create in your Sewing Studio require colors of "yarn +", but the game doesn't explain what "yarn +" actually is. An animal whose hair can be spun into yarn will produce "+ quality" hair once it has spent at least 100 hours grazing in the Safari Park. Also once an animal produces Plus-quality product, it will only produce plus-quality and won't ever revert back to standard or produce them on the side. And plus products can't be subbed in place of regular needs, either. If something calls for wool, wool-plus isn't going to work.
    • After you cut down trees on your farm, you're left with stumps, which interfere with the placement of objects and the movement of livestock. There is no hint of how to remove them; you have to hit them with your axe once or twice for an additional bit of lumber.
    • There is no indication that jumping on fences or other places around town have a chance to give you items. Certain areas where you can jump will have a chance of a random item drop.
    • Early in the game, you can find twigs and weeds, and the latter in particular seems to be nothing more than Shop Fodder. Then you get the Seed Maker facility and discover that they're the most inexpensive way to get fertilizer for your farm. Hoard your early foraging finds!
    • Regarding the Seed Maker, you need some basics to build it—which includes 5 Turnip Seeds, which are only sold in the spring. Many players have gotten the blueprint after using all their turnip seeds, meaning they have to wait until the spring to get what they need to build the facility.
    • Perfumes. You can make them yourself if you have the Seed Maker facility (in the same machine that makes fertilizer), or receive them as birthday gifts from Klaus if your friendship level is high enough. But the game doesn't clarify what they actually do; you can't use them on your avatar as you would use perfume in real life. They're another form of fertilizer, but specifically for bees and get fed into beehives in the same fashion that treats get fed to the livestock and pets. The different perfumes affect the honey productivity of your bees.
    • Colored Flower events. To advance your romance arc with several eligible bachelors or bachelorettes, you will also need to improve your friendship level with specific other villagers with whom your chosen love interest is close in some way. For instance, if you reach the level needed for the Pink Flower level with Agate, you also need to advance your friendship with her best friend Lillie to the Purple Flower level in order for your romance with Agate to proceed. Melanie in particular is a linchpin for several romances - strong friendship with her is required if you want to romance Lillie, Kamil, or Nadi.
    • Livestock, in one respect, are very much this trope. No matter how diligent you are in caring for your animals, they will eventually die of old age in about five years. You're given exactly one hint in the game at this—and it's a disclaimer screen that only shows up one time when you get your very first animal in your very first save. Other than that, nothing in the game will prepare you for this; if you purchased your copy of the game used, you get no warning at all.
    • Hats come with set hairstyles that can't be changed. If you put on a hat, you will have the hairstyle it goes with and can't pair it with any other style.
    • Jewelry: If you wear the right three pieces, you can get bonuses such as a faster swimming pace or automatic regeneration of stamina over time. Full details are at the bottom of this page, but the game itself doesn't tell you about it, only a sparkle and what happens once you have the combination.
    • There's no indication in game where cooking recipes come from, and you can't experiment to get them. While Raeger will teach you a series by dining at his restaurant enough times and some can be purchased as sets from vendors, there are several that are random rewards for winning festivals. Some of them require you have obtained other sets before you get that one. And some recipes only come from wandering salespeople, and you have to hope they have that particular recipe when they show up—save scumming only works the day before to try and force a recipe. So for example, if you want Angela to reverse propose to you (which takes gifting her most favorite thing 30 times), you have to hope Susanne eventually comes by with the Fall Herb Tea recipe at some point so you can start making it.
    • The hidden Dragon Tee outfit requires you to speak to the vendor of Sakura Country at exactly 17:55 (5:55 pm), whereupon he'll sell it to you for 5500g. (This is likely a reference to Dragon being the fifth animal in the Eastern Zodiac.)
    • If you talk to Veronica at the Guild hall after the start of Fall, Agate will introduce herself, and thereafter she can help you shuttle your animals to the Safari Park to graze and up the quality of their byproducts. You can also just hop on your horse and ride there using the teleporting horse stalls, but you won't have the option of taking your animals to the park unless you go with Agate.
  • Happily Married: Gunther and Corona, who run the carpentry shop, are this, and Veronica and Madam Eda seem to have been this with their late husbands. Should you elect to romance and marry one of the eligible characters, you become this. Unless you decide to be a dick to them.
  • Heroic Mime: NPCs can speak at length and are accompanied by character portraits when they speak. The player character is limited to communication through the wild gesticulation of their model and a few short responses from the limited dialogue trees found only in special events, with no character portraits.
  • Hitbox Dissonance: Dragonflies suffer from this, with their catch area sometimes being vastly different than where the bug actually is on the screen.
  • Human Cannonball: After purchasing the blueprint from Rose Country, you can build a cannon that launches you from your farm into town or vice versa. That being said, there's a chance that you'll land off target and end up somewhere in between.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: More justified than most examples; eating food simply restores stamina, rather than healing wounds.

    I to N 
  • In-Game TV: Once you build the television, you can tune in to three different channels; each shows a different program every day. To avoid missing anything good, it's recommended that the player check each channel daily.
    • The weather channel features Lillie giving you the details about the forecast for both the current day and the following day.
    • The Oak Tree Channel provides tips to make farming easier and more fun. It has a recurring program, Oak Tree Life, which reveals details about the residents of Oak Tree Town, and Giorgio’s Gorgeous Farm Life, which includes tips from Giorgio.
    • The Variety Channel shows a number of serial programs, including a fantasy adventure saga, a few kids' shows, a travelogue, and a well-written murder mystery. These programs are shown in a loop; once the final episode of a program airs, it starts again from the beginning.
  • In-Universe Game Clock: For every second in real life, a minute passes in the game. Time is suspended whenever you update your journal, build/craft things, watch television, view your inventory, or interact with vendors. The time also uses the 24-hour clock, just like the system it's on.
  • Inconsistent Dub:
  • Inner Monologue: The Player Character has one, in Cut Scenes.
  • An Interior Designer Is You:
    • You can upgrade your home and build new furnishings, flooring, and wallpaper for it, so long as you purchase the necessary blueprints and acquire the materials. An editing table inside the house lets you arrange the furniture, as well as the other buildings on your farm, however you like.
    • An Exterior Designer Is You as well. As more traders come to the town through your efforts, Veronica will want the town to be as attractive as possible, and gives you full reign over the landscaping in more and more parts of town.
  • Insistent Terminology:
    • This game (as well as Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns and Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns), changed the Heart Events to "Flower" events, with the characters having flowers on their text boxes to show their levels of affection rather than a series of heart colors.
    • Owing to "Harvest Sprites" now being Natsume's term, the little sprites are now called "Nature Sprites." Dessie is also never called a harvest goddess, instead being called a nature goddess.
  • Item Crafting:
    • You'll need to do this whenever you want to add furniture, buildings, or decorative touches to your farm.
    • Once you install a kitchen in your house, you can purchase recipes and cook various meals. This is required to unlock many of the trophies, and the more you cook, the better quality of food you can produce.
    • In order to progress in a romance with any character past the Purple Flower Scene, you must craft a promise ring to give them. You'll need silver and fluorite, and the ring can only be made in the Sewing Studio at the accessory bench. The Sewing Studio also allows you to make clothing for the annual fashion competitions, as well as outfits you can wear.
    • After you construct a Winery on your farm, you can take the fruit from your fruit trees and ferment them into wines. Adding a Cheese Factory lets you turn your cows' milk into regular or flavored cheeses, butter, and mayonnaise. A Pottery Studio lets you make flower pots, cups, and other clay items. The Spice Factory allows you to turn certain ingredients into condiments, such as jelly and soy sauce, and grind wheat or rice into flour.
  • Large Ham: The guest judges of the assorted competitions (cooking, fashion, etc.) all have some of this going on, in one way or another. It's Played for Laughs, of course, and they're all that much more memorable for it.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: The flower colors indicate your level of affection with the bachelors or bachelorettes. By raising their affection, their flower color changes starting at white and going to red for true love. There's also an extra flower if you're dating or married to them.
  • Limited Wardrobe: You're the only person who ever changes clothes; everyone else wears the same thing all the time forever. The only outfit changes for anyone are temporary changes for your wedding, where you and your spouse alone will wear fancy clothes. But, for example, Raeger's going to wear his waiter uniform to your wedding as your guest.
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch: Elise, post character development. She's not nice, but she's at least tolerable.
  • Love Interests: Twelve of them - six men and six women. But you can only woo the opposite sex.
  • Luck-Based Mission: Every contest has a bit of this. Even if you perform perfectly in every aspect, there's a chance you'll end up losing simply because the game didn't favour you. The fishing contest is probably the worst offender: it actively weighs the scales against you. There are only three usable fishing spots (as you can't put the fishing rod away, you can't swim across to the fourth). There are four competitors, but, thankfully, one of your opponents always occupies the inaccessible spot. However, when the timer starts, they are already in position at one of the fishing spots, while you're just outside Oak Tree Town. Not only do you have to waste precious time seeking out the only vacant dock, if you're unlucky enough that the spot on Eda's farm is the only available fishing spot, you'll waste an in-game hour just getting there. It's a wonder your character hasn't complained to the Guild. And you better have bait handy: the only way to slightly even up the odds is to bait every fishing spot, and that's still no guarantee of victory: even early in the game, your opponents can catch over twenty fish, or fish four meters long!
  • Mistaken for Servant: The scripted event which introduces you to Elise has you dragged off from the woods by her manservant Sam who accuses you of wandering off from your job, and then her ordering you to carry a vase and drawers to her room. Two of her actual servants arrive after you do it, and they're more upset by it than you or Elise are—though she's pretty upset you wandered in without permission.
  • Mistaken for Stray: Twice, with two different bachelors:
    • Fritz in his white flower event will come across a dog in town. Fritz instantly assumes the dog has no owner and that he'll take it in, and tries to rename it. The dog attacks Fritz in irritation, and then his owner calls for him.
    • Kamil's yellow flower event has him find a stray cat which he may ask the player for name options for. Selecting Margaret reveals that this is actually the cat's name—and that it does have an owner.
  • Money Sink: Blueprints for buildings and furnishings, patterns for the Sewing Studio, recipes to cook in the kitchen... purchasing all of these eventually unlocks trophies. You're also apparently the only one capable of expanding the Safari Park, which requires accumulations of materials as well as gold. Additionally, if you want to have a really big wedding, you've got to save up one million gold for the best option, wherein the whole village attends and you get the most gifts. And just in case you otherwise happen to run out of things to do with your income, there's an annual fireworks show which relies on your donations to fund it to the nicest levels.
  • Mood Dissonance: Given that you can wear any outfit once you have it—be it gifted to you by other players or made yourself—this can happen with your presence in a scene. You can break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend while wearing a ridiculous animal mascot costume, propose to them while wearing a nun's dress, go on a romantic date in something completely improper, or be in a whimsical magical girl dress when you're called to Eda's bedside before she dies.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • High friendship with Witchie will unlock the pattern for the Witch Clothes pattern at Mistel's shop, which makes a replica of the Witch Princess's outfit from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning.
    • The White Habit that you can make once you're at high friendship with Dessie looks like the habit Alisa wears from her debut game, Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness.
    • The Dashing Prince Uniform resembles Amir's outfit from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning.
    • The Magical Girl Costume and Pink Mini Hat is Michelle's outfit from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning.
    • A sad one, but when Eda passes, her last words are "I truly had a wonderful life." Which is the only game that ends with your character's death—showing that her story is over.
  • News Travels Fast:
    • Within moments of you starting a formal relationship, everyone in town knows and will comment on it the first time you see them for a week. Same with your engagement.
    • Even if you first met the sprites all on the same day, when you meet Pepita, she'll refer to you as "that human".
    • Everyone learns about Eda's passing so quickly that the funeral is held the same day with everyone in town attending.
  • New Game Plus: After unlocking all seven Trade Depot vendors, starting a new game allows the player the choice of starting a new game with 1) 50,000 gold, 2) 10,000 friendship points with all of the villagers, or 3) nothing.
  • New Season, New Name: Story of Seasons is a video game version of this trope for the formerly known Harvest Moon series. It's still called Bokujō Monogatari in Japan and the next in the series, but due to changes in American distribution, the new Western title of the franchise is Story of Seasons while Natsume holds the rights to the Harvest Moon name and has used it to make their own games.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: This game has almost no plot outside of scripted events and romance arcs; you signed up to start a farm, your application was approved, and that's it. Unlike its Harvest Moon predecessors, in which the protagonist needs to do specific tasks, the protagonist of this game is free to do whatever to their heart's content with no time limit or stakes of any kind once the tutorial's complete.
  • Not Allowed to Grow Up: Melanie and Lutz never get any older, even if you play a file for the in-game thirty years; they're forever children. Your children also won't age past about the early school age level, slightly younger than Melanie and Lutz; once they reach that stage (a little more than a year after their birth), they stay there forever as well.

    P to S 
  • Parental Bonus:
    • If the player is married to Mistel, some mornings he'll say he heard you saying his name in your sleep last night and wonders what you were dreaming.
    • This is a little piece caused by Gameplay and Story Segregation. Mistel's festival victory dialogue, if you're in a relationship with or married to him, has him talk about celebrating your victory later in the evening. Outside of your respective birthdays, the two of you can not dine together until after you're married. Maybe he was thinking of another way to celebrate...
    • In her love confession, Iris tells you that she has plenty of "experience" as an older woman, and can teach you much. Proposing to her has her mention that she's an 'adult' woman and has a 'lot of experience'.
    • Klaus may make a remark about "other activities" you can do at home, and invites you to come and visit if you want to know what exactly he's talking about. His "How were your dreams, and did they include me?" line can be interpreted as less than innocent. He also, during the second event of his romance arc, may tell you that if you keep being so sweet to all the men, you're going to get eaten by a big bad wolf on your way home one day.
    • If you marry Agate, her dialogue after dinner has her suggesting taking a bath together and washing each other's backs. The implications are obvious.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: During the birth event, the woman of the pair will be in the back off screen giving birth, while the man paces back and forth in the front part of the clinic outside of the room.
  • Permanently Missable Content: While there is no hurry to complete the conditions for most events, if you want to see Eda's three rivalry events, you have to do it before the first day of winter.
  • Playing Hard to Get: Implied. Elise is the one of the most difficult bachelorettes to court; you have to see all of her Rival events as well as her Flower events, of which she has five instead of the usual four. Doesn't help her status as a Base-Breaking Character with the fandom.
  • Pet Interface: You can purchase livestock and pets to raise. With the exception of your starting cow Hanako, who is a gift from Madam Eda, you can give the animals any name you like consisting of six letters or fewer. You must feed the animals, groom them, and show them affection, and you can arrange to breed them through one of the vendors.
  • Playable Epilogue: The game "ends" after you get married, and runs credits again after you unlock all seven vendors. You can resume playing after the credits.
  • Protagonist Without a Past: Apart from the fact that you left the city to become a farmer, and you apparently have wanted to be one since you were a child, you will never learn anything about the life you abandoned to move to Oak Tree Town. You have no known family or contacts from your earlier years, not even mentioning parents.
  • Pun:
    • Try giving Klaus a present wrapped in his preferred blue or black ribbon. He asks if you wrapped it yourself, adding that "You must be very... gifted."
    • Woofio makes terrible, canine-themed puns when judging livestock competitions, and Matsuba opens every crop contest by asking the audience if they're ready to "crop til you drop!"
  • Real Men Eat Meat: While the closest to meat in the game is fish, several men like fish dishes as meals, with grilled fish being a good favorite for many like Gunther and Maurice.
  • Real Men Hate Sugar: In contrast to the girls loving chocolate and the children liking sweets, a good portion of the men (young and old) do not like desserts at all. Chocolate Cake is Maurice and Kamil's most hated food, Kamil doesn't like any desserts at all, and men like Klaus, Gunther, Jonas, and the very gruff sprite Gusto also despise sweets. Fritz on the other hand quite likes sweet snacks—but this may be because he's somewhat childish.
  • Relationship Values: Just like in all Harvest Moon games before it, this is included, and can be judged based on how the characters talk to you and by standing near them and pressing the shoulder button to see the symbol over their head. This is the only way to see the relationship values with Kamil and Licorice, who don't have flowers on their textbox.
  • Save Scumming:
    • Writing in your journal before mining in the Safari Park will allow you to quickly reload and try again if the mine's offerings on a given day are not what you want.
    • This can also be done before entering any of the festival competitions, as the prizes are sometimes random and wins may not be guaranteed.
    • Can also be invaluable when trying to win or keep a field during a conquest — a known glitch sometimes causes conquest results to display incorrectly. This can end up costing a player both their lease on a field and all the crops on it if the glitch occurs.
  • Scripted Event: Several, especially in your earliest years; these events are triggered whenever you are taught something or introduced to a new character. Individual characters also have their own scripted events which only happen when you achieve the required number of friendship/reputation points with them. Each romance arc has at least four.
  • Seasonal Baggage: Rather than twelve months like the real world, the game's calendar year is divided into the four seasons. Each season lasts exactly 31 days, is visually different from the others, and has its own leitmotif playing throughout the day. Summer also has a slightly longer time before evening, and winter a slightly shorter.
  • Second Place Is for Losers: If you don't win a contest or competition? The responses from everyone—even romantic partners and children—treat you as if you completely lost, even if you came in second.
  • Shop Fodder: The vendors will buy pretty much anything you want to sell them - including captured frogs and insects, the bottles and boots you catch while fishing, and gathered twigs and stones. It's Lampshaded in the description for Scrap Ore:
    "A cheap ore. You don't really have much use for it, but there are a few people who'll take it off your hands."
  • Show Within a Show: Building a television allows you to watch the various shows broadcast on the three available channels. One show is broadcast per channel each day, running all day until the signal cuts out at midnight.
    • Weather Channel: Only broadcasts one program, the Weather Report hosted by Lillie (a resident of Oak Tree Town). She gives information on the day's weather and the forecast for the next day.
    • Variety Channel: Hosts a variety of programs, including a travelogue, a murder mystery, and children's programming. Runs different programming each day of the week. Some shows are rerun immediately once all episodes are aired, others are replaced by a different show. Some of the shows are shout-outs to popular real-world franchises.
      • Murder at Black Gull Villa: Cry of the Carillon: Monday's program, a murder mystery centered on the investigation of what appears to be a suicide during a dinner party at the remote seaside mansion of a wealthy businessman.
      • Streets of the World: Tuesday's program, a travelogue that explores the countries from which the merchants in the trade depot hail. Usually in the form of the comical misadventures of the hapless hosts and their crews as they explore the region.
      • Search for the Legendary Chef: Wednesday's program, an adventure-documentary detailing the search for a legendary chef Char Han, who has disappeared from public view. Host and reluctant adventuress Misa must undergo a series of wacky trials to find out what has happened to her cooking idol.
      • Princess Lillia's Adventure: Thursday's program, in which the titular Rebellious Princess Lillia decides she'll become a hero of the realm and battle the Dark Prince in order to escape from an Arranged Marriage.
      • Mighty Munchin' Veggie Rangers: Friday's program, in which a trio of color-coded, vegetable-powered superheroes fight a villain who steals the world's supply of fresh fruits and veggies.
      • Nature Sprite Tale: Saturday's program, in which a young nature sprite named Socra details his work for the Harvest Goddess and the various schemes of their nemesis, the Witch.
      • Rookie Detective Karen: One of Sunday's programs, in which the young detective Karen sets out to solve crimes. Narrated by her sidekick, the sentient feline Mr. Tiddles.
      • Robot Genesis: Gotter Robo ZERO: Replaces Rookie Detective Karen after its run on Sundays. Concerns the exploits of four girls as an alien presence gifts them giant robots with which to defend the planet against a fearsome foe.
    • Oak Tree Channel: Programming focused on farming and life in the town of Oak Tree.
      • Oak Tree Tips: Broadcast Mondays through Fridays, offering vaguely worded tips on edit combos, farming, animal care, and other subjects.
      • Giorgio's Gorgeous Farm Life: Saturday's program, in which local farmer Giorgio offers tips on farming and animal care, as well as musing on the nature of beauty.
      • Oak Tree Times Sunday's program, in which host Kassie interviews the denizens of Oak Tree Town. Useful for finding out what marriage candidates and other citizens like and dislike, as well as revealing some of their backstories. Almost all the guests are characters from town, and many of them remark to Kassie that they've seen her show.
  • The Simple Life is Simple:
    • Your player character has no ties to farming life at all, not even a grandfather who may have owned the place before. Instead they come from the city to start the farm, after they just randomly applied, which was after getting a flier in the mail showing off lush green lands and happy cows. They arrive and after the six-day "tutorial" with Eda, are on their own and pick up farm life easy, thriving from the get-go.
    • Funny enough it's averted with Fritz, the poorer farmer. He moved out to the country to farm just on a whim similar to the player character. However he's not doing so hot compared to rivals Elise and Giorgio or even the player. He always struggles to run his farm, has a lot less crops, a smaller and more ramshackle house, only a few cows or chickens, and never has enough money to truly challenge anyone during the rival events. He's got the spirit, but he's not doing so hot overall.
  • Sleeping Single: For some weird reason, you'll have two double beds - one in the living room, and one in the second floor room. Your spouse and children will, once the second floor exists, sleep on the second floor. After certain events like birthdays, your character will find him/herself on the first floor. You can, however, sleep on the same bed as your spouse.
  • Socialization Bonus: Much like in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, the multiplayer option allows you to visit other players' farms or have them visit yours. Players can give each other gifts and improve the condition of one another's crops.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Eating a meal with your spouse can be this if you're experiencing severe weather, due to the soundtrack being happy-go-lucky.
  • Spin Attack: The animation for using the axe is the player character spinning wildly in place, accompanied by a "swishing" sound effect.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: To your spouse, not you. Since you're free to change your entire look at any time, your son and daughter will 100% resemble your spouse, matching their hair and eye color. Nadi's kids will also have tan skin, while Iris/Mistel's will be very pale.
  • Super-Strength: In edit mode, the player character is able to lift trees, fountains, larger-than-life statues and even entire barns in order to move them about.
  • Surprise Multiple Birth: This happens to the player and their spouse. The couple's informed about the pregnancy, and all the talk from your spouse discusses one child being carried. You'll only learn that it's twins during the birth event, where the husband (who is off to the side fretting) hears a baby cry, tries to come to the back room, and is then told to wait because the birth is taking longer—a second one is coming out. Only after both are born will you see they're twins—a boy and girl. This was a first for the series, as generally you had one or the other, and early games only let you have a son. The only other game to offer multiple children was Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, and they're a younger/older pair where you pick the genders.
  • Sweet Tooth: All the children—Lutz, Melanie, and your two—love sweets and sugary desserts. This is also true with Fritz.

    T to Z 
  • Through His Stomach: The easiest way to raise affection with other characters, especially the love interests, is to learn their favorite foods and gift it to them once a day. Each resident of Oak Tree Town has a gift that they love and appreciate more than any other, and it's always food.
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Everyone in town has a favorite food. Giving it to them will net you 1,000 Friendship Points. It might also result in Love Bubbles, sparkles, flowers, or other special effects appearing around their Character Portrait as they thank you for the generous gift. Obtaining the recipe to make said dish, however, ranges from deceptively simple to deceptively hard.
    • The quickest way to befriend the various animals that live in the Safari zone and around Oak Tree Town is to give them their favorite food.
  • Ultimate Authority Mayor: Veronica is essentially this; the game doesn't identify her explicitly as the mayor of Oak Tree Town, but she pretty much runs the village. As guildmistress, she's the one to handle all the details about land assignment, competitions, vendors, and other day-to-day operations in the town. She also performs the ceremony should your character get married and conducts Eda's funeral.
  • Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Once the protagonist gets married and upgrades the house to the second-story model, they and their spouse will eventually have male and female fraternal twins, with the time between marriage and learning the wife is pregnant dependent on how much money you spent on the wedding, followed by a thirty-day pregnancy. They greatly resemble the other parent, since you can change your entire look at any time.
  • Vague Age: It's not really clear how old any of the characters are. In particular, Fritz, Mistel, and Lillie all look way younger than they must be (since they're all old enough to marry), which causes some players to find them difficult to accept as love interests.
  • Valentine's Day Episode: Valentine's Day occurs every Winter 14, while the equivalent White Day occurs every Spring 14. Valentine's Day has the female player gift all bachelors chocolate or an unmarried male player receive chocolate from every bachelorette. White Day reverses this, with the unmarried female player getting gifts from all the bachelors and the male player gifting all female bachelorettes white-themed food gifts. (If you're married, then you can also have a special meal with your spouse on your respective gift-receiving day—and still gift the other gender for boosts on their days, including your spouse.)
  • Valley Girl: In the English translation, at one point, Licorice will display the speech patterns of a Valley Girl.
    Licorice: I always feel super-relaxed around noon. Like, in the morning, I'm all get-up-and-go, and then at noon, I'm like, "Time for a siesta."
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • You can leave your animals to die in multiple ways. Animals will eventually die of old age, but if you're cruel to them and let them die of illness, you will get a lecture from Jonas and Veronica about how you didn't take good care of your animal and they're disappointed in you.
    • Every character has a gift that's their "horror gift"—they hate it so much that gifting it to them drops friendship a flat 800 points (e.g. Elise despises Marlin Steak). You can still give it to them—and even go so far as to wrap it beforehand and/or gift it to them on their birthday. They will take it and have an annoyed and/or offended statement to go with it, especially if it's on their birthday.
    • The game lets you be as nasty to a partner as you like after you start dating. This can trigger a breakup with them and thus end your dating—you can recant breaking up during the event, but you can also just go through with it. You can even turn right back around and date them again, even if you have to wait 62 days for them to get over the hurt and ply them with their most favorite food. But after you're married, there's no option for divorce—and you can still be shitty to your spouse, making for an Awful Wedded Life and lines where they lament how terrible marriage is with you and how badly you treat them.
  • Wallet of Holding: Overlaps with Cheap Gold Coins - although your bag's inventory is limited, your wallet doesn't appear to be. The most expensive purchase you can make from a traveling salesperson is 104,000,000 G (for 20 pink diamonds at 5,200,000 G each), G being short for gold coin. All that money must be carried on your person. This ludicrous amount of currency might make sense if the economy worked on a credit system, but all signs point to a cash-based economy; all transactions with merchants are instantaneous, collecting earnings from your stall at the trading depot is accompanied by the sound of a coin dropping, and there's no mention of banks (or other financial institutions) where you can store your money.
  • Warp Whistle:
    • The horse - provided you're near one of the Horseback Riding stations, you can summon the horse instantly and ride it where you need to go. If you have at least one carrot in your bag, you can direct it to take you instantly to any of the other stations at your farm, the town square, or the Trade Depot—as well as the Safari Park.
    • Beginning in your second year, Rose Country's vendor will also sell a second Warp Whistle in the form of hand-held balloons. Pull one out while you're on your farm, and it will deposit you in a random spot in the town.
    • After acquiring 3000 customer points with Rose Country, you can buy the blueprints for a cannon. Building it and placing it in one of the town's plazas allows you to launch yourself between the town and your farm — or vice-versa if you put the cannon on your farm. The item's description warns you that there's a chance you can land off target.
  • Weather Dissonance: No matter what season it is, it will always be sunny at the Safari Park, except for occasional light rainfall. Despite this, you can still find snowballs on the ground there during winter.
  • Weather Report: Broadcasts every day and is hosted by Lillie, who lets the player know what the current weather is and what the next day's weather will be.
  • Weddings in Japan: ZigZagged. If you pick the cheapest wedding, the wedding only has one option: the bride will wear a Fairytale Wedding Dress while the groom wears a tuxedo (white for almost all the grooms), and there won't be anyone there but Veronica as the officiant. But the other two levels offer the option between the Western and Eastern Wedding. The Eastern Wedding is explicitly Japanese themed, where the bride and groom wear formal hakama and an elaborate kimono respectively, and the decor is Japanese themed.
  • Wham Episode: Many players were shocked to find that Eda dies when the first winter starts.
  • What the Hell, Player?:
    • Jonas and Veronica will call you out if you let an animal die of sickness, saying the poor creature must have suffered horribly and calling you cruel.
    • Giving any character their most hated gift gets a unique, disgusted line from them about it—and especially if you do it as a birthday gift. They'll still take it, but you'll lose 800 friendship/romance points for doing it.
    • If you ignore someone for several days, they'll say something about you ignoring them the next time you come over to speak to them. If you try to gift them after that long a silence, they won't take it and will say something about you not talking to them.
    • Showing the commitment ring or the blue feather to others after you're married will upset your partner. Which can be patently ridiculous if you're showing it to, say, your children or the Nature Sprites.
  • With This Ring: Each Romance Arc has four scripted events (except for Elise's, which has five). You can only see the first two for any love interest before needing to confirm the relationship through the gift of a promise ring. Later, when you get married, you'll receive a wedding ring which can be equipped onto your avatar as an accessory.
  • Wizard Needs Food Badly: You can't work forever. You'll eventually have to eat something (or sleep) in order to regain stamina.
  • Yodel Land: Cabin Country is implied to be this. The merchant wears the typical style of dress, it specialises in grazing animals, and it's the country from which you buy the Cheese Factory. Even the description of it in Streets of the World evokes this:
    Host: What do you think about when you hear the words 'Cabin County'? Fields, acres full of livestock, flower gardens, right? Well, let's get a nice view of all that. I've been hiking up to a mountain cabin, and I'm finally almost there. We're already up over 9,800 feet. The mountains around me are covered in snow.
  • You Require More Vespene Gas: You need to grind or craft for materials to make most things—be it crops, cloth, or products.
  • You Shouldn't Know This Already: You can't cook a dish until you've acquired the recipe. Mixing random ingredients in the kitchen isn't allowed. This can be frustrating if you're trying to woo a specific neighbor and know the components to make their favorite dish, but haven't found the recipe yet—or haven't gotten it as a random prize or purchase.

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