The Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town remake is making a big change for its western release as it will now allow same-sex marriage. Since same-sex marriage is still illegal in Japan, the game’s Japanese release only features a “Best Friend” system that lets players form a lifelong partnership with a character of the same sex.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town was first announced to be in development last year. The title is a remake of two of the most beloved entries in the series, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town for the Game Boy Advance, combined into a single release. One of the features that was announced to be included in the game’s Japanese release was the “Best Friend” system, which was initially introduced in 2005’s Harvest Moon DS Cute.
In the XSEED Games blog, Localization Manager John Wheeler published his first blog post about the localization of Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town where he detailed some of the changes that will be happening for the western release, including the addition of same-sex marriage as well as some changes to the characters’ names and their manner of speaking. He said, “This has been a very long time coming in the Story of Seasons series, and the producer has been ive of our decision from very early in development.”
Apart from the change from the “Best Friend” system to actual marriage, same-sex marriages will also be treated the same as opposite-sex couples. The “heart icon” that indicates the romantic affinity of a potential marriage candidate for the player will also now display for all marriage candidates regardless of sex. In the Japanese release, which came out in October 2019, the icon would display for same-sex candidates only after the player confesses and they start dating.
The addition of same-sex marriage as well as the changes to character names and dialogue are pretty bold moves for the localization team atpopular Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is scheduled to release in the west on the Nintendo Switch on July 10, 2020.
Source: XSEED Games