Parent's Guide: Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns?

Brought to you by the folks behind the popular Harvest Moon series, Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is a slow-paced, slice-of-life series of games with a focus on farming and friendship. Under the watchful eye of your farmer uncle, Frank, you must farm your way up from nothing, tending to your crops and caring for your animals, in order to prove to your sceptical father that you have what it takes to survive on your own. Manning a dilapidated farm that sits between three unique towns, each with their own unique characters, scenery and specialities, it's up to you to carve out your own little agricultural niche as you learn your way around a hoe.

How do you play Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns?

Nowhere near as back-breaking as it sounds, your average day in Trio of Towns sees you tending to your crops, brushing and feeding your animals, and heading into town to chat with the villagers, and see if there's anything they need help with. Everything in game is kept simple and accessible - and certainly nowhere near as complex as real farming - with almost everything from watering your crops to feeding your animals handled with a single button press. After the end of a long day of farming, crops you've grown, and animal produce can be dumped into your shipping bin, where they'll be exchanged for money come the evening. In Trio of Towns, you can actually choose which of the three surrounding towns you want to ship your crops out to, and the more you ship to each, the better your standing among its citizens, which in turn unlocks new items, animals and products in stores.

Outside of your day to day farming responsibilities, you're largely free to do what you want, whether it be a spot of fishing, socialising with the neighbours or exploring the local ruins. There's also 'Part-Time Jobs' you can take on for the villagers, perhaps delivering a package, weeding their gardens or helping brush their animals in exchange for cash - which is exceedingly useful in the early days, when your crops haven't grown yet. Such jobs also help increase your standing with each of the towns, so it's well worth taking on as many as you can along the way.

How easy is Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns to pick up and play?

For the most part, Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns has been designed to be a fairly gentle, relaxing, and easy to pick up and play experience. Perhaps the only real pressure comes from every work-like action, be it watering crops, milking cows or chopping down trees, consuming a portion of your characters' 'Stamina' bar - a series of hearts at the top of the screen that loosely tie to your energy. If your Stamina falls to zero, your character will collapse, and you'll lose the rest of the day as you recover. Sleeping in bed at night, or eating some food during the day, will restore your Stamina, letting you smash rocks, fish and till your farm land for longer. Really, keeping an eye on your Stamina bar is about as stressful as Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns gets - there's no real time limits, deadlines or fast-paced actions to keep track of.

However, for the youngest of players, it's important to remember that Trio of Towns is a pretty text-heavy game, with no voice overs to help, and as such, it's very much a game for solid readers only.

Sample Sentences:

• "Even though you've been workin' since dawn, you've got energy to spare, don'tcha? I'm real impressed by women like that."
• "Here's the package that needs deliverin'. Who it goes to is written right here on this memo. Now, then, off ya go!"
• "Ship 10 units of milk collected from your livestock to Lulukoko. (Any kind of milk is okay.)"

Fitting with its cute and fluffy image, Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns is pretty much as safe as you can get in terms of mature content, with no violence or bad language, and only very, very mild innuendo in certain scenes. One scene shows a man flirting with a woman after exclaiming "hot babe spotted", while another character peeks over the wall of a bath house to get a sneaky peek at the bathing ladies (although you don't see them). One character in particular seems rather popular with the ladies, with a gaggle of almost-groupies following him around declaring their love for him in some scenes. Dialogue occasionally describes characters as "perverts" or references a "secret love child". A handful of more comedic scenes show characters lunging at each other with spears as the screen fades out, although no-one comes to any harm.

While you can own many a farm animal in the game, any animals you own are only used for replenishable produce only, like wool, eggs and milk. There's no in game abattoir or anything similar - however, your farm animals can die after growing old over quite a few in-game years.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS