While the core formula of a Story of Seasons game has remained pretty consistent, Marvelous has found fun ways to make each game unique from each other, introducing one-time gimmicks or mechanics to keep things fresh.

While not all gimmicks were complete game changers, they all provided something new, which is important when you’re more than ten games into a series. But of all of them, which gimmicks hit the hardest?

If the game has a remake, I’m going to consider it from the context of whichever game has more impactful.

Story Of Seasons: Trio Of Towns

Playing off the success of Tale of Two Towns, Trio of Towns’s main gimmick is the three distinct towns you can explore and engage with, each one having a unique culture and style.

In terms of variety, it’s great, but something about the story and motivations made it feel more like a Disney World park than a proper clash of cultures, which is why this one ranks lowest.

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

This one is a case of a fascinating concept not meeting its full potential. The main gimmick here was that you could not only completely control the layout of your farm, but for the town as well. The main plot centered around beautifying the town enough to raise it back to glory.

The freedom to design and decorate the town is a fantastic idea, but it was strongly limited to certain areas that the locals don’t engage with. This left it feeling underutilized.

Harvest Moon: Tale Of Two Towns

In Tale of Two Towns, the story centers around two different towns, one more animal-based and the other more crop-based, separated by a mountain pass. You, the player, have to mend the conflict between them.

The divide here is a remarkable change of pace, even going so far as letting you choose which town you start in. It plays a fun and motivating role in your farm’s development, and I liked the way it mechanically mattered.

Story Of Seasons: Pioneer Of Olive Town

Taking your products and manufacturing them further is nothing new to Story of Seasons. In most games, this is limited to making mayo and cheese from eggs and milk. But in Pioneers of Olive Town, they take this a step further, allowing you to establish and run numerous different production machines and create products ranging from perfume to metals.

The individual machine method, instead of a singular crafting system, promoted a greater degree of ‘industry’ than any other game. And by offering a wide variety of craftables to use those different production goods on, it keeps you constantly busy, never running out of things to do.

Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands

In most Story of Seasons games, they take place in some countryside village not too far from a town. Not in Sunshine Islands (or its prequel game, Island of Happiness). In this one, there are several deserted islands you unlock and travel to, each one specializing in different aspects of the game.

While this might work against the idea of having one glorious farm, it presents some fantastic variety, both visually and mechanically. The only reason this doesn’t feel as special is because it's a direct follow-up to Island of Happiness, so it's not as novel as it could have been.

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

Generally speaking, if you like Story of Seasons, you tend to either prefer animal ranching or crop farming. If you prefer animal ranching, then Animal Parade is probably one of your favorites. With a focus on the animals, this game introduced not only a huge variety of creatures, you could ride the different animals around.

This was a delightful and engaging approach, especially for animal lovers. Riding the animals around is something they never really pushed after this game, leaving us back to just using the horse.

Story Of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

Finally, a way to make selling items interesting. In Grand Bazaar (or the remake), you no longer have a daily shipping bin to act as your main source of income. Instead, you save up your goods for Saturdays, when Zephyr Town holds its weekly Bazaar. From there, you engage in a market stall mini game, selling your goods to wandering shoppers.

While that might sound like a tedious extra step to making money, it ends up being an exciting event every week, and something to look forward to. Especially when you start taking advantage of the different modifiers that can enhance profits.

You can always sell your stuff to Miguel for standard rates the rest of the week, if you need to.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life

No game mixed up the formula as much as A Wonderful Life. This was the only game that had the character go through different phases of their life, going as far down as dying of old age, while their child grew up and got a job.

The other villagers grew older, the animals died of old age, and the cows needed to be bred to continue giving milk. In many regards, this was the most realistic Story of Seasons game ever.

It would seem that not all of those aspects were popular, though, since the remake, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, removed a handful of them.