Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town supports up to 8 save files, giving you lots of new game possibilities. When starting your game, you'll pick your skin color, character style, name, birthday, and difficulty level. These options cannot be changed once you confirm your selections and begin your new life on the farm.

Character

There are four character styles to choose from when starting your game: the original farmers from the Gameboy Advanced game (Pete and Claire), and two modern farmer styles (Yuuto and Naomi). There are also three skin color options:

You can't change your character style or skin color after starting your game, but you can change your clothing outfit. The mirror inside your farm house allows you to swap from the traditional farmer outfit to the modern farmer outfit of the same gender of your chosen character. For example, overall-wearing Pete can also wear hoodie Yuuto's outfits (and visa versa), but can't wear Claire's overalls or Naomi's hoodie.

Name

Your farmer name can be up to 8 characters in length. This cannot change after you've started your farm adventure.

You also have an 8-character limit for naming your future farm animals and pets.

Birthday

There are four seasons per year (spring, summer, fall, and winter) and 30 days per season. You can select any day to be your birthday. If you happen to select the same day as a marriage candidate's birthday, the candidate's default birthday will move to an alternative date. For example, if you pick your birthday to be Summer 3, then Popuri's birthday will move to Summer 10. You can have the same birthday as a normal villager. Even selecting your birthday to be the same date as a festival is a-okay.

On your birthday you'll receive Happy Birthday letters in your mailbox from the villagers and marriage candidates. There's no party or gift exchanges. During a normal conversation nobody in Mineral Town will give a how-de-do that it's your birthday.

After you are married you'll get an evening birthday party. Walk into your farm house between 6:00 pm and midnight to trigger an event with your spouse. You'll be asked if you know what the significance of today is. Answering with "It's my Birthday!" will earn you +3000 LP with your spouse and +20 FP with your kid if you have one. Picking any other option will result in -2000 LP with your spouse and -10 FP with your kid.

You'll also celebrate your spouse's birthday in the same way, hence why the game doesn't allow for you to share the same birth date as a potential marriage candidate.

Difficulty

There are two difficulty modes to select from when starting your game: Simple Mode and Normal Mode. Simple mode is meant to be a little bit easier to play, whereas Normal doesn't include any extra benefits.

Simple Mode

• Start the game with 2500 G
• There are 9 Turnips in the field ready to be harvested, and 9 more that have sprouted
• Shipping items will earn an extra 20% profit
• Giving gifts will earn 20% more friendship points (FP), but not 20% more love points (LP)

In Normal mode, players being with 500 G and no Turnips growing in the field. In both modes there is a small patch of fodder grass in the southeast corner that will spread on its own.

Game Over?! During the game's introduction, telling Mayor Thomas that you are not interested in taking over your grandpa's farm will end the game. You'll see the game credits scroll and then return to the title screen.