Like the previous Story of Seasons game and before that with Harvest Moon, the Bokujo Monogatari series starts off with your character taking over a farm. While your farm is small at first, through hard work, you quickly begin to see the fruits of your labor pay off. For newcomers to the series, we've written our Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns Glory Farming Tips guide to help you get started with farming, upgrading, livestock, and more.
Veteran Mode or Seedling Mode
Your first choice in the game may also be your biggest. With Seedling Mode, your character will use half as much stamina as Veteran Mode. This can really limit what you are able to do over your first month without using a ton of food throughout the day. Even in Seedling Mode, we were still using food to have enough stamina to remove the extra stones and trees around the farm. Another perk is that items in shops are discounted by 30% in Seedling Mode. This won't be a huge factor, though, because, with these later steps, you will have a surplus of cash.
If you are up for a challenge, choose Veteran mode; everyone else may want to start with Seedling mode first.
Personality Types
We highly recommend you select Sports Enthusiast, Tycoon, or Charmer. With Sports Enthusiast, you will start the game with an extra stamina heart. Tycoon will give you a 50,000 G to start the game. This can really get your farm up and running quickly. Charmer will give a major boost to each person the first time you meet them. If you are looking to max out your friendship fast or you really want to get your life started with that special someone, this may be the choice for you.
Sports Enthusiast will have the largest impact on the game overall, but Tycoon gets you out of the starting gate and off to the races.
Load Up On Seeds
As soon as you can, fill every plot of fertile soil with either Turnips or Potatoes. As these start to harvest, keep planting the next batch until you get close to Summer. This will keep money flowing throughout the month. Near the end of the month, start to switch some of the crops to Fruit Trees, Wheat, and Soybeans. These can withstand the Summer heat so you will be ready to go as soon as that hits.
Purchasing Livestock
As soon as possible, make sure you get a Cow and a Chicken. If you take good care of them, they will give you endless amounts of eggs and milk. Growing a couple of patches of Fodder is recommended. This way we don't have to buy it, and can sell any extra that accumulates. Until you get the Silo, it isn't worth keeping around a bunch of extra Fodder since you can take your animals outside most days.
Upgrading Your House
In most Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons games, we wouldn't recommend upgrading your home until a little bit later in the game, but with Trio of Towns, make sure you upgrade your house immediately. The first upgrade on your house will grant you the Wardrobe to change your clothes as well as the Kitchen so that you can start preparing meals. The other game-changing unlockable it allows is the Hammer and the ability to upgrade your Tools!
Upgrade Your Tools
With Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns, each piece of gear has several aspects that can be upgraded. Now that you have upgraded your house, you should be able to upgrade your tools the very next day, unless it's Ludus' day off, in which case you may have to wait an extra day. Start with the Watering Can first since it will surely be used most. By upgrading the Weight, Effectiveness, and Range, you can reduce the stress of watering your plants each day. This also makes it even easier to get in that second watering at night.
Part-Time Jobs and Mining
Part-time jobs not only give you a little extra income, but they also raise your reputation and Town Link Rank. This opens up new items to buy in each town. Once you have the hammer, you can start to Mine in Westown. Do this as often as you can. You are going to need a ton of minerals to upgrade all of your gear.
Farm Circles
Now that you have some income rolling in, you can start to upgrade your farm. We went with a larger coop for more chickens. You can also go for more plots of soil or another barn for cows or sheep. The choice is yours!
If you've enjoyed this article on Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns, then you might want to check out our review of the game as well.
If you're into farm/life sims, then you might enjoy some of our other content in the genre. We've had the chance to sit down with the person behind indie-darling Stardew Valley and hear their thoughts on the game that made them an internet sensation. We've also got an excellent feature about how Stardew Valley may have influenced Story of Seasons itself.
