YMMV / Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

• Epileptic Trees: Carter's Adaptational Ugliness is theorized to stop fans from mistaking him for a bachelor.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Stardew Valley. They're both Farm Life Sims on the Nintendo Switch and they both have Gay Options. It doesn't help that Stardew Valley was heavily influenced by the original Friends of Mineral Town.
• Fan Nickname: The game was dubbed "Story of Seasons: Reunion in Mineral Town" until the official English title was announced.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Animal Crossing: New Horizons because they're similar games released on the Nintendo Switch (and only months apart).
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many fans are mainly interested in marrying same-gender characters.
• LGBT Fanbase: The fact that Everyone Is Bi causes this game to be extremely popular amongst LGBTQ fans of the series. Many even bought the game just to marry same-gender characters. That the game also specifies your gender even if you're in an M/M or F/F relationship in some Heart Events helps a lot, as even nowadays it's common to just use gender-neutral terms if a love interest is bi.^note The game is guilty of this as well, but ironically, it's for the non-romantic Heart Events that you don't need to give a preserved flower to see.
• Older Than They Think: A common complaint of Karen's redesign is that she's missing her blonde bangs. Her blonde bangs were also missing in Harvest Moon DS. They're absent in both games for similar reasons: Karen isn't the granddaughter of the blonde Eve in either game.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Won is one of the most hated bachelors in the franchise due to his stereotypically Chinese appearance, abrasive personality, high selling prices, and difficult marriage requirements. His more attractive remake design has eased some of the poor reception.
  • Rick's cutened up design has made him much more popular. He was originally disliked for being plain and "ugly" compared to the other bachelors, but he's now equally attractive to the other male marriage options.
  • Not outright scrappy, but Mary/Marie is often considered the least popular bachelorette out of all available options, often placed bottom in popularity polls. Her design in this game massively boosts her popularity, being the most well-received redesign of all bachelorettes, and possibly of all characters. There's little wonder that more and more players declare Mary/Marie as their favorite bachelorettes in the game.
• Tainted by the Preview: A lot of this has occurred because Friends of Mineral Town and its Distaff Counterpart are two of the most popular titles in the franchise. The general reception has been positive, but many fans are critical of certain redesigns, like Karen's Girliness Upgrade, Carter's complete design overhaul, and Gray's lack of a hat.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The new character designs for the remake of Friends Of Mineral Town haven't exactly been well received by the fans:
  • Rick fans are upset that he's too attractive. Part of his appeal was his adorkableness, but now he's a standard Pretty Boy.
  • Gray's redesign is one of the most controversial because his color scheme was changed and his most iconic feature, his hat, was removed. Some fans also think he looks too young.
  • Cliff's lack of a ponytail has upset many of his fans. He also looks less rugged, which was a part of his original appeal.
  • Out of all the bachelorettes, Karen's has been the most poorly received. Her Girliness Upgrade and color scheme change makes her look like a different character. It fits her Cool Big Sis personality, but many of her fans were drawn to her specifically because of her tomboyish, alternative/punkish fashion look.
  • Carter was an Ensemble Dark Horse whom many wished was a marriageable option. His more homely redesign gets the most criticism out of all the redesigns in the game. He looks like different character and more resembles the priests in other games like Harvest Moon 64 and Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness.
  • On a non-design related change, the rival system being absent. Rivals have Ship Tease but they can't get married. The original games feature some of the most popular rival couples in the series, so many fans were peeved. Word of God has mentioned that the reason for the removal of Rival Events is that the Japanese fanbase grew to dislike them.
  • The Super-Deformed style has been met with a mixed reception.
• Values Dissonance: The Japanese version (and a few other Asian versions) uses a "Best Friend" system instead of outright admitting that Everyone Is Bi. All the romantic subtext is kept, you still have a wedding-like ceremony, and you sleep in the same bed, but you're "best friends" in the text. This has been called Hide Your Lesbians by the English fandom, with other Farm Life Sims (including Stardew Valley) outright having same-gender marriage, but it's largely seen as being due to Values Dissonance. The English localisation, however, keeps it extremely explicit.
• Win Back the Crowd: The announcement that same-sex relationships would be returning in the game, for the first time since the Japanese version of DS Cute has been met with a lot of praise, being one of the most commonly requested features since the series inception.

---