Doraemon: Story of Seasons - Friends of the Great Kingdom

Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom is an enjoyable sequel with attractive graphics, a heartwarming story, and the addition of an impressively useful buddy system. It's got some quality of life improvements, too, which is great. In the end, fans of Story of Seasons will have a lot of fun tending to their animals and crops while unlocking silly gadgets with Doraemon and friends.

I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that there was going to be a sequel to Doraemon Story of Seasons, and Friends of the Great Kingdom was a decent experience overall. It’s clear that it has learned from the previous game’s mistakes, fixing pacing issues and offering more activities to keep the experience varied. Friends of the Great Kingdom is a great game to chill out with, providing so much whimsy and silliness that it’s hard not to grin like a fool when playing it. Even though not all of the new content was a home run, it feels like the Doraemon Story of Seasons series has finally found its footing with room to blossom even further.

Doraemon’s second Story of Seasons outing is another crossover event that’s likely to appeal to fans of both Doraemon and Story of Seasons. It looks fantastic and has a deep narrative, however the story can get it in the way of the actual farming at times.

Aside from these grievances, Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom is an incredibly fun and relaxing game. If I had played it without a deadline, perhaps the interruptions for the cutscenes might not have been such a big deal. The storybook aesthetic is pleasing to the eye, and some of the locales — especially the Observatory — are breathtakingly beautiful. Leave the napping to Noby; this is a farming sim that enthusiasts of the genre absolutely cannot sleep on.

Even though Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom doesn't offer much to separate itself from the first game, there's no denying it is a wholesome bundle of farming fun that still manages to carve out its own identity compared to other life and farming sims. Outside of the cutscenes which drag on and then some, it never feels too repetitive — an issue a considerable number of farming sims face thanks to the crop-based tasks associated with the genre — and outside of navigation issues with the map, it's welcoming to both new players of the genre and still feels relatively fresh to those who are incredibly familiar with the Story of Seasons franchise. If you go into this game expecting a decent Doraemon farming sim, you won't be disappointed.

Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom makes some improvements on the first game and tells a reasonably engaging story involving everyone’s favorite robot cat from the future. It does what you would expect a Story of Seasons game to do, but it doesn’t do a whole lot more than that. We’ve already seen the trick of adding Doraemon and his wacky inventions to this kind of game, so it feels less fresh this time around. At the same time, it doesn’t significantly mess anything up either. While it’s lacking somewhat in inspiration, farming fans who need a reliable fix will find enough to enjoy here.