Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom (Nintendo Switch) Review

Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom seems to be unrelated to its predecessor - at least, there is no mention of the first story at all. This way, the current title works well as a standalone game. The setting is an overall good idea: Noby and his friends ask Doraemon to use a gadget to fly them to another planet, where their spaceship then gets confiscated by the queen of the town they land in. In order to kill time while working out a plan to return back home, they all decide to help out in the village and move into a deserted farmhouse together, with Noby being in charge of tending to the farm.

The start of the game consists mainly of a long cutscene, but voices are kept to a minimum - mostly just used for generic expressions. The dialogue is held in writing only. The animation and music are good, but it would have been nice to have properly voiced cutscenes, even if only in Japanese.

The way to proceed forward is entirely up to the player. There is foraging to be done, planting and harvesting crops, raising livestock, and catching bugs and fish - so there is plenty to do. Additionally, Noby can (and should) improve his relationships with the townsfolk. Doing so unlocks little side stories and potentially more opportunities. Luckily, a handy section about quests in the menu can help to keep track of what can be done next.

Tending to the farm and making money is not as easy as it sounds, and a lot of grinding is required at the start to get somewhere. It keeps the gameplay interesting for a long time, as once all the relationships are at max level, there is not much else to do.

The little town and its story are intriguing as a whole. Since the group is on a different planet, there are different types of people living here, but the overall setup is very similar to what is normal in Story of Seasons titles: there is a clinic, general store, livestock store, restaurant, blacksmith and carpenter.

For some of the activities - for example, tending the farm or mining - Noby can go together with a friend from the farm and have them help. With time, more people will move into the farm, making the living situation more diverse.

The area is nicely designed, and there is even an underwater area to explore, but unfortunately that doesn't run too well on Nintendo Switch. Indeed, there were a few instances during gameplay where the game stopped working due to an error, which is frustrating as the autosave only works once a day when going to sleep.

In addition to this, there are quite a few mistranslations or straight up errors within the written text that can cause huge frustration. For example, in one quest, Noby is required to bring a certain type of ore to Doraemon, but the quest never resolves. Out of frustration, this reviewer then tried every type of ore there is - and one of them solved the quest, but not the one that was written down. Things like this can properly destroy the gameplay experience. The language QA team really needed to have a better look at this.

A few areas in the game take on more of a 3D environment with closer detail. While these look interesting, they do not work particularly well on Nintendo Switch, often stuttering and with certain elements popping in rather than being there from the start.

Other than these shortcomings, Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom is relaxing enough once it gets going. Making friends with the horse, cat, dog and otter is charming, and being able to raise chickens, cows, sheep and alpacas brings a bit of variety.