Publisher XSeed Games has released a new installment of their Western localisation blog for Story Of Seasons: Friends Of Mineral Town, confirming that the western release will support same-sex couples like the Japanese version.

In the Japanese version of the game, the system for same-sex couples is called “Best Friends” and allows the player character to form a “lifelong partnership” with an in-game character of the same sex. For the localization however, this system will just be called “marriage” and given the same treatment as opposite-sex couples.

You can read Friends Of Mineral Town localisation manager Johnathan Wheeler’s explanation of this adjustment below:

One major change between both the original version and the remake, as well as between our version and the Japanese version, concerns what has been called the “Best Friends” system in the Japanese release, where the player character can form a lifelong partnership with a character of the same sex.

In our version, this will just be called “marriage,” and the relationship between same-sex couples will be given identical treatment to opposite-sex couples. This has been a very long time coming in the STORY OF SEASONS series, and the producer has been supportive of our decision from very early in development.

In addition, another change for the western version of the game is that players will be able to view the romantic availability of all eligible characters from the very start, including candidates of the same-sex.

One minor but important change for the North American and European releases of Friends of Mineral Town is that the “heart icon” indicating a marriage candidate’s romantic affinity for the player will display for all marriage candidates from the start of the game, where in the Japanese release it will only display for same-sex candidates after you confess and start dating.

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town launches July 10 for Switch in Europe and sometime in summer for North America.

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