Starting a new life on your grandfather's old farm in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town will take a lot of hard work, as it'll involve growing crops and flowers, raising animals, working the land, and lots more.
Making money in Pioneers of Olive Town might seem like a struggle at first, but there are a number of ways to farm money or make things a little easier for yourself. Here are our top tips when it comes to making money so you can be collecting a tidy profit from your farm every day.
Seedling Mode
The easiest way to boost your money-making skills is by playing on the Seedling Mode difficulty. Playing in Seedling Mode means that all of your items will sell for more money when you sell them, but there is also a host of other benefits, such as items from shops costing less and skills and Friendship Levels increasing more quickly. You can change your difficulty at any time from the main menu.
Crops
Crops are going to be your number one source of income as long as you get it right. The tricky thing is that as the seasons change, so do the available crops and you could potentially lose your earnings if your crops wither. So you need to plan in advance to ensure your seasonal crops are planted and harvested in a timely manner.
There are a number of things that you can do to make farming a lot more efficient and increase the profit you are making. Here are our top tips.
Unlock Seasonal Plots
As previously mentioned, your biggest problem when it comes to farming is that crops can only be grown during certain seasons, limiting how often you can grow some of the more profitable crops. You can solve this issue by unlocking the four seasonal Special Locations.
These areas have a set season all year round so that you can grow your best crops without worrying about the seasons changing. These special locations can be purchased as Shrine Blessings once you have collected 150 Follower Sprites.
Additionally, repairing the Hydroculture Plant will suit your needs in much the same way, as it is effectively a large greenhouse that you can use to grow crops of any season at any time of year. However, you can only have one of these facilities on your farm, so you're more limited when it comes to how many crops you can plant.
Use Improved Tools and Helpful Items
You'll be farming a lot and expanding your plots often to accommodate even more crops. To ensure this is done as effectively as possible, you'll want to upgrade all of your tools to the highest level so that you can clear and till the land more quickly.
Additionally, be sure to use items such as the Sprinkler (unlocked at Fieldwork Level 4) and the Enhanced Sprinkler when you get it (unlocked at Fieldwork Level 10) to take care of watering your crops.
Improve Your Farm Field Level
The better the quality of your crops, the more money you will make from your produce. With that in mind, you should purchase the Shrine Blessings that increase your Farm Field Level, as this increases the chance of your products being of a higher quality. These blessings can be purchased once you have collected 100 Follower Sprites.
Use the Seed Maker
Once you reach Fieldwork Level 6, you will unlock the Seed Maker crafting recipe. This is an important and highly useful Maker Machine. You can use it to turn some of your high-quality crops into seeds of the same standard, ensuring that you can continue to grow the very best quality products and make the most amount of money from each yield.
The General Store only sells seeds of bronze quality, making it less likely that you'll score a gold rating on your crops. While the Sprite Shop does offer higher-quality seeds, these are expensive and can only be purchased with Sprite Coins.
Capitalize on Crops that have Multiple Yields
Picking the right crops to grow is key to making a decent profit. You have to weigh up the cost of the seeds against the profit you'll make, taking into account the time it takes to grow them and how many yields you'll get per seed.
One of the best kinds of crops to grow is ones that have multiple yields, such as Green Peppers. When you couple this kind of crop with using the Seed Maker to get your own seeds and increase your crop quality, you'll soon be making a nice profit on your veggies.
Jewels
Farming raw gemstones and processing them into Jewels is a great way to make money, especially when it comes to farming Diamonds. This method of making money is most effective when you have access to the third mine and Stonebreaker Valley, as this is where you'll find the most valuable raw gemstones.
Once you've farmed your gemstones, you can turn them into jewels by processing them through the Jewel Maker, which unlocks at Mining Level 6. You'll get the Giant Jewel Maker recipe at Mining Level 10, which allows you to process more gemstones at a time.
Sprite Hauls
Once you've unlocked the Earth Sprite Village, be sure to check in often to utilize the different Leader Sprites to the best of their abilities. These special Sprites will retrieve items for you based on their type, for example, the Stone Sprite will bring you ore and raw gemstones.
Make sure you unlock the remaining Leader Sprite types from the Shrine Blessing, then speak to the Management Sprite to assign more Follower Sprites to each one. These Leader Sprites will level up the more you use them, unlocking a wider variety of items that they can bring you.
The items that Sprites bring you are often of high quality, so you can choose to use them to create better items, such as by cooking or throwing the item into the Seed Maker, or you can sell them straight away. Either way, these Sprites offer a wealth of freebies to use however you like, and the more you use them, the rarer the items they will bring you.
Complete Requests
You can pick up requests from Olive Hall in town, some of which are made on behalf of the town itself that are unchanging until completed, or others from various Olive Town residents that change daily.
Both kinds of requests offer a decent amount of money in exchange for items you usually have lying around. The town requests offer more money than the resident requests but often call for rarer materials in exchange.
Sell Medals
As you hit certain milestones throughout the game, perform certain actions, and take part in special events, you will earn different titles. When this happens, a little box will pop up on your screen.
In Olive Hall, interacting with the green mailbox will allow you to claim title rewards, allowing you to pick up a range of items for free, with rewards ranging from crafting materials to Maker Machines and everything in between.
Some of these rewards are also in the form of medals, with there being bronze, silver, and gold medals available. These medals serve no real purpose in the game, so feel free to ship them out and make some money.