Then and Now: Ann

This is a legacy article and was originally published August 12th, 2019.

So, clearly, one thing a lot of people noticed with the announcement of Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is that a lot of the characters have changed their appearance. While some of these changes are hit and miss, there’s a lot of changes that make sense! So I thought I would do a little series about them. So I present…

Then and now: Ann!

Unlike Elli or Mary, Ann is one of the characters who probably changed the most between Flowerbud and Mineral Town. In Flowerbud Village, Ann is still Doug’s daughter, but they live on Green Ranch where she helps tend the horses. For her similar role, she naturally dresses fairly similarly to the player with her work-first outfit. Also, while not exactly having the roughest personality at a glance, she’s the only character in the series who seems… somewhat prone to violence. Knocking the player over in one event and, if she marries Cliff, somewhat routinely giving him a black eye. While friendly, fun, and animal loving, she’s very much not a woman to be trifled with.

Yowch. Meanwhile, in Mineral Town, Ann is an easy-going girl who’s still disinterested in romance but serves largely as Doug’s assistant in running a hotel and restaurant. Cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes… it’s a stark contrast to say the least. Fittingly, she no longer wears overalls and leans into something lighter and more comfortable, her shoes are now flats, more fit for working in doors, and even her hair is more free thanks to it no longer being necessary to keep out of her eyes while doing sweaty, messy work. I also can’t help but speculate if her new pendant might be a gift from her mother… but at that point I’m probably reaching.

That said, in spite of having a very traditionally “feminine” personality change, a few lines do end up going to how she dresses, and she’s certainly not 100% a girly-girl in spite of her new less-rough lifestyle and personality. I’m very curious if they’ll just end up changing those lines since they certainly don’t seem relevant anymore… Maybe we’ll learn that the new outfit is Doug’s idea entirely? It certainly wouldn’t be out of character for him. No matter what happens with the final game though, there’s definitely going to need to be some new content to justify such a drastic change, no matter what mental gymnastics try to make sense of them. Here’s hoping for lots of new scenes for everyone!