Then and now: Carter

This is a legacy article and was originally published July 22nd, 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: Carter!

Now this is one example of a change I didn’t expect at all. Carter is an original character for Mineral Town, which opted not to use 64′s Pastor Brown at all for… some odd reason. So why would he get such a drastic makeover? Especially when, to my surprise, apparently his original design had quite a lot of fans disappointed he wasn’t a marriage candidate in his previous appearances. Well, besides making it more obvious he’ll never be available by toning down his ostensible cuteness, his new design reeks of one important aspect in particular that can be summed up in two words: World Building.

It’s been a while since Carter first made his appearance, but since then it seems servants of the Harvest Goddess, Gaia in particular, have taken to avoiding copying typical real-world religious vestments in favor of a new blue and white color scheme, somewhat similar to what the Goddess herself wears, along with a medallion that may be the church’s symbol for her. These designs have been featured a few times since Island of Happiness where they first made their appearance, with exceptions to the rule primarily being in games Igusa Matsuyama didn’t design the characters and one other instance…

Since the Goddess in Hero of Leaf Valley features purple that may explain some of the decisions here, and imply there are different religious sects for different Goddesses, but she certainly doesn’t wear black… though Chester also claims to’ve never seen any depiction of her at the start of the game, as well as ends up making shady jewelry to profit off her image after the player shows him a painting of her, so maybe he’s a little misguided… regardless, it seems Carter now has himself a new look that properly reflects his place as a follower of Gaia and may signify the series trying to subtly move away from using direct real-world religious imagery.