Branching is the second chapter in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. After surviving the first year and having a spouse, players will now get to experience having a bigger family with a child to take care of on top of running a farm. Read ahead as we talk about the important events and objectives for Chapter 2 Branching in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life and share some tips on how to get a prosperous farm life.
Chapter 2: Branching Walkthrough
The second chapter happens right as you enter Year 2. This means that you have already successfully proposed to your spouse in Year 1 and played through your marriage event in Winter 10. There is an implied time skip between the chapters, however, this does not affect the in-game dates as you will still be starting at Spring 1, Year 2.
Chapter 2: Branching Objectives
Chapter 2 will focus more on your child’s development as they grow with you. The game won’t be as strict as before when it comes to objectives this time, but actions that you perform now can have some effect on future events and choices, especially with how you interact with your child.
Aside from raising your child, one of the objectives that you’ll mostly be focusing on is fusing crops and getting hybrid crops with the help of Vinnie.
Spouse
Your spouse will be living with you in your house now. Some things that you can look forward to are that they will sometimes help you with chores within the farm, which they will usually tell you about at the start of the day. They may also leave you with some gifts inside the box by the front door from time to time.
New Family Member
First and foremost, the game speeds things up, as you will get to have your first child right as you get into the first day of the new year. The gender of your child will depend on the option that you’ve selected during the previous event between you and your spouse, whether it’s a girl or a boy, or let the game pick randomly between the two.
As a toddler, your child will then be staying in their crib for most of its early life. At this point, you can only take a couple of actions with your child that will raise your relationship level with them, such as picking them up and playing with them. You can also start influencing their likes and abilities early on in this stage by giving them toys to play with. Your child’s interests will be dependent on the type of toy that they get to play with, but most of their starting interests will also depend on your spouse.
Another way to start shaping the toddler’s interests is to carry them and bring them over to certain locations in the valley. You can also give them items that are related to the field of the career path you want them to take.
Your child will get older as you progress through the story. They can also start helping you with some chores on the farm once they grow older, plus you get to experience more events throughout their lives.
Every Winter 5, you can participate in the Starlight Concert where you get to say your wishes during the meteor shower. In Year 2, you will get a new option for a wish which lets you wish for your kid to be more interested in a certain career. Doing so will give your kid a significant boost of interest in that area.
Home Upgrade
The next thing that you will notice is that your home will get an upgrade that makes it bigger than before. You will also have separate rooms added, such as your kitchen and a bathroom.
Crop Fusion with Vinnie
Right at the start of the year, you will be called by Takakura into his house, where you will meet the plant called Vinnie. Vinnie is a strange plant that you can talk to, and it also has the ability to fuse seeds with other seeds or with other flowers to create hybrids that you can plant and harvest. These hybrids usually sell for more when compared to regular plants. It’s not always a guarantee that you will get something out of Vinnie, though it is worth doing for the quality of the harvest that you will be getting.
In order to unlock the crop fusion mechanic, you will have to befriend Vinnie by talking to it. Once you have established enough relationship with the plant, you will then be able to unlock the dialogue that allows you to fuse crops.
As a quick guide, there are two tiers of hybrid crops that you can get from Vinnie. There are also hybrids that are made by mixing a crop or fruit with certain flowers that can give them special attributes:
- Crop x Crop or Fruit x Fruit yields a Tier 1 Hybrid Crop (HC1) or a Tier 1 Hybrid Fruit (HF1)
- HC1 x HC1 or HF1 x HF1 yields a Tier 2 Hybrid Crop (HC2) or a Tier 2 Hybrid Fruit (HF2)
- Crop/Fruit x Trick Blue Flower yields the “Blue” variant of that Crop or Fruit
- Crop/Fruit x Sagesoil Flower yields a variant that is strong enough to be planted in any type of soil.
- Crop/Fruit x Happy Lamp Flower yields a variant that can be planted in any season of the year.
- Crop x Upseed Flower yields an S Rank variant. *Fruits and seeds from a fruit tree cannot be mixed with an Upseed Flower.
New Villagers
At the start of the new year, some new villagers will be moving into Forgotten Valley, such as Baddoch the doctor, Garrett and his wife San, and Kate’s daughter. You will also meet a new cat that you can adopt as an additional pet for the farm.
As a reminder, the villagers that you will meet will change throughout the course of your farm life. Some will leave, and so you can no longer interact with them, so it’s best to check in on the village from time to time and talk to them in order to not miss any gifts that you may get from them.
End of Year 2
As you end your second year, you will be talking to your spouse as they take note of how quickly your child has been developing and ask about what your child will be when they grow up. You can either agree or disagree with their observation, as this will not affect the outcome of what your child will be.
Another time skip will pass, and you will then see your child grow a bit older and start doing more things on their own. They will also have their own room as an upgrade to the house.