Before there were Animal Crossings, Harvestellas and Stardew Valleys, there were Harvest Moons.
The cosy farming sim is regarded as having its own golden era at the moment with more of them than you can shake a stick at, but there are some of us older folk out there that would prefer it to be called a renaissance. Farming games have been around since the mid ‘90s, kids. And one of the best ever has got a glorious remake for current-gen consoles. Does STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life do enough to stand tall against the modern resurgence?
As most of these games start, you end up inheriting the farm through a deceased relative. In this case, your father passes away and the farm passes down to you. With guidance from your old man’s best friend, Takakura, you are tasked with restoring the farm to its former glory.
STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life is set in the idyllic coastal town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley. Takakura will show you the stables, chicken coops and various growing patches around the farm, along with the advice of finding someone to marry as soon as possible. After that though, you are pretty much left to your own devices.
Of course, first and foremost, a farming game should focus on the farming elements. A Wonderful Life was good, and probably even quite novel when it first released. Now though, it doesn’t do anything to really differentiate from all the others out there. You earn your money through selling produce from the livestock and crops you produce, to invest that into more livestock and seeds. As you progress, Takakura will drip feed you new mechanics such as a horse or a sentient plant called Tartan that can help you create hybrid plants.
If you have never played a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game before then don’t panic. Just be aware that Tartan isn’t the weirdest thing about it. In A Wonderful Life alone there is a crazy scientist, an abominable snowman, harvest sprites that you can only visit if you eat a specific mushroom and much more.
A single day in STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life takes just over twenty minutes to complete. Once you’ve gotten the farming jobs out of the way – feeding and nurturing your animals, watering your plants and collecting produce – you can head into the town and make your mark.
It is here you will find the residents of Forget-Me-Not-Valley and all their various quirks. A Wonderful Life has been updated to not only allow you to create a male/female/non-binary character, but there are extra residents added that you can try and woo by presenting them with a gift each day.
It is when talking with the residents though that A Wonderful Life shows its age. They just don’t have much to say. There are contextual comments as seasons progress and also moments in the village where you talk to them, but the lack of variation in speaking day-to-day feels very dated in relation to more modern farming sims. Also, it is from an age where game characters would rather talk at your avatar rather than actually ‘converse’. Your character never really responds outside of the occasional yes or no response. Don’t get me wrong, you can easily identify the resident’s personality as that comes across very well, but it is a very basic social mechanic that has come on leaps and bounds in the decades since the original release.
As well as some extra romance options, A Wonderful Life has had an overhaul to graphics in this remake. Things are a lot more colourful and crisper, but that cartoonish art style is not lost in this updated version. A few things that were tedious in the original version have also been streamlined, but if you played the original this remake will feel very familiar, warts and all.
That does also mean that some of the frustrating game-ending decisions are still present. It is possible that you can fail in A Wonderful Life in the opening years and when a year in-game can take around fifteen hours sometimes, it is highly advisable to keep plenty of saves. And keep your marriage intact, hint hint.
There are a few activities to keep you occupied in your downtime from the farm. Fishing, cooking, and archaeological digs are just a few things you can take in, and many allow you to grab a bit of extra money at the same time. There are other activities too but the one I found most effective was probably for the wrong reasons. At the edge of the map is a path that allows you to visit other towns. You wont actually visit anywhere else, but it helps to progress the time of a day by six hours, which is useful if you have exhausted your daily chores and gift giving. It was an ‘activity’ I found myself using more and more as the game progressed.
Unfortunately, there is a tedious nature to STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life; one that wouldn’t have been apparent when it first released, but really stands out now in amongst the glut of other farming games out there. It still has some fantastic ideas, such as seeing your character and the residents of Forget-Me-Not-Valley age as the years pass, but it takes a little bit too long to progress the story at times. That, coupled with the fact there isn’t really enough to do in your down time, means that this remake doesn’t have the impact that the original did.
It is great to have one of the classic farming games on modern consoles again, but STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life can’t hold a candle to many of the more modern offerings.
