Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life Review – An Updated Classic That Hasn’t Quite Caught Up

By 2023 there will be many more remakes and masterworks. The most fascinating thing is to observe how new versions approach the question of whether they should rebuild or simply make modern visual improvements. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has been remade as Story of Seasons. It straddles both philosophies, but in some ways still offers an outdated experience.

Released on consoles of today, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life appears to be nothing more than a reskin. Some changes, however, have helped to make it more inclusive. A Wonderful Life casts players as young people who have inherited their father’s farm in Forgotten Valley, a small village. To claim your inheritance you will need to choose a name for yourself, and your look.

This updated version has a much more customizable interface. The updated version allows players to customize their avatars using gender-inclusive body and fashion options. Neither the hairstyles nor clothing options are gendered. Any body type can be combined with any outfit or hairstyle. You’re now ready to enter Forgotten Valley. Note that once the pronouns are selected, you cannot change them.

The farming simulator genre has been dominated by games where the protagonist moves away from the big cities to the countryside to enjoy a simpler life. A friend from your father will give you a tour and provide you with the notes for the game when you first arrive. These notes come in handy early on, providing guidance to players when they have questions without having them sit through a lengthy tutorial.

You’ll be expected to grow plants and animals that you will sell at a profit. Each of the four season in A Wonderful Life lasts ten in-game day. This is because each day lasts 24 real life minutes. It may sound short, but it gets longer as you keep playing. Ideal loops include caring for your crops and livestock, talking with neighbors, fishing and foraging in the Forgotten Valley, and visiting the forest spirit to ask for recipes.

It is important to get to know your neighbors in your town, because the game requires you to marry one of them by the year’s end. A Wonderful Life has removed the restrictions on romances based on gender in the original. This allows players to marry anyone eligible within Forgotten Valley.

However, the relationships between these people are often disappointingly short. Your courtship will last only about a month, so you won’t really have time to form a bond with your spouse. When you first arrive in the village, there are already relationships between some of your neighbors. These are never addressed when you marry them. It takes out a small-town element that could be interesting and also is unsatisfactory from a story perspective.

In-game partners don’t say much once they’re married. Cecelia stayed with us for a long time after we married and kept repeating the same lines about how she was learning about housework. I had more original dialogue from my young child than Cecelia did in the cut scenes.

A Wonderful Life has similar mechanics that feel shallow in the day-to-day. Although the visuals, pronouns and customizations as well as romances were updated, the daily gameplay has not. Once you upgrade your tools, it’s not hard to do your everyday chores. It’s also quick to chat with forest spirits. You can dig for artifacts as much as you like, but it is a slow and tedious process. It is encouraged that you chat up everyone to build relationships, but the dialogue can be repetitive and giving them gifts takes very little time. Fishing and foraging are also possible while you perform other tasks in Forgotten Valley.

This was probably a lot of fun when the first version came out. In the aftermath of Stardew Valley and other games, such as this one, it’s a little disappointing. You may find that you are going to sleep early in order to get the day started, rather than maximizing your waking hours to accomplish as much as possible. It is true that some time could be spent cooking. But I rarely used my kitchen unless I had to. It is not a fast-decreasing meter. It was only when I got the “hungry” icon that my character showed me, when it is usually about one third full.

This meter represents my experience with this game. Ideas that were once novel are outdated or uninteresting by today’s standards. Story of Seasons: The Wonderful Life, while a nice update of the classic Farm Simulator, is not as enjoyable when you strip away nostalgia.