![]() Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is a remarkable experience. If there is one complaint I have that isn’t just nitpicking, it’s that the audio isn’t up to par with the rest of the presentation. For those who didn’t give it a try on the GameCube or PlayStation 2, the easiest way to decide if this is right for you is to ask yourself how important you consider farming in your farming sims. Just don’t expect certain elements, like animal husbandry, to have the depth they once did as a lot of the processes have been streamlined. Meeting people, making friends, falling in love these have (mostly) always been elements of the franchise, but here, whether or not you’ve had a life well-lived will be determined by your success in these areas. It’s your activities outside your farm that make the difference in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. Yes, you’ll still spend roughly half your time tending to crops and livestock as you would in any other Story of Seasons game, (and the farming system can get somewhat deep with hybrid crops and animal husbandry to consider), but nothing you do on this farm matters if you go home to an empty house and an empty bed at the end of the day. In A Wonderful Life, those elements are the core of the experience. Prior games in the series - and when I say prior, I mean those before the release of the original version of this game back on the GameCube in 2003 - put the focus squarely on farming, with making friends and courtship positioned as side activities to keep players busy between harvests. It’s not going to be a game for everyone, but if you can meet A Wonderful Life on its terms, you’ll find a lot to love in its slow-paced, small-town gait.A Wonderful Life is one Story of Seasons title that genuinely lives up to its name. Marvelous also seem to have finally nailed the technical performance for their remakes, too, especially on the Switch, with fast load times and little to no slowdown even with loads of animals on screen. It all adds up to a feeling of becoming enmeshed, slowly but surely, in a little community – one that you become familiar with and part of, even if the moment-to-moment interactions can feel a little shallow. ![]() Characters, too, are cheery on the outside but may reveal more once you get to know them continual heartbreak, unhappy marriages or the pressure of parental expectations are not uncommon themes, though they’re not always explored in great depth. ![]() There’s something very comforting about snuggling your virtual tyke, introducing them to all your cute farm animals and gently guiding their development as the years roll on.ĭespite the remake’s upbeat and colourful art style – a major improvement over the last few Story of Seasons games – there’s a melancholy tinge to the game’s setting, the Forgotten Valley, aided by the vastness of space between dwellings, the oddly disquieting sounds of the weather and admirably restrained use of music. The game’s end point is to see what your kid ends up doing when they reach adulthood, influenced by your actions and your friendships with the community around you. New to this version are non-binary gender options and same-sex marriage, none of which are any impediment to having a child together (thanks, harvest magic). If you don’t propose to a prospective partner after your first year, they’ll turn up on your doorstep and make it happen. You can’t even progress past the first year until you get married, though thankfully the bar for marriage here is set unrealistically low. Characters age and change over time new faces move in and others depart. That’s because the game’s focus is – as the title suggests – on having a wonderful life there’s far more to do after you’ve built up your farm, chosen a partner and settled down. Where games such as Stardew Valley or Rune Factory lock you into an absorbing cycle of equipment upgrades and farm expansion, A Wonderful Life is content to let you potter around town at a leisurely pace. A Wonderful Life was originally a Harvest Moon game on the Gamecube, and though it retains the trappings of most farm games (crops, livestock, fishing, spelunking), there isn’t as much moment-to-moment pressure to maximise your yields. Even among the eccentric stable of farming games, this is a bit of an odd duck.
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