![]() Should you marry and have a child, you’ll witness them grow up, observing them at different intervals of life. The Push-Pull Relationship with Your OffspringĪlthough partnering up is a bit passionless, A Wonderful Life’s cross-generational storytelling can pull at the heartstrings. After countless life-sims have required me to introduce myself to the local townsfolk before my character could get their hands dirty, A Wonderful Life’s more autonomous approach is refreshing. For better or worse, Wonderful Life wants you to learn about the landscape and appreciate each element in its ecosystem for yourself, rather than having you follow a succession of orders. Many modern life sims have amenities like mini-maps and markers that point to the next task at hand. ![]() That said, there’s an in-game notebook that explains the nuances of tasks like fertilizer manufacturing if you’re hopelessly bewildered. Largely, A Wonderful Life follows this trend, frequently letting players learn about the world at their own pace. Longtime Story of Seasons producer Yasuhiro Wada has habitually favored a sense of discovery across the franchise. Prices for some of the coolest gear have escalated, diminishing the sense of reward for your daily labors. Exacerbating the simplicity is the introduction of inflation into Forgotten Valley. But each of these activities feels constrained by modern standards, whether it’s the limited number of fish, the size of the excavation site, or the number of potential customers. Yes, A Wonderful Life provides the obligatory side jobs to your core agricultural duties, whether it’s fishing, archeological digs, or setting up a kiosk in the middle of town to vend your wares. Just like the original release, NPC interaction is reduced if they’re doing something and they still awkwardly block the way when you’re attempting to speak with an adjacent character. ![]() Likewise, townsfolk might emit several lines of dialog, but there’s little sense of their ambitions or worries. There are some cute candidates for relationships, but don’t expect to be swept off your feet by the game’s recreation of romance. But all too often, small talk with your potential partners (who can be male or female now), is lackluster. ![]() Considering romance is one of the game’s core constituents, you might expect the title to have absorbed the lessons of engaging dating sims released across the last decade. The nomenclature for hybrids has been improved as well with grapple replacing ‘phuju’ for grape-apple mixtures.īut at the same time, A Wonderful Life undoubtedly feels like a nearly twenty-year-old title. NPC monikers have been changed, bringing them closer in spirit to the original Japanese names. Characters still have SD dimensions, but changes to hand and foot proportions make them look decidedly less doll-like. Gone is the drab graininess, replaced by texturing that makes things decidedly more cartoonish and vibrant. On the one hand, the release has been given a moderately-sized makeover. A Wonderful Life offers beguilement without the bloat, even if some of the game’s components can feel a bit old-fashioned.Īll this makes the recent renovation of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life a remarkable title. Sure, the prospect of agrarian automation is alluring, but there’s something fundamentally fulfilling about the predictable routine of tending to your crops and creatures. Although modern life sims are undeniably popular, some recent entries have lost sight of the quint charms that made some of the older genre entries so charming. Above all, this was a time when discourse centered on the games themselves, rather than the manufactured outrage of clickbait journalism.Īs such, it’s easy to understand why Marvelous would offer a remake of A Wonderful Life. ![]() Games were thoroughly tested before shipping, largely eliminating the disappointment associated with a slipshod launch. When Natsume released Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for the GameCube in 2003 there wasn’t a push for the now-ubiquitous season pass or any other type of DLC. Platform: Switch, also on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Oneĭespite the technical prowess of contemporary consoles and PCs, it’s easy to become nostalgic for early 21 st-century gaming. ![]()
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