Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life Review

ign.com:

I remember happily collecting cows and raising a child in the now two-decade-old Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, but now I realize how tedious it was after playing the 2023 remake. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is about building a family as much as a farm, but both the farming and socializing fall short in comparison to modern farming sims. This could be a charming adventure with a literal lifetime of activities to do thanks to its aging process and speedy day-to-day gameplay. Developer Marvelous even added same-sex marriage and new bachelors to help spice up the dating pool. However, those additions don’t do enough to cancel out the bland backdrops, forgettable characters, and a few quirks that make it feel more dated than it should.

Your story, as so many of these do, starts with taking over your father’s farm in Forgotten Valley – however, this adventure quickly becomes about more than just planting crops. A Wonderful Life makes it clear early on that your relationships with the local townsfolk are the goalposts that matter rather than how much cash you’ve invested into your barn. Of course, improving your farming and relationships go hand in hand, but farming goals don’t have a time limit. Meanwhile your playthrough will actually end abruptly if you don’t manage to get married within the first year – a strange choice that forces you to interact with romantic interests rather than letting those connections come naturally.

However, one of A Wonderful Life’s highlights is its aging system, which encourages newlyweds to start raising a child into a functioning adult with their own hopes and dreams. The town, which will start to feel like its own character after a season or two, also changes in interesting ways as