Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life review – Nostalgia battles pacing

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life captures all the successful elements of the cozy farming sim genre – but it just fails to translate over to certain platforms and is ultimately outshined by its more modern counterparts.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is the remake of the original and incredibly popular game, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, which is one of the best-selling Harvest Moon games out there, so it’s natural to see an incredible amount of hype for the adorably-styled farming simulator.

However, as a beginner exploring the beautiful world of Forgotten Valley, I found myself wanting more, often feeling like features were missing, certain platforms were not considered, and certain elements lacked that cozy excitement from similar titles.

Nevertheless, some of the core gameplay and more subtle elements brought the game into the light and proved to me why this remake is so anticipated.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life key details

• Price: £34.99 / $49.99
• Developer: Marvelous
• Release Date: June 27, 2023
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life trailer

Inclusivity, simplicity, and nostalgia

From the moment you start your Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life journey, you’re instantly met with a slight change. As opposed to the original design of the character, you now get to choose a male, female, or non-binary option, with the characters being totally customizable. It’s a small change but still feels particularly imperative for modern games.

Once into the game, you’re met with instant nostalgia for many players, with Harvest Moon also embodying the same one cow and tons to learn kind of strategy. Ultimately, while the method of learning was a little confusing and rather overwhelming at the beginning, the ‘discover as you go’ attitude allowed me to experiment, explore, and uncover things on my own terms, knowing I can always look at the tutorial journal if I got stuck. This design gives beginners the chance to experiment and also allows seasoned players the chance to just get stuck in rather than dealing with cutscenes or needless tutorials.

Forgotten Valley: Elements remembered and elements forgotten

Marvelous Games

Tutorials and introductions aside, Forgotten Valley – in which A Wonderful Life is set – is brimming with possibility. Its small nature makes it easy to navigate, allowing you to make friends with all the villagers and be back in time to milk your cow all over again. However, the smaller design does also serve as a hindrance in some ways, with many of the days feeling rather repetitive since players can almost complete all the tasks of watering, romancing, digging, fishing, and taking care of animals before the day is through.

Nevertheless, the villagers you meet along the way are just as memorable as Harvest Moon and retain their lovable qualities, even if I do wish there were more ways to romance a character rather than talking and giving them a gift.

As for the events and jobs you can take part in during A Wonderful Life, I found myself initially inundated with exciting features. Fishing, farming, cooking, collecting, and tending to the animals felt simple yet rewarding but the real joy came from the archeology tent. Digging for relics and discovering treasures became a favorite of mine and proved to be a valuable resource when looking for a little gold. It broke the days up perfectly and almost felt like a little event each day.

Timing and pacing leave much to be desired

Marvelous Games

One of the unique qualities of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is its long-running story. Rather than simply allowing you to fall in love, get married, and have children, A Wonderful Life enables you to watch as your children grow up and enjoy the many years on the farm, with time flying by as events keep coming.

However, while the overarching story and longer-paced details are undeniably enjoyable, I found the shorter-form elements to be almost boring, with day-to-day activities either dragging or not providing me with enough to look forward to. Sure, the digging and other activities were enjoyable but all-in-all, I usually found myself finished with my duties by 6pm, meaning there were over four more hours where I had no idea what to do.

Combine that with the shorter years and seasons and I truly felt like A Wonderful Life didn’t quite have its pacing and timing as locked down as certain other cozy farming games, making me feel like money was hard to come by, crops wouldn’t have enough time to grow, and that the days were either dragging or flying by far too quickly.

Visuals and sounds

Marvelous Games

Aside from the gameplay, one element in which Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life truly thrives is through its visuals and sounds.

Adopting an adorable cartoon style, it’s hard not to find all the characters and the animals incredibly lovable, greatly enhancing that cozy and simplistic vibe surrounding each location on the map. Combine that with the engrossing and fantastically calming ambiance and you have yourself an immersive cozy game of the highest quality – and that’s not even exploring the beautiful soundtrack laced throughout your adventures.

Best suited for anything but mouse and keyboard

One of the primary elements that let the game down from the offset was its controls. I began the game using mouse and keyboard controls and found it to be almost unplayable, with many elements not honed to such a style. The buttons were tricky to understand and navigating through menus or the game UI felt extremely disjointed and overly complicated.

But, when I transferred to a controller, those frustrations eased and I had a much better time, even if it still held that overcomplicated design. The controls feel perfectly created for the Nintendo Switch but proved to be a source of confusion and frustration on PC.

The Verdict – 3/5

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is a classic cozy farming game with few repercussions and plenty to experience. It introduces brand-new elements to the genre in the form of longer-running storylines and tons of events to enjoy. However, for me, it just fails to add anything particularly exciting to the already successful genre and left me wanting much more.

Reviewed on PC