In 2003, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life came out, and later in 2004 Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life was released. A Wonderful Life was on the Gamecube and PlayStation 2 while Another Wonderful Life was solely on Gamecube. Now, about 20 years later, these titles are being combined and getting a remake called Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life.
The trailer shows that Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life will certainly live up to a nostalgic remake, as the town, characters, animals, and music are all familiar. Like its predecessors, characters will age with each passing year, there will be three Harvest Sprites, fishing, marriage, lots of farming, and raising a child. However, the predecessors also had setbacks that Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life can improve on.
Community Events
A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life had a great lack of community events. In fact, they had only four a year: the New Year's Festival, Summer Festival, Harvest Festival, and Starry Night Festival. These events also did little, as they were just cutscenes. This was a major pitfall, as other farming simulation games had community events that were more immersive, such as contests, potlucks, and dances.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life should strive for more events that get the player more involved. For example, a potluck would have the player attempt to make their best meal. A contest could be for the best cow, and the player will focus on making their cow the best for a season. Dances would mean they'd have to build enough social capital to find a dance partner. These kinds of events are not just good for gameplay, but they also reveal more about other characters that participate.
Players Should Be Able To Have Baby Girls As Well As Boys
Baby boys are all the player could have in A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life, unless they had the Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life special edition. Even then, having a girl had extra steps. The player had to press a pot 100 times and follow a very specific guideline of instructions. This was a pitfall, as most other farming sim games that let players have children randomize whether the protagonist's child is a boy or a girl.
Children in the previous games had a fun randomized mechanic that gave them specific career interests with made them befriend certain villagers. Having such diversity in personality is good, but having the child also be diverse in design would be a step-up. Randomly having a boy or girl would make having a child more exciting, and the game will feel more personalized.
More Romance Choices
Marvelous Games, the developer of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, has already confirmed that players can marry women and men no matter their gender. This already fixes one of the pitfalls of its predecessors, which was the limited romance options. A Wonderful Life had players choose from only three female characters (four in the special edition) and Another Wonderful Life had players choose between only three male characters. This is woefully short compared to other games, as Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town has more than double of that.
Even with same-sex marriage included in the remake, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life would still benefit from adding more romance choices. The more choices, the more personalized the game feels. The developers could either add some new characters (which is great for a variety of reasons) or they can make more villagers romanceable like Griffin, Carter, Cody, and Flora. Another remake, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, added a couple of new romanceable characters, so there is hope for some new faces.
Add Some Familiar Fantastical Characters
An element that made A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life an outcast of the Harvest Moon series was its lack of a Harvest Goddess. Most Harvest Moon and later Story of Seasons games have a Harvest Goddess. Her design often differed, and sometimes she was even marry-able. A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life not only lacked her but lacked humanoid fantastical characters in general.
There could be comebacks to other fantastical characters such as the Witch or Harvest King. They could even be romance-able characters like in some previous games. Their presence could offer more lore to the village and maybe even some creative career choices for the child the player character's child.
More To Do
Generally, A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life had less to do than other farming games. Buildings were already there upon arrival at the farm, so players had far fewer customization choices and building mechanics in comparison to games like Stardew Valley. The village activities included talking to villagers, fishing, gathering, farming, and mining. However, the areas for gathering and mining were very small.
What the remake can do to fix this is to increase the size of the dig area and the forest. The game could also add new areas, as some characters mention places the player never gets a chance to visit. This includes Po-Po Valley, which is where Murrey said he was from. It could also be interesting to visit part of the city that so many characters mention. Adding more festivals can also help players feel like they are doing more.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life launches Summer 2023 for the Nintendo Switch.
