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The joy of slow living in Story Of Seasons: A Wonderful LifeStop and smell the flowers
Stop and smell the flowers
My Dad likes to tell this story from when I was a teenager. I had grumpily asked if he could pick me and a friend up from a local park one afternoon, and he remembers us bundling into the back of his car all smelly and sweaty and terrible as teenagers so often are. But as he pulled away, he caught a snippet of our conversation that was so unusual it’s the reason this seemingly normal car ride has cemented itself as a core memory. We were talking about the price of eggs. And tomatoes. And the order in which we were planting crops to ensure the greatest yield.
My poor father interrupted us, turning in his seat to ask what the hell we were talking about. “It’s a game we’re both playing calledHarvest Moon” I scoffed in his direction. “You wouldn’t understand”.
STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life | Release Date AnnouncementWatch on YouTube
STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life | Release Date Announcement
Although I had spent a lot of time with Marvelous’ PS1 farming sim, it was its GameCube iteration that consumed me completely. It’s hard to describe what made Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life so compelling. Structurally this was the same as any other game in the series, tasking you with cultivating crops and tending to livestock. There were folks for you to marry, festivals for you to attend, and little tree goblins that served an ethereal goddess that lived in the woods. You know. Harvest Moon stuff.
The result is a peculiar game that has never quite been replicated. Until now, that is, thanks toStory Of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, a full remake that launches on June 27th. After only ten hours with the game, I don’t feel entirely equipped to offer you my full verdict, but I will say that so far it’s been a refreshing experience that has taught me the joy of living deliberately.
My first few hours were spent panicking. Is this it? Has Stardew reduced this once essential game to little more than a tedious list of repetitive tasks? What’s the point of playing beyond simple nostalgia? I was bored, and that boredom was bumming me out. I have thought about this game frequently for nearly two decades, but here I was, struggling to find a foothold.
I played the game pretty much exclusively on the Steam Deck, which is where these screenshots are from. It performed largely OK on medium settings, hitting a consistent-ish 60fps. It did, however, push the Deck to its limits, with the battery lasting just over an hour. Not ideal, but maybe something a performance patch could improve in the future.
Four hours later, something clicked. A Wonderful Life isn’t sparse, it merely provides space to breathe. I am not rushing from activity to activity, desperate to squeeze in as much “game” as possible before the sun sets, or my energy bar reduces to zero. It has been so long since a game has given me the opportunity to do so that I am left feeling weirdly emotional every time I play. I am simply taking my time.
Because what else is there to do but take it easy? My fields have limited space and my farmer is capable of only doing so much work. After that, my options are few. It’s because of my limited options that my decisions have started to feel like they carry more weight. I am being forced to live deliberately, and it is giving me the chance to breathe. There are no battle passes. No quest markers. No rush.
It’s great that you can romance whoever you want now, but it does mean that the second you arrive the majority of residents can’t hide the fact they want to kiss you.
And when I have caught my breath, there is an imitation of life waiting for me to experience that is as intoxicating as it was when I was twelve years old. Except now it’s bigger and more complete than ever before. A Wonderful Life is the definitive version of the original game, combining both the additional features of its expanded editions as well as a bunch of other bits and pieces. You are no longer limited to one gender, and can now play as a male, female or non-binary protagonist. You can romance anyone, as long as they’re single and open for love. A bunch of new events and festivals pad out a simple yet expansive storyline that gives you additional opportunities to connect with its eclectic cast of characters.
My only gripe is the way it looks. This remake replaces the original’s slightly grimy aesthetic for the lifeless block colours of the more recent Story of Seasons titles. The muddy textures and drab colour palette gave A Wonderful Life a rural feel, grounding it in realism despite its cartoonish characters. Bereft of that, the game has arguably lost something integral to its tone. It’s OK for a game to be a little dirty, Marvellous. Not everything has to resemble something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Early Learning Centre.
If I wasn’t so grumpy, sitting in the back of my Dad’s car all those years ago, I would have told him how exciting it was to play a game that wasn’t about killing. I would have told him about the joy of the pastoral, of nature and nurture. It’s enough to simply exist.
Instead, I rolled my eyes because teenagers are fucking awful. Sorry, Dad. It’s nice that you were taking an interest.
