I'm unfortunately really disappointed in this game :(

I love farming sims, being a lifelong fan of the Rune Factory series and having hundreds of hours in Stardew Valley. I didn't go into this expecting Rune Factory, even though that's a Harvest Moon spinoff, because I know that those games are rather eccentric. They're also RPGs, and that adds an extra element. However, I did not expect it to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. As far as I can tell, these characters have no personality or story beyond surface level. I'm at half hearts with one of the bachelorettes, and I still know nothing about her. She never talks about herself. I didn't even know her preferred gifts until I looked up a guide online.

The same can be said for everyone else as well. They'll comment on the season, the weather, the town itself, but they barely talk about themselves or their relationships with the others. There's the occasional cutscene, but they're usually vague and uninformative. Anything they do say to show personality is archetypal, basically screaming "I'm the lazy character" or "I'm the brooding older brother". Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but I don't know what I could do differently other than talking to them daily and giving them gifts.

I do like the gameplay. I think the realism of the crops and the animals is really fun! I like that you can train your dog tricks, and all of the animals are really cute. The town is pretty and has nice locations. The dig site is probably my favorite aspect of the game, and the things you get both act as gifts and a way to make money, which is a bonus! The only thing that frustrates me is the cooking mechanic since you have a fullness meter, but you can't cook anything until you get crops. I would have rated this game lower honestly if the game weren't fun to play. I do have a good time.

However, when I play this genre, I play it for the characters. I want to get to know the people in town, build relationships, and find a love interest that I like. When there isn't an overarching plot, the characters kind of make the game. In that aspect, this game is severely lacking. All of the love interests bore me, and in a game where you're expected to get married or else you get a game over, that is not good. I want to like them. I gave them gifts every day, I took one on a date, I spoke to them as much as I could, but they're just blank slates with a pretty face. It's immensely frustrating, especially for the price I paid.

It makes me sad because Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons is like the third piece of the holy trinity of farming sims! But it does not live up to the other two at all. It was clearly just made for people who played the original and want to see it made anew. I'm definitely going to be returning this one.

Love the aesthetic, and the hybrid crops were cool. I ended up shelving this one because the pacing was a bit too slow for me, but other times way too fast? Mandatory marriage at the end of year 1 and the lack of dialogue change while building relationships/friendships was difficult. I made it halfway through year 3 before I decided this one is maybe just not for me, though I did love the charm of starting over in a small town and finding the Wonders of life. I may have loved it more if I had played the original.

I have shelved this game, but I'd like to get back to it sometime. just too many things otherwise have been priority, whoops!

this remake is fine, as long as you're not expecting more out of it than what the original had. not recommended for people that got into farm games via Stardew Valley.

the qol is fantastic all the way around. it's easier to manage the fields, tools can be upgraded, and fishing doesn't completely suck now! whoa. I do feel like the dig site is somehow worse, though. feels... slower. annoying. I do appreciate the visual indicator, but also feel like it could be better. more distinct, perhaps.
I appreciate that animals aren't so temperamental, and despite the many complaints I saw regarding the way cows work now, I am glad they can continue to produce milk without giving birth. that process in the original game was a total pain. I've got a feeling it's easier in the remake... to some extent, at least... but not having to do it is nice.

character redesigns and renames are fine. most of the name changes are simply to be more accurate to their original names. in terms of redesigns, I do wish Gordy still had his mohawk. his new outfit is a fine spin on the old one, but imo, it leans a bit too sporty to entirely fit his character. but it's whatever. not a dealbreaker or anything. I appreciate the addition of Gordy as a marriage candidate.

the biggest bummer of this game, and the reason I had a hard time sticking with the original as well as this remake, is that you experience 95% of what the game has to offer in the first year. while this game does have that draw of seeing your child grow up and being an influence on them as they do so... it's just so slow, and with little dialogue, that it's never really pulled me in. being a person that's never wanted to have a family irl is likely also relevant for me and my lack of enjoyment/interest in this case... lmao

Coming into this game I had very little experience with pure farming games which is Stardew Valley and Rune Factory 4. Yes you read that right, I have never played a Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons before. I'm not the largest fan of this genre, what got me into wanting to try this was the whole "life" aspect. There aren't many games that I've played where you go through the whole rigmarole of going from young adult, to married with children, to growing old together. I had the ending of this game spoiled for me but I can't be all that upset because the original game is old, I was very much alive and able to play it at the time, and the ending STILL got me so it doesn't matter. Also this game took me longer than most jrpgs, oh my lord. I didn't think it would have taken me over 2 weeks to beat this game.

While it was a bit repetitive, the game definitely could have used more automation upgrades, that is a staple of the genre as far as I'm concerned but I got REAL tired of playing musical chairs with my chickens. Animals also didn't seem to die and from what I can tell that is new to this remake. Speaking of animals I really wish there was a way to put the horse back in the barn without needing to call all the animals back out only to put them all back in. Putting in the effort to get the best tools was worth it because of how much more they let you do. I also wish you could fuse more than one crop at a time, instead of needing to do it for each and every one in the stack you intend to. I get why its limited but its still tedious as af especially when Vinny is needy as all fuck and won't shut the fuck up EVERY TIME you talk to him.

I was iffy on the artstyle. The bachelorettes all looked fine, some of the bachelors were ok and others were not. But some of the regular residents were hideous to me, like Sully. The man looks like what an Easter Island head would be with a full body.

I named my character after myself and played a male character which is something I haven't done in decades. I just don't really care about being "myself" in games but it felt like it should be done here. I married Nami, anyone who knows me even a little bit shouldn't be surprised by this. This game has the Animal Crossing New Horizons issue of lots of repeated dialogue. Outside of events, you get the same couple of lines form everyone and it made me not wanna talk to people unless I had to and even those evens play out mostly the same each year. Also you couldn't gift people items while they were doing ANYTHING but standing still or walking (LET ME GIFT YOU GORDY PUT YOUR FUCKING ARMS DOWN FFS) but you can give them request items during those actions so that dumb stipulation should have been removed along with needing to shove the item in certain characters faces several times before they accept them.

Another thing I don't really agree with or understand is this game's profanity filter. First of all, its a single player game so why is it even here? There is no online connectivity whatsoever. Second half of its triggers didn't make sense. How is Cream not allowed but Creamer is fine or using the number 14 (despite the game calling said crop Crop 14) is unacceptable?

As I said above the whole life aspect is what got me to play. Seeing my character age throughout the game, as well as other characters, just seemed so novel to me. I can't name a game that does this outside of like post credits "where are they now" type deal. Seeing my child become her own person was something I didn't think I'd get to see again in my life, though I think making the kid such a depressed mess was a little too real. I cried right after the credits finished, I held it together but that whole last year had this underlying sadness all throughout its events. Every single one I saw just made me sad which is a far cry from the excitement for seeing each one earlier in the game. The people of the town seemed to think highly of me, my family and animals loved me and the farm was in a great state.

So despite the repetitiveness in actions and dialogue, some iffy character designs, I think the life aspect is what sets this game apart from the rest. If you have some interest in this game I say go for it. I can assure you that you'll most likely have...

A Wonderful Life

I played the original Another Wonderful Life on my PS2 years ago, but never really got past Spring, as it is so difficult to earn money in that game, and I remember my cow and goat stopped giving me milk at some point, and I couldn't figure out what's happening.

So when the announcement for the remake came about, I was thrilled and apprehensive, as I didn't enjoy Another Wonderful Life much back then, but decided to give it a chance. And I'm glad I did.

Not only did the devs fixed a lot of the annoying stuff that is in the original, they made the game a lot better. Earning money is still difficult, especially in the first year, since the seasons are only 10 days long still. But raising friendships are a heck lot easier this time around to the point that I managed to get the free Seed Maker from Daryl in early summer! Several characters in the game however underwent a full 'makeover' like Marlin (or Matthew) in the remake to the point that I barely recognised him from the original (he's hot in the remake tho).

I played this game on the Steam Deck, and while officially, it isn't verified by Valve, you can still play it with some tweaks. Not perfect, but still completely playable.

I'm still in late Autumn of year 1 at the point of writing this review, but so far, I'm enjoying the game.

I was so excited to see this game get announced since I used to love it as a teen, but this is not at all what I wanted. It's kind of a sanitized, soul-less version of the original with almost none of the charm. There's a few things that are much worse about this game, which you see pretty quickly. Besides the design and name changes to some of the characters for some reason, digging for treasures doesn't really give any satisfaction either, since you can see the treasures before you pick them up. Animals don't die, which some people might find better. I think that takes away any reason for me to really care about them unless I really need S-tier food. It just makes everything a little more boring, with no real urgency to do anything. The controls are awful, too, and I still have no idea how to see missions once you accept them.
There's some things that this game does better, like giving you ability to speed through text, control cameras in the field area where you plant crops and skip the intro where you meet everyone. That and you can save and load anywhere, which is nice.
It's not as god awful as I expected, but it's basically a dumbed-down child version of the original game, but for the same price as the original.

(Also, I want back my cow with her blue eyes and giant head! The dot eyes stare into your soul.)

Having only played Mineral Town and Olive Town as my prior SoS experience (which means that I never played the original AWL), I thought this Remake was an enjoyable experience.

The farming mechanics are a bit simple for the most part. The starting fields are all small although the largest unlockable one is of decent size. The game lacks many varied livestock to own other than the cow variations and the basic crops are limited. That said, the crop hybrids have quite a lot of depth. Making them is annoyingly RNG reliant, but there's a lot of variety with these at least.

The town is surprisingly rural where it even lacks a general shop. The town is big in size, but there's a lot of empty spaces in between. The townspeople are likable fortunately.

The most appealing feature and highlight of AWL is definitely the family and child raising mechanic. You're forced to marry by the end of Year 1 which is pretty early, but then you have a child at the beginning of Year 2 and then you get to see their growth throughout the game until it ends when they are an adult. Being able to interact with your child and seeing how they change for the better (and sometimes not as good) is interesting to experience.

This indirectly relates to how I really enjoyed that time seems to move forward with this game unlike the other SoS games where time doesn't seem to move forward after one year. Everybody remains single and don't age. No further significant character growth. AWL is not perfect in this matter too where single characters remained single despite the massive amount of years of progress, but you get to see people growing older. Young children become adults. Adults get gray hair and wrinkles.

I do think that Year 4 is where people will start to get burned out. Festivals are limited and play out nearly the same every year. There isn't enough new story or character development to look forward to so instead of interacting with other villagers, you're probably focusing more on the farm activities. Which by then, you probably have enough money to buy every important thing in the game. It makes the last few years a bit boring with the standout being your child's growth.

Overall, I do wish that the game put more focus on the family development and villager interactions instead of the crop hybrids. The latter just feels like it belongs in another SoS with a stronger focus on farming instead. Because other than the hybrid crops, there isn't much here for farming content. Even mining is pretty much gone and the fishing list is very small.

With all of that said, I recommend AWL just for the child/family development which stands out among similar titles.

I feel like a lot of the negative reviews for this game on steam specifically are coming from those who didn't see the charm and appeal of the original. A Wonderful Life was a weird Harvest Moon title. Time passed by, people aged, the game was slow, the town was small, the villagers were odd and had a lot of quirks. They went for realism in certain aspects that aren't in any other SoS or HM titles - and that's why I love AWL so much.

This remake captures so much soul of the original, I'm so thankful for that because I was worried they would make it more palatable to blend in with the other SoS titles. And I'm so glad they didn't.

This is a weird and charming little game, faithful to the original with a lot of QoL updates. I think my biggest complaints with it would be the hitboxing for animal feed bins and the mines, as well as the lack of dialogue for spouses especially the newer added male ones.

But overall this remake made me so happy and brought back so much nostalgia for me!