Review in progress:
I spent a lot of time playing this game as a child. Looking back, it was rather disappointing. Playing Friends of Mineral Town and Stardew Valley after this made me realize that I grew up with the wrong farming game.
The balance is laughably bad. Once you get access to fruit trees, there's no point in even bothering with other revenue streams. You make such an absurd amount of money that taking care of animals and standard crops is no longer worth the trouble. There's almost nothing to spend your money on though, so you'll quickly find yourself at a point where there's no incentive to farm... in a farming game.
Stamina is effectively a nonissue in this game (it exists, but you can't pass out anymore) and there are no power berries (which increase said stamina). Power berries acted as a compelling goal for players to work toward and added structure to what can otherwise feel like an aimless game. Removing the threat that comes along with low stamina greatly reduces the challenge factor. Both of these changes make the gameplay feel more dull.
Festivals in A Wonderful Life are terrible. There are only four of them, and all you do is watch a cutscene. Other Harvest Moon games have larger variety of festivals and the festivals have actual gameplay. There's nothing here to break up the monotony inherent to farming games.
The atmosphere and writing in A Wonderful Life have always stuck with me. They are the strongest aspects of the game by far. There's an overwhelming sense of melancholy that pervades throughout Forgot Me Not Valley. Nearly every characters is struggling, and none of them truly get past their issues. It makes the villagers feel like real people.
Those villager interactions are what kept the game from being a complete slog. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to burn through their dialogue and social events. I wanted to learn more about the characters, but there simply wasn't enough writing added for each one.
Becoming friends with everyone is a quick and easy process. It can easily be done within the first 20 days or so even without gifts. There's very little incentive to talk to villagers after this point, which is a shame. Most of them give you poor rewards or nothing at all. I'd consider getting more dialogue and events to be a sufficient reward, but that doesn't happen here.
Cooking is useless. Why would I cook food when stamina doesn't matter and gift giving is unnecessary? Fishing also ends up being unneeded because of those factors plus the aforementioned broken economy. Tool upgrades no longer require materials and can instead be purchased with money. This means that there's no reason to mine, either.
I spent a lot of time playing this game as a child. Looking back, it was rather disappointing. Playing Friends of Mineral Town and Stardew Valley after this made me realize that I grew up with the wrong farming game.
The balance is laughably bad. Once you get access to fruit trees, there's no point in even bothering with other revenue streams. You make such an absurd amount of money that taking care of animals and standard crops is no longer worth the trouble. There's almost nothing to spend your money on though, so you'll quickly find yourself at a point where there's no incentive to farm... in a farming game.
Stamina is effectively a nonissue in this game (it exists, but you can't pass out anymore) and there are no power berries (which increase said stamina). Power berries acted as a compelling goal for players to work toward and added structure to what can otherwise feel like an aimless game. Removing the threat that comes along with low stamina greatly reduces the challenge factor. Both of these changes make the gameplay feel more dull.
Festivals in A Wonderful Life are terrible. There are only four of them, and all you do is watch a cutscene. Other Harvest Moon games have larger variety of festivals and the festivals have actual gameplay. There's nothing here to break up the monotony inherent to farming games.
The atmosphere and writing in A Wonderful Life have always stuck with me. They are the strongest aspects of the game by far. There's an overwhelming sense of melancholy that pervades throughout Forgot Me Not Valley. Nearly every characters is struggling, and none of them truly get past their issues. It makes the villagers feel like real people.
Those villager interactions are what kept the game from being a complete slog. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to burn through their dialogue and social events. I wanted to learn more about the characters, but there simply wasn't enough writing added for each one.
Becoming friends with everyone is a quick and easy process. It can easily be done within the first 20 days or so even without gifts. There's very little incentive to talk to villagers after this point, which is a shame. Most of them give you poor rewards or nothing at all. I'd consider getting more dialogue and events to be a sufficient reward, but that doesn't happen here.
Cooking is useless. Why would I cook food when stamina doesn't matter and gift giving is unnecessary? Fishing also ends up being unneeded because of those factors plus the aforementioned broken economy. Tool upgrades no longer require materials and can instead be purchased with money. This means that there's no reason to mine, either.