Very like an axe, sickle, or hoe, nostalgia is a robust instrument. In Story of Seasons: A Fantastic Life, it is what leads your farmer to return to Forgotten Valley in hopes of making a life much like the idyllic one led by their dad and mom. It is also what led me–clad in my best, rose-tinted glasses–to revisit A Fantastic Life with its current remake. As I downloaded this new model of a recreation I as soon as sunk a number of hours into for my Nintendo Swap, I reminisced concerning the first time I performed the sport twenty years ago–the really feel of my grandparents’ itchy carpet, the satisfying “click on” of my purple GameCube closing earlier than it kicked right into a delicate whir… It was by no means my favourite Harvest Moon game–that spot was reserved for Again to Nature–but it was one which I discovered distinctive and pleasant.
In some methods, I additionally really feel that means about its 2023 remake. Story of Seasons: A Fantastic Life is a really totally different sort of farming simulator in that it is one which focuses extra on relationships, household, and legacy than farm work. It is a idea I can get behind, and A Fantastic Life’s emphasis on streamlining gameplay and eliminating tedium is a breath of recent air. Nevertheless, regardless of social-sim dynamics being on the forefront of A Fantastic Life, participant interactions and the neighborhood itself really feel shallow. Though the character creation course of is perhaps extra concerned than ever, few NPCs are memorable, dialogue is scarce, and the sport’s idyllic setting turns eerie shortly as a result of city’s vacant environment. But if I issue out this less-than-wonderful content material, not all that a lot is left, making A Fantastic Life really feel dated and empty–especially when in comparison with different video games within the now-highly saturated farming recreation style.
Like most farming sims, A Fantastic Life begins with a letter–only this time it is despatched from your character slightly than to you. After rising bored with life within the metropolis, your character pens a letter to your dad and mom’ former pal, Takakura, informing him of your intention to return to Forgotten Valley and take over your dad and mom’ previous farm. Upon your arrival, Takakura affords your farmer a cow, a good sum of cash, and a tutorial that superbly walks the high quality line between overbearing and uninformative, earlier than supplying you with whole management over your character and farm.
This tutorial–and how simple these notes are to entry in any respect times–comes in clutch as a consequence of how dramatically totally different A Fantastic Life is from different farming sims. Whereas video games like Stardew Valley and the overwhelming majority of Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons video games provide you with a big, dilapidated discipline, your A Fantastic Life farm begins in a neat and tidy state with solely two small plots of land–one with poor soil high quality and one with common high quality, an element which continuously comes into play. The majority of your farm is a fenced-off discipline your livestock can graze upon, which shortly informs you that animal husbandry needs to be your focus and is the largest money-maker; it is a dramatically totally different method to farming sims, which typically depend on crops to get your money flowing. In the end, these qualities truly make A Fantastic Life an ideal farming sim for style newcomers to get into–there’s much less to handle, much less to do, and quite a bit much less to fret about.
Nevertheless, for these extra accustomed to the style that is solely the start of the lengthy listing of variations. For instance, you can’t ship any gadgets you forage or collect in A Fantastic Life–that bin is reserved solely for gadgets you harvest. As a substitute, you should wait till the touring salesman Van involves city or arrange your personal stall within the heart of city, in hopes that your wandering neighbors will see your sales space and slowly enterprise over. Moreover, a 12 months in A Fantastic Life is just 40 days lengthy, with every season representing 10 of these days and containing one vacation. This implies time goes by shortly and duties that you’d typically do daily–such as watering your crops and milking your cow–can and ought to be completed twice a day on this recreation. This additionally provides the sport the room it must span a number of years, giving gamers the great alternative to observe their neighborhood change and their future youngster develop.
And whereas there are a handful of issues you may improve in your farm and in your stock, there’s zero useful resource amassing and attaining these upgrades would not really feel like a lot of a spotlight. In truth, slightly than having any type of farming or monetary objectives, the sport emphasizes that you should get married in your first 12 months of dwelling in Forgotten Valley–or else the sport will finish.
That is the place you begin to expertise some friction. Whereas a streamlined farm and shortened calendar sounds nice in idea, its execution in A Fantastic Life leaves quite a bit to be desired. Outdoors of tending to your farm and choosing random herbs and flowers, there are primarily 5 issues you are able to do: Go to the town, go to the Harvest Sprites to seize a recipe, socialize along with your neighbors, mine, and fish. That feels like a good quantity, proper? This is the issue: Every certainly one of these actions is extremely shallow and uninteresting. To go to the town, you go to the outskirts of city, point out that you’re prepared to spend six hours visiting the town, after which the display goes black and you come six hours later. I’m nonetheless undecided if it truly does something.
Visiting the Harvest Sprites entails consuming a mushroom, coming into their residence, after which speaking to certainly one of them to get a recipe. If you happen to strive speaking to the opposite two, they’re going to simply repeat that they do not have a recipe for you at the moment. Mining consists of coming into a tiny dig site–probably made up of 15 squares–being handed a shovel, and repeatedly digging on the similar squares in an try to seek out fossils. And fishing sees you forged your line, wait on your bobber to sink, after which maintain down a button. That’s it.
Nevertheless, socialization is perhaps essentially the most irritating half. Seeing as I’m informed emphatically and continuously that I have to marry somebody so as to reside in Forgotten Valley, which after all feels unusual in itself, attending to know somebody is clearly an enormous precedence. However there are a number of issues with this: The parents you may marry are largely stationary and uninteresting, coronary heart occasions are temporary and never notably gripping, and items and dialogue really feel impersonal. Whereas I’m delighted developer Marvelous added same-sex marriage to the sport, it would not make up for the truth that the candidates aren’t essentially the most full of life group of individuals. I gravitated in direction of Matthew and Molly in my playthrough, as they exuded essentially the most character, however everybody else felt roughly one-note. Whereas I in the end married Matthew, the romance did not really feel partaking or earned. Although I loved Matthew’s Darcy-esque character, it did not really feel as if we received to know each other, bonded, and fell in love. And possibly I am simply sappy, however that is a sense I am fairly keen on in any video games with a romance ingredient and would have most popular to expertise as an alternative of the pressured scenario we’re supplied.
Even with regard to friendship, the city is simply… vacant. It is a phrase I preserve coming again to, however one which aptly describes Forgotten Valley, a spot the place issues like a common retailer, library, faculty, museum–any type of full of life and purposeful constructing, really–don’t exist. Dialogue is commonly recycled, the townsfolk seldom work together with one another, and the city is extra stuffed with unusual scientists than individuals who really feel like a part of a tight-knit neighborhood. Whereas there’s this core of sentimentality right here, you need to look extraordinarily onerous to see it–and that in the end makes for a extremely isolating expertise. Oh, you can too full merchandise requests on your neighbors, however it occurs so sometimes, it is one thing I am solely simply now remembering exists. To be fairly sincere, there have been a number of days I went to mattress earlier than the solar had even set–there was nothing to do, nobody to see, and standing by a river hitting a button to reel in a fish each 20 seconds simply did not sound tremendous interesting.
Some issues break up the monotony–holidays, occasions along with your youngster, and watching them develop up (which might be the best function and makes the fast calendar value it) are good. The sport’s graphics and music are pretty sufficient, gameplay is considerably smoother than it was within the authentic, and its streamlined method to farming and quality-of-life updates, equivalent to including NPC icons to your map so you do not have to look very onerous to seek out individuals, are good options. Sadly, the whole bundle is simply not sufficient.
Again in 2003, A Fantastic Life supplied a refreshing and nostalgic tackle the farming sim style. Nevertheless, even then, it felt a bit empty when in comparison with what many different simulation video games have been doing. Whereas Marvelous added higher inclusivity, readability, and extra occasions and dialogue, it would not preserve this 2023 remake from feeling empty and caught previously.