Story of Seasons: A Great Life Evaluation (Swap)

What’s the worth of a remake? That is one thing we discovered ourselves asking as we performed Story of Seasons: A Great Life, a remake of the 2003 Harvest Moon recreation on GameCube, and a shocking addition to Marvelous/XSEED’s catalogue of video games. Ought to a remake of a recreation deliver it as much as as we speak’s requirements, with trendy additions like improved UI, additional options, and customarily simply extra content material? Ought to or not it’s devoted to the unique, and easily ported over to new platforms as-is? Or ought to or not it’s an try to recreate the feeling of enjoying that recreation for the primary time as a toddler?

We have been cautiously trying ahead to and dreading this remake for some time, as a result of whereas we’re excited for the whole graphical overhaul, the brand new localisation, and the choice to play as a male, feminine, or non-binary farmer, we even have a deep and sacred fondness for the unique, and sufficient expertise and knowledge from the previous 20 years of gaming to know that it does not match as much as our present requirements of “enjoyable”. Do we would like it to be dramatically overhauled, or offered in its imperfect state? We did not know… till we performed it.

Story of Seasons: A Great Life has plenty of the stuff you may anticipate from a farming sim. You possibly can increase cows, sheep, chickens, geese, and goats, and you may plant crops and timber in your fields to make cash and prepare dinner recipes in your cute little kitchen. There is a city full of individuals, all with attention-grabbing tales and distinctive homes, and a few of them (eight within the remake) might be married. You will be attempting to make cash to purchase issues like device upgrades, new amenities, and animals, which in flip will hopefully make more cash. Or you possibly can simply purchase cute new outfits. As much as you.

The factor that units A Great Life aside from different farming sims is that it is one lengthy story. Over the course of a number of many years, cut up into six chapters, you’ll go from a younger upstart working in your useless dad’s farm to an aged, married farmer, with a toddler who can develop as much as take over the farm, or select a wholly totally different profession path. The townsfolk will age and develop with you, and the city itself could change, too. There’s by no means actually been one other farming recreation fairly like this.

It feels, at first, like this remake of A Great Life is all-new, particularly when you’ve performed the unique GameCube recreation. The city and farm are not sludgy shades of brown; half the characters you bear in mind are actually referred to as one thing completely totally different to deliver them extra in keeping with the Japanese names (Muffy turns into Molly, Cody turns into Gordy, Celia turns into Cecelia, Tim and Ruby change into Tei and Lou); a number of of the extra insensitive or odd options have been smoothed over; even the UI is vastly improved.

Some adjustments take away the chew that the unique had. The misanthropic Marlin is now a a lot youthful man referred to as Matthew, whose up to date type makes him come throughout as extra of a whiny incel than a grump. Galen, the outdated man whose story will get very unhappy in Chapter 2, is now referred to as Gary, which is only a worse old-man identify by any metric, however in any other case all the things simply feels very good.

Sadly, inflation has additionally struck Forgotten Valley, and it is rather a lot more durable to purchase big-ticket gadgets. The Processing Room, which turns milk into butter and cheese – the primary strategy to get cash within the recreation – used to price 30,000G, which you can earn inside the first yr when you have been good. Now, it prices 150,000G, and it took us nearly two in-game years to make that a lot. Plus, it’s going to take so much longer to earn that cash again, and if we wish to improve the barn to get extra cows, that is one other 120,000G. We’re not fabricated from G, Marvelous!

However different adjustments are welcome. Higher menus, higher onboarding, and extra helpful names for hybrid crops (Banana + Peach = Panana, as a substitute of the unique identify, “Magerum”; Grape + Apple = Grapple, as a substitute of “Phuju”) make the sport way more player-friendly with out altering the vibe an excessive amount of. One of the best change might be the instruments, which now take up their very own slots in your stock, that means which you could now carry far more stuff and you do not have to place them again if you’re carried out with them. However even with these adjustments, do not go into A Great Life anticipating a simple experience.

Within the first yr, we have been mightily dissatisfied by how unenjoyable the sport appeared. Was it a nasty remake, or have been our reminiscences of loving the sport incorrect? We needed to assume the previous, as a result of there isn’t any approach our reminiscences have been flawed.

The sport is frustratingly obtuse about most issues, like how typically to water crops, how you can truly make cash, and the truth that you are not capable of work together with something when you’re holding an merchandise or a device. It additionally would not let you know that most of the enhancements and upgrades that make the sport simpler are solely achievable by way of making mates, or that you must get married by the tip of the primary yr, or that some gadgets, animals, and upgrades are solely obtainable at very particular instances of the month, or the day.

Stardew Valley this isn’t. In actual fact, enjoying the sport is an attention-grabbing train in seeing how a lot farming sims have modified over the past 20 years, and you will find your self lacking these conveniences every so often. You will miss sprinklers and machines that auto-gather eggs and milk; you may lengthy for precise mines that are not simply 16 floor tiles to dig in. You will want that the digging and fishing mechanics have been even a tiny bit attention-grabbing or difficult. It could possibly all appear to be a large step backwards, when you’re used to extra trendy farming video games.

However the extra we performed of this recreation – a recreation that is truly considered one of this creator’s childhood favourites – the extra we remembered the unique, and the extra we realised that this remake is definitely extremely devoted, and we had simply forgotten. And, truly, there are plenty of quality-of-life adjustments that clean over among the rougher elements, whereas sustaining the attraction. For instance, it is so much quicker to get farming carried out, with snappier animations and the choice to water a number of tiles directly, and there are additionally new occasions, new festivals, and many issues so as to add to the encyclopaedia that provide you with a way of a fuller, richer world. Any friction that continues to be is purposeful – it is a recreation that is meant to be sluggish.

Harvest Moon video games have been initially based mostly on creator Yasuhiro Wada’s eager for rural Japan, and this remake is nearer to that unique imaginative and prescient than a contemporary tackle the style, which tends to give attention to satisfying recreation loops and automation as the tip purpose. The satisfaction in A Great Life would not come from making tens of millions of farmbucks on daily basis, or maxing out relationships, or getting the largest home. It comes as a substitute from the real-world satisfaction of a job effectively carried out and a life effectively lived; of constructing the inhospitable into the livable, after which into one thing you might be happy with. In the event you’ve ever had your individual backyard, you may know that that type of work takes years to return to fruition.

Every season is 10 days lengthy, every chapter is a minimum of a yr lengthy, and by god, it takes a minimum of a yr and a half in-game earlier than you have constructed up sufficient momentum to really really feel such as you’re shifting forwards. If you wish to ‘end’ this recreation, you may be taking a look at round 30-50 hours of largely repetitive farm work — however a minimum of the sport adjustments with you, as characters age, individuals transfer out and in of the city, have kids, and watch these kids develop up, too.

And you realize what? We expect A Great Life is definitely worth the time you may want to take a position, particularly when you’re a fan of sedate farming/life sims which you could poke your head into for half an hour a day, otherwise you’re a fan of the OG expertise, which has been recreated fairly lovingly by the builders. A Great Life won’t ever be Stardew Valley, it is true – but it surely’s refreshing to see a remake that avoids enjoying catch-up by staying true to its personal roots, and by reminding us of our roots, too.