![]() Despite seasons being some of the shortest in the series, years end up feeling incredibly long, especially as you're starting out. It's a similar fault that I pointed out in my Mineral Town review, but it really is just a great remake in terms of keeping the original spirit of the game alive. ![]() While you do get some modern touch ups in terms of UI design, which is great by the way, and general signposting, there's a lot of that 2003 "charm" preserved. It can be a bit of a culture shock going back to what is ultimately feels like a faithful remake though. Add to this a more interesting day cycle with weather changes happening throughout and you have a much more interactive and interesting day by day experience. Despite each chapter being on a time limit and each season being an incredibly short ten days, the days themselves go by at a rate of a minute per second, starting as early as 5am. It could lead to you rushing through tasks and feeling like you've not got enough time to get to everything you want to. On paper I would call time limits a bad thing in what is otherwise an incredibly casual game. The whole experience is entirely unique, and it's one I came to enjoy more than I initially thought. Between each chapter you'll see a leap forward in time, with the environment and the characters within it changing and aging. The game is split between chapters, with each chapter being a set number of years. A Wonderful Life sets out a different idea, and while it's not one that'll be to the taste of everybody playing it, I do think it's interesting. You can take a year or you can take 20 years to figure things out depending on what you prefer. ![]() Most farming games that I would call traditional like the aforementioned Harvest Moon DS, or the more modern Stardew Valley, see you taking each day at a leisurely pace with no real limits. And that's the thing about A Wonderful Life, you really do live a life. After that, you're pretty much free to live your life. With your character made, you arrive at the farm in Forgotten Valley (formerly Forget-Me-Not Valley) to a few text tutorials from your neighbour Takakura and an optional trip around the valley to meet everybody. It's the kind of thing that will really mean a lot to some people. It might sound like a minor addition, but it just goes that one step further in allowing the player to feel a part of the world. Adding to this as what I believe to be a series first, the game lets you pick the pronouns townsfolk will address you with, notably including a they/them option. If you've played Pioneers of Olive Town, much of this will sound familiar, and I really do think it's great to have this degree of customisation in a game like this that expects you to relate with your player character. You pick your skin tone, face, eye colour, hair colour, hair style, and outfit. With that bit of exposition out of the way you're thrown straight into a character creation screen, and it's really quite impressive out of the gate. It's not quite the usual hand-me-down farm from grandpa, but it's close enough. Your father recently passed away, and you're headed out to the countryside to build the farm they never could. The setting of A Wonderful Life is one that's going to be fairly familiar to fans of the genre. Having never played the original game when it launched on GameCube and PS2, can the remake captivate me as it's captivated so many others though? With hundreds of hours played on what I consider to be the pinnacle of the series, I became intangibly excited when I saw its predecessor receiving the same remake treatment as Mineral Town before it. ![]() Set 100 years after the events of A Wonderful Life, it shares the same cast of characters (don't ask how) in the same, if somewhat scaled up valley. Sitting with more than 40 copies in my collection at this point, I have an undying adoration for the game and its setting, and I'll take any chance I can to tell people about it. To a choice few however, those who scour the holy thread of recently purchased items, I'm known for one thing above all: as a fine collector of the game Harvest Moon DS. To others I might be the person obsessed with weird tech and won't stop talking about it on the front page. To some I might be the person who covers visual novels and otome games. Having written reviews for the past six years on GBAtemp, I've garnered a small reputation for myself amongst regular members. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |