As I hung up the cellphone, it occurred to me, he’d grown up identical to me

Story of Seasons: A Great Life affords a barely completely different tackle the well-worn farming sim style. As a brand new resident of the Forgotten Valley, you’re nonetheless right here to revitalize an previous farm and socialize with the townsfolk, but it surely’s that second facet that takes a central function right here. The purpose of your new life on this hamlet isn’t to avoid wasting a farm or to cease the event of a theme park…

You’re right here to make a life for your self, one that’s stuffed with love, household, and mates.

Story of Seasons: A Great Life (PC, PS5, Swap [reviewed], Xbox Collection X|S)
Developer: Marvelous
Writer: Xseed Video games
Launched: June 27, 2023
MSRP: $49.99

A Great Life is one Story of Seasons title that genuinely lives as much as its title. Prior video games within the collection — and after I say prior, I imply these earlier than the discharge of the authentic model of this sport again on the GameCube in 2003 — put the main target squarely on farming, with making mates and courtship positioned as aspect actions to maintain gamers busy between harvests. In A Great Life, these components are the core of the expertise. Sure, you’ll nonetheless spend roughly half your time tending to crops and livestock as you’ll in some other Story of Seasons sport, (and the farming system can get considerably deep with hybrid crops and animal husbandry to think about), however nothing you do on this farm issues for those who go house to an empty home and an empty mattress on the finish of the day.

It’s your actions outdoors your farm that make the distinction in Story of Seasons: A Great Life. Assembly folks, making mates, falling in love; these have (largely) all the time been components of the franchise, however right here, whether or not or not you’ve had a life well-lived will likely be decided by your success in these areas.

The story of A Great Life is split into a number of durations of your farmer’s life. You’ll begin the primary 12 months single and hopefully able to mingle as you’ll should be married to one of many eight eligible townsfolk—same-sex relationships are an choice right here as is the choice to make your farmer non-binary—by the top of winter or it’s on to the top credit roll. From there, you and your companion may have a baby, and the subsequent a number of chapters will concentrate on how nicely you do as a guardian, as a companion, and as a member of the group. As your youngster grows into an grownup, you and your partner will develop previous. Folks within the city will age as nicely. Some will die. Folks will transfer, and others will make a brand new begin within the Forgotten Valley.

I’ve performed loads of video games within the Story of Seasons franchise over the previous decade, however not one among them handles all the stuff outdoors your farm in addition to A Great Life does.

Life on the farm is fairly par for the course. To accommodate the construction of the sport’s story, every season in A Great Life lasts simply 10 days. For some crops, that may imply you get one shot at rising it a season. For gamers who like to maximise their farm’s potential, there are hybrid vegetables and fruit to find, a number of completely different breeds of cows, every with their very own milk, and machines that may assist assure high-quality crops. With the out there arable land being as small as it’s, tending to your farm will doubtless solely take up a couple of hours every day. That leaves loads of time to go fishing, assist out on the archaeology website, full numerous requests, take part in some mini-games, or attempt to strengthen your relationships with the folks round city.

Or you may spend that point shaping your youngster into the grownup they may grow to be. In your function as a guardian, you may assist dictate your youngster’s future, directing them towards one among a number of pursuits which will in the end grow to be their vocation. I’m not solely certain how a lot of a distinction it makes between which path your child takes, however the vacation spot didn’t matter that a lot to me. It was the journey that received me over, all these nights spent taking part in with my daughter, shopping for her toys, and watching her develop from a toddler to a tween to an grownup.

I don’t have youngsters in actual life. And, I’m not solely certain if I need them. However seeing my digital daughter develop right into a younger lady was one thing particular to expertise. In these moments, when time would bounce forward and I’d see how my rearing impacted her progress, I felt this sense of accomplishment no different Story of Seasons sport has given me.

In case you’re already offered on Story of Seasons: A Great Life as a fan of the unique and are simply questioning how this remaster holds up, know that that is an distinctive model of the sport. The Forgotten Valley seems great in HD, it runs just about flawlessly on Swap, I recognize many of the new character designs, and Marvelous has added sufficient new components, together with new hybrid crops, new recipes, and a brand new bachelor in Gordy, to make this a return go to nicely value making for those who’ve performed it earlier than.

Simply don’t count on sure components, like animal husbandry, to have the depth they as soon as did as loads of the processes have been streamlined. For many who didn’t give it a strive on the GameCube or PlayStation 2, the simplest technique to resolve if that is best for you is to ask your self how necessary you take into account farming in your farming sims. If there’s one grievance I’ve that isn’t simply nitpicking, it’s that the audio isn’t as much as par with the remainder of the presentation.

Story of Seasons: A Great Life is a outstanding expertise. It takes the traditional farming method and offers it a objective past simply seeing what number of S-ranked tomatoes you may develop. With its concentrate on household, legacy, and residing a great life, this can be a farming sim the place what you do away from the fields is as necessary as what you do once you’re tilling that land. It’s a sport that encourages a wholesome work-life steadiness, and there’s no higher lesson we’d like in our fashionable period than that.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}