I’ll leave aside that some players might not even want to get married and have children. He’s not just saying it, either - the player must marry by the end of the first year in order to progress. From the moment your character steps foot on their dad’s farm, Takakura pressures you to get married and start a family ASAP. One of the most important components of AWL is marriage and family. With fewer things to do in any in-game day, life in Forgotten Valley can start to feel boring and monotonous - especially considering AWL expects you to live out 30 years of your character’s life. This makes the world, as beautiful as it is, feel bigger and emptier than necessary - certainly emptier than the GameCube original. For example, the game is a third-person exploration title, as opposed to a top-down perspective. Rustic restrictions: What’s not to likeĪs charming as AWL is superficially, some aspects of its design feel dated. It sounds counterintuitive, but I appreciated the extra challenge in an otherwise straightforward game. You have a way of selling extra items, but it’s much more restrictive. No ripping up weeds in the forest and selling them for some quick cash: You can only ship actual products you grow or harvest from your animals. While I’m not a fan of certain structural elements of the game’s design, I liked that the game restricts how players can make money. You have time - and the game gives you plenty of incentives to use it. The game takes place over your characters entire life, meaning you don’t have to grind hard from the outset. In AWL, you have no choice but to slow down. In other games, even other Story of Seasons entries, you’ll hustle to make money and buy your way to a better farm by the end of the first year. This game is also slow-paced compared to other farm sims. Just till your soil, talk to your neighbors and pet your animals - that’s it more or less. This isn’t a game where you’ll be battling off enemies in your pursuit of the perfect pumpkin patch. The basic controls, including the actual gameplay of farming, harvesting and exploring, is simple and intuitive. The graphics are nothing to sneeze at, smoothly transitioning from the bright, cheerful village to the slightly supernatural aspects along the periphery. A simpler life: What’s to likeĪ Wonderful Life is a beautiful game, with cute character designs and the most huggable animals. While it’s no longer Harvest Moon in name, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is held back by the original game’s simplistic, provincial design. At this point, most gamers will expect more from their farming sims, and they’re not getting it here. This all sounds very standard, right? That’s the problem: experiencing a cozy, rustic life may have been enough to sustain a game at the time of its initial release, but now that’s the bare minimum for this genre. You also socialize with a small town’s population, finding one special someone with whom you can settle down into marriage and parenthood. From that point, your character can spend years of in-game time doing exactly that, raising crops and livestock into a proper business. When you arrive, his old buddy Takakura tasks you with bringing the farm back to its former glory. The story is a familiar one: You’re a city kid who inherits a farm in Forgotten Valley from your late father.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |