Harvest Moon is a force that cannot be stopped. With console generation spanning sequels, this quirky and charming series based around life on the farm has taken over the hearts of gamers world wide. The relaxed pace, non-violent gameplay, and addictive fun wins over fans of all ages. A Wonderful Life lives up to the reputation of the series, delivering a lot of things to do and many ways to do them without ever losing purpose or direction.
Your father's dream was to own a farm, and with the help of his friend he found an old but fertile plot of land to start from. Then nature intervened and he passed away. It's up to you, his only son, to make your father's dream come true and turn this lovely lot in charming Forget-Me-Not Valley into a healthy, productive farm. To get you started your father's friend, now your assistant, buys you a single milking cow, some tools, and a couple of seeds. The game takes place over the course of 30 years, which are broken into 6 chapters. Each chapter is about 1-3 years long, which naturally means some time is skimmed over. Each day in game passes in real time, with each hour in game equal to a real-life minute. Each day you need to take care of your animals and crops, decide what to sell and what to each, socialize with your friends in Forget-Me-Not Valley, and perhaps woo one of the three girls available for marriage or play a mini-game for prizes.
Sound hectic? It isn't. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is a delightfully relaxing game where time management is a feature and not a nuisance. Most activities can be done at any time, and the town is small enough that you can get around reasonably without wasting too much time. There are also special tools to save you even more time. Some of the tools can be bought, but the best tools have to be earned as you become good friends with people. Giving people thoughtful gifts can provoke them to want to give back and you'll find that their gifts are often much better than the home-grown produce, rocks, and flowers you give to them. There are also three girls in town, one of which you can marry by the end of Chapter 1. Each has different likes and dislikes and your success at discovering their favorite things and providing them determines who will accept when you ask them to marry you. Your efforts to woo them pay off in Chapter 2 as you have a child together who you can raise to follow one of several career paths.
People are not the only characters you need to be friendly with. Your animals also work better when you go out of your way to keep them happy. Brushing your cows and goats and nuzzling them every day will make them produce better milk. A well-fed and well-snuggled chicken has a greater chance of laying a golden egg, and well-groomed sheep can give you golden wool. Crops also need to be tended with care. A well-watered plant will grow faster, and one planted in good soil and given fertilizers will be larger and juicier, earning a better ranking and a better price than a regular one. Eventually you can make hybrid crops and fruit trees, some of which have special effects as well as being quite tasty. Adding another layer of complexity is cooking. You start out with the ability to make soups and salads out of the things you grow on the farm as well as fish you catch in the river and wild herbs and mushrooms you find around the village. As you cook your skill increases, allowing you to make more types of dishes. All of this adds together to give you a wide range of options when deciding how to make your farm profitable-- you are not required to follow all of these paths and can instead choose to specialize.
Putting the finishing touches on this very solid and deep gameplay are the graphics. While there's nothing incredibly advanced going on, the world manages to both be cartoony cute and consistent. There's something about riding through the town on your pony that feels very real, and the water effects for the river and ocean are both mesmerizing. Standing outside during a downpour with the rain making it hard to see in the distance and the sound of thunder booming overhead is a pretty impressive experience, and watching the tree changes as the seasons pass brings a smile to the face. There are only two places where the presentation is lacking. The soundtrack is just not very good. You begin the game with two songs, and unless you hook up Friends of Mineral Town with a GBA link cable that's all you are going to get. The other problem is the translation. While nothing is incoherent, there are numerous spelling and grammatical errors in the dialog.
The harmony between deep gameplay mechanics and the freedom of choice is a powerful and wonderful thing. The Harvest Moon series has always been know for balancing these two, and A Wonderful Life carries on this proud tradition with addictive gameplay that never leaves you feeling forced into anything. Whether you're farming like a maniac to get rich quick, or just doing enough to live off of while you make new friends, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is a compelling game with a long lifespan ahead of it.
