Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (2023) is a cozy farming and dating simulation game developed by the Japanese studio Marvelous and localized by XSEED Games for American audiences. The game is commonly abbreviated as SoS: AWL and was rated E (for everyone). It is available on multiple platforms, including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.
The protagonist in SoS: AWL moves to the Forgotten Valley to try their hand at farming after their father’s death. Under the guidance of family friend Takakura, you can run the farm by growing crops, raising animals, and befriending the local villagers. The game allows you to experience a unique generational story spanning your character’s entire lifetime. The game stands out in the Story of Seasons series with its distinctive aging system, progressing through chapters that show your character and community evolving.
This game is a remake of two GameCube titles, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (2003) and Another Wonderful Life (2004). The original 2003 title had a male protagonist who could romance the town’s bachelorettes, while the 2004 version featured a female protagonist with bachelors to romance. SoS: AWL merges both options into a single game.
Additionally, since Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (2020), the series has allowed players to romance any eligible character, regardless of gender. This means the protagonist — and the romanceable characters — are effectively bi.
A new feature in SoS: AWL is the addition of a non-binary pronoun option. It’s the first game in the series to include this. Players can now choose between he/him, she/her, and they/them pronouns. The feature was announced in a 2023 blog post just before the game’s release. Previous SoS games allowed you to choose between a male and female protagonist, locking the she/her pronouns to the female avatar and he/him to the male. SoS: AWL removes these gender locks, allowing the player to choose any avatar and pronoun combination.
In addition, your character’s appearance is more customizable than both the original AWL and other SoS games, allowing for more diverse character expression. While prior games allowed players to choose their avatar’s skin tone during character creation and change their avatar’s outfit in-game, SoS: AWL introduces a few new options. Now, at the beginning of the game, players can choose their avatar’s face shape, skin tone, eye color, hairstyle, and hair color; in-game, they can change the latter two at any point during their playthrough.
Overall, SoS: AWL received mixed reviews. Criticisms included the lack of in-game guidance and the repetitiveness of tasks. Gaming site IGN rated it 6 out of 10, and Game Rant and Gamespot were equally mixed. Nintendo Life gave it a slightly higher rating, 7 out of 10, citing its faith in the original (especially its slower pacing — a feature that players either loved or hated).
In the original Japanese, SoS: AWL for the Switch sold more than 40,000 copies in its first week, as reported by Famitsu, a Japanese video game magazine. It was the highest-selling title that week.
Ultimately, this title manages to modernize a classic with updated mechanics, greater inclusivity, and customization, cementing itself as a nostalgic yet innovative option for fans of rural life simulators.