There's been multiple quality of life updates in the remake of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life compared to the original versions.
Farming and Ranching
- Takakura starts you out with five tomato seeds and an apple tree seed, instead of a mere two tomato seeds.
- The player can plant more than one seed at a time by pressing and holding the Y button, up to a 3x3 grid.
- The shipping box can be used to ship animal products and crop produce from the get-go, compared to the original version where an extra shipping box for higher hybrid crops only had to be unlocked in later chapters. Before that, crops had to be sold to Van only — and standard crops didn't ship out even with the advanced basket.
- Calves bought or born on your farm do not have to give birth themselves before producing milk. Nor do cows simply stop giving milk approximately a year after giving birth, or get sick or die if neglected. Their milk quality will just drop all the way to a semi-useless C-Rank, which can only be sold to Van for much less than any better quality.
- The goat and sheep can both be bred to get more than one on the farm. Goats won't stop giving goat milk after a year and will always make milk, similar to the cows; sheep can also be sheared every five days rather than only once a season.
- Crop plants dissolve after being harvested, meaning you don't have to sickle the remnants out before you can immediately plant another.
- Trees can be planted with a single space between them — the grid around them means plants can't be placed underneath or closer. Meaning you can get multiple trees in a field pretty closely. The smallest field can hold fifteen.
- The barn and chicken coop can be expanded, allowing the housing of twice as many animals as before.
- You can't plant seeds out of season, as part of Anti-Wastage Features. They can still wither if planted too late and are still in the ground at the start of a season they won't grow in, but you can't accidentally plant your Sweet Potatoes in Spring for example as the menu won't allow it.
- The new names for various hybrids now make it more clear what they're made from. For example, the Banana/Peach hybrid fruit is called a Panana, rather than the obscuring "Magerum." You still name second-level hybrids.
- Rather than being called fruits and vegetables as in older games, plants are now either field crops or tree crops. This helps prevent confusion at plants such as strawberries or watermelons being mistaken as a fruit. This is a confusion from Japanese classifications, where the definition of fruit vs. vegetable is based on if they grow on trees or not, but wasn't translated clearly before.
- Like other updated games, plants do not wither or die if stepped on, meaning they can be planted side by side.
Relationships With Villagers / Marriage
- You can see how many hearts each marriage candidate has and how friendly you are with the townsfolk by going to the character happiness chart, accessed through the rucksack (which also lists reward requests, animal health, and farm data as well as all the items in the bag). The diaries for love interests remain where they were before as The Artifact.
- Every character can get multiple gifts in a day, up to eight a day (they have to be different ones for everyone but Lumina, who'll take two different flowers), making the first year of wooing and/or subsequent befriending much more easy.
- The only character who loses friendship if not talked to regularly is Vinnie and it can be reboosted after talking to him repeatedly if it drops too low to make hybrids. Everyone else stays at the levels they are.
Activities Around Town
- There's now a shallow path
◊ in the river near the waterfall that connects the dig site area and the forest pond with each other, making travel between the sides of the river a lot easier. - Treasure hunting at the dig site is much easier now, as buried items will start to stick out of the ground once they are close to being uncovered and you can dig in the same spot repeatedly to get more items. There were zero visual cues in the original game, meaning that you had to aimlessly dig through every tile until you found a treasure at random. Also the mine now has more items per chapter including golden objects that sell for at least a thousand gold minimally, allowing some easy money earning. Golden Forks are available from the first chapter.
- The strenuous Button Mashing in two of the minigames (the "milk" drinking contest and Nina's grave cleaning) has been removed in favor of new mechanics. The milk contest is replaced by a "follow-the-pattern" cooking event, while the grave cleaning has been simplified to a rhythm game.
- The original game had four festivals, but there was no interaction at all — they merely played out as annual cut scenes. This one has changed the festivals and what happens at them. Instead of two concerts in the summer and winter, the summer one is replaced with a fireworks show that Charlie and Cole put on, giving them something to do in the valley other than minigames. The festivals are also slightly more interactive, letting the player make wishes at the Winter Starlight concert, invite a partner the first year to two of them to get closer to them, and bring something for the feast to contribute for the Harvest Festival and New Year's celebration.
- A newly added bulletin board next to the Lei-Over Inn updates on the 1st and 6th of each season, offering rewards for various items delivered. This lets players gets items for free such as seeds, byproducts, and items — often before they can get them in game — as well as things like the Alarm Clock from Garrett, some outfits, and the Blessed Tools. Special requests for one of a kind items will also not leave the board until fulfilled, giving you as much time as you need.
- The map now shows where people are in town, not just locations. Need to find someone to give them a gift or talk? Check the map!
Other Changes
- Your tools take up their own slots in your rucksack and you can quick switch between them and the other items in it. No more needing to put tools away to carry more things or fumble through your bag for the milker.
- Tool upgrade use needed to upgrade to the next level is across groups of tools, not just one. Even if you rarely use the sickle, for example, you can upgrade it to the Copper level with the rest of the farming tools once the level unlocks. You still have to buy each separately.
- You now have a visible stamina bar, along with status bars for both your energy and hunger. The stamina bar can be turned off if you don't want it visible.
- Being hungry, sleepy, or low on stamina doesn't constantly activate — it activates once as a visible icon under the stamina bar, but lets you keep moving about after. Hunger especially is better, which in the original would stop you in your tracks repeatedly to give a hunger grumble if you didn't address it.
- Since Gavin and Muffy now run a café rather than a bar, meals can be purchased there that restore stamina and alleviate hunger. The player isn't obligated to either cook their meals or eat wild herbs/crops/produce to get by.
- The player can sell up to ten different items to Van at once in multiple amounts — however many they're carrying.
- The dog and cat don't have to be actively fed; their food bowl just fills automatically.
- Worried about getting all the hybrids and options before the end of the game, when your character dies? This version has Beyond Mode, allowing endless gameplay after the credits roll and reducing the need to try and cram all the hybridization and completion goals into a single one-time playthrough.
- A full encyclopedia of animals, crops, byproducts, and other items can be seen, making it easier to check off what you've gotten.
- Recipes are recorded now, rather than having to be memorized; once seen, found, or given by the Sprites they register to the player, and if a request asks for a specific cooked dish, the recipe is learned then. Players can cook either by recipe (which tells them exactly what to use), or by putting things together and experimenting. If an experiment results in a successful dish, then the recipe for the dish is recorded then.
- Flowers that can be used for hybrid plants are easier to find and more plentiful; some like Upseed flowers are still not everywhere, but are still more plentiful than before rather than only one or two at a time.
- Names for hybrid plants offer eight spaces instead of just four.
