YMMV / Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life

• Alternative Joke Interpretation: The line about phantom thieves in the curry recipe was most likely meant to be a reference to Skye from Harvest Moon DS Cute (since he's a thief whose Trademark Favorite Food is curry), but many players online thought it was a Persona 5 reference.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Rock. Either he's seen as a Jerkass Lazy Bum who mooches off his family — and you if you marry him — hurts Lumina's feelings, and never grows up, or he's a hidden gem of a partner who just doesn't know how to communicate with people, is using attempts at confidence to mask insecurities about his past, with him maturing once he has something to live for as marriage and parenthood grounds him. Doesn't help that older games such as Harvest Moon DS / DS Cute) paint him in a bad light, with AWL Rock's descendant Romeo (confusingly also called "Rock" by Natsume) in that version still flirting with the player character after they're married.
  • Matthew. As with Rock, it's hard to find someone with a neutral opinion on him. Either he's a rude Jerkass being way too overprotective and controlling towards Cecilia to the point of creepiness, or he's just shy and awkward but has a heart of gold once you get to know him. Worsened by the remake making both him and Cecilia romancable, making him alternate sharply between being gruff but kind and berating the player very harshly if you befriend both of them — especially because the trigger conditions for these scenes means they can potentially play one right after another. Once the remake came out, he was the most popular bachelor to romance by far — which resulted in a backlash of complaints once many players regretted marrying him, after finding out that he doesn't cook or help much with the farm. Players were often unaware this isn't something unique to Matt; all the candidates become house-spouses who occasionally deign to do a small chore if you're lucky with RNG, but otherwise don't contribute in any material fashion.
• Better Off Sold:
  • Golden produce or byproducts, such as golden sheep wool or golden eggs. Some characters — like Molly — have high level items as a liked or loved gift, and the eggs can be cooked with same as normal eggs, but their value means you're better selling or shipping them when a character is just as happy to get a flower.
  • Golden items dug out of the dig site. While they can be given as gifts, they're worth a thousand gold minimally, so they're better sold to Van to earn money when cheaper gifts are available.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Rock's introduction event becomes this if you marry him. Although he's quick to insist that he's happy being an unemployed bum, living the dream "just me, myself, and I!", one of his post-marriage lines has him admit that he felt aimless and lonely back then, and now that he has you and your child, he finally feels like his life has a purpose.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: An article, The Queerness of Story of Seasons by Kori Michele Handwerker in 2015 about making one's own queer narrative in Story of Seasons (2014), states that "[s]eeing the dream come true — [a] Harvest Moon game in which your character can be unquestionably homosexual — may never happen (don't even get started on the dreams of a game that allows for a non-binary gendered character, or [gasp!] a bisexual one." Just eight years later, this game — originally one of the most heterosexual, marriage-heavy games in the series — has all of this. Every marriage candidate can be attracted to the main character, the game allows for same-sex marriage, and there's nonbinary options for the MC from the start. You still have to get married since it's part of the plot, but you can be as queer about it as you like and the game openly accommodates it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While intended to be a Malaproper, Rock saying you're the Romiet to his Julio when he proposes to you invokes the title of a 1999 YA book by Sharon Draper, Romiette and Julio, that transposed the names the same way. Doubly hilarious if your player character is female.
  • If you breed your animals by using outside assistance from the city, Takakura puts you out of the barn while he coaxes them into breeding, and then invites you back in to explain — while the two animals are smiling afterwards — that the female will be pregnant in a few days. Cue the end of Chapter 1, where after telling everyone else in the valley about your marriage, you and your new spouse go to your house together for the first time — and then Takakura follows the two of you inside. Which is followed by, during your private wedding ceremony in the woods, your spouse wondering about the family getting bigger in the future and asking about what gender you'd want for your child. Snerk.
• Ho Yay: The way Takakura talks to and about your father over the years — and is embraced as a parental figure by the player so easily — can be interpreted both as Heterosexual Life-Partners or a gay couple that just never said anything about it. The fact that you only learn about the farm when going through your father's things after his death, combined with Takakura mentioning that you ought to get married as soon as possible since your father's dream was for this to be a family farm, it's not hard to interpret this as your father's unrealized dream involving starting such a family with Takakura.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • More tied to the sequel game Harvest Moon DS Cute than the original, but many players hoped that the expansion of bachelors and bachelorettes first revealed with Gordy being Promoted to Love Interest would mean Flora, Carter, or Griffin/Gavin would be as well. But Flora was first listed on the sites as a resident, not a bachelorette. Other than promoting Gordy to a love interest (to balance out the candidate pools, as Lumina brought the count of bachelorettes up to four in Special Edition and remains a candidate for the remake), there's no additional marriage candidates at all.
  • Many players expressed a similar disappointment over Harvest Moon DS Cute's Skye/Steiner not being a marriage candidate in this game... despite the fact that the smooth-talking phantom thief wouldn't have been born yet at this point, as DS Cute takes place 100 years after the events of the original A Wonderful Life.
  • There were hopes that with the bachelorettes and bachelors now being equally romancable, the bachelors (and Lumina) would finally be caught up to the bachelorettes by being given their own betrayal scenes, 9-heart events, and engagement dialogue — all of which the original three bachelorettes have always had. This did not end up being the case, causing strange scenarios such as Matthew accepting your blue feather without difficulty even if you already accepted Cecilia's love confession.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • The game not only allows the player to marry any of the eight love interests, allowing for same-sex marriage (including a child between you and your spouse), it also lets players opt to officially designate their character as male, female, or non-binary using pronouns. Said gender identity doesn't explicitly add or take away anything major to the game, but the representation is a very nice option.
  • Tomboyish Nami is very popular with queer players owing to her Boyish Short Hair and never changing in later chapters into anything more "dressy" or ladylike as the years pass, keeping her cuffed pants, t-shirts, and flannel (unlike Lumina who cuts her hair to her chin and wears a dress after Chapter 1). A lot of queer players in older versions of the games eagerly pursued her as "Mark" to imply a same-sex marriage best they could, and she's still highly popular for same sex marriage now that it exists. She can even be interpreted as nonbinary or genderfluid.
  • Molly (called Muffy in the original) was embraced by many queer players as well, with many who grew up playing Another Wonderful Life yearning to romance Muffy as Pony due to how intimate her lines towards Pony are, and the heartbreak of watching her mourn her unluckiness in love chapter after chapter without being able to help her.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Like its original game, the seasons being only ten days long means very short growing seasons — most of the time, only one cycle of a crop's growth can be done per season. This also means there's no character birthdays for anyone.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • How one feels about the redesigned bachelors, Matthew (formerly Marlin) in particular, depends on how one felt about their designs in the original games. Some fans welcome the new designs for being more attractive and easier on the eyes rather than eccentric characters that were never designed to be romanced, while others preferred the older designs because their unconventionality made them stand out from the more Bishōnen bachelor designs in later games.
  • Some fans have expressed disappointment upon screenshots being revealed of the brighter colors the remake uses, citing that the less vibrant, more somber colors suited the less fantastical atmosphere of the game and its story plot better. The content being Lighter and Softer and sanitized somewhat (such as the bar being changed to a cafe, animals no longer dying if neglected, the cartoon-iness of some animals, scruffy homeless Murray being replaced with the more well-kempt and positive forest-like Pui, and Takakura's tattoos being removed) has also displeased fans of the original.
  • The teddy bear that activated certain scenes with your child now costs an over-the-top one million gold. It was a mere 1200 before, and if not obtained during the chapters those scenes are in, then it's Permanently Missable Content (though it's currently unclear if those scenes even exist).
  • The horse's redesign received largely negative reception, having an odd, unnatural shape compared to the semi-realistic yet cute original horse.
• Trans Audience Interpretation: Nami was already known as a "trans awakening" for some players of the original games in the mid-2000s with her being portrayed as cool, androgynous and brusque — heavily contrasting with series bachelorettes up until that point and even the other two available in the first game, Muffy/Molly and Celia/Cecelia. Now with the remake, her even more androgynous redesign has sparked a new wave of interest, with many players interpreting her as nonbinary or genderfluid. The few details that are revealed in-game about her partially-shrouded backstory also lend themselves well to transgender themes — she mentions with some resentment that her hometown was a place where people didn't mind their own business, she's implied to be on very strained terms with her parents (who cut her off financially in her 8-heart event), she reveals that they tried to enforce traditionally feminine behavior on her during her youth, and by the time of the game she's a drifter who secretly longs for a permanent home where she can feel accepted.
• The Woobie:
  • There's something almost sad about Nami's history. She's a drifter with a Mysterious Past, including an implied bad relationship with her parents. Her father calls the inn in one heart scene, but doesn't even bother to speak to her. In the same scene she gets a letter telling her she's being cut off, making her immediately ask Tei and then the player for a job — even if you say sure, she'll say to forget she asked. Her loveless reverse proposal^note Where you have at least six hearts, but never saw any romantic scenes with her. has her telling the player she's run out of money and will have to leave — but she really doesn't want to and asks to move in with you, saying she won't have to be looked after and she just wants a place to call home. And if you reject her proposal, she'll sadly say that she'd thought she could count on you and she had a good run in town before walking out.
  • Cecilia is one of two options who will always be available to marry you at the end of the year, regardless of how much affection she has for you (even zero, which means not talking to her at all). Her "loveless" reverse-proposal reveals that she turned down her arranged marriage because (ironically) she believes marriage should be for love, and asks "I-I was wondering if maybe you'd let me stay by your side forever", since you've always been so kind to her. She can say this even if you've never interacted with her.^note If you opt out of meeting the townsfolk at the beginning of the game and sleep through the year. It's hard to replay the game and marry someone else with the knowledge that she's always going to turn down her shot at marriage for the player, ending up alone and jaded if the player doesn't marry her. Turning the "loveless" proposal down after calling her over gives you this gut-wrenching response after she tearfully assures you not to worry about her:
    Cecilia: I have plenty of other dreams in life to aim for besides marriage. I...I'll see you later.
  • Molly, Molly, Molly. She's been unlucky in love for years, having moved to the valley after one too many heartbreaks in the city. She's pretty and she knows it, but she knows it's also led to a lot of shallow romances and short flings and is worried she'll never get married and settle down. Her trip to the city for a friend's wedding has her old friends mocking her for being a mere waitress in a small town café. If you turn her down — or marry someone else — she spends the rest of her time in the valley unmarried, secretly crying at the beach at night, lamenting as the years go by how she's continued to be unlucky in love and dumped over and over. And if you do marry her, you'll learn she was forced to grow up fast as a result of being separated from her parents as a child, which is why she's such a devoted mother.

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