Story of Seasons: AWL remake announced!

What happened to Murrey!? A remake of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life (2004) and Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (2005) for Nintendo Switch. [ Game Guide ] JP release = Jan 2023. NA release = June 2023. EU release = June 2023.
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midnighttherabbit
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Alongside two Rune Factory announcements, a remake of AWL was announced at the most recent Nintendo Direct.



What are everyone's thoughts? I'm super glad they're using a different graphical style to the FoMT remake and I'm honestly really excited.
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Kikki
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I hope everyone's excited...or those who loved the original, anyway :)

As for me, I mentioned this in the Direct thread, but I am bowing out as a fan. With Olive Town and this, I'm not the market that Bokumono wants to appeal to any more. Fair enough; that's happened to the Bokumono market several times already. We outgrow it or it outgrows us...I dunno.

Enjoy, guys! This is really exciting if it happens to be the remake you were hoping for!
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This is…interesting news.

AWL was never my favourite, but it was quite unique for the series.

I didn’t like the English localisation of the FOMT remake as the dialogue just felt corny and off, I am kind of scared that the seriousness of the game and it’s original style (the original looked a lot darker and grittier which was appropriate) will be ruined. This game isn’t a farming sim for everyone but the story is quite unique.

In the trailer it looked like the female MC had a child with Cody (not a bachelor in the original) who was redesigned for the game. They are probably going to handsome up all the existing candidates. But I do have one question, will there be Skye? He was in DS cute set in forget me not valley so that could be a possibility.
Last edited by Somerandom on Sep 13, 2022 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kikki
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Eurydike
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I am surprised! AWL was quite unconventional for the series even back then with its darker undertones and seriousness. Olive Town was really trying to appeal to the masses imho and quite innocuous
Spoiler:
(boring)
in every way. I wonder how an AWL remake fits into this. I personally was hoping for Magical Melody or Animal Parade, but I will definitely play this remake as well.
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Mikodesu
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Thanks for sharing the website, Kikki!


I dunno what I think of beautifying the bachelors... Gonna be really curious to see how they all look. I did not notice ikemen Marlin in the trailer, but there he be in that screenshot. What is Gustafa going to look like?? :o

Not writing this one off, though I think picking it up is heavily dependent on what changes (good and bad) are made to the gameplay.
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Personally, I love it! I grew up playing the special edition on PS2, so the graphics really don't bother me. A lot of the character designs (in the trailer at least) look accurate to the original game, besides Chris having brown hair, or new name changes. Kind of weird how Cody is a bachelor now? Since this is a remake of AWL and NOT HMDS, I wonder if the bachelors/bachelorettes will be different, like they could be trading out Carter for Cody or something like that. I'm still hoping for characters like Witch Princess, Leia, or Skye to show up...but I doubt they will.
Remember how in the original gamecube version you could link up with a copy of FOMT? I wonder if that feature will carry over to the remake, maybe the same way RF5 detects RF4 save data, but instead with SOS: FOMT save data. :bunny:
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Somerandom wrote: Sep 13, 2022 8:05 am In the trailer it looked like the female MC had a child with Cody (not a bachelor in the original) who was redesigned for the game. They are probably going to handsome up all the existing candidates. But I do have one question, will there be Skye? He was in DS cute set in forget me not valley so that could be a possibility.
I'd like to see new characters, the new folks were one of the more interesting parts of the FoMT remake for me. Skye counts as a new character, I think. XD I like him. Ooh, I'd also love the save data/FoMT link! It'd be a cool extra.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. I mentioned in the other thread I'm not a fan of the farming mechanics in AWL, it was one of the only HM games I disliked immediately. I would love to see the farming and ranching parts brought more into line with the rest of the series (and with a bit more added), but I'm wondering if they'll change that, given that FoMT was mostly the same. This game had great social elements, so I am looking forward to that.
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This quote from the site is pretty cool!
Your Story, Your Way ‒ With the option to play as a male, female, or non-binary protagonist, as well as all eligible marriage candidates available for romance regardless of that choice, you can truly be who you want to be.
I've only seen a few farming sims implement nonbinary protagonists so far, and it's really good to see Marvelous take initiative on it. I'm pretty curious about how they'll do it, whether there'll be character customisation, or whether you get to choose one of the preset characters and use gender neutral pronouns.
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I don't really know the game, but wasn't Skye always non-binary? Isn't that who they showed? I'm a bit confused now. I'll have to watch the trailer again...maybe that was someone in comments who posted that, not the trailer.
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Kikki wrote: Sep 13, 2022 8:45 am I don't really know the game, but wasn't Skye always non-binary? Isn't that who they showed? I'm a bit confused now. I'll have to watch the trailer again...maybe that was someone in comments who posted that, not the trailer.
Nope, he was always a guy in both Japanese and English. In DS cute anyway. People who never played the game are probably just confused by his design. Since everyone can marry anyone now it doesn’t really matter anyway.
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I wonder if you can hit your child like in the original title :lol: (for legal reasons this is a joke)

I could never get into AWL since there wasn't a lot to do and the fact that the character sleeps a number of hours made it tedious to me, never really got past the first season of the first chapter. Hopefully with the remake more activities are added and/or the sleep mechanic removed!
I'm also not a fan that they sell you the whole "wow, time passes by" when
Spoiler:
everyone besides you and Nina dies. Are you telling me Romana, who is like 70 when I arrive, and the MC looks like 20 something, lives to be..., what 110??? Sebastian and Galen are alive when I kick the bucket too? It's not fair!
I think it's a glorified mechanic that has no meaning in the long run...., but that's my opinion of course!
I wonder if it'll have some extras with the MFoMT save file or something just like DS (which I'm assuming we are not getting) had it! I really hope there's a tid bit of customization....... It seems like Cody will be the extra bachelor for the gals and pals. Am also loving the s/s relationships and the fact that your character can be nb! Way to go! :)

Sadly I was an advocate, for an Animal Parade remake, it seems like AP-remake/port gang loses today... even when 2023 it 's also AP's 15th anniversary :(
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I really like AWL in theory. It's tone and gameplay mechanics were really unique and it feels like the last game that really experimented with straying from the standard formula of SOS/HM games. It would be great if they were able to add more depth to the gameplay while retaining the tone of the original. Judging by the graphics and the some of the generic looking redesigns though I'm not too optimistic on the latter. I'm expecting pretty boy Carter and Kpop Gustafa :lol:
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Kikki wrote: Sep 13, 2022 8:45 am I don't really know the game, but wasn't Skye always non-binary? Isn't that who they showed? I'm a bit confused now. I'll have to watch the trailer again...maybe that was someone in comments who posted that, not the trailer.
I didn't see Skye anywhere in the trailer, and I think he only showed up in DS Cute, but said he lived in Forget-Me-Not Valley. (I haven't played Cute.) Afaik, he's just very fashionable. He looks a little similar to Jamie from MM, whose gender changed depending on what gender the player is, though, which might be why people get confused!

And by the quote, I think Marvelous were referring to the protagonist, not the marriage candidates. My prediction is you'll be able to choose a character model (either the farmer from AWL or AnWL) and then one of three gendered options.

Also, yeah, I'm so interested in what they're going to do with the marriage candidates... AWL and AnWL had really unique family dynamics and I hope they don't mess it up. If Marlin's redesign of a sign of what's to come then I'm going to be annoyed tbh
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Got super excited when this was announced (which was interesting, since I am at work!)...I've never played AWL, so I'm really looking forward to this!
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