Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life

Release Dates

The first game in the series to come to the GameCube. As hinted at by the game’s title, the developers still had many tricks up their sleeves. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life not only took players to a whole new setting, but on a journey that would span decades.

Though the setup was familiar—the player inherited his father’s farm—the goal was far from ordinary. Rather than become a Ranch Master or save the farm from development, the player’s goal was to live a rewarding life. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life spanned six chapters that included marriage, raising a son to be a man, and aging. As the years pass, the player and the townsfolk of Forget-Me-Not Valley age and, ultimately, die.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life introduced an entirely new cast of characters, including new bachelorettes: Celia, Muffy, and Nami. Though the player could only have one child—and it was always a son—one of your tasks as a father was to help him decide a career path. Not every boy grew up to take over the farm; some wanted to be artists. Dutiful players couldn’t focus only on their son, however, as it was possible for your wife to leave you in this game if she didn’t receive enough attention. The game ended at any point after the first year in which the player found themself unmarried.

Fun Facts

• By interacting with a two-headed plant named Tartan, players could fuse two seemingly unrelated crops together. Carrots and Strawberries yielded a Caberry. Melons and Potatoes gave rise to a Potamelo. These hybrid crops could be mixed again to yield even rarer combinations!
• Despite the wealth of changes, there were still only eight fundamental crops to be planted as seeds and five fruiting trees.
• This was one of the only games in the series not to have any annual festivals. But it did have goats!
• It was possible to connect this game with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (on GameBoy Advance) to learn gossip and gain access to rare items.
• Though there were only seven tools in the game thanks to certain tasks no longer requiring them, many of the tools had as many as five different versions.