Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life



Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life are two Gamecube games in the Harvest Moon series by Marvelous Interactive, the latter being a gender-swapped version of the former. An Updated Rerelease of the first game exists as a PS 2 port, with an additional bachelorette and the ability to have a daughter, though this version has slightly worse graphics.

It's somewhat darker in tone than the rest of the series, themes of adultery, divorce and loneliness are approached quite seriously, though nothing "child-inappropriate" is explicitly referenced. It's also the first game to realistically imply your cows mating, though Takakura seems to try to hide this fact from you, which is odd considering your character's old enough to have their own children.

Each game has three eligible marriage candidates, except for SE, which has 4. A marriage candidate must be chosen by the end of year one, or the game will end. In the female version, a random male from the village will propose to you at the end of the year if you didn't get around to doing it. Each season is 10 days long, and most crops can only be harvested in one season.

The game is something of a black sheep for the series, as it's the first to subvert many of the series' ancient constants. Unlike every previous game, time does pass inside buildings, characters age, marriage is a necessity to continue playing, there are no festivals, none of the previous characters made appearances, and the main character doesn't wear a hat.

Tropes, moi.

 * Aborted Arc: There's an event in the game you can come across where the sprites lament that the harvest goddess is asleep, but maybe if they find nice things she will wake up one day. It's the only time they ever mention a harvest goddess in this game, and afterwards the topic is never brought up.
 * If you don't marry Nami, a few chapters later if she's still around town, you can witness an event where she's talking to Cody with an implication she might have feelings for him. This is dropped in ANWL where instead she's interested in Gustafa.
 * Bishie Sparkle: Wally, who literally has a twinkle in his eyes at all times.
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Samantha, who seems to be so controlling that her husband avoids returning home from work as long as he can every night.
 * Blonde Brunette Redhead: Muffy, Celia, and Nami respectively
 * The Distaff Counterpart has this too, though Gustafa is a darker shade of red.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: There are several blatant typos and mistakes, plus a few glitches in the game. And the transition of Lumina as a love interest in the playstation version was a tad sloppy; some scenes refer to her as Muffy. There are fewer typos in the girl version, though.
 * Break the Cutie: If you break Celia's heart, then she, Vesta, and especially Marlin will never forgive you.
 * You make this happen to Lumina if you play as the boy character, due to her Precocious Crush on you. She gets over it though. Muffy has this happen to her a few times, both due to you and not.
 * Brooding Boy Gentle Girl: Can be seen with Marlin and Celia, although they are not an official couple in this game. Their descendants in DS/DS Cute are, however.
 * Crap Saccharine World
 * Dark Skinned Blond: Cody and Rock, though Rock less so.
 * Darker and Edgier: Darker, at least. The DS installments based on this game are Lighter And Edgier, oddly enough.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: What the player does to win over Nami, and Marlin too.
 * Different As Night and Day: Vesta's blond, brash, friendly, huge, and strong. Her brother is dark haired, grumpy, shy, and shrimpy.
 * Dumb Blond: Rock, who is possibly slightly more so in Another Wonderful Life. And Muffy, to a much lesser extent.
 * Dummied Out: The locked shed on your farm is never unlocked.
 * Neither is the one on Romana's property.
 * Dysfunction Junction: Not to the degree of a lot of other examples, however it's still there.
 * Education Mama: Celia really wants to see her son grow up to be a scientist.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: You can try to milk a bull. And it will not exactly struggle.
 * As the Darker and Edgier black sheep of the franchise, it has a lot of mature references when it comes to romance, especially when it comes to Muffy. In Japan Lumina was bumped from fourteen to sixteen for Special Edition, but in the west she was bumped to eighteen. She still looks young.
 * Gonk: Vesta
 * Grandma What Massive Hotness You Have: All of the young women in the town still retain their looks when they become old, they just have grey hair and a few wrinkles added. Nami and Muffy in particular aged very well.
 * Happily Adopted: Rock has literally no resemblance to his parents whatsoever. It's implied that they might have adopted him and simply never told him.
 * Hobos: Murray, who is some kind of subhuman manchild hobo.
 * Ill Boy: When Marlin was younger he was really sickly and weak. It's why he moved out of the city and into the valley. He's still rather fragile though.
 * Jerkass: Marlin, if you get too close to Celia. If you marry someone else though you become good drinking buddies.
 * He's a Jerk With a Heart of Gold most of the time.
 * Like Brother and Sister: In one event with Lumina in the playstation version, she says she doesn't wish she had siblings, because she already has you as an older brother figure. Considering you're trying to seduce her...
 * It's implied she has mistaken her romantic feelings for a sibling affection.
 * Living Prop: A lot of the citizens in town sort of just exist. There's no events or items you get from talking to them, and so you end up sort of just ignoring them completely. Like the fire work makers.
 * Lonely Rich Kid: Lumina, who in SE is happy to marry a farmer and leave her giant manor on top of the hill.
 * Looking for Love In All The Wrong Places: Muffy, at least in ANWL. Every year she is seen crying on the bridge because she broke up with another slimy man. Either he had a woman on the side, or she found out that she was the other woman on the side.
 * Mad Scientist: Daryll
 * Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Rock to the player during ANWL.
 * Maternally Challenged: Nami is... not exactly fantastic as far as mothers go. Her frequent visits to the bar, long walks through town, and arguments with her teenage son are signs she may not exactly have been cut out for this.
 * Meganekko: Flora
 * Mythology Gag: Nina's hairstyle, name, and fascination with flowers all seem to be this to Nina of the first game.
 * Oddball in The Series: It's one of the only games to have everyone in town grow old, and having so much focus put into your child growing up.
 * Off Model: Nami doesn't look anything like her concept art.
 * Older Than She Looks: Muffy is the oldest, being in her thirties.
 * Plus Lumina, who looks to be at most, 12. But Word of God says she's a teenager.
 * One Game for The Price of Two: Links to Friends of Mineral Town to unlock content in both. Another Wonderful Life links to More Friends of Mineral Town in the same way.
 * Platonic Life Partners: Everyone in town apparently gossips about how Flora and Carter have been sharing a tent together for years. But if you speak to them, it's clear that a relationship with each other has never even occurred to them. However, their descendants in DS and Cute are paired together.
 * Possibly all of the potential non-main-character "couples" count as this, as none of them officially get married (except in DS/Cute).
 * Precocious Crush: In AWL, Lumina seems to have a crush on you in the first chapter. In SE this isn't quite as precocious considering she is a marriage candidate.
 * She's All Grown Up: Lumina, Wally, Kate, and your child end up being this at one point or another.
 * Scary Black Man: Cody, who is huge, gravelly voiced, and keeps to himself. But he still loves to receive flowers as gifts.
 * Tsundere: In ANWL Marlin's personality is changed so he's less of a jerk and more of a very distant and shy dude who just comes off as troubled.
 * Nami also is rather cold and cynical at first, until you get really close with her.
 * Unkempt Beauty: In the first AWL game Nami has neat smooth hair. But in the girls version, they give her a more shaggy messy hairstyle. After that they decided to keep this new haircut for her for every other game she appears in.
 * Her hair style has changed frequently, with My Little Shop sporting a very different look from usual.
 * Urban Legend of Zelda: There were tons of rumors spread about the game. Like there being a way to unlock the mysterious abandoned shack, or how to get into Romana's shed, or getting every single tablet in the game will give you the chihuahua found next to the dig site. All of these rumors were completely false.
 * Verbal Tic: Murray's "moi!".
 * What the Hell Hero: If you raise a girl to all three hearts and see all of their events, and then marry someone else you will see a scene where the girl comes to your house at night to give you a good verbal beat down.