Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life producer on how the remake came to be

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life producer Hikaru Nakano has discussed the origins of the remake. This comes as part of an interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life originally released for the GameCube roughly two decades ago. It’s now returning on Switch with new content and functionality such as new events, enhanced festivals, more recipes to cook, never-before-seen crops, and a camera feature.

Here’s our translation of the Famitsu interview in which Nakano discusses how Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life came to be:

First, please talk to us about how you decided to remake A Wonderful Life in a series like Bokujou Monogatari (Story of Seasons), where there are so many games to choose from.

All of the games in the Bokujou Monogatari series have their own characteristics, and as creators, we want to allow people to enjoy all the games fully. A Wonderful Life is considered a very memorable title by many fans. We see those kinds of opinions on social media today, but we received the same sort of feedback by letter even before we had social media. So that was one of the reasons why we decided to remake it this time.

So players have been wanting a remake for a long time, right? What parts of the game do you think fans really enjoy?

The gameplay in A Wonderful Life really had a certain unique sense and charm to it. The feeling of Forget-Me-Not Valley, and the sense you got living in that village, was such a special thing. I think living in that location in the game makes A Wonderful Life particularly special among the Bokujou Monogatari games.

Were there also thoughts of remaking A Wonderful Life from the development side?

Yeah, when we made the game, there were certain technical limitations that prevented us from fully realizing everything we wanted to, so I had been looking for a chance to remake it.

The game also sold very well overseas, and the support and approval of our overseas companies, not just the Japanese publisher, Marvelous, is another reason we have been able to embark on this remake.

Roughly when did you decide to remake the game?

We began talking about it in the summer of 2020, and actual development began in the autumn of that year. It sure takes time to get from “I wanna do that” to making that thing into a reality.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is out now on Switch in Japan. It will follow on June 27, 2023 in North America and Europe.

Translation provided by Simon Griffin and Kim Louise Davis on behalf of Nintendo Everything.