Beginnings is the first chapter in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. In this chapter, players get to live away from the bustle of the city and get into the farming life in Forgotten Valley. Read ahead as we talk about the important events and objectives for Chapter 1 Beginnings in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life and share some tips on how to have a prosperous farm life.
Chapter 1: Beginnings Walkthrough
The chapter starts with the usual intro to farming games where you, the protagonist, get a short backstory as to why you decided to move to the countryside. Then, it proceeds to Character Creation, where you can customize your playable character.
In the next part, you will be guided by Takakura, the person who was in charge of the farm and your father’s old friend. He will introduce you to a lot of stuff about the farm, and most of the basics about controls and farming will be covered by the in-game tutorials. You will also be introduced to most of the NPCs that you can interact with in the town. Take this time to familiarize yourself with most of them, as you will be interacting with them on a daily basis for your farm necessities and tasks.
The most important part is that you will also be introduced to the bachelors or bachelorettes, a.k.a., the potential partners that you can marry in the game. For the sake of this guide, we will refer to them as potential partners only for this chapter and spouses from Chapter 2 onwards.
After going through the introductions, meeting and selecting your farm dog, naming your cow, and naming your farm, you will then get introduced to the Nature Sprites, who will be one of the important NPCs that you will have to interact with for some quests along the way. Afterwards, you get to start your first day on your farm.
The Basics
Before proceeding further, it’s best to learn some of the basics and objectives that will be important in progressing through the game.
- Chapters, at least in the first part, will span for an entire year.
- Each year has 4 seasons, and each season has 10 days, which adds up to 40 days per year.
- Time goes for 1 minute per real time second, but it pauses whenever you access the menu or a window.
- You will start with 2,400G or gold which is the game’s currency.
Chapter 1: Beginnings Objectives
The game actually has objectives that have to be met by the end of the year, or else you won’t be able to progress to the next year. Usually, these objectives are only briefly mentioned by an NPC, Takakura, and can easily be missed. For this, if you plan to play the game and discover these objectives for yourself, just pay attention to the dialogues and create saves at the beginning or middle of the year. The objectives are realistic enough that they can be completed in a matter of days.
Your first major objective for Chapter 1 is to successfully propose to a potential partner by the end of the year. In order to do this, you will need to improve your Affection with your chosen partner to 8 Hearts and give them a special item to trigger the proposal scene.
Of course, you still have a farm to run through the seasons in order to keep the farm afloat and provide for your everyday living.
Choosing a Partner
Selecting a partner to marry can solely be based on personal preference as it won’t have much of an impact on the gameplay itself. However, the starting likes and abilities that your child will have upon their birth will be affected by your chosen spouse.
Here’s a table that shows the likes that have high initial points for the child that you will have for each partner:
Partner | Ranching | Farming | Athletics | Music | Art | Academics |
Cecilia | ★★★ | ★★★ | ☆ | ☆ | ☆ | ★★★ |
Molly | ★★★ | ☆ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ☆ | ☆ |
Nami | ☆ | ★★★ | ☆ | ☆ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
Lumina | ☆ | ☆ | ☆ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
Matthew | ★★★ | ★★★ | ☆ | ☆ | ☆ | ★★★ |
Rock | ★★★ | ☆ | ★★★ | ★★★ | ☆ | ☆ |
Gordy | ☆ | ☆ | ★★★ | ☆ | ★★★ | ★★★ |
Gustafa | ☆ | ★★★ | ☆ | ★★★ | ☆ | ★★★ |
Note that all children can still take on any profession even if they do not possess a high initial point for it.
How to raise Affection
Raising the affection or romance levels of a potential partner is as easy as simply giving them their preferred gifts. To make up for how short the seasons are, you can give a potential partner multiple gifts per day, provided that you don’t give them the same type of gift on the same day. Giving them gifts will slowly raise their Affection level, which can be viewed through the Resident Info page in the Menu.
The Affection meter only appears below the image of the potential partners, while Friendship meters will be present for every NPC in the game.
Here are the potential partners and their preferred gifts:
Partner | |
Cecilia | Any Flower, Any Crop, Egg, Egg Soup, Milky Soup, Crystals |
Molly | Goddess Drop Flower, Toy Flower, Milk, Egg Soup, Milky Soup, Moonlight Ore, Coin |
Nami | Any Flower, Egg, Egg Soup, Moonlight Ore, Any Fossil |
Lumina | Any Flower, Mushrooms, Egg |
Matthew | Mushrooms, Egg, Milk, Candy, Any Dish |
Rock | Milk, Butter, Cheese, Egg Soup, Milky Soup, Coin |
Gordy | Any Flower, Any Crop, Wool, Cake, Fruit Salad |
Gustafa | Any Flower, Melon, Curry, Soup, Any Fossil |
You can pick a partner to propose to regardless of both of your player’s and your partner’s gender. Gifts can be given to a potential partner at any time of the day, provided that they are not busy doing stuff.
How to Propose
To propose to your chosen partner, you will have to get to Summer 1 first in order to acquire the Blue Feather that will be given to you by the Nature Sprites. Afterwards, raise your chosen partner’s Affection to 8 Hearts and then give the Blue Feather to them. This will trigger the proposal scene and ensure that you will get through Chapter 1 and get the marriage event once the year ends in Winter 10. This can be done at any time in the first year, as soon as you meet the proposal requirements.
In case the first year ends and you haven’t given the Blue Feather yet, Takakura will pay you a visit and ask who you want to marry from those who are eligible (8 Hearts). They will then come into your house and propose to you instead. At this point, you still have the option to accept their proposal or reject it, with the latter option leading you to leave the farm and end the game right away.
Farm Life
If you’re familiar with farming games, especially the old Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life game, you’ll see that there’s not much of a difference when it comes to the daily tasks that you have to do within your farm. You have enough money to buy some seeds to plant for the season, plus you have a starting cow to take care of. Slowly, over time, you can get upgrades to improve your yield and increase your income.
Here are a few tips to help you get a good start with your farm life:
- Talk to NPCs often. NPCs can give you useful items and upgrades if you raise enough of their friendship points by talking to them or giving them their preferred gifts. Also, NPCs come and go, so you might miss a chance in obtaining such gifts.
- Talk to the Nature Sprites daily to learn a new recipe. You don’t need to learn a recipe to cook the food, but it helps to get a guide for it.
- Talk to Daryl as he can give you the Seed Maker for free instead of having to buy the one being sold for 30,000G. Not only does it save you from spending that much in one go, but it also saves you money from buying seeds.
- Water your plants twice daily to make them grow optimally during the season.
- Cut down the grass to get fodder for your animals. If you have a surplus of fodder, you can feed it to the Fertilizer Maker to make fertilizer basically for free.
- Check the town’s bulletin board for any requests that you can take. This is a good way to earn different produce easily.
