Harvest Moon Forever: Clever Natsume! Frustration conceals a purpose...

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Clever Natsume! Frustration conceals a purpose...

Whenever I describe the most vital elements of Harvest Moon to any one, I try to stress the importance of patience, determination and the need to pay attention to ALL aspects of life in any Harvest Moon game.

I discovered a little trick recently in Rune Factory that allowed me to win the Egg Festival in the first Spring, but performing this trick successfully apparently is not simply a matter of purchasing an egg from a local shop. It is possible that, if the player does not have any friendship points with the monsters he/she has tamed, his character will not win the Egg Contest with the spurious egg. All my Monsters had at least 3 FP at the time of the Egg Festival.

Knowing the value of high Friendship ratings both with other individuals and with all tame Monsters (the Rune Factory equivalent of farm animals), I used the Brush daily on the Monsters. Friendship ALWAYS is as important as wealth and experience in Harvest Moon.

In all honesty, however, the value of the egg that is entered by your 'rival' may be set at midnight... I need to confirm this in another game. It is possible that, if the player who lost the Egg Festival had been able to reload his game BEFORE midnight, he would have won the Festival as I did...

In Rune Factory as in other Harvest Moon games, there is a use for each and every one of your tools and if you neglect them, gaining no experience, you will not be able to perform necessary tasks later in the game.

I was fuming over the particularly long delay in having my hammer upgraded to Level 3 when I realised once again how clever Natsume is in designing their games. By taking my hammer for a week (a festival and Holiday intervened to extend the required 4 day wait to a week), I was forced to concentrate more on my other tools, and to spend more time fishing and chopping wood, tasks I had neglected a little when new mines containing valuable gems and items were unlocked.

Although I stress the need to perform all activities on a regular basis in my guides for Harvest Moon games, I myself often am guilty of becoming too obsessed with a single goal. One cannot afford 'tunnel vision' in Harvest Moon. It always is a mistake to focus too much on a single goal or quest. If one is diligent with respect to every activity and interacts with every individual on a regular basis, the plot will unfold naturally and new options will be unlocked. It is only when one becomes frustrated that mistakes are made and new options overlooked.

That having been said, I was very glad when I finally was able to fetch my Level 3 Hammer from Leo's Smithery...

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For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.