Harvest Moon Forever: Idealism in Harvest Moon

Friday, September 14, 2007

Idealism in Harvest Moon

The unwavering idealism that underlies all Harvest Moon games never fails to touch my heart and soul deeply. Rune Factory demonstrated this beautifully in the 'Grand Finale' to the main quest.

Warning: Do not read this post if you wish to be surprised by the 'end' of the game.

Your character, a young man with amnesia, proves his worth, his valour and his essential compassion both for human beings and other species by taming monsters rather than killing them and ultimately refusing to use his weapon against his
arch-enemy because any weapon of his could kill a human being.

He then faces the entire mechanised Sechs Army in order to protect the town of Kardia although he believes the cause is lost, as the Sechs Army has mustered a hundred tanks against the small village of Kardia.

The great Dragon God, Terrable has been awakened by the machinations of the Sechs Empire in the hope that he could be used as a super-weapon against their enemies. Instead, Terrable confronts the army of tanks and breathes his 'fire' upon them.

What occurs then? Rather than being incinerated, the tanks are surrounded by plants!
The leader of the Sechs Army orders his soldiers to burn the plants in order to free the tanks but the soldiers respond that this would destroy the tanks themselves, as the tanks are completely entangled in the vegetation.

The 'great' Sechs Army then is forced to WALK back home, to the ridicule of the people of Kardia!

Throughout the game, characters remark upon the need to live in harmony with the earth and the importance of being aware and respectful of the power of Nature.

Rune Factory is great fun. The philosophical messages are delivered with gentle humour and yet, the game always remains true to the essential principles of Harvest Moon.

One aspect of Harvest Moon games that may be less than welcome to the more 'puritanical' Western players is the position that alcohol occupies in traditional Japanese culture and therefore in Harvest Moon as well. In every Harvest Moon game, there is at least one character who constantly extols the virtues of alcohol and Rune Factory has quite a few! There even is a peripheral quest that is centred on a bottle of rare wine named Rollabouti. Harvest Moon games usually include one girl who can outdrink the men in drinking contests.

When English editions of a couple of Harvest Moon games attempted to 'convert' alcohol to 'Milk', the results were rather absurd. Conversations warning against the strong properties of 'Milk' or telling children that they were not old enough to drink the stuff were rather bizarre, to say the least. Fortunately, Rune Factory in its English version has remained true to the original Japanese in this respect.

Like most Harvest Moon games, the game itself does not end with the credits. In fact, 'winning' the game usually merely unlocks new options. A devoted Harvest Moon player never needs to regret the act of completing the main quest as there always are more quests to discover and complete...

Note: For players of Rune Factory who have requested detailed 'maps' of the dungeons, I have created a 'Bestiary and Cave Guide' now that gives step by step descriptions of each cave and the locations of each Monster generator in the caves of Kardia.

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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'.