Harvest Moon Forever: Cheating Time in Harvest Moon

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Cheating Time in Harvest Moon

In any Harvest Moon game, finding the time to perform all your tasks or aims in any given day can be one of the greatest challenges. As Friendship and Courtship are important in these games, it is not farming tasks alone that require a judicious use of your time.

In terms of transport, it is vital, therefore, to acquire a transport animal as early as possible, whether that animal is a Horse (in most Harvest Moon games), an Ostrich (available in Tree of Tranquility) or one among an assortment of exotic Monsters (in Rune Factory). Having a Horse or other transport animal essentially cuts your travel time in half.

Even better than a transport animal is a Teleport Stone. These do not exist in all Harvest Moon games and when they do, the means of obtaining one will differ from game to game. In FoMT/MFoMT, the teleport stone is found in a Mine. In HM DS/Cute DS, it is purchased with medals in the Casino. In Island of Happiness, it can be purchased ultimately from Chen at his Market once unlocked for a rather high price.
It definitely is worth having, however. On an Island that is large enough to require three different bridges, you would be unable to make or sustain friendships with every one important if you did not have a Teleport Stone.

Travel by teleport is instantaneous and it can be used in your own Field, once you have unlocked the Rice Paddies, to save time. A tip on how to do this when watering your crops is given in my General Guide.

It is not with respect to travel alone that one needs to find ways to 'cheat' time.

In HM DS/Cute DS, there are Necklaces that, when equipped, allow a player to perform any task inside any building. If you have an upgraded Necklace that corresponds with the highest level of Tool that you are using, you even can charge your Tools while using them inside buildings. This is an official way to 'cheat time' and players, including myself, really loved having the option.

In other Harvest Moon games, however, it is a little trickier, but there are ways and means for the clever player.

In FoMT/MFoMT, you can transform some of the Cursed Tools into Blessed Tools if you use them during a Festival. As usual is the ability to fish during Festivals and Events. That option did not exist in HM DS/Cute DS, but was not needed with the Necklace option.

In Island of Happiness, once again your character can fish to his/her heart's content during any Festival. As the Festivals occur at the Meadow, however, you will be restricted to river-fishing, which means that you cannot catch Large Fish. Even so, it is a valuable option. The appearance of many characters, including one of the Eligible Bachelors and one of the Eligible Girls, is predicated upon your Fishing accomplishments. Early in the game, Fish are one of the few Recovery items that exist. Make certain that you do USE your Recovery items while fishing during a Festival, however. Your actual SR (Stamina Recovery) and FL (Fullness) bars will not be displayed during Festivals, but watch your character carefully for the physical responses that signify energy loss and eat raw fish to counteract this if you have nothing better.

Even later in the game, you may find that time still is one of the greatest challenges. As you need to fish regularly at all points in the game to keep characters on the island, it is a good idea to catch a few fish at each Festival and ship them when you return home in order to meet your character quota.

Mining in Harvest Moon may or may not consume time. Even when it does, time will pass more slowly in the Mines. In Island of Happiness, time does pass in the Mine, but more slowly than above ground. Even so, if you need to ship items from the Mines before 5.00 p.m., make adjustments in your mining schedule for that. Until you have a Teleport Stone, it will be a long journey from your Ranch to the Mine...

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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'.