Harvest Moon Forever: The Harvest Goddess Festival in Island of Happiness

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Harvest Goddess Festival in Island of Happiness

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The Harvest Goddess Festival is not a celebration of the Harvest but of the Goddess. 8 Spring is the birthday of the Harvest Goddess and the day on which the Festival is celebrated.

The Harvest Goddess Festival is one that, unlike the Thanksgiving Festival, is not included in every traditional Harvest Moon game. Friends/More Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon DS/Cute DS did not included the Festival. It is an extremely beautiful celebration of the power of the Harvest Goddess and one that adds to the spiritual component of any Harvest Moon game, even if in cases where your character has not raised the heart level of any eligible partner sufficient, it can be rather heartbreaking as well. In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, for example, the object of your heart's desire may make comments about your Rival that almost break your heart... Even so, that need not occur more than once if you raise heart levels sufficiently before the next Harvest Goddess Festival.

I was thrilled to discover that you can unlock the Harvest Goddess Festival in Island of Happiness once you have unlocked the Church in the Forest. Playing as a girl, you do not experience an event wherein you will receive a beautiful festival gown as in HM B&G but it is a lovely celebration in the Meadow nonetheless. I have to say that the Event wherein Gotz brings you the gown that once belonged to his daughter is one of the most poignant in any Harvest Moon game. It was one of my favourite events in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl actually, and the ritual of dressing in the gown before walking to the Harvest Goddess Festival made the Festival very real to me. While wearing the Harvest Festival Gown in HM B & G, your character cannot perform ANY farming or ranching tasks. This is a very nice touch, making you feel that you really ARE wearing a special sacred gown, one that you would not dream of wearing while you milk the cows or weed the fields!

It has been many months since I had any chance to play HM B & G but writing about the Harvest Goddess Festival creates a longing in me to return to my life in that game. I do like the PSP platform better than the larger Wii or PS2, simply because it is as portable as the DS, even if the battery life is all too brief. Portable platforms have a special magic, because they allow the player to take the world of Harvest Moon or Valkyrie Profile or any other favourite reality ANYWHERE, without alerting the entire world to their existence.

Every one probably has experienced the scorn or criticism of a parent, partner or friend with respect to the amount of time and energy given to games. The DS or PSP circumvent this to some extent. The systems are small enough to escape detection in many cases. My DS and PSP both have been mistaken for devices engaged in 'serious business' by people who were unfamiliar with the platforms. (For some of us, a game is the most 'serious business' of all, but much of the world does not share these values.)

To return to the Harvest Goddess Festival, the celebration in Island of Happiness includes a sacred dance but there is less of the overt admiration of the Rivals than there is in Harvest Moon B & G. The actual dance is more compelling in B & G, however. In my view, the actual dance in B & G is one of the most beautiful events in any Harvest Moon game.

There is another wonderful event in HM B & G wherein Karen will visit you at your farm to teach you how to perform the festival dance. Despite the similarities between various Harvest Moon games, each game is unique and that is part of the enduring charm of Harvest Moon.

In Island of Happiness, the event that unlocks the Festival probably may occur almost a year before you experience the Festival for the first time. It is an Event that is connected with the Church and involves a discussion of the Festival. With the arrival of the Spring season, you will experience the Festival for the first time. As with any new Festival in Island of Happiness, you will be visited on the day before the Festival by the individual who is in charge of the celebration. In the case of the Harvest Goddess Festival, that individual is Alisa. She will tell you to invite some one to accompany you to the Festival.

This is your opportunity to court the bachelor/eligible girl of your choice. If his/her Heart Level is high enough, you will be able to accompany him/her to the Festival the next day.

Island of Happiness is interesting in its realism where this aspect of the event is concerned. On the day of the Festival, the eligible girl/bachelor will visit you at home and will wait until you have completed all of your chores/tasks. He/she then will accompany you to the Meadow to celebrate the Festival. After the Festival, he/she will bid you farewell. I love the actual dance in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, but I love the way the Festival Event occurs in IoH as well.

Whatever the nature of the actual celebration, I for one hope it will be included in all future Harvest Moon games!

1 comment:

Mal said...: Another festival that I want to attend with Vaughn. Alas, he won't be here on a Wednesday or Thursday to be asked or be present. :-(; September 5, 2011 at 11:22 AM

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.

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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!
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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'.