Harvest Moon Forever: Taro and the Fishing Rod in Island of Happiness

Friday, October 16, 2009

Taro and the Fishing Rod in Island of Happiness

I know I have written about this before, but it still remains the aspect of Island of Happiness that represents a problem for the greatest number of players. As it is based on a fundamental aspect of Island of Happiness, it is worth exploring here once again.

In Island of Happiness, a character will not accept any gift from you if you have neglected him/her. Neglect in this respect means that you have not done your regular 'meeting and greeting' in the immediate past. Your level of Friendship with the individual will not protect you. Ignoring an individual who has a high level of Friendship with you can result in a refusal of your gift until you have spoken to him/her regularly again.

The number of days that your gift will be rejected is based on the length of time that you neglected the individual. If you did not speak to the individual for a couple of days, your gift may be rejected only for a single day. If, however, you neglected the individual for a week or so, it may take six consecutive days of 'meeting and greeting' that character before he/she will accept a gift from you.

This is a very interesting aspect of Island of Happiness of which every player must be aware. Many players only become aware of it, however, when they attempt to give Taro one of the Coloured Herbs/Wild Grasses that he loves and he rejects it. As Taro must be at 2 Hearts before he will give you a Fishing Rod, cultivating a relationship with him is essential.

Note that gift-giving is not the only way to raise Love and Friendship in Island of Happiness. Simply speaking to an individual will raise levels, albeit more slowly than gift-giving. In fact, my Walkthrough for Island of Happiness urges players to visit Taro's house each morning not only to speak to Taro and obtain the weather report from him but to speak to Elliot and Natalie as well in order to begin the process of raising Heart Levels. Elliot is an Eligible Bachelor if your character is a girl and Natalie is an Eligible Girl if you are playing a boy. You can raise Heart Levels to the next level by speaking to any character daily even if you never give a single gift. It will take a long time, however!

Giving Taro a Coloured Herb/Grass each day will raise his Friendship Level to 2 Hearts faster than simply speaking to him will and, because you really need a Fishing Rod as early as possible in IoH in order to make money and bring members of the Fishing Team to the Island, I advise players to make the gift of the Coloured Herb/Grass. It is not necessary, however. What IS necessary is 'meeting and greeting' him each day. As his weather predictions are totally accurate, it is a good idea to do so even if he didn't have the power to give or withhold a Fishing Rod. Knowing if a Typhoon is set to hit the Island the next day can be critical information.

The rules of Neglect are as follows: The number of days you have failed to greet a character determines the number of days that your gift will be rejected BUT six days is the maximum number of days that a character can refuse a gift. Even if you fail to speak to a character for a fortnight, he/she will refuse your gift for six days only. You do need to speak to the individual EVERY day, however, in order to 'clear the slate'. In other words, in such a case, six consecutive days of greetings are needed to persuade the character to accept a gift from you.

I always stress the importance of avoiding 'tunnel vision' in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game. Friendship, not money, is the backbone of success. If you grow and harvest all the crops in the world but fail to greet your fellow villagers, you will not succeed in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game. IoH demonstrates this by placing the Fishing Rod in Taro's hands. Many Harvest Moon games in the past have done likewise by making a Fishing Rod the one tool that cannot be purchased.

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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.

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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'.