Orange Wonderfuls in Sunshine Islands

However much one would like to be able to dash off perfect game walkthroughs quickly, in the case of any Rune Factory or Harvest Moon game, I have found that six months is required to create a decent Walkthrough or General Guide.

If it were not for the fact that players need the guides sooner, I would wait until I had perfected and polished a Guide before I ever allowed it to be published. Unfortunately, that is not practical and I therefore hope players will understand that most of my guides tend to be 'works in progress' and that they are updated and modified.

Sunshine Islands and Animal Parade were released almost at the same time. I was working on my guides for Sunshine Islands when Animal Parade was released. I opted to begin work on Animal Parade immediately, with the intention of returning to Sunshine Islands once I completed preliminary Guides for Animal Parade.

At this point in time, my Guides for Animal Parade remain 'works in progress' but all important details have been included. Having received many emails from players begging me to update my Sunshine Islands Guides, I now have begun to do so. In fact, I was rather distressed to discover how much information needed to be modified based on further gameplay.

In any case, an updated version of the Sunshine Islands Walkthrough and General Guide
will be sent to IGN this afternoon. I have added more Events to the Characters Guide and more information to the Courtship and Marriage Guide as well.

Wonderfuls are an important asset both in Island of Happiness and in Sunshine Islands. Although they are more difficult to 'engineer' than they were in IoH, it is possible for a very determined player to obtain the colour of Wonderful he/she needs.

Here are some details about the use of Wonderfuls in the Mine as well as the method by which to obtain them:


Using Wonderfuls in the Mine

Some of the Wonderfuls will have no power in the Mine but Green, Orange and Purple Wonderfuls in your Hoe and Hammer can prove very helpful. Knowing Charlie’s schedule can allow you to trade Wonderfuls from tool to tool, setting Orange, Green and Purple in the Hamer and Hoe for the duration of any Mining expedition, then taking them back to Charlie for dispersal and use in different Tools.

The definition of the Orange Wonderful is:
Effect when equipped on tool: material multiplier, misc.

When set in a Hammer and used in the Mine, they increase the number of items that you can obtain when you use them. When set in a Ranch Tool such as Milker or Shears, they will double the yield as well. In other words, inside the Mine, an Orange Wonderful set into your Hammer will allow you to find more Gems and Ores in the Rocks you smash and, when set in your Hoe, will allow you to find more Black Herbs and Coins in the ground. The number of potential Stone Tablets found on any allocated floor will not change. In fact, as the Watering Can is used to find Gelatin in Lava, setting an Orange Wonderful in it will increase the amount of Gelatin you can find.

Note, however, that you need to CHARGE the Tool into which the Orange Wonderful is set if you wish to obtain the benefit in terms of increasing the yield. A Hammer into which an Orange Wonderful has been set will continue to find only single Gems and Ores if it is not charged.

By the way, the Orange Wonderful can continue to have an effect in your Barn even when you play the Touchscreen Milking or Shearing game. Simply make certain to CHARGE the Milker or Shears before you initiate the Touchscreen Milking/Shearing activity.

The Orange Wonderfuls, however magical, are less vital than a Green Wonderful in this context. Green Wonderfuls decrease the amount of Stamina required for each use of the Tool into which they are set. Stamina always is a valuable commodity inside the Mine. When you are farming, the best place for your Green Wonderfuls to be set probably is your Watering Can but whenever you plan an expedition to the Mine, you may wish to load your Hammer and Hoe with them as well.

The Purple Wonderfuls are the least important as they simply add 2G to the value of items that are obtained using the Tool in which they are set. This is of minor significance compared to the other Wonderfuls.

Unfortunately, obtaining Wonderfuls of a specific colour is a little more complicated in Sunshine Islands than it was in Island of Happiness.

In terms of the colour of the Wonderful that will be given for winning any Contest at a Festival, the rules are as follows:


Rules dictating Wonderfuls


If the Festival occurs on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, the following weather conditions two days after the Festival will yield:

Sunny: Yellow Wonderful
Clear: Red Wonderful
Cloudy: Blue Wonderful
Drizzle: Green Wonderful
Rainy: Orange Wonderful
Snowy: Purple Wonderful
Severe Storm: Indigo

If the Festival occurs on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the following weather conditions two days after the Festival will yield:

Sunny: Blue Wonderful
Clear: Yellow Wonderful
Cloudy: Orange Wonderful
Drizzle: Red Wonderful
Rainy: Purple Wonderful
Snowy: Indigo Wonderful
Severe Storm: Green Wonderful

Remember that you can buy 1 Blue, 1 Red and 1 Yellow Wonderful from Chen from the very start of the first Spring. Once those are purchased, however, Wonderfuls will appear in his Shop only during the Winter Season and ONLY if specific conditions are met.

The conditions that govern the appearance of Wonderfuls at Chen's Market in Winter are as follows:

The appearance of a Wonderful is limited to 1 every 3 days;
A Wonderful will appear only if the last two digits in two Categories of your Farming Degree totals are the same. The Colour of the Wonderful is determined then by the two totals that match.

You therefore can save your game on the previous day and attempt to engineer the totals in one Category to match another. Use of any Tool will add to a Total as will Cooking a Dish in your Kitchen. The process of arriving at two totals that match can be tedious but a player without any Orange Wonderfuls when Winter arrives, for example, may perceive the goal of obtaining one worth the bother.

There are other methods of obtaining Wnderfuls in Sunshine Islands. You can make them in your own Kitchen. The Recipe for Orange Wonderfuls requires a number of 'Orange' ingredients: Orange Book, Orange Herb, Orange Curry, Wonderful Piece

You will obtain the Recipe from Haila when you give her an Orange Book.

Wonderfuls can be gifts from various individuals on special occasions as well. The Harvest Goddess will give you a Wonderful when you reach the lowest floor of the Mine. Your spouse will give you a Wonderful as a Gift for your Wedding Anniversary if you have not alienated him/her.

END OF GUIDE EXCERPTS

I am going to add some wild speculation to this post which is NOT included in my actual game guides. Time and time again, I have noticed the same results on any given floor of the Mine at Volcano Island. The result is as follows; the number of GOOD Ores or Gems on any floor appears to be pre-determined to a certain extent, varying within one or two Gems/Ores. In other words, on Floor 25, if no Orange Wonderfuls are set in the Hammer, one can find from 5 to 7 Orichalcum. One can reload again and again and yet never obtain more than 5 or 7 on that floor. The other Rocks that one smashes invariably contain either Junk Ore or nothing at all. The actual Rocks that contain Junk Ore may differ each type you reload on that floor, but in the end, you obtain the same basic results, although you may obtain more or less Junk each time.

On floors where a variety of Ores can be found, I have discovered that again, the number of GOOD Ores appears to be set, so that if you smash a Rock and obtain Copper, you may have lessened your chance of obtaining Orichalcum in another Rock on that same floor. If I am determined to obtain Orichalcum or Gold, therefore, I reload and try again until I do rather than accepting the Copper. It could be nothing more than coincidence, but I expect that the number of Good Ores on any floor ARE programmed into the game and that, after that, the specific Ore may be a matter of probabilities... although I seldom have been able to obtain more than one Orichalcum on any floor that can yield all the ordinary types of Ore. I would be interested in the experience of other players in the Mine in Sunshine Islands.

Finally, a specific philosophical attitude is required when mining in any Harvest Moon game. One cannot be impatient. Farming requires some determination, of course, and Ranching requires the ability to perform the same actions again and again without finding those actions tedious, but mining above all requires a certain phlegmatic patience and ability to endure. For a start, mining occurs underground where there is very little variety in terms of landscape, although the mine in Sunshine Islands has added lava deposits and flowing rivers of lava to the floors.

My first experience with mining in Harvest Moon was in Friends of Mineral Town. In those days, I rather relished the endless labour and toil, bringing home baskets filled with ores and gems... Now, a few years later, I sometimes find myself becoming impatient with it, but all that is required in those situations is a revision in attitude. One must surrender to the Mine, forget about everything else and simply endure until one reaches the goal, whatever that may be.

Perhaps one day I will write a post about the most frustrating Mining experiences I ever had in Harvest Moon. Certainly one of those would be the quest for the King Fish at the bottom of the Winter Mine in Magical Melody. The worst part of that would be actually arriving at the bottom floor, equipping the fishing rod and beginning to fish only to be sent home at dawn without having sufficient time to catch the Fish! Luck always plays a part in success in the Mines, in any Harvest Moon game. You can begin your day at the Mine and still not be able to reach your goal in the time allotted to you. Yet, these exercises build character I suppose. They force the player to accept temporary defeat and yet try again.

As in Magical Melody, a player will be sent home at dawn in Sunshine Islands, irrespective of his/her location on the map. In games where this occurs, a player has to know when to 'cut his/her losses' rather than forging ahead...

In this context, the dialogues of characters in Animal Parade as Friendship levels increase are extremely interesting.

Jin at 4 Hearts: When those who aren’t used to falling down do fall down, they get back up slowly. I think those who can get right back up after making a mistake progress faster.

Barbara at 4 Hearts: Don’t let a failure get your spirits down! If you have the time to mope then you have the time to get up and try it again!

Colleen at 4 Hearts: Failure is part of both cooking and life... But failure can give you hints on how to succeed!

Simon at 4 Hearts: People make mistakes. Although we shouldn’t fear failure, it’s easy to dwell on it.

I do not think it is coincidence that all the dialogues that deal with 'failure' occur when you reach 4 Hearts with these individual, a point in your relationship where the Friends Page in your Farm Menu defines your relationship as: 'I’m good friends with X!'

A good Friend can be forgiven for speaking of the possibility of failure in any enterprise, yet giving the individual motivation to try again. Life in the 'real world' guarantees that an individual will fail at least once, but as in Harvest Moon, one needs to have the faith to try again.

Mining teaches perseverance. It is slow work, but labour that ultimately yields great rewards and invariably rewards that cannot be obtained by any other method.

Note that in Animal Parade, you can stay in the Mines after dawn breaks, but you will suffer fatigue if you do so. There are medicines to combat this, however.

There are general rules that are followed by any Harvest Moon game where every aspect of life is concerned, but there always are unique differences that distinguish each new game. A veteran player is strengthened by his/her knowledge of those fundamental rules, yet always capable of being surprised by a different 'twist' in every new game. I would like to think that my joy in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory will endure as long as I live... and that new Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games will continue to be produced for decades to come. Obviously, technology will change radically and perhaps our interactions with the worlds of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory will become infinitely more sophisticated and complex... Who knows what the future holds? Whatever the case, I expect that patience and determination will continue to be factors in the Mines!

Later:
It is worth noting that an Orange Wonderful can make a tremendous difference when set into an Axe, as it will double the Lumber yield as well.

I need to do more research where Winter Wonderfuls are concerned, but whenever I have found an Orange Wonderful at Chen's Market, it was when I did a lot of Cooking to try to make two categories in Farming Degree totals match. It is my understanding that the specific matches yield specific colours of Wonderfuls, unlike IoH, where the colours of the Wonderfuls that could appear at Chen's Market in Winter were date-based.

If this is the case, then it may be the Cooking Degree Total that, when coupled with another Total, as yet unidentified, yields Orange.

I now have been able to pinpoint the LAST opportunity to change a Total yet, by the way. It is at 5.50 a.m. that you have your last chance to change Totals where the possible appearance of a Wonderful at Chen's Market at 6.00 a.m. is concerned.

Mind you, in this situation, where the two last digits must match, it means that there are an incredible number of possible totals. (The two digits to be matched could be anything from 01 to 99, I would imagine.)

I have been obtaining Orange Wonderfuls consistently so far by doing this. Invariably, one of the Totals I change ALWAYS has been the Cooking total, by cooking one more dish... The last time I did this, however, I tested 16 different totals before I finally decided to try to change a different total instead. I threw two Fish into the Shipping container and cast my Fishing Rod in my house twice, vowing that I would not waste any more time on this endless pursuit... to my delight and amazement, an Orange Wonderful appeared at Chen's Market at 6.00 a.m. that morning (which was only 10 minutes later, although I slept to restore my energy and my character apparently recovered amazingly well from that paltry amount of slumber!)

Ii will continue to log my own results, but one must be wary in Harvest Moon or Rune Factory where two identical results are concerned. Very often, it is nothing more than a case of coincidence.

N.B. I would like to thank Gillian for prompting me to work again on the Mining section of my Guide and helping with the research.