Harvest Moon Forever: The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating...

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating...

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There is an old folk adage to the effect that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Without a 'Truth Bangle' to show you how many Energy Points your Character loses in the Mine, your best frame of reference is visual by watching your Energy Bars.

In the first few seaons, you probably will not be able to descend very far or take sufficient Energy Recovery items with you to make significant gains in the Mine. It is only when you have a Kitchen and a wide variety and quantity of ingredients that you will be able to spend as much time and energy as you wish in the Mine.

Furthermore, falling 5 floors through a Pitfall may mean certain termination to your journey early in the game where later, it becomes a choice determined by how much you are willing to 'spend' in terms of Energy Recovery Items.

I have included screenshots here of the Effects of three of the Energy Recovery Items that Freya prefers to use when she goes to the Mine.

At Floor 24, within a single Floor of her first target, which always is Floor 25, Freya had allowed the game to dictate how many floors she fell using the Pitfalls that she encountered. She fell five floors a couple of times, a single floor a couple of times and used her hoe on two floors to descend a single floor at a time. Arriving at the Mine with full Energy Gauges maximised by the Large Harvest Goddess Pendant and Large Kappa Pendant, she found herself on Floor 24 with her Stamina Gauge almost half empty. To arrive there using random pitfalls, she had consumed 2 Steamed Egg Custards, 2 Sashimi and a single Pudding. This is a careless way to explore the Mine and one that is possible only when your Character has sufficient funds and items not to care how many Energy Recovery items she uses. Note that she is using 'ordinary' items here and not the very effective Relax Tea, Bodigizer or Bodigizer XL to restore her Stamina... The reason for this is to show players who are in the initial stages of the game the effects of various 'garden-variety' Cooked Dishes.

The top image shows her Stamina Gauge upon her arrival on Floor 24. As you can see, it is almost halfway depleted.

The next screenshot shows her Stamina Gauge after consuming 1 Rank A Sashimi made using a Medium and a Large Fish.

The screenshot below that shows the Stamina Gauge after consuming 1 Rank A Steamed Egg Custard made with an Egg, Mushroom and a Small Fish instead.

The screenshot below it shows the effect of consuming 1 Rank A Pudding that contained an Egg, Milk and Chocolate.

As you can see, the effects of the Steamed Egg Custard are almost as good as the effects of the Pudding. For the purpose of restoring Stamina, therefore, it would be better to use the Egg with a Mushroom of any variety and a Small Fish to make Steamed Egg Custard.

Note that the addition of Rice to Sashimi to create Sushi or Sashimi Bowl will result in a Cooked Dish that ships for a far greater value but which would NOT be any more useful than simple Sashimi in the Mine. The boost that the Rice would give in terms of Energy Values would be reflected only in Fullness and not in Stamina. When shipped, however, Sushi or Sashimi Bowl would be worth at least 900G more than Sashimi. As time passes rather slowly in the Mine, Fullness will not deplete quickly but Stamina WILL.

The final screenshot at the very bottom, incidentally, shows the effects of falling five floors through a pitfall. Freya's Stamina gauge was at the halfway point when she fell. You can see how much Stamina is lost simply by falling 5 Floors at once. Falling through a pitfall when the Stamina gauge is only half filled, when your Character has maximised her Stamina and Fullness bars with Accessories as Freya has, offers no risk of passing out, but one must be careful to restore Stamina instantly before running the risk of falling through another pitfall. With maximised Energy bars, it is wisest to restore Energy always before it goes below the halfway point in the Mine. If your Character has not equipped the Large Harvest Goddess and Kappa Pendants, you probably should not allow Stamina levels to fall below 3/4.

The best strategy, at any stage, is to save your game as soon as you arrive on any Floor. If movement in any direction sends your Character through a pitfall that renders him/her unconscious, you then can reload to a point where the Pitfall had not been encountered yet.

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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!

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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.

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Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

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