Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Using your Hammer to Forage in Hero of Leaf Valley


In Rune Factory Frontier, one of the early delightful surprises for me was my ability to knock ripe fruit from the Trees using my Hammer. In my first day of explorinng the landscape in Leaf Valley, I discovered that my Hammer could serve the same function in this new game. Using it, I was able to collect both ripe fruits and insects from various Trees.

It is not ALL Trees that can be assaulted in this fashion but only those that display the Hammer icon.

There is a significant difference between Rune Factory Frontier and Hero of Leaf Valley in terms of the yield that is obtained when you use your Hammer to knock down fruits. In Rune Factory Frontier, the two 'Orchards' were rather magical in nature. Each Tree would CHANGE its yield according to the Season. Thus, every Tree in RFF Orchards yielded the same Fruit in a specific Season but would yield a different type of Fruit every Season.

Hero of Leaf Valley is more realistic in that the identity of the Tree determines the type of Fruit that it yields. The trees do not change their identity and thus an Apple Tree will yield Apples and an Orange Tree will drop Oranges. They are seasonal to some extent as well, so if you use your Hammer on a Tree that is not in a fruit-bearing season, you will obtain only insects.

Fruits thus are location-specific and, to some extent, season-specific and so are insects. Certain insects tend to hover in certain areas of the Map. You will need a Net if you wish to catch flying insects, but those that are earth-bound can be knocked out of Trees with the Hammer.

Tip for Players who tend to be confused by camera angles: The landscapes in Hero of Leaf Valley are breathtaking but the camera angle will shift on you quite suddenly sometimes. This is very artistic and enjoyable as an observer, but if your Character is trying to find his way about town initially, he may become hopelessly lost, entering and exiting the same building or area countless times in utter confusion.

The trick is to learn to use your Controls to change the camera angle again. You can centre the camera angle with the Triangle button or use the Directional buttons to move the camera until you find an angle that suits you.

The most foolish thing I did today in Harvest Moon was to keep my DS stylus in my hand thorugh the first few hours of playing Hero of Leaf Valley. It has become so much a habit in the past fortnight or so while I was furiously going through Sunshine Islands to bag as many events as I could that I forgot that the PSP did not have a Touchscreen.

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