Harvest Moon Forever: General Strategies in HoLV

Saturday, May 22, 2010

General Strategies in HoLV

Any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game can be played in a number of different ways and HoLV definitely is part of the Harvest Moon series. It differs somewhat from most traditional Harvest Moon games in the necessity of 'saving the homeland' from Funland's threat of development by the end of the 2nd Year. There are a wide array of choices as to how you wish to accomplish this goal, however, and players need not experience ALL possible Events in HoLV in order to achieve the goal.

For many players, including myself, however, experiencing all possible Events IS a goal and I created the 1st and 2nd Year Events Calendar Guides with that aim in mind. A certain amount of planning is necessary if you wish to experience all possible Events simply because ALL Events are time-restricted and many have specific weather requirements.

When you experience the Event at the Villa where you obtain the Silk Thread and are told to give it to the Harvest Goddess, Flak makes an odd statement about his patroness, the Harvest Goddess:

Flak: Harvest Goddess keeps bugging us if the 'Silk Thread' is ready yet. But she's so fickle, she won't care about the 'Seven-Colour Cloth' in a few days!

When I experienced this dialogue, I was rather shocked for a moment by the Sprite's apparent disrespect for his Goddess, but then I realised what he was trying to tell you. All Events are set to occur within specific time periods. You can't carry the Silk Thread for weeks before deciding to take it to the Harvest Goddess and expect her to respond in a positive manner.

This is where an Events Calendar Guide can be vital. Most of the Events that occur outside buildings require fair weather. You therefore will not be able to experience them on rainy or snowy days. If an Event is set to occur only within a specific four day period and you have a rainy day, the window of opportunity becomes even smaller.

The Event where you obtain the Silk Thread is set to occur between 4 Autumn - 12 Autumn from 6.00 a.m. - 5.59 p.m. only in fine weather. The Event wherein you give the Thread to the Harvest Goddess is set to occur between 4 Autumn - 13 Autumn from 6.00 a.m. - 5.59 p.m. in good weather. If you wait until 12 Autumn to experience the first Event, you only have 12 Autumn and 13 Autumn in which to experience the second. If rain is predicted for 13 Autumn, you MUST go immediately to the Harvest Goddess Spring after obtaining the Silk Thread to give it to the Goddess.

If you do not obtain the Silk Thread before 13 Autumn, you will not be able to complete the Story Quest of the Harvest Goddess' Gown. That does not mean that you will be unable to save the land from the Funland threat of development by any means, but it does mean that you will be unable to experience many interesting Events in your current game.

Obviously, you can play the game more than once. With the PSP, you even can begin a game and then save the same game at different points in order to move forward along different paths in each file. If, however, you enjoy the challenge of experiencing as much as possible in a single file and game, you may wish to attempt to experience 'Dia's Jealousy' and 'Taking the Silk Thread to the Harvest Goddess' both on 4 Autumn, provided the weather is fine or if it is rainy, on 5 Autumn, at the earliest possible opportunity.

Characters often give very sound advice in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. In HoLV, you will receive very useful advice from Wallace:

Wallace: It's important to plan what you're going to do each day.

This is not merely the ramblings of an old man. It IS very important to plan your day in advance, simply because the Map is large and some areas can be rather remote. The Harvest Goddess Spring probably is the most remote of all destinations because it cannot be reached from the Plaza, the central point, or hub, of Leaf Valley. From the Plaza, paths go directly to the Grocery, the Florist and Items Shop, Woody's Carpentry, the Beach and the Villa. To reach the Harvest Goddess Spring, you either need to take the Grocery path through the Cafe/Pub area, then through the Mallard Lake and Church area or you have to go to Woody's Carpentry area, through the Forest of Pike Mountain and then through the Mine/Funland Corporation area. In other words, no matter how you choose to do it, you have to go through three areas before you can reach the Harvest Goddess Spring.

Renton will tell you that it takes half a day to circle the Valley. Given the fact that most Events occur before 6.00 p.m., you need to plot your course rather carefully if you wish to maximise your experiences in a single day.

That having been said, it is not difficult to meet the ordinary Requirements for most Events in HoLV. Many Events involved with the main Story Quest occur automatically when you leave your Farmhouse at 6.00 a.m.

The reason why there are specific rather narrow time slots for each of the Events in HoLV is because the game includes more linear plots than other Harvest Moon games. When you consider that there are sixteen different Story Quests, each of which must operate smoothly within the context of the others and each of which includes a fair number of Events that must be completed within a two-year period, Hero of Leaf Valley represents rather an incredible achievement. 'Save the Homeland' was a marvelous game for its time, but 'Hero of Leaf Valley' is far more complex and sophisticated. The wealth of dialogue is astounding. I noted that dialogues about the weather can include a remark that deals not only with current weather conditions but actually compares that with the weather of the previous day! The fact that responses to specific gifts can vary according to heart levels makes the game very sophisticated in terms of dialogue as well.

My own strategy is to experience all possible Events at the earliest opportunity in a single day if I can even if it means that I will not make much money that day. Once I have cleared the Calendar of Events, I can relax a little and spend the rest of the days in that time period as I please, without worrying about weather or being at a specific location at a specific time.

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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.

Copyright Infringement Warning

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!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

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'.