Harvest Moon Forever: Fantasy Animals in Lovely Farm

Friday, July 2, 2010

Fantasy Animals in Lovely Farm

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Lovely Farm is a slow-moving game in some ways, especially when it pertains to income. You can send a gift to a Friend only once each day, which makes it impossible to obtain much income by selling gifts or using them to generate money quickly. On the other hand, the graphics are really gorgeous and for some reason, remind me very much of Harvest Moon. The ability to send an Ostrich as a Free Gift to a friend at the very start was very compelling and added to the 'Harvest Moon' feeling I had.

Sadly, unlike Animal Parade, you cannot ride an Ostrich but it does lay eggs. Pigs, another Free Gift, appear to be rooting for Truffles, although I have not reached the point where I can 'harvest' any.

Crops are large and very attractive. A good strategy, if a player were focused on the game, would be to grow a large number of fast-growing Crops such as White Radishes in order to raise Levels and add to income as quickly as possible. Stupidly, although I did this, I missed the deadline for the harvest and they all withered.

This rings me to another aspect of the game that makes it more like Harvest Moon than Farmville. You need to water most Crops if you wish to be able to harvest them.
Like Farmville, however, you can help a neighbour by watering or fertilising THEIR Crops, although there is a limit of three portions of Water and Fertiliser and you are charged if you use them. It goes give experience, however. I have not quite discovered how often the fertiliser and water option appears yet.

What enchanted me today about the game was the fact that I finally had sufficient income and the required Level to purchase a Ranch Animal called 'Fluttergoat'. The Animals, like the Crops, are large and attractive. I did not know how large a Goat with Wings would be, but when I placed him, I discovered he was a decent size and absolutely delightful. I do not know what product he will produce but expect that it will be unusual and appropriate in some way.

The Fantasy Animals are defined as 'Seasonal' in the game which probably is the equivalent of 'Limited Editions' that will be offered only for a specific limited time period. Other Seasonal Animals available now are PorkyBees (Pigs with wings who are striped black and gold), FlyingCows (Black and White Cows with colourful balloons attached to them), FancyPigs (Pigs who have been painted with all sorts of colourful pictures) and finally, LadyCows (a Black Cow with black and red Ladybird wings). Of the four, I like the Fluttergoat best, although the LadyCow is rather interesting as well.

I do recommend this game to fans of Harvest Moon. Where Farmville has a rather impersonal, commercial atmosphere, Lovely Farms appears to have been created with real love. One expects a certain number of glitches and 'bugs' when a game is made by a smaller company... It is more discouraging to discover that a game like Farmville, enormously successful, is not only filled with glitches and 'issues' but does not have a friendly or helpful support system to go with them. From what I have seen on the Lovely Farm Forum, the people in charge of the game do make an effort to respond to players' concerns and problems. It is early days yet, but Lovely Farms has made a positive impression on me.

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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'.