Power or Wealth? It depends on your Gender

I feel a bit schizophrenic at the moment, playing the Boy and the Girl version of Harvest Moon Boy & Girl simultaneously. Although both versions share the same foundation fundamentally, there are some differences that are significant and others that are minor. Chief among significant differences is the fact that marriage in the Girl version ends the game. In the Boy version, you go on to create a family for yourself. For those who assume that the creators of the game are prejudiced against women, that assumption is quite false. There are many Harvest Moon games where a female character can marry and raise a family: 'Another Wonderful Life', 'More Friends of Mineral Town', 'Magic Melody' and 'Harvest Moon Cute DS' are among them.

I personally think that the reason why the option is not available in the Girl version is that it is based on an old Japanese game that never was produced in English. Perhaps it was created rather hastily or almost as an afterthought to please players who wished to play 'Back to Nature' as a girl... I wish that one could marry and have a child as a girl in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, but there is no profit to be made in belabouring the point. If you wish to have a family, play as a boy... I always court all the eligible girls and all the bachelors in every game in any case, so seldom save the results after marriage. So far, as a boy in HM Boy & Girl, I have married Ann and Mary without saving the results of either marriage. In fact, I went through half a year of married life with Mary simply in order to experience events that cannot be triggered before the second year, including a two-part Rival Heart Event for each girl.

Courtship and Marriage appears to be one of the primary concerns of players of both genders. As I have completed all the Heart Events for the eligible girls in the Boy version and my Courtship guide now can take a male player to a successful marriage, I decided I had to return to the Girl version of the game to do the same with respect to all the eligible bachelors.

As I initially began to play this game as a girl but switched to the Boy version as early as 11 Spring in my first year, I was appalled by the state of my girl's game when I returned to it. I have become so much more adept at the game after playing a year and a half as a boy...

I therefore simply began a new game, overwriting the rather feeble first attempts to play as a girl. Having amassed a number of Power Berries withiin the first week as a boy, I thought I would do the same in the girl version.

Imagine my surprise when, after throwing five crop offerings into the Goddess Spring, the Harvest Goddess gave me a piece of lumber! In the Boy version of the game, she gives a Red Power Berry after five crop offerings, a chance to share the Spa with the girl with the highest heart level after 10 and finally, after a total of 20 offerings, a piece of lumber that Gotz will pay a very generous price to obtain.

In the girl version, the gift of the Lumber is first and in fact, Gotz pays 3000G for it rather than 1000G. Apparently, the makers of this game felt that Power was more important for a Boy and wealth was more vital to a Girl!

I now will have to discover if I receive the Power Berry after I have tossed another five crops into the Spring or if I am offered the chance to share a bath with the bachelor with highest heart level... As it is only 8 Spring, I do not have that many crops ready for harvest at present. I shipped the first lot and will have to wait until tomorrow for more to ripen.

Well, I have experienced the events now. It cost me a total of TWENTY crops to obtain the Red Power Berry and there is no Spa event in the Girl version. When you have tossed a total of 10 crop offerings in the Spring, the Goddess WILL ask you if you have a Sweetheart. If you admit that you do, she will send the bachelor with the highest heart level to you... In my case, rather to my annoyance, it presently is the Doctor, so he came to me and threw me a Moondrop! Not even a Toyflower, but a Moondrop, the most common flower in Spring. Never mind. A part of me did not wish to save the result, but I'll keep a separate file at a point prior to this so I can experience the event with all the other bachelors. It is not THAT important, although it sent him to Blue Heart level instantly. I still need to raise his heart further in order to experience the Wednesday Lake event though, apparently.

To return to the main issue, however, the Power Berry in the Girl version is given only after 20 crop offerings, making it far more difficult in the beginning of the first Spring than it is in the Boy game. I got it, of course, but at what a price!

I have to say that there are other minor differences between the two games that can be very cruel. My first experience of the Spring Goddess Festival was utterly humiliating. Even though the scene in which Gotz gives you a gorgeous traditional gown to wear is very poignant, as it is an heirloom that should have belonged to his deceased daughter, the actual Festival is horrible in the first year. Despite the fact that I had plied the bachelors with gifts since the start of the game, no heart level was sufficiently high to allow me to gain an escort to the Festival... When I arrived there, Mary was with Grey, Elli was with the Doctor and Cliff and Ann were together... Rick remained with his sister, thus leaving Karen to her own devices, but... various individuals were determined to remind me of the fact that I had NO ONE.

Grey spoke besottedly of Mary and how 'cute' she was in pink. Anna made a comment to the effect that Grey and Mary reminded her of herself and her own husband when they were young...Elli crowed about the Doctor being HER date... and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. It reminded me of the worst nightmares one had as a young girl, with respect to school dances and the fear that one would not have an acceptable escort...

In all honesty though, we had a very clever tradition of throwing an annual Twelfth Night party and inviting ONLY boys so that my sister and I would have a choice of six dance partners. All the boys we invited were our best friends so it inevitably was a great success. I suppose the Spring Goddess Festival in Harvest Moon will teach me humility, at least in the first year. It is interesting that my gaming practice of bringing all eligible girls or bachelors to deepest red heart level before I allow them to marry my rivals is not unlike my actual experience.

Well, back to the arduous task of building a farm... Ironically, I have forced myself to put down the Boy version of the game temporarily when it actually had become FUN... I had all the farm, house and tool upgrades as well as the Hothouse. All the girls were there for the taking and I received gifts from each and every one of them at the Winter Thanksgiving... Now I am taken back to a point when I am struggling with life, having only the medium rucksack, basic tools and a very meagre amount of money. I actually COUNT the bags of coins I scoop up in the Mine each day at 10G each. This gave me another realisation actually. When you do not have the Basket, a trip to the Spring Mine is important for the number of 10G bags of coins you can collect... after all, Copper Ore only ships for 15G. With only a few slots in your rucksack, collecting bags of coin probably is as profitable as anything else, unless you are willing to toss out all ore apart from Mystrile.

And it is all worth the effort...

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It is Monday night at 10.30 on the 19th of August in my first year in Forget-Me-Not Valley. My Pot was delivered this morning at 6.00 a.m. and I spent most of the morning making new dishes... among them all the Curries apart from those requiring White Grass, an herb that is available only in the Winter season. Unfortunately, Skye's Most Favourite gift happens to be 'Finest Curry', the one special curry that does contain White Grass. Even so, the other special curries do appeal to him greatly.

I lavished attention upon a very complicated dish known as the 'Ultimate Curry' and when it was completed, set it in a golden vessel. I barely could concentrate on my farm chores today as the Ultimate Curry was intended for Skye and I only can find him in the Valley at night.

I have made it a habit to 'drop in' casually at Vesta's farmhouse at 10.10 p.m. each night. I am pleasant to every one. I hope they cannot guess the real reason I have been making the visit. It enables me to switch my accessories from Teleport Stone to Love Bangle without wasting any time. I am able to place my gift for Skye in my hands as well, in preparation for each nightly encounter.

In the past, the best gifts I had for him were acceptable ones of jewelry or toiletries from the Excavation Site. Those gifts DID please him but his affection for me only increased at a slow rate.

Now tonight, my heart was pounding as I met him with Ultimate Curry in my hands. Oh beautiful moment! O moment of magic! What do you imagine his response to have been?

'What a wonderful woman you are!' Skye exclaimed. 'Thank you.'

Some may consider the difference between 500 points of AP and 300 points of AP to be fairly insignificant but for a woman in love, it means that I can win the heart of my beloved in almost half the time it would have taken previously. I may not be able to marry Skye before Winter in these circumstances, but I am confident that he will accept my Blue Feather, should I proffer it, before the Year's End.

Tomorrow, my house will be upgraded for the second time. Due to some unfortunate occurrences in the past (never experienced by me personally, thank God!), I feel it will be best if I place my cat and dog outside tonight. Gotz has been known in the past to wall up an unfortunate pet when performing the second house expansion! Ranchers who have experienced this terrible accident of fate either have been forced to live with the horrible view of their cat or dog struggling within the wall forever or never have seen the pet again at all. I don't know which is worse but I do know it is better to take the precaution perhaps of setting the two pets outside for a few hours.

My heart is singing as I walk home slowly, savouring Skye's response to my Ultimate Curry. Ultimate Curry is a lot of work to prepare and some of the steps can become rather tedious after awhile, but Skye is worth any effort.