Harvest Moon Forever: Harvest King

Showing posts with label Harvest King. Show all posts

Friday, January 15, 2010

Shortcuts and Instant Transport in Animal Parade

There are a number of ‘shortcuts’ that can be created in Animal Parade, through the completion of various quests. Apart from actual shortcuts, there are methods of transport that either allow you to travel to a new destination or reduce your travel time from one district to the other.

The first new path that is created is the repair of the bridge that allows you to travel to the Garmon Mines District. The second is the first use of the Animal Whistle that allows you to establish trust with the Wild Animals, granting you access to the Harvest Goddess Spring.

When your first Animal reaches 5 Hearts, you will be able to ride him/her. A Cow is rather slow, however. It is only when the Horn Ranch is upgraded to allow Hanna to sell Horses that you will have the potential to obtain a means of Transport in the form of an adult Horse with 5 Hearts that can cut your travel time in half.

Next, you can persuade Bo to repair the Mine Cart by feeding him repeatedly until he completes the task. This gives you a shortcut between the Garmon Mines District and the Church Grounds.

When you ring the Blue Bell, you will restore the Ferry Service between Harmonica Town and Toucan Island. When you purchase a return Boat Ticket for 400G from the Fishery, you will be able to travel instantly from Harmonica Town to Toucan Island and back again.

After you find all three Lost Circus Animals, Theodore will impart the Secret of the Animal Whistle which will allow you to travel instantly to your Farmland, Harmonica Town, Flute Fields or Fugue Forest from any location on the Map. What this means essentially is that you always will have a method by which you can return home instantly, even when you are in an area that is NOT an Animal Whistle destination. Furthermore, it gives you instant access to the swamp where the Hut of the Witch Princess is situated, allowing you to visit her without being forced to navigate the maze of Fugue Forest. An added bonus is the ability to discover what a 'piggyback ride' actually entails!

The final shortcut is created by the Harvest King himself when he grants you instant access via teleport from the Garmon Mine entrance to the Mountaintop. This shortcut is useful for a number of reasons, apart from allowing you to visit the Harvest King effortlessly. It gives you instant access to the Hot Spring at the Mountaintop as well as the 45th floor of the Upper Garmon Mine. Your chance of obtaining rare ores and gems improves when you mine in the last few floors of any mine, which means that starting at the 45th floor and working downward will give you more opportunity to find Gold Ore and Rare Ore.

As you can see, apart from the pure motivation of restoring the Goddess Tree, there are more selfish reasons to complete Quests in Animal Parade!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Restoring the Goddess Tree in Animal Parade

Here is a video of your character's first encounter with the Harvest King, when you attain 'Hero' status and climb to the top of the Mountaintop to ring all 5 Bells, thereby summoning him:

The quality of the video is terrible. My camera is nearing the end of its life, alas, but I hope players will find enjoy it nonetheless.

The Harvest King really is something else! He is everything an Immortal should be...

Saturday, January 9, 2010

He May Not be a God, but... He's definitely Romantic!

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The Harvest King is magnificent but he is immortal and it is difficult to compare any God with a mere human. At 8 Hearts, however, the Wizard's dialogue won my heart when he told me:

Wizard: I haven’t lived as long as the Harvest King or Harvest Goddess... But I wouldn’t trade a long life for the opportunity of having met you...

At 3 Hearts, each Character in Animal Parade will confide a Wish to you. I'm afraid that the Wizard is rather maligned when his Wish is conveyed to the Wishing Shrine. His original Wish, as confided to Freya was that he wished he could have a telescope that would pierce the very heart of the universe. This is a deeply profound philosophical wish but when his Wish is transferred to the Wishing Shrine, it becomes 'I want a super-powerful telescope'. This makes him sound like a child who wants a particularly cool toy rather than a magician who wishes he could solve the ultimate mysteries of the universe.

Never mind, though. At least Freya understands him perfectly. Thank God there are three save slots in Animal Parade, allowing her to stay true to the Wizard in one while still dallying with an Immortal God in another!

Incidntally, although one can begin to court the Witch Princess from the instant when she is transformed by the Wizard from a Frog back into a Princess, my own advice would be to wait until you have the Secret of the Animal Whistle. Until then, you will be forced to smash and chop your way through the maze of the Fugue Forest whenever you wish to visit her. Once you have the Secret of the Animal Whistle, the Hippo will glide effortlessly and instantly into the swamp-filled clearing, taking you directly to her door. Although you do need to collect materials in the form of lumber and Material Stone for building upgrades, courting the Witch Princess is far less frustrating if you can bypass the Fugue Forest Maze.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Move Over, Harvest Goddess! The Harvest King Beckons...

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Those of us who played Harvest Moon Cute on the DS have a passing acquaintance with the Harvest King, but it is in Animal Parade that we actually are given an opportunity to interact with him. In fact, if you play the game as a girl, you actually (Be still, my heart, be still!) can court and MARRY him! In More Friends of Mineral Town, you had the choice of marrying a Magical Being in the form of the Kappa, but that green creature of the waters never appealed to me as a romantic partner. The Harvest King on the other hand, is everything a romantic soul could crave, physically and spiritually!

I expect players can guess that I will 'set my Cap' for him!

Incidentally, he can be found, very appropriately on the Mountaintop and his favoured Gifts include Shining Grapes, Shining Apples and Apple and Grape Cocktails.

Well, I have a long way to go if I expect to gain his attention, let alone his exalted HEART! Best take the first faltering steps towards success in Animal Parade...

Later: IGN published my very preliminary General Guide for Animal Parade. Its purpose at this point in time is to establish the URL as well as giving as many little facts as I could provide in a few hours. By Monday, the Guide should be a lot bigger and far more useful. I tried to create a little Calendar of Birthdays and Festivals. I have followed ToT official birthdays for characters who are in both games. If I am mistaken, I'll have to 'eat my words', but birthdays usually are consistent for characters from game to game.

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'.