Looking forward to Hero of Leaf Valley

I should be receiving a copy of the soon-to-be-released Harvest Moon game, 'Hero of Leaf Valley' for the PSP in a few days... I will begin to work on Guides for the game as soon as I receive it. As always, I am very excited about ANY new Harvest Moon game while still feeling there still is a great deal to explore in all the existing games...

Incidentally, 'Hero of Leaf Valley' will be the third Harvest Moon game produced by Natsume for the PSP. The first was 'Innocent Life' and the second was 'Harvest Moon Boy & Girl'. In fact, as 'Harvest Moon Boy & Girl' really is two games in one, 'Hero of Leaf Valley' actually could be considered the fourth game produced for the PSP platform.

The Harvest Goddess Festival in Island of Happiness

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The Harvest Goddess Festival is not a celebration of the Harvest but of the Goddess. 8 Spring is the birthday of the Harvest Goddess and the day on which the Festival is celebrated.

The Harvest Goddess Festival is one that, unlike the Thanksgiving Festival, is not included in every traditional Harvest Moon game. Friends/More Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon DS/Cute DS did not included the Festival. It is an extremely beautiful celebration of the power of the Harvest Goddess and one that adds to the spiritual component of any Harvest Moon game, even if in cases where your character has not raised the heart level of any eligible partner sufficient, it can be rather heartbreaking as well. In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, for example, the object of your heart's desire may make comments about your Rival that almost break your heart... Even so, that need not occur more than once if you raise heart levels sufficiently before the next Harvest Goddess Festival.

I was thrilled to discover that you can unlock the Harvest Goddess Festival in Island of Happiness once you have unlocked the Church in the Forest. Playing as a girl, you do not experience an event wherein you will receive a beautiful festival gown as in HM B&G but it is a lovely celebration in the Meadow nonetheless. I have to say that the Event wherein Gotz brings you the gown that once belonged to his daughter is one of the most poignant in any Harvest Moon game. It was one of my favourite events in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl actually, and the ritual of dressing in the gown before walking to the Harvest Goddess Festival made the Festival very real to me. While wearing the Harvest Festival Gown in HM B & G, your character cannot perform ANY farming or ranching tasks. This is a very nice touch, making you feel that you really ARE wearing a special sacred gown, one that you would not dream of wearing while you milk the cows or weed the fields!

It has been many months since I had any chance to play HM B & G but writing about the Harvest Goddess Festival creates a longing in me to return to my life in that game. I do like the PSP platform better than the larger Wii or PS2, simply because it is as portable as the DS, even if the battery life is all too brief. Portable platforms have a special magic, because they allow the player to take the world of Harvest Moon or Valkyrie Profile or any other favourite reality ANYWHERE, without alerting the entire world to their existence.

Every one probably has experienced the scorn or criticism of a parent, partner or friend with respect to the amount of time and energy given to games. The DS or PSP circumvent this to some extent. The systems are small enough to escape detection in many cases. My DS and PSP both have been mistaken for devices engaged in 'serious business' by people who were unfamiliar with the platforms. (For some of us, a game is the most 'serious business' of all, but much of the world does not share these values.)

To return to the Harvest Goddess Festival, the celebration in Island of Happiness includes a sacred dance but there is less of the overt admiration of the Rivals than there is in Harvest Moon B & G. The actual dance is more compelling in B & G, however. In my view, the actual dance in B & G is one of the most beautiful events in any Harvest Moon game.

There is another wonderful event in HM B & G wherein Karen will visit you at your farm to teach you how to perform the festival dance. Despite the similarities between various Harvest Moon games, each game is unique and that is part of the enduring charm of Harvest Moon.

In Island of Happiness, the event that unlocks the Festival probably may occur almost a year before you experience the Festival for the first time. It is an Event that is connected with the Church and involves a discussion of the Festival. With the arrival of the Spring season, you will experience the Festival for the first time. As with any new Festival in Island of Happiness, you will be visited on the day before the Festival by the individual who is in charge of the celebration. In the case of the Harvest Goddess Festival, that individual is Alisa. She will tell you to invite some one to accompany you to the Festival.

This is your opportunity to court the bachelor/eligible girl of your choice. If his/her Heart Level is high enough, you will be able to accompany him/her to the Festival the next day.

Island of Happiness is interesting in its realism where this aspect of the event is concerned. On the day of the Festival, the eligible girl/bachelor will visit you at home and will wait until you have completed all of your chores/tasks. He/she then will accompany you to the Meadow to celebrate the Festival. After the Festival, he/she will bid you farewell. I love the actual dance in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, but I love the way the Festival Event occurs in IoH as well.

Whatever the nature of the actual celebration, I for one hope it will be included in all future Harvest Moon games!

Trent's very endearing 4th Heart Event

Were I not devoted utterly to Skye, it would be easy to be seduced both by the 4th Heart Events both of Kai and of Trent in Cute.

The Doctor from Mineral Town actually conforms to a rather stereotypical Asian romantic characterisation of doctors as very serious, idealistic individuals who haven't the time to become socially adept, choosing instead to embrace a passionate devotion to humanity. There was a time in Western civilisation when doctors were depicted in much the same fashion but no longer. In any case, Trent's interactions with your character tend to focus on your character's health habits and diet until the final Heart Event.

At this point in the courtship, Trent has become so attracted to your character that he no longer is able to focus on his duty. He no longer even can take refuge in his usual health-related dialogue but is tongue-tied and blushes in your presence.

To make matters worse for the poor man, Elli and Hardy tease him gently about his condition. It is quite a charming event and as both Elli and Hardy intimate, only your character has the power to 'cure' what ails him.

If you do not acknowledge his state, he will be utterly crushed.

It is interesting to compare Elli's character in Cute with her depiction in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl and to note the differences in her attitude. Although she obviously bears the same love for her Doctor in both games, in Cute she graciously steps aside when she realises that the Doctor is interested in your character. In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, on the other hand, she never loses an opportunity to stake her claim on his heart!

Hot Springs, Your Sweetheart, Monkeys and You

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Distant rumours of this event in older Harvest Moon games had reached me over the years, but not to the point where the event no longer was a surprise to me. In fact, it would be rather hilarious I think, even to a player familiar with it.

In many Harvest Moon games, the Harvest Goddess acts as a guardian and intercessor even in the realm of romance and courtship. In Harvest Moon DS and Harvest Moon Cute DS, after a certain number of offerings, the Harvest Goddess will offer to boost the heart level of the eligible grl or bachelor of your choice. The original 'boy' version offers far more options in this respect, which is VERY unfair! In the boy version of Harvest Moon DS, you can choose a name from three different lists comprised of the ordinary Valley girls, the Magical Valley girls and the Mineral Town girls. In Harvest Moon Cute DS, you only can choose from two lists, one containing the ordinary bachelors of the Valley and the other comprised of the Mineral Town boys... Skye is not included ANYWHERE!

It is not of HM DS or Cute that I wish to speak here, however, but of Harvest Moon PSP Boy & Girl. I had expected the event to be similar to the comparable event in Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town. In fact, it is far more creative and diverting.

In terms of EFFECTS, there is a very big difference in the games. In Harvest Moon DS and Cute DS, you can CHOOSE the individual whose heart level you would like the Harvest Goddess to boost. This allows you to follow any strategy you like. If, in fact, you are trying to raise the heart levels of every eligible girl or bachelor, you can name the one with the LOWEST Heart level and the Goddess will raise it.

The event occurs, in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, when you have given the Harvest Goddess a total of ten offerings of crops harvested from your own field. A total of 5 crop offerings will trigger an event in which she will give you a Red Power Berry. 10 crop offerings give you the opportunity to experience the Hot Spring event with the girl who likes you best...

In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, you are not given ANY options, apart from telling the Harvest Goddess that you are not interested in romance at all. If you tell her that you do have a 'sweetheart', she will assume that it is the girl or bachelor with the HIGHEST current heart level and will raise it. I found this rather annoying, to be honest. I didn't need help with THAT target, but with the one with the lowest heart level. In fact, I did not save the event at all and will trigger it later in the game when I decide which girl I would like to join in the Hot Spring...

For that is the central action of the Event. After you leave the Harvest Goddess and descend the steps from the Hot Spring, you will meet the girl with the highest heart level at the bottom. She will express her intention of taking a dip in the Spa. You then may attempt to join her in the Spa if you wish.

When you leap into the Hot Spring, however, you will see only a monkey in the water!
Even if you stay half an hour or ALL DAY, you never will see the girl who announced her intention of using the Spa. It is only when you leave the Hot Spring that the girl will appear from behind the Spa building. She will ask you if you saw monkeys and then will confess that she in fact was there as well, beneath the water!

It is a rather bizarre little event. I wonder if it refers to a tale from Japanese folklore. I cannot imagine that the introduction of the monkey motif is entirely random. I will do some research on this...

The photographs show the event as experienced with Elli. In due course, I will try to experience it with all the eligible girls.

Harvest Moon Boy & Girl for PSP

I suspected that if I inserted my copy of HM Boy & Girl into the PSP, I would not be able to take a 'quick look' at it but would become completely immersed in the game... Today, after receiving yet another email from a player asking if I had written a guide for the game, I recalled my old promise to Shaggy and my own desires, so often suppressed in the past couple of months, to play this game...

There are those who view games like this with disdain. Sometimes dismissed as 'port' games, it amazes me that individuals who never played the ORIGINAL would be in any position to judge a game reborn in a new guise.

The old 'Back to Nature' game for the PS1 often was judged to be one of the greatest Harvest Moon games ever made. In fact, there are those who consider it one of the greatest games in the world. When this game was reborn as Harvest Moon Boy & Girl for the PSP, I for one was thrilled. I never dreamed that almost half a year would pass before I had a chance to play it.

The original 'Back to Nature' was made both in a boy and in a girl version in Japan. The girl version never made it to the States. Obviously, Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, in allowing a player to choose to be either a male or a female, incorporates both the original boy and girl versions of 'Back to Nature' in a single game.

'Back to Nature' was the predecessor of 'Friends of Mineral Town'. Most of the characters are the same in both games and many of the events are the same. There are a few small differences in terms of Festivals, and other aspects of the game, including events, but for the most part, the games are similar enough to allow a player who is familiar with one to play the other without much trouble.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that I played both Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town many times, 'Harvest Moon Boy & Girl' is both new and fresh to me.

As I began the game, I was conscious of two different responses. On the one hand, I found myself delighted to walk familiar paths and meet old friends again... at the same time, it WAS new and I enjoyed the novelty of the game.

I decided to play as a girl, even though in the original girl version of 'Back to Nature', the game ends when you marry. I am not certain yet if that is true here as well, but I would like to experience the game both as a girl and as a boy in any case.

Within the first two days of gameplay, I had experienced many events and had acquired a dog and a horse. I had experienced events involving most of the bachelors, both 'heart' and 'rival' heart events according to FoMT/MFoMT definitions.

There is an aspect to some events in HM Boy & Girl that does not exist in FoMT/MFoMT or HM DS/HM Cute DS. You can enter a screen and realise that you have entered an event situation without losing control of your character. You then must find a character on the screen and initiate a conversation with him/her in order to allow the event to progress further. One way of knowing that you have entered at type of event situation is by making certain that the time always is displayed on the screen. When the time box disappears, inevitably this signifies an event is occurring.

The situation is complicated a little in B & G because there ARE events in the game that do take control of your character and where the time continues to be displayed in the right top corner of the screen! It is altogether fascinating, in fact, how many events of different kinds have been included in this game.

In other Harvest Moon games, events ordinarily proceed automatically and control over your character's physical actions is taken from you until the event has ended. This sort of event occurs in Boy & Girl as well.

Another element of B&G that was unexpected was the fact that I was able to pick up a wild animal I met in the forest and carry it all the way home! I found a charming little squirrel on the path near the Goddess Spring. I picked it up in my arms, carried it home and actually took it into my house... Whether or not it will be there when I return or once I have slept through the night is another matter. It will be interesting to see.

A new rather amusing event in this game is the first meeting with Won. In B&G, it actually is a series of little events, wherein Harris chases him from screen to screen and you encounter Won each time directly after you have spoken to Harris and sent him off to Won's previous location.

Ultimately, Harris and Won meet and after Harris fails to find anything suspicious in Won's bag, he offers to buy something from the peddler by way of apology. Won offers him... guess what??? One of his SUGDW Apples for 500G! Does that sound familiar?

The photograph shows my character holding a wild squirrel in her farmhouse.

Incidentally, I hope to have some preliminary guides published at IGN tomorrow afternoon for this game... Much of the information from FoMT and MFoMT can be used but I want to confirm everything in my own gameplay before I add it to the new guides.

Harvest Moon Boy and Girl for PSP

Shaggy, a Harvest Moon fan, recently posted a comment on this site to ask if I had created a guide either for 'Back to Nature' or 'Harvest Moon Boy and Girl'. Actually, I never covered 'Back to Nature' but I am about to embark on a new guide venture to create a guide specifically for 'Harvest Moon Boy and Girl' for the PSP. It will take time, as do all my guides, as I am very thorough in my gameplay and base the guides on my own games. I do believe, however, that my existing guides for FoMT and MFoMT (Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town) will be of assistance in playing Harvest Moon Boy and Girl. Fundamentally, they should be the same game, although Natsume always adds new dimensions to old games when they are created for new platforms. 'Friends of Mineral Town' basically was 'Back To Nature' modified and transformed for the GBA handheld system. 'More Friends of Mineral Town' was the 'Girl' version.

The first guides I ever wrote were guides for Friends of Mineral Town. If you are playing the boy in 'Harvest Moon Boy and Girl', the FoMT General Guide should be useful to some extent until I can create a guide specifically for the PSP game. In similar fashion, my General Guide for 'More Friends of Mineral Town' should be useful in playing the girl in 'Harvest Moon Boy and Girl'. As I have not touched the game yet, however, this is mere hypothesis. I do know, however, that players who were playing 'Back to Nature' often successfully used my FoMT guides for reference.

It will be difficult to put 'Rune Factory' aside, I have to confess. It always is difficult to leave any Harvest Moon game. Investment in terms of time and energy is great and after all, these games represents actual ongoing lives. Like your village in Animal Crossing, your neighbours NEED your continuing commitment and when I am absent for any length of time, I feel I have betrayed my 'community' somewhat. Harvest Moon in particular instils a tremendous sense of 'belonging' and working to restore the farm makes one truly believe one has created a place for oneself.