Harvest Moon Forever: Monster Contest

Showing posts with label Monster Contest. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Monster Contest in the 2nd Generation

In Rune Factory 2, there is a Contest that involves a test of your ability to tame a Monster and another Contest that tests the strength of your Tame Monsters. In the
2nd Generation, your character can obtain a new outfit in the form of a Monster Outfit by winning the Monster Taming Contest. If your character is a boy, it will be a Wooly outfit. If she is a girl, it will be a Chipsqueek costume. He/she will win Handsome Armour on the day of the Monster Contest.

The Monster Contest in the 2nd Generation is one of the most perplexing events I have encountered. Unlike the Monster Taming Event, which is very straightforward, the rules by which the strength of Tame Monsters is judged are beyond my comprehension.

In the 1st Generation, I had no trouble whatsoever winning the Monster Contest by submitting my Silver Wolf as the entry. Hermann waxed enthusiastic about the strength of the monster and proclaimed me a Winner far beyond all other winners...
I therefore was rather surprised when, in the 2nd Generation, my Hunter Wolf, a companion in almost every battle, failed to win even 2nd Place in the Contest. Hermann proclaimed my Hunter Wolf 'too friendly!' and gave me a lowly Honourable Mention simply for participating. In fact, Herman was quite dismissive with respect to my Hunter Wolf, declaring that: 'This is a kind monster who doesn’t like to fight.' Herman, of course, never has engaged in any activity more strenuous than feasting. Any one who actually had faced a Hunter Wolf in combat in the Padova Mountains would beg to differ with his ridiculous assessment of THAT Monster!

What is interesting here is that the Handsome Armour appeared in my wardrobe at 6.00 a.m. on the morning of the Contest, and thus had no connection with the contest results whatsoever. Furthermore, the 'prize' in each case, whether I won 1st place, 2nd place or simply 3rd place always was the same: a MENTAL SUPPLEMENT.

I trotted out Monster after Monster to log their strength ratings to see if there were any rhyme or reason to the system. I discovered that ALL creatures who could be categorised either as spirits or as creatures of 'darkness' had a strength rating of zero. Thus, the fierce Demon and Arch Demon, Aerian, Tundra, Ignis and all Ghosts and their cousins had strength ratings of zero.

My Claw Dragon had a strength rating of 136 but LOST. A Slime with a strength rating of 116 won 1st Prize. My Hunter Wolf had a rating of 98, making him lower than the Slime or Dark Slime but how could the Claw Dragon and King Minotauros, both at 136 not win???

Each time I entered a Slime or Dark Slime, I won. I finally resigned myself to a sorry situation where a Slime would have to be chosen to represent my farm instead of the glorious golden Hunter Wolf who was my constant companion. As previously stated, however, the prize never varied in any of the test results, whether I won
1st place, 2nd place or simply a mention for participation.

Is the result random each time or is there some iron rule of measure here? It does not matter at all in practical terms, but one would like to know what constitutes strength in terms of the Monster Contest.

Here's a little video I made that shows the strength ratings for a fair number of Monsters. Each of these Monsters is at maximum Friendship Level of 10 Hearts.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Monster Levels and Prizes

I wrote a post about Monster Levels recently but did not mention the Monster Contest that occurs on 25 Autumn. In this Contest, your most powerful Tame Monster competes against those belong to other unspecified villagers. There is no physical combat or trial of strength. It is simply a matter of 'registering' the strength level of the monster you have chosen to enter. The prize is a 'Health It'.

Herman's instructions for the Contst are a little confusing. He will tell you to:'Please send at least one of your monsters back to the Forest.' At first I thought it would be like the 'Monster Taming Contest' which required a free space in your Monster Barn for the Monster that you tamed in the course of the competition. (I had to free a Monster in order to be able to compete in THAT one, because my Barn had its full quota at the time.)

In fact, I think that Herman's instructions in this first sentence of his probably were supposed to go with the other Contest. In the 'Monster Contest' in Autumn, your entry will be one of your existing Tame Monsters rather than a new one. In fact, as the 'strength' of your Monsters will improve with time and use, it is best to use a Monster who has been tamed for a long time.

You need to ask your Monster first to accompany you. When he/she is outside the Monster Barn, you then need to speak to Monster to discover total Strength. Yu have the option to choose NOT to enter the Monster in the Contest if you wish to see the totals of all your Monsters before you make a final decision. 15 out of 16 of my Monsters were at 46. The Silver Wolf I use in combat always was at 50. As the other monsters never fought with me but only work on the farm and provide Ranch Products, 'Strength' is not earned by combat exclusively but by 'use' of the Monster and Heart Level combined somehow. The other 15 monters ALL had 46 Strength, even though two had been tamed fairly recently, and were of many different varieties... but all were at 10 Hearts.

The prize for winning the Monster Contest is a HEALTH IT. More important a reward for me was the fact that this Festival brought the remaining girls to maximum heart level at 10 Hearts.

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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'.