Harvest Moon Forever: Shipping

Showing posts with label Shipping. Show all posts

Monday, October 13, 2008

Perplexing Event Requirements in Island of Happiness

With some misgivings, I have tried to be specific in my Guides where requirements for Events and Individuals are concerned, but each time I am specific, the requirement is proven false.

For example, there have been rumours to the effect that shipping at least 200 items, possibly from the shipping bin in front of Taro's house, is a requirement for Elliot's Purple Heart Event.

This has been proven false in two ways:
1. Players who did NOT ship 200 items were able to trigger the Event when Elliot reached purple heart level; and
2. Players who SHIPPED over 200 Crops from the shipping container in front of Taro's house were UNABLE to trigger the Event after Elliot reached purple heart level. One player shipped over 300 Crops from the shipping container in front of Taro's house and had Elliot almost at blue heart without being able to trigger the event...

Something else is going on here. As Farming Degree Points are the one consistent element in the game, I am attempting to discover if this may be an actual requirement, but so far nothing has been confirmed.

There is another possibility. In most Harvest Moon games, events are limited to specific days. I really would like to know what days players have been able to experience Elliot's Purple Heart Event. Characters have different schedules on different days of the week. I was able to experience Elliot's Purple Heart Event on Monday, but not on some of the other days of the week. Perhaps there are specific days when it can't be triggered and is as simple as that.

It is very possible that Event schedules will change depending on how many areas have been unlocked in a player's game, as the schedules of most characters change accordingly. For example, with respect to the Heart Events of characters who visit the Forest or Jungle on specific days, surely this will affect the schedule of any Heart Event. One will be obliged to play many different games to be able to pinpoint precise requirements in each situation.

Specifically:
1. Schedule of any Heart Event when only East Town has been unlocked;
2. Schedule of any Heart Event when only East Town and the Forest have been unlocked;
3. Schedule of any Heart Event when East Town, Forest AND Jungle have been unlocked.

In many cases, the schedule will be the same if the character is one who does not visit the Jungle or Forest... if he/she does, however, the schedule may be altered based on the days when the character would be in these areas.

It is rather vexing, in a way. Island of Happiness is far more complex than other Harvest Moon games where unlocking options and events are concerned. When players, including myself, were unable to experience Rival Heart Events, it did appear that the events were tied to specific items and shipping: shipping ores allowed Sabrina and Vaughn's events to occur, shipping Crops allowed Elliot and Julia's to trigger, shipping fish was the trigger to unlock Denny and Lanna's Events and cooking had the same effect with respect to Pierre and Natalie's Events. Is this in fact the case or is it simply a huge coincidence?

Even the Subsidiary Characters are not unlocked in the manner in which the original strategy guides claimed: you can bring ALL Fishermen apart from one to the Island in the first Spring without much trouble.

I do believe that the Mineral Town characters are unlocked when you achieve 50% completion in terms of the Island itself but possibly this will be disproven as well. In my own games, Popuri and Karen always are the first to arrive in the first Autumn season. If any one has managed to bring Mineral Town characters to the Island sooner than this, I would be interested in the details. I do believe that all bridges must have been completed in order for the Mineral Town characters to begin to appear.

In these circumstances, a Walkthrough for the first few seasons of the game probably is most helpful to players. I have written one and it is posted both here and as part of my General Guide for IoH. It takes the player from the start of the 1st Spring through Autumn to the arrival of Mark or Chelsea in the first week of the season.

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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'.