The Delight of Trivial Dialogue in Harvest Moon

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When I have my (very brief) moments of weariness and experience a crisis of faith in any Harvest Moon game, wondering how long it will take to collect enough income for the prized Greenhouse or when I will be able to reach the lowest floor in any Mine, something always restores my energy. Often it is an unexpected Event... or even a little piece of dialogue.

In Sunshine Islands, for example, Freya found Popuri at the Diner on a snowy Saturday afternoon in Winter. When she spoke to her, Popuri confided: 'Just between you and me, Karen's a terrible cook.'

That is no secret, by the way, to any veteran player of Harvest Moon. In FoMT and MFoMT, Karen invariably entered some utterly destroyed 'Burnt Dish' in the Cooking Contest year after year. We have followed her Cooking disasters from game to game... It did bring a smile to my face, however, hearing Popuri confess this little fact to me in Sunshine Islands. After all, how many years has Karen beeen striving unsuccessfully in the kitchen? Blessed with beauty, intelligence, humour and boundless energy, able to hold her own at the bar or in the workplace against any man, it is only fitting that Karen should have one flaw. She cannot cook.

Players who complain about 'too much dialogue' in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game are missing the point entirely. They shouldn't be playing these games if they cannot immerse themselves in these two wildly diverting, complex universes where characters are three-dimensional and have histories that carry over from game to game and village to village. Harvest Moon and Rune Factory truly are interactive novels where we, the players, are privileged to be allowed to enter into the universe and interact freely, actually changing the destinies of other characters as well as creating a marvelous life for ourselves.

You cannot expect to plumb the depths of Island of Happiness or Sunshine Islands in a year or two. Furthermore, there is a philosophical lesson to be learned in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game. Impatience is the root of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life and your world. If you learn patience and have an attention to detail, you will be rewarded with every possible benefit that these worlds offer. If you begin to count the days until you will earn enough money for a specific upgrade, you will be unhappy with yourself and your life until you achieve that goal and furthermore, probably neglect other details and aspects of life in the process. You must tread gently and carefully in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, paying attention to other people as well as other living creatures, whether plants or animals. Every life has its own worth. Neglect one and you have made your own universe a smaller place.

Challenges in Island of Happiness

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Every Harvest Moon game is challenging and very few can be explored fully in less than five years (Harvest Moon time!) but I really have come to the conclusion that 'Island of Happiness' is by far the most challenging game of all. Imagine a game where you have to unlock many of the Eligible Girls/Bachelors... Imagine ordering a Bird Barn or Animal Barn that does not contain a full set of feeders or any shipping containers. Imagine a 'Maker' that requires 20 Adamantite instead of only one and a Maker Shed that must be expanded before you can order some of the 'Makers'. If you wish to order Accessories, you may need 10 to 60 pieces of Orichalc rather than 1.

Suffice it to say that I cannot imagine any player sighing regretfully that he/she completed all goals too quickly! Every aspect of this game is challenging. You have to unlock new areas on the map if you wish to meet vital characters and ever gain access to a Mine.

Festivals are unlocked as well. As you move forward in the game, you will be able to participate in new Festivals.

Items do not have a single value either. Each item has a Rank as well as a grade in terms of Quality, Size and Freshness. When you are mining or fishing, in particular, you need to be aware constantly of the number of empty slots in your rucksack. Unless the items are identical not only in type, but in Rank, Quality, Size and Freshness, they will occupy different slots. You can stack items of different ranks and grades but this must be done manually. The resulting 'stack' will contain items of rank and grades that represent an average of the original items.

New 'advanced Makers' that require an upgraded Maker Shed include a Thresher and a Flour Mill. In a previous post, I wrote about the New Year Festival, where my character actually participated in the ritual of pounding the rice for rice cakes. Little details like this astound me. The obvious time and energy that went into the creation of Island of Happiness make it a labour of love.

For fans of Harvest Moon, it is wonderful to be able to encounter characters from other games like Cliff, Trent, Karen and Popuri. (When they visit the Island in IoH, they are married to your old 'Rivals' from FoMT/MFoMT.)

The characters from Mineral Town speak of their spouses and of others as well. For example, Trent will tell you that Mayor Thomas arranged for his room at the Inn on the Island. Other characters play a role even when they are not present in the flesh. The Gourmet is an important character in one of Pierre's Heart Events.

As in most Harvest Moon games, you need not be the best farmer, rancher, miner or fisherman/woman in order to live a fairly decent life. You won't perish if you fail to meet all the goals in the game. Discussing some of the 'challenges' in IoH therefore should not discourage players who mainly play Harvest Moon games in order to marry and have a family. That goal can be one of the easier to attain, depending on the Eligible Girl/Bachelor you wish to court. There are Eligible Girls/Bachelors who will not appear on the Island if you do not attain specific goals but there are others who are available for courtship from the start of the game.

Without being too specific about Tree of Tranquility, the upcoming Harvest Moon game for the Wii, you will not be able to meet all the Eligible Girls/Bachelors at the start in that game either. At the very earliest, you will be able to unlock every possible character only halfway through your second year. In other respects, however, it is very different from Island of Happiness. It has a very detailed storyline and plot, casting your character in the role of hero/heroine. In that sense, it reminds me a little of Rune Factory, although there is no combat in ToT. In many Harvest Moon games, you are called upon to rescue the Harvest Goddess, but the plot in ToT is far more complex than that. There is a 'next generation' option in ToT that is rather wonderful. I certainly recommend that game as well wholeheartedly!

Heart Events and Rival Heart Events in Island of Happiness can be touching, dramatic or hilarious. Courting every possible candidate for marriage BEFORE you decide on a wife/husband is worth the effort because the Events are wonderful.

I think a player could spend six (real time) months on Island of Happiness without exhausting half of the possibiities. Through Harvest Moon, one can live more than one life but there always is that pesky problem of real time...

Island of Happiness Preview

Island of Happiness, a new Harvest Moon game for the DS that will be released in August, promises the player excitement, new characters and a multitude of new challenges.

In this game, items, new options and characters, including some of the Eligible Girls/Bachelors are unlocked gradually, and in most cases, depend on your own achievement of goals.

The graphics are wonderful. Events are accompanied by a title screen on the upper screen of the DS that gives them a picturebook quality. Whenever you speak to characters, instead of a static portrait on the lower screen to accompany the dialogue, the eyes on the portrait actually blink!

In terms of farming, there is a new option to grow Rice in rice paddies in the northwest corner of your farm, but you must unlock this before you will be able to buy the seeds or enter the Rice Paddy area.

As in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl and the original Magical Melody for the Gamecube, you have an opportunity to play the game either as a boy or as a girl. There is a wide selection of eligible Girls/Bachelors in terms of courtship and marriage.

Most of the characters are new, but players of FoMT/MFoMT, HM Boy & Girl and HM DS/HM Cute DS will be delighted to find visitors from Mineral Town in this game! Karen and Popuri visit in certain seasons and when they return to Mineral Town, Cliff will arrive on the Island. None of these characters are eligible for marriage. In fact, they will have married your Rival in the Mineral Town/Forget-Me-Not Valley games and will speak of their spouses while visiting the Island.

There is a character from HM DS/HM Cute DS in Island of Happiness who is eligible for marriage if your character is a boy. The mischievous Witch Princess lives on the Island with her large collection of bears!

Much more to come in future posts...

Incidentally, I have been working on my guides for Island of Happiness and they should be published on IGN when the game is released in the U.S.

Sly Natsume... Jeff's unshown artwork in Karen's event

It is difficult to express the thrill that a true Harvest Moon fanatic experiences when an event that was eliminated from a previous version of a game finally is experienced. There were quite a few events in the original Japanese version of the boy game of Harvest Moon DS that were eliminated from the English version. These events for the most part apparently have been included in 'Cute'. Every week of gameplay so far, I have been able to experience new events hitherto denied to some one who is not fluent in Japanese.

I had heard of these events, of course and read about them, even done everything in my power to trigger them in the original English boy edition of HM DS. In fact, my contact at Natsume had been unable to tell me categorically whether or not they had been eliminated from the game... there are so many steps in the production of a game from its inception to its completion. Often notes from programmers are sketchy and it is only by playing the game diligently that one can see what is or is not included in the final version.

I am not the only player who does this, of course. There are scores of Harvest Moon fans who attempted in vain to trigger events in the original English boy edition of HM DS. Flurries of emails and board discussions dealt with the situation... Were the events there or not? Were there hidden requirements that none of us had discovered or had they simply been eliminated from the English version of the game? Ultimately, we came to the sad conclusion that they had been 'lost' somewhere along the way in the translation of the original Japanese game to English.

In Cute, I have experienced many of these hitherto 'lost' events effortlessly. When any 'new' event begins, the emotion that I experience is absolutely priceless. It is almost like discovering the 'Holy Grail'. There is that initial moment when one realises one has triggered a new event. Then, as the event unfolds, one recognises it as one of those mythical events one has read about but never had the privilege of experiencing. Such unadulterated delight!

It is almost impossible to express the degree of excitement to any one who never tried to trigger a special event in a game but was unable to do so. In HM DS, one did everything possible to make the event occur:

1. raise the affection and/or friendship levels of the character;
2. try to experience the event in different weather conditions: rain or sun
3. try to experience the event in different seasons
4. try to experience the event at different times of the day and night
5. And then, as a last resort: try to experience the event after marriage

Year after year, during gameplay, one kept these events in the back of ones consciousness. One became fairly certain that they did not exist, but even so...
Again, I was not the only player who was reluctant to admit defeat.

The inclusion, therefore, of all the 'lost' events in 'Cute' is extremely gratifying to any Harvest Moon fanatic. Now we can experience all those events that we read about but never were able to know firsthand. It is rather like finally being accepted as a member of an exclusive club. There is no substitute for direct experience and when Cute is released in English at the end of March, every Harvest Moon fan will have that direct experience!

For those who are new to Harvest Moon, it may be useful to know that there are two types of events. There are events that actually have a potential effect on your character's future and there are events that have no real effect. 'Heart Events' and 'Rival Heart Events' are events that potentially affect your future and/or the future of other characters in the game. You must experience a potential spouse's 'Heart Events' if you wish to marry that individual. You must experience all 'Rival Heart Events' between a couple if you wish to see THEM marry.

Harvest Moon is wonderful in that there are a multitude of events that really affect nothing in terms of success and failure but which can give you more detailed information about the characters. Once in awhile, an event like this can unlock a minor item or be the first in a series of events involving the same character. It is not essential to experience these events, but it adds enormously to the enjoyment and depth of the game.

Meanwhile, here are some photographs from the 100 FP event between Karen and Romana, when Karen asks to see Jeff's painting.

The makers of Harvest Moon often can be rather mischievous! There is a point in the event when Romana invites your character along to see a private exhibition of paintings by Jeff that never have been shown to any one. One becomes very excited at the prospect of seeing new paintings by Jeff... If one had played other Harvest Moon games, one would have seen paintings by Jeff hanging in the Inner Inn in AWL and AnWL as well as many paintings in Mineral Town in FoMT and MFoMT, and of course, there is the painting in Romana's bedroom in the Villa, but here one anticipates that one will be given an opportunity to see new paintings that never have been exposed to the light of day...

What happens then? Both screens go black and your character thinks to herself: 'Hmph... Even after seeing all these, I still don't get his art... I better get back to work.'

Actually, there are quite a few events in both the original Harvest Moon DS and Cute that involve either Romana or Karen. Romana is not as vital a character as she was in A Wonderful Life when only she could provide you with a marvelous watering can that would make your life as a farmer much simpler and she was the one who would give you a cat, but she still is an important character in HM DS where events are concerned.

Karen was the 'hot babe' in Friends of Mineral Town and she only will visit the Valley in Cute if you connect your cartridge to a FoMT or MFoMT cartridge. If you do this, however, you will be able to experience a number of events that involve her.

Girl Talk in Harvest Moon Cute

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One very charming aspect of Harvest Moon games in general is the friendship that develops or exists between girls who actually may be rivals for the affection of the eligible bachelors. Even if you are courting Griffin, Muffy always will be delighted to see you at the Blue Bar.

In both the original 'boy' version and the new 'girl' Cute, old friendships exist between Valley girls and Mineral Town girls and there are a number of events that illustrate this. Celia and Karen are close friends and Karen in fact spends every Tuesday morning in Celia's room. As any one who knows Karen well might expect, she likes to spend her evenings in the local bar and on Tuesdays, can be found at the Blue Bar. Mary and Lumina are rather unlikely close friends, and Mary spends Monday mornings in Lumina's room and Monday afternoons in the parlour listening to Lumina play the piano. On a rainy Wednesday afternoon, Elli can be found at the piano, although she is not as close to Lumina as Mary.

The events that occur require 100 FP level for the girls involved.

If you walk into Celia's bedroom on Tuesday morning, you will experience an event between Karen and Celia. The two girls assert the general 'coolness' of their home villages, and there is an odd moment when Karen suggests that there is 'too much style' in the Valley! Karen ultimately is willing to admit that Forget-Me-Not Valley is equal to Mineral Town in this respect and the event ends with an invitation to visit Mineral Town from Karen to Celia.

If you go to the Blue Bar on Tuesday night, you will experience an event between Muffy and Karen. Like many events in Harvest Moon, this one gives a sly hint to players who have not discovered the possibilities at the Excavation Site.

Muffy admires Karen's new earrings and Karen confesses that she found them at the Excavation Site but that she became quite filthy in the process, as she had to 'dig' for them... Muffy does not like the idea of getting her hands dirty and at the end of the event, she will ask you if you might be willing to help her obtain a pair...

There are other events later in the original 'boy' game that involve Mary's talents as a writer and Kate's admiration both of Lumina and Mary. I have yet to discover if they have been included in Cute.

Incidentally, for new players of ANY Harvest Moon game, the exit from the village always is nothing more than a 'tease' where your character is concerned. Whether it is Mineral Town, Forget-Me-Not Valley or the village in Magical Melody, your character NEVER will be able to leave, no matter how great his/her success and how high his/her friendship levels with every one. Other villagers may come and go freely but your character is not allowed to emulate them in this respect.