One of the most fascinating and possibly complex events that can occur in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl will take place only if you allow a Hurricane to blow through the village. I am one of those players who controls the weather for the most part in the interests of my animals and crops. After all, you cannot feed your animals during any severe storm. Crops are destroyed randomly in any severe storm as well. The seasons of severe storms tend to be Summer and Winter in HM B&G. There are no crops in Winter, unless you have the Hothouse, which is a snow storm's first target, incidentally! In Summer, however, there are Pineapples, very expensive to buy as seed and more valuable when shipped...
It may be worthwhile, nonetheless, to experience one Hurricane during Summer, especially if you are a girl. The day after, if you enter the Beach area as early as 6.00 a.m., you will experience an event that involves Kai. Although it is not a true Heart Event, it has potential to raise his Heart level.
Kai only appears in Summer in Mineral Town. If you are courting him, you have a single season in which to do it each year. In the first year, if you experience the Confession Event, his first Heart Event, and admit to your identity, his heart will be at Blue level when he comes to Mineral Town in the Summer. Even so, it is virtually impossible to marry him in the first year, as it is almost impossible to raise him to fullest red heart level before the end of the first Summer. Even if you did that, you would not have both house expansions...
Nevertheless, the post-Hurricane event can boost his heart level and have an effect on other bachelors as well. The response that you make to Kai is critical here, as it can result in the acquisition of a very rare and potent item.
When you enter the beach, you will find a Bottled Message. Those players who, like myself, fished up the Bottled Message containing the Fries Recipe, will recognise the item instantly, although its contents are different in this case (or at least cannot be accessed as easily!)
Kai will appear. Here is the event with both responses. You be the judge...
Kai: Wow... a letter from overseas. Say, Freya... do you plan to stay in this village forever?
My choices:
Yes, forever.
I may leave some day.
If I choose:
Yes, forever.
Kai (unhappy): I see... So your farm comes first... Then... can I have this?
You will give it to him automatically.
Kai; Thanks. This is for you. Girls like this kind of stuff, right?
He hands me a bottle of perfume, then walks away. I am left alone on the beach with the perfume.
Perfume: Received from Kai. He called it a Love Potion!?
You cannot ship it but you can use it by showing it to Kai.
Kai: Aha! You liked it enough to put it on. That makes me very happy.
If I choose:
I may leave some day.
Kai: Really? So when the time comes, Il'll take you there!
Then: Just kidding. If that's the case, keep it. Maybe someday you'll meet the sender. I hope he's cool.
Kai walks away, leaving me with the bottle in hand. It is 6.20 a.m. on Saturday, 26 Summer, the day after a Hurricane.
If you give Kai the bottle later: What the...? Was I lookiing at it with longing eyes or something?
END OF EVENT
What is interesting about the bottle of Perfume is that you can use it again and again, and in most cases when shown to a bachelor, you will obtain a positive result. I believe it raises affection levels a little as well, except in the case of Rick.
Showing the perfume to Rick actually may LOWER his affection level a little.
Rick: You got it from Kai? You'd better throw that away. I don't even know what it is.
The other bachelors will respond in a positive fashion.
Doctor: My father used to buy perfume for my mother from the city. She loved to wear it all the time.
Cliff: I think it's very nice.
Grey: Wow, you look stylish.
And, as previously recorded in the event itself:
Kai: Aha! You liked it enough to put it on. That makes me very happy.
One of the great delights for me in Harvest Moon games is showing individuals an unlikely item to obtain their reactions. In every Harvest Moon game that includes a Blue Feather, I usually flourish it to every one, including Harvest Sprites, to see what information I can gain... Showing the perfume to all the villagers revealed some nuggets of fascinating history.
Players may recall that Aja, daughter of Duke and Manna, left Mineral Town never to return. Harris, the local constable and the son of the Mayor, is in love with her. You will experience a series of little events with him wherein he confides his love for Aja to you, writes her a letter and then receives one from her in return.
Other mentions of Aja occur with respect to the Winery and Duke's profligate attitude towards money. The winery is named 'Aja's Winery' but after Cliff accepts the job there, Duke and Manna begin to treat him as their son and even to contemplate an inheritance for him in the form of the Winery.
To return to the Perfume, however, and the role that IT plays... if you show it both to Duke and to Manna, you will discover that it is possible that Kai was her reason for leaving. If true, it makes Duke's attitude during Kai's Blue Heart event at the Inn a little more comprehensible.
Here are the responses:
Duke: Uh-oh. Kai gave you this, didn't he? Be careful with that guy. Aja decided to leave town because of him.
Manna: Wow, Freya, you have something fancy in your hand. May I? Oh, smells nice. It's a gift from Kai? Aha! He gets too friendly with girls, as you may now. It is a little problem in a closed community like our town. Duke tells me he is the reason Aja left here. Well, even so, it's Aja's decision.
(N.B. It is an act of true devotion to Harvest Moon to record Manna's conversation in any case, as she speaks very quickly and the text scrolls at an amazing rate. I usually have to listen to it a couple of times before I can complete the transcript.)
If you show the perfume to Harris, he will not BLAME Kai for anything but will refer to him as the sort of guy who represents a threat to his hopes.
Harris: I look at Kai and the other young men and they seem so stylish. That must be the kind of guys hanging around Aja.
Finally, what is the BEST response to make to Kai? Initially, one may believe that the reply that makes him happiest is the 'correct' one, but if you tell him that you may leave one day, you will keep the Bottled Message but not obtain the Perfume. If you confess your intention to remain in Mineral Town forever, he may not be as happy BUT after you have the perfume, you can 'wear' it for him every day, boosting his heart level a little each time you show it to him...
I personally will opt for the Perfume, if I choose to allow the Hurricane, and I think I should. The crops that are destroyed are chosen randomly. If I awaken the day after the hurricane to find that Pineapples have been taken, I can reload...
If it were possible to marry Kai in the first Summer, I might consider the larger initial boost to heart level that would be given by the response in favour of travel to be worthwhile. In the circumstances, though, the perfume certainly can provide the same boost to heart level, albeit more slowly and over the course of time.
Incidentally, in both the Boy and Girl version of the game, the Perfume can be given as a gift to any eligible girl. Even as a girl, when you show the Perfume to one of your rivals, you have the option either to give it to her or to keep it. If you choose to keep it, she will compliment you on the Perfume.
In the Boy version of the game, giving the Perfume to an eligible girl will boost her heart level.
A postscript to this: The perfume, like the Spring Goddess Gown and Grey's Necklace, only can be stored in the Fancybox. A true packrat, I love filling my boxes with special items...
With respect to this event, I experienced it the first and second times only for the sake of the guide without saving the effects, because I had not gone through the previous day properly. The previous day was the Fireworks Festival, which I will cover in a separate post. The Girl version of the game is VERY different from the Boy in terms of the Fireworks Festival and jolly unfair in my view. Very discriminatory towards our gender! In any case, you will be unable to save the game AFTER the Fireworks Festival as you are sent to bed immediately. I could not save again until I went to bed on 25 Summer. Guess what weather prediction I got the next morning: Another HURRICANE! Having lost 3 pineapple plants and 3 corn plants, not to mention a few tomatoes and onions in the first hurricane, I wasn't about to allow another, especially as there were no more benefits in the terms of special events, so I had to replay THREE days in order to obtain a different result in terms of the weather... I have to be honest and admit that I replayed once after losing 1 pineapple plant and 3 corn plants only to lose MORE the second time... by then I was too weary to struggle further with this event so I saved it.
If you are going to allow any severe storms, best not to allow them on the day following a festival that sends you straight to bed, but it was close to the end of the Summer season and I wanted to have Kai's hurricane event in my game...
HM DS and Cute DS are so much more generous in allowing one to save at any given point in the day and any location. I really hate having to replay entire days, not to mention three days at a stretch.
