Harvest Moon Forever: Star Festival

Showing posts with label Star Festival. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Star Festival and Griffin

Spending the Festival with Griffin and Muffy means an evening of drinking. No food whatsoever is offered but drinks are displayed in generous number. In fact, watching Muffy and Griffin together, it is obvious that they are made for one another. I did not feel guilty at all at the prospect of spending the Festival with Skye instead...

It is only Carter actually who appears to dread the prospect of spending the evening alone with your rival if you refuse his invitation!

The Star Festival and Marlin

If you spend the Star Festival with Marlin, you essentially spend it with his family at Vesta's farmhouse. Every one is warm and friendly but there is very little romance to the occasion. Vesta will remark, however, that Marlin seldom invites any one to the house, making you feel rather special.

Curiously enough, only one place has been set at the table. Farmers have a reputation for their great hospitality, for large tables groaning with food. The single piece of cake displayed on the tiny table is rather surprising in the circumstances.

The Star Festival and Gustafa

Oddly enough, spending the Star Festival with Gustafa is a rather interesting event. I did not choose to do so in the end, as I was determined to spend it with Skye but I did experience it temporarily.

I was the only girl there, by the way. Gustafa organises an event that includes all the men in the Valley without family there. Cody and the Twins are his guests. He apparently invited Daryl as well but Daryl was unable to come for some unspecified reason. No one but my character is aware of the presence of a mermaid in Daryl's Basement, and I said nothing...

Gustafa serves pizza and wine to his guests at his rather bohemian gathering, then offers to play a song for you while you eat. Any excuse to perform!

At first, I was very uncomfortable, expecting Kassey to hit on me as usual, but he behaved himself and in fact, it would have been a fairly decent party if I had not promised myself that I would spend the evening with Skye.

Skye and the Starry Night Festival

Although my primary reason for keeping the Blue Feather stashed in my Tool Box since Skye reached red heart level was to be able to experience all the Starry Night events with each and every bachelor and Magical Girl, it ultimately was Skye as always who made the event truly magical for me. If I had proposed to him last week, I would not have experienced this marvelous event with him as a single girl... Married couples do celebrate the Festival but in a slightly different fashion.

I met Skye on the path as usual and much to my delight, he mentioned the Festival and asked if he could celebrate it with me at my house. Of course I agreed. The day seemed to last forever... I was too excited to do much beyond the necessary chores. Even if I had to wait longer before I married him, meanwhile I still could enjoy the incredible romance he brought into my life and heart on occasions like this one.

Of all the bachelors, it was only Skye who appeared to consider the Festival a romantic event. When I went to the door at 6.00 p.m., my heart was pounding. Sad to say, I had not prepared any food. When the Witch Princess and Leia had mentioned the lack of food on my table, it had not bothered me in the least. I laughed it off. When Skye brought it to my attention, however, I was utterly mortified! How could I not have prepared a proper celebration for the man I adored?

Skye, however, was WONDERFUL! He confessed that he had brought his special curry mix in case of such an eventuality. In similar circumstances, the Witch Princess and Leia had offered to cook the meal for me. Skye, on the other hand, suggested that we cook curry together. Never before in all my life had the possibility of cooking curry, of all things, appeared so completely romantic!

It was as romantic a situation as any maiden could have hoped to experience... Ah, how I long for the day when I shall be free to marry him at last. Is it THAT important to experience all the Mineral Town Heart Events??? I must be a guide writer first, though, and a player second. I must put aside my longing for Skye temporarily and continue to perform my duty by continuing to court the Mineral Town bachelors...

The Star Festival with Rock

If you accept Rock's invitation to spend the Star Festival with his family, yu must go to the Inner Inn at 6.00 p.m. on 24 Winter. You automatically will be taken to the kitchen where you will find Ruby at the cooker and Rock at a table laden with apple pie and grape juice. You may be slightly uncomfortable at the underlying hostility that seems to exist between Ruby and her son. Faced with his usual enthusiasm and lust for life, she essentially will ask rather sarcastically if HE made any contribution in terms of labour... Rock will shrug off the question, saying it isn't important whether or not he did and suggest that every one simply enjoy the Festival.

It appears that Ruby is growing weary of supporting and caring for her adult son... If you marry him, she will be shocked but rather relieved that some one is willing to take over the burden of his upkeep. Frankly, I find Rock's insouciant attitude quite attractive and would be happy to choose him if, as in 'Another Wonderful Life', my choices were restricted to the three original eligible bachelors. As the Mineral Town bachelors and Skye have been added to the mix, however, Rock's standing in my list has fallen somewhat and he now is placed third below Skye and Grey...

My only question about the event was the whereabouts of Nami. I rather expected her to be included... Faced with her absence, I assumed then that she had spent the evening with Gustafa but when I later experienced the Festival with Gustafa, Nami was nowhere to be seen.

The Star Festival with Carter

As in the original Harvest Moon DS, when you spend the Starry Night Festival with an eligible girl or bachelor from the Valley, you basically spend it with that individual's 'family'. It is not so much a romantic event as it is a family event but you will not be extended an invitation unless girl or bachelor is at Green heart level or higher.

If you are interested in Carter in Cute, therefore, you will be invited to the tent to spend the Festival with Carter and Flora in the same way as you would have spent it in the original HM DS.

Carter will welcome you jovially and suggest a discussion of ancient civilisations. Flora will demur, declaring that you will NOT be interested in the subject. If not interested in the man's life work, why on earth would you marry him???

Although I personally am VERY interested in ancient civilisations, I am not particularly eager to marry Carter and thus will leave that possible dilemma to other girls... Meanwhile, I did spend a pleasant evening in the tent before I reloaded to experience the event with some one else.

Flora actually made wonderful cakes for the occasion. Well, she SAID she made them, but they seemed far too professional compared to her ordinary cooking attempts... I think she had help from Ruby, but no one ever will admit that. Cake was served with Large Milk.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Starry Night Festival

Finally, the eve of the eve of the Starry Night Festival has arrived. In other words, it is the 23rd day of Winter and today is the day on which one must organise any social plans for the Starry Night Festival. 24 Winter can be equated somewhat to Christmas Eve in our world. It is on this night that Thomas Santa will make his way down the chimney to place a gift in your Yule sock, provided you have one hanging from the hook on your wall.

Before this, however, it is an opportunity to spend the evening with the bachelor or Magical Girl who has won your heart...

Pursuant to my usual strategy, I intend to spend the Starry Night Festival with each of the bachelors and Magical Girls in turn.

I began with the Witch Princess, now at Orange Heart level. With her customary forthright manner, she basically asked me for an invitation to my farmhouse. I gave it graciously and awaited her arrival the next day.

The Festival begins at 6.00 p.m. If the Starry Night is to be spent at your farmhouse, you actually must exit your farmhouse at 6.00 p.m. in order to initiate the event.

At 6.00 p.m., I left my house and found the Witch Princess at the door. She was as ebullient as ever, only slightly disappointed to discover I hadn't prepared any food for the occasion.

She then offered to make me some of her 'special witch food'. It was almost enough to persuade me NOT to marry my darling Skye and to propose Best Friend status to the Witch Princess instead. After all, what could be better than a life spent sharing 'witch food' with a real Witch Princess, and one as beautiful as she is mischievous?

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'.