The Wii Blues

More of a rant than anything, I'm curious as to why there are two future DS titles prepared for after Sunshine Islands, and yet no speak of a Wii release.  Harvest Moon: Welcome to the Wind Bazaar is the next title coming to the DS, followed by Harvest Moon: Twin Villages.  

Wind Bazaar: Welcome to the Wind Bazaar is the next title to be released for the DS.  Very promising, it introduced the opportunity to sell items to other villagers at a weekly Bazaar.  You can also purchase items from other villager's booths, and more will open as you advance in the game.  Another feature is the ability to connect and play at another friend's village via Wifi connection, and up to four people can participate. Not much is known about the game or release date yet, but more information should be available soon.

Twin Villages: Twin Villages puts a new spin on the HM series by, for the first time, allowing you to choose the town you'll live in.  One is centered around farming, the other ranching, and the choice you make at the beginning of the game will therefore affect how the rest plays out.  My understanding is that the bachelors/eligible girls and villagers are different based on the town you choose, but this could be misleading information.  Twin Villages also introduces the ability to raise alpacas and, wait for it...bees!  As the release date isn't yet set for even Japan, it's hard to determine when the US release will be.

And seeing how unique and promising these games sound, I'm shocked I haven't heard anything about another Wii Harvest Moon yet, not even plans!  My initial thought was that Nintendo would be introducing a new console and, therefore, the next HM would be released on that.  Nintendo is introducing a new console, but known as the Wii HD with high-def features, which should not affect gameplay now.  This brings me to the conclusion that there is no information on a follow-up, which is hard to swallow.  

I assume it would take a long while to design a Wii game.  I doubt that if Natsume is creating another HM Wii (which they'd better be!), they would recycle the same basic characters yet again.  This leads me to believe that the concept and completely new design would be causing the stall, but what do you think?

Winter Festivals

With a lot of holiday hubbub it's been increasingly more difficult to get a post written, seeing as I (and Hannah) have so much going on to prepare for the season.  And with a disappointing lack of ideas, I personally found it hard to get enough inspiration to write.  And then it hit me.  What about the winter festivals? They haven't been touched on in great detail yet, and now seems as though it's the perfect time to do it as it ties into the traditional time so nicely.

Harmony Day (Winter 5, 6:00-24:00): Harmony Day, what some consider the equivalent of Thanksgiving here in America, is an all-day event all over the island of Castanet.  The purpose of Harmony Day is to show your appreciation of other island-residents by giving them a piece of Shortcake. If you have an island member up to five hearts, they will give you a piece when you talk to them as well.  You can recycle the shortcake and give it back to rack up friendship points, or you can eat/ship it as well.  The possibilities of this seemingly pointless holiday really are worth it.

Starry Night Festival (Winter 11, 18:00-22:00):  The Starry Night Festival is held in Flute Fields on Moon Hill annually.  It's a romance festival, with a chance to picnic under the stars with a marriage candidate/spouse.  While the festival starts at 18:00, giving you a chance to get a picture taken and socialize, your romantic interest will not arrive to view the stars until 19:00.  While watching the stars, you'll see a shooting star that allows you to be granted one wish, provided you complete the challenge at hand. You must select one of the five options, three times in a row in order to get your wish.  But be careful of clicking too fast, as the wishes are scrambled at each screen and you only have a few seconds to choose, so think on your feet!  If your wish is granted, you will get one of the five things available (popular/family affection+, recover/choco pudding, dive/tarpon, sleep/stamina recovered, gain/1000G).

New Year's Eve (Winter 28, 18:00-23:00): The New Year's Eve celebration is even more grand than in ToT!  Held in Harmonica town's entrance, next to the clock tower, there are many booths and festivals to see and participate in.  You can choose to participate in any or all of the following: Mining Contest, Fashion Contest, Bargain Contest.  You'll also have the opportunity to buy unique items, especially rare outfits and accessories at Shelly's booth that can only be found once a year at that festival.  Once time has ticked away and it's 23:00, the new year's countdown begins and you have the opportunity to make a wish as well.  Depending on what you select, you can raise affection with romantic interests/spouse, the people of Harmonica Town, or the people of Flute Fields.

So as you're rushing through this real winter season, don't forget to take some time to relax and enjoy the joys of Harvest Moon's take on it.

Meet Hannah!

Alrighty, it's been about ten minutes since I posted, if not less, but I thought it was of utmost importance to let you all know about the latest (and first!) addition to "Ready...Set...Farm!"'s staff of writers!  Hannah is a Harvest Moon-aholic like the rest of us, and a close friend of mine. Now she's a writer here too!   Both Hannah and I (Helen) will be moderating the site as partners and writing posts, organizing contests...all that good stuff!

A bit about Hannah: We'll consider Hannah a "specialist" in Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life, one of her favorite HM titles.  Making the top of the list is Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility, but Harvest Moon: Animal Parade may take top spot soon enough.  Hannah is a tried and true farmer, just like me, but also earns her money by fishing and ranching.

You can see Hannah's first post, followed by more, coming soon here on "Ready...Set...Farm!".  Stay in touch!

Wonderfuls in Sunshine Islands

Upon playing my copy of Sunshine Islands last night, I (foolishly) made a mistake, the purpose of this post in general.  I had equipped both the red and blue wonderfuls to my watering can (upgraded) to allow for watering a 2X3 space, which saved both time and stamina.

However I don't know what I was thinking when I asked Charlie to remove the wonderfuls from my watering can, as they disappeared completely from my possession.  Frantically, I checked Charlie and Chen's inventory, to find the Yellow Wonderful, yes, but not either the blue or red.

Now you may know that in Sunshine Islands, only one of each kind of wonderful is provided for you.  After that, if you wish to have another wonderful of the same color, you must build the wonderful piece by piece (something I honestly don't have enough patience for).  I of course had played two seasons without saving (another dumb move on my part), and had to quit without saving in order to get the wonderfuls I had lost back.  It wasn't fun.

So this is me, telling all of you never to remove wonderfuls from your tools if you know what's good for you.  And don't say I didn't warn you.

The Animal Color Conflict

Well obviously, one thing that really excited me about Harvest Moon: Animal Parade was the ability to have different colors of each animal.  While that was available in ToT, it wasn't nearly as "customizable".  Before I purchased the game, I was under the impression you were able to choose the color of your livestock.  Excited, I purchased animal after animal, never seeing the option to select my color. Devastated, I decided it was because the color was just randomized.  Then, in angst, I purchased 5 cows, thinking surely that would solve my problem.  I would get at least a little variation.

So I rode my horse, Andrea, back to my barn, ran inside and found: five spotted cows, all identical.  I could have cried.  I decided to search for some information online, and after finding some, I came across the realization that the only way to get the color other than default is to sprinkle miracle potion on livestock.  Stupid me.  

Nevertheless, I thought it would be dandy to inform all of you ranchers out there to the different colors of livestock:

Horse: Grey (default), White, Black, and Brown.
Cow: Black&White (default), Black, and Brown.
Sheep: White (default), and Black
Goat: White (default), and Black
Ostrich: Black (default)

All birds (aside from the ostrich) and the silkworms only have one available color (the default).

The Mishaps of Mining

At first glance, mining in Animal Parade is considerably better than in Tree of Tranquility.  For starters, the lighting is much better.  Now it's easy to see every pitfall and wall you could run into, making mistakes less common.  There are also stairs for every level, so you can mine without having to smash a rock or take chances with pitfalls to find a way out.  This, of course, is a very helpful addition as well.

But there are definitely the downfalls of mining this time around. The first complaint on my list is with "Wonderful" crystals, which are all the same, white tint.  Now instead of smashing blue crystal after blue crystal in the hopes of finding a Lapis Lazuli, you must smash a randomly selected white crystal, hoping the wonderful is blue and that when it's refined it's the right gem.

Of course this brings me to my next complaint, which also has to do with wonderfuls and ores.  You may know that in ToT, the number of sparkles determined the value of the wonderful once refined.  You could have up to three sparkles, but if there were no sparkles it would be refined to glass and worth nearly nothing.  This saved a lot of time, because any ore or wonderful that didn't sparkle wasn't even worth picking up.  Not only did this ensure you always knew what you were collecting, but you also knew that there would be no surprises when it came time to refine.  However, this time around, nothing sparkles.  You may pick up twenty rare ores in excitement, only to find them all refined to scrap metal.   This can be a real downer, as it means more trips into the mines and more disappointments at Koto Accessories.

You'll also remember Mira's refining business in ToT, and how the wonderfuls and ores in your rucksack were refined, free of charge.  This time around, it's a hefty 35G per item refined.  That wouldn't be so bad... If you knew what you were getting for your money.  But handing over 10 blue wonderfuls for 350G and getting 10 pieces of glass in return can be a little more than devastating.  Luckily, there's the beauty of restarting, but unless you're really fortunate, it won't make much of a difference.

Then of course, there's the whole "tool upgrade" disaster, but we'll save that for another time, as this completes my ranting for the evening.

Looking Back to Magical Melody

After a lot of HM:AP hubbub, I decided it was high time to highlight another HM.  The title may be a little misleading, but as I was opening up my DS to play a bit of Sunshine Islands today, an idea struck me.  Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands, is essentially Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Now don't get me wrong!  The games are completely different at a glance.  New islands, features, and characters are only the start of the changes.  Not to mention MM is a console game and SI is handheld.  Nevertheless, they have one major thing in common.  That being the game aspect, which is nearly identical.  In MM, the goal was to perform certain daily tasks so many times or reach certain milestones, and you would obtain a musical note.  Collect so five musical notes, you get a musical instrument.  In SI, you perform these same general tasks or reach the same kind of milestones, and this time, you obtain sun stones.  With a certain number of sun stones in your possession, you gain the power to raise one of the many sunken islands and travel there.

Here's the distinction: In MM, the musical notes didn't do much to help you along the way.  Their main purpose was to win the game.  Aside from getting married, there weren't too many perks for collecting them unless you were dead set on completing the game (like me).  But in SI, every island you raise in beneficial to you in some way or another.  Volcano Island, for instance, introduces a new bachelor/bachelorette and allows you to mine for gelatin, ore and the likes.  Or maybe Mushroom Island is more up your alley (and pretty self-explanatory too).

That aside, it got me wondering if this concept was recycled or not.  Surely the basic standpoint is recognizable by others as well?  Not to say they aren't both great games (they are), but I'm curious to see if we'll be seeing this story line again soon.

All About the Fashion

Animal Parade takes character customization to an entirely new level, introducing not only many new outfits and accessories for your character, but for your children as well!  Sonata Tailoring alone offers three different levels (two upgrades) with a total of 12 different outfits (per gender) and 40 accessories and hats.  Shelly also sells many rare (and highly priced!) outfits and items at her booth at the New Years festival, so save up for that!

The hundreds of combinations give you the ability to customize a unique look for your character for each day of the season! There are styles for everyone as well!  While "Western" and "Sporty" might tailor to a more casual dresser, "Chic" and "Formal Dress" have an elegant and classy design for a more formal affair.

But perhaps the most exciting aspect of the new in-depth customization is the idea of dressing your children!  While you can't do this until they are at the final growth stage (young tikes!), it offers still dozens of outfits, accessories, and ultimately personalities for your kids.  Many of the designs and pieces for your children are smaller, cuter versions of the outfits and accessories available to you!  This puts a fun spin on family portraits.

You can also obtain true accessories at Mira's Accessory Shop.  Using silver/gold and a refined gem (optional) you can create one of many unique rings, brooches and necklaces (among other options).  Another unique feature is the ability to purchase the accessory as either a gift for yourself OR for somebody else.  Now you can give your spouse or friend a more thoughtful, refined present.

A list of all the Sonata Tailoring and Accessory Shop inventories can be found in my Harvest Moon: Animal Parade Game Guide, coming soon.

Quick Update!

Thought I'd let you all know I'm currently working on my HM:AP Walkthrough! My plan is to follow up with Sunshine Islands and then track back to the earlier games, but I'll see how this goes.  It's definitely a very trying process.  My fingers have to take a break every hour or I'm sure they'd fall off.

Needless to say, I'm very excited! I plan on submitting it to various sites and see if I getting any bites, but until then, it's strictly "in the works".  I'll have to update, but at the moment I'm working on a section titled "Weather".  Yes, very exciting I'm sure.   I might end up adding the walkthrough(s) here as well, but as I said, we'll see how things go.

Until then, keep on farming!

The ToT/AP Debate

The eagerly anticipated arrival of Harvest Moon: Animal Parade brought mixed emotions to the HM gamers.  Some, like myself, wasted no time in pre-ordering a copy and memorizing the strategy guides and walkthroughs released even before the games.  Others, however, wore a skeptical face, causing even the most religious gamers to question the purchase.  They questioned the play-ability of this game.  Some challenged the "uniqueness" of the features, complaining of the recycled NPCs.  Others simply rolled their eyes, stating they didn't need an upgraded version of HM:ToT.

How wrong they were!  A common misconception, HM:AP is not a better HM:ToT, but an entirely new sequel of sorts.  In no way is it comparable to WiiFit Plus (the undoubtedly better but practically identical follow-up to WiiFit).  Seeing as it not only introduces a new town and story line, but new character design as well, not much is left the same.  In fact, you can have a completely different life in HM:AP than in HM:ToT, as there are so many differences.

The first is farming.  Many gamers complained of the setup of HM:ToT's farming system.  After all, they completely erased the idea of 3x3 sowing by having seeds planted in a 1x6 format.  Many gamers were disappointed to find their seed packs wasted and their time as well.  This issue, however, was resolved this time around as HM:AP brings back the original 3x3 planting.  On top of that, you can now walk on top of your crops (just as in ToT), getting you more bang for your buck as you can water all nine squares as they grow.  Even the watering system (and all other tool upgrades) was changed. More on that later.

The game's beginning has changed as well.  Some say for the better, while others disagree.   You start out hitching a ride on a hay wagon that Cain is driving.  You choose your name, favorite food and birthday (just as with Pascal in ToT).  He drops you off at your new home (beat-up and small) and you see Hamilton run up and introduce himself.  This is where the similarities to ToT stop. Now, the positives and negatives are introduced:

1. Your house.  You may have noticed that you didn't get the opportunity to select the location of your house.  This is because every gamer is stuck in the same run-down hut in the middle of your farm.  Luckily, it's in a pretty central location right in the middle of the island.  This makes traveling a breeze, and considering the island feels bigger and more spread out, you'll be grateful. However you will hear from Hamilton you'll have to pay a 5000G mortgage for your house.  Hurrah.

2.  As a trade off for not being able to choose your own house, you've been rewarded with a pre-built barn and coop, along with crops already growing in the field out front!  This makes it a breeze to start off on the right foot with a built-in starter income, which you'll greatly appreciate.  A lot of other freebies are found at the beginning of the game, including free seeds, a brush, camera, tools, and what's this? You get a free calf as well? Talk to Cain in the barn at Horn Ranch and you get the choice of a brown, black, or spotted calf you can raise in your barn.  This is one of the great opportunities to earn money at the beginning of the year, as you can milk and ride the cow when it's full grown.

3.  The beginning also introduces a more challenging task, and that's earning money.  What may seem like a free ride can soon turn challenging, and without the right tactics and hard work, it can be overwhelming.  And trust me in my saying that the saying "You have to spend money to make money," won't be a welcome thing to hear when you're starting out.  Nearly every cent you make with the "freebies" you're given at the start are sent to the purchase of necessities such as seeds and makers.  If you're smart, you won't go spending your minimal gold willy-nilly, but most of the time, you won't even have enough to do so.  The biggest problem with this is that every necessity seems more expensive and money harder to obtain.  Fishing is more challenging, getting you pointless pond smelts the majority of the time.  And with seeds sold per square instead of six, it often feels like you're forking over more money than you should be for the basics.

And those being only a few of the controversies at the beginning, it's easy to see why people would shy away from the game.  Especially if you're trying to shift from ToT to AP (even the controls have been altered!).  Luckily it has it's ups as well.  This isn't even skimming the surface to cover all the differences, many of which are only happier occurrences.   You can now have two kids, a wider range of pets, more bachelors/bachelorettes,  vacation homes, and entirely new story to enjoy.

 To me, there's no debate: HM:AP takes the victory this time.

It's Kind of Revolutionary

What started as a game that nobody thought would catch on became a phenomenon that is followed by fans across the world.  The Harvest Moon franchise has hooked thousands of casual gamers like myself with it's captivating style and surprisingly entertaining gameplay.

As a game that at a glance is just about doing chores, Harvest Moon often doesn't get the credit it truly deserves.  Luckily, fans all over will tell you that it's so much more.  Not only is Harvest Moon a farming simulation, but it's a life one as well.  Many players enjoy the courting aspect in which you court and marry an eligible bachelor/bachelorette.  In other cases it's the goal to get the highest ranked crop or win the Animal Festival.  With such an in depth world and so much to explore, the possibilities really are endless.

And whether you're a newcomer or a veteran, you know better than to question HM's power.  The truly addicting style has drawn countless gamers in and hasn't released us yet.  With each addition to the series, more options and excitements are added on.  No game is alike, though they flow seamlessly from one title to the next.

In some ways, I guess it's kind of revolutionary...