Kuros-boredom - Kuro's Boredom

Harvest Moon 30 Day Challenge: Day 4

Day 4: Your favorite bachelor + why?

Ok, I don’t have a clear cut favorite here. It’s mainly a toss up between Ford and Gill, (though I still have a fondness for Doctor/Trent!)

(Spoilers ahead if you haven’t played Trio of Towns or Tree of Tranquility!! I mean... you guys probably already know this stuff, but still!!)

Ford is a more recent favorite (obviously), Trio did an excellent job developing his personality from being kind of a loner, mainly focused on his work, and oblivious to love. It really showed how much he changed over the course of the game as he develops feelings for your character. It wasn’t a sudden “I think I have a crush on you *blushblush*” once you hit a certain flower color, Ford has to figure out what love even feels like.

Due to his parents not being very caring of him or their home life (it’s highly suggested that they were... not very good people and it’s a good chance that they drank and gambled a lot), it made Ford socially inept and gave him several types of phobias, explaining why he wants things done a certain way. Though his personality and habits make him considered the oddball, but he just embraces this fact about himself and I like that.

I also really love his friendship with Brad and Wayne, their friend events are hilarious and makes them feel like real friends, and as much as Ford will seem annoyed with them the majority of the time, he honestly respects them. You could argue that he looks up to Brad as an example of what a good marriage should be like. Seeing how happy he and his wife are, Ford starts to rethink that marriage isn’t such a bad thing.

Oh! I also really appreciate that they finally had an older bachelor that didn’t constantly bring up how much older he was than your character, that in itself got old. The only argument I could see is that the previous “older” bachelors didn’t have the same problems as Ford, so age wasn’t a main issue for him, love was.

Gill was a surprise (as I stated in my previous post). I really thought he was going to be a snob and bratty, and can come off a little bit of a jerk in the beginning, but you kind of understand why once you find out that he had to “grow up” at an early age. He’s very hard working, trying to get more people to visit the island because he loves his home and wants others to love it too (plus you can understand from an economical standpoint as well that the town needs to generate business to bring money in).

His dad, Hamilton, is good-natured goof, but it works for their dynamic and Gill still really respects and loves his father, but he also worries about him after losing his mother, having gone into a depression (according to the official Bokomono website). Because of this, Gill tended to all the chores his mother would have likely done and cared for his father and their home until his father was able to get back to his old self. (Due to all that practice, it would explain why you always receive perfect lunches from Gill after you get married, you wouldn’t think of Gill as a house husband-type at first.)

I also really liked the tidbits you learn from his father, where it suggests that Gill was able to see the harvest sprites in his youth (he’s the only human character that I’m aware of that was basically confirmed to have able to see them other than the main characters, unless you want to count Jamie from “Magical Melody”, but I always think of them as a demi-god). They always bring up that children are said to be able to see Harvest Sprites, but I have never heard any of the adults claim to have seen them in their youth or any children pointing them out, so I just thought it was interesting that super strict and mature Gill is the one who had been able to see them.

I still have two questions after all these years, a) Why doesn’t Gill become a teacher when you marry him, but does if you marry someone else? and b) Who convinced him to play Commander Gilligan? I figure it had to be Hamilton, but still...

Image Sources x and x

Meh, made this awhile back.

Mion :3

I'm pretty happy with how this came out, kept fighting with her collar and eventually gave up, but once I put it on my character, I thought it didn't look too bad.

https://picrew.me/image_maker/93922

Hello! I am glad to find someone who plays HM game. My favorite is Save the Homeland. I'm happy to see the remake. Like yaaaaas. I am looking forward to seeing your content on my dashboard. I want to find more HM content. What's your favorite HM game?

Aw (´･ω･`) thanks! I was just posting random things that popped into my head, lol. I actually did a 30 Day HM Challenge not long ago (I’m very long-winded in those posts), so the short answer is probably Trio of Town, though I still really love MFoMT and I’m really excited to see if the remake has any improvements (mainly in dialogue and/or heart events).

I haven’t gotten around to Save the Homeland or Leaf Valley (I own both of them), hoping to get in the mood to play them one of these days. (I have a huge backlog of games to play, lol).

I don’t know how much more HM content I’ll be doing, but I am planning to do another 30 Day Challenge that a friend of mine made, here’s the link if you wanna check it out: https://pinkcatflower.tumblr.com/post/186900957223/harvest-moonstory-of-seasonsrune-factory-30-day She posts and reblogs HM news and related posts on there if you’re interested in that type of content!

Harvest Moon 30 Day Challenge: Day 18

Day 18: So, not to be negative, but to make this challenge a part of a balanced breakfast, what’s your least favorite HM game?

Ignoring Natsume’s "Harvest Moon” series (because that’s too easy), it’s a toss up between Island of Happiness/Sunshine Islands or The Tale of Two Towns. I never made it into Summer in either game. I would also say Another Wonderful Life, but I’ve never given that one an honest chance, so I can’t really criticize it.

The main issue with the ToTT and the Island games... I found all the characters bland or recycled, especially for the Island ones and I was really excited for a new cast finally, but everyone felt like they were just replacing someone from Mineral Town... But that’s just me, they just didn’t catch me. I even hoped with the new controls in Sunshine, I’d enjoy it more and I did play a little longer, but nothing gripped me.

Tale of Two Towns was a really interesting concept. I was excited for its release, but I was very disappointed, again really bland characters. I’ve restarted the game in both villages to see if it would improve my experience, but no. Plus the requests always made me feel rushed. I think Trio of Towns really improved that mechanic, it’s not unreasonable with you.

That said, I do plan to give both games another chance, but... it’s gonna be a struggle for me. I really want to like them, I really do...

But that does lead me to wonder, if the games were always that bland (even in Japan) or if Natsume did a poor job translating them.

I think most fans know Natsume has edited some of the character sprites in the past to avoid issues in the states (I can only think of Grand Bazaar at the moment) and tried to hide drunk characters for a period, but it makes me wonder if they may have been censoring more than we know or if things simply got lost in translation, such as Luke’s letter having a secret message and other little things like that.

Once Xseed became the new North American publisher, the dialogue overall was vastly improved, but that could be mere coincidence and the games themselves improved.

Before the publisher switch over, A New Beginning felt like a much better game than most of Natsume’s previous titles, but I still always wondered even if something in that was changed...

Harvest Moon 30 Day Challenge: Day 2

Day 2: Whats your favorite handheld HM game?

There’s several I really enjoyed over the years, but I think overall... I honestly like “Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns” best.

At least to me, Trio felt like an improved version of “More Friends of Mineral Town”, my previous favorite. It's really well-balanced for farming, side jobs, and the game’s main goals. I always planned out my route for the day, just like I did in MFoMT, so that I wouldn’t miss anyone I wanted to talk to and to avoid forgetting to visit a shop since you have three towns to visit!

It even has small elements of “Grand Bazaar”, where in this case it’s not mandatory in Trio, but if you befriend people who are friends or family with the bachelors and bachelorettes, you sometimes learn a little more about the character you’re pursuing. It makes the characters feel richer in personality and makes it seem like everyone in town actually do interacts with each other and have a relationship in some way.

Plus I couldn’t believe how many random events / friend events I would accidentally wander into simply because I befriended villagers I barely knew just by greeting them every day! Sometimes I would lose track of what I was originally doing, but the events usually were interesting or entertaining, so I didn’t mind.

One more nice touch, if you end up at someone’s home at the beginning of a meal, sometimes you’ll be invited to join the meal! It’s something I found cute, you hear a variety of topics and helps your character regain a little bit of energy if you don’t have any food on hand.

I'm assuming the sky is so polluted from the fires in the mountains that the moon is red tonight.

(Ignore the orange-ish glow, my camera was was straining to get as much light as possible before the moon set for the night. Though, I can imagine the sky is probably pretty grey/brown right now. It also stinks outside...)

I want to go swimming now... but I don't have a pool... and I live in a desert region *sigh*