marchionessofmustache | Harvest Moon 2 (Reply)

So I pulled the switcheroo and have different laptops in different places now, so my Pokemon Yellow save is a little cumbersome to get to now, and I've been in a bit of a Harvest Moon kick so I loaded up Harvest Moon 2 for the GameBoy Color.

And like always, NO CASUAL PLAY! We're going to 100% this game!! That means a few things about multiple playthroughs:

To own all the types of seeds in the game, you must play two separate save files on two cartridges, one playing as Pete and one playing as Sara, as your gender determines which seeds Daisy sells you. There's also a treasure map item that you must combine with another player who has found a "piece."

There are 3 endings, though the bad one is nearly impossible to get playing normally, so I'll just have to sleep through 3 years of the game to see it. Or look it up online to see if there's a video of it because it's probably nothing special. There is a normal ending and a good ending if you actually clear the game, so I'll be getting the good ending and a 100% file with Pete, and the normal ending and an incomplete file with Sara that I'll use to trade over stuff to Pete's file.

To get all the flower photos, there are two things you can do. One is befriend Mary and HOPE she gives you the rare flower photos on your birthday each year (which would take at least 4 years + a lot of tedious save scumming if it's even possible to scum it), or you can trade with Legend of the River King 2 on GameBoy Color. Sooo that's two playthroughs of Harvest Moon 2 and one playthrough of River King 2.

Beyond that, there are a few things to consider on what determines a "100%" playthrough:

FISH POND - The fish pond can hold I think 99 of each SPECIES of fish in the game, with a total of 18 species in the game, making the total number of fish to fill up the fish pond 1.782. Even fishing up probably 50-80 fish a day, it took me three entire seasons to find ONE catfish. So trying to find 99 of them would just be an exercise in tedium. So I'm NOT going to go for a complete fish pond. The first time you catch a fish, you get a photograph of it in the library, so there's proof you've caught all fish species anyway. I may try to get one of each fish in the fish pond...? But probably not going to bother and just consider the photo book to be my 'fishing completion.'

CHOCOLA'S FRIENDSHIP - There are eight characters in the game you can befriend (sadly some of the other characters like the cute bearded doctor and the mustachioed mayor don't have friendship points) and each has five "levels" of friendship which changes what dialogue you get when you use the "Talk" option inside their shops. There are other things friendship points do, like determining if you get a birthday present from them, and triggering certain scenes... but the main point is that you can see five different unique lines of dialogue from them. Chocola, however, doesn't move into her store until year 3 when she takes it over after her sister has gotten married. But it might be possible to befriend her to 100FP (the fifth tier) before that ever happens, meaning you'll "miss" her 4 other lines of dialogue. So is it best to completely ignore Chocola until the third year and then start befriending her...? This means we'd have to play into the 5th year just for seeing Chocola's final line. I think there's a special event that only occurs in year 4 winter, so we wouldn't be playing TOO much longer to see everything. HOWEVER, I'm not 100% sure if it even works this way, as I can't find definitive answers about this game on the most well-known guides or on the GameFAQs or UnT forums. So I think the best thing to do would be to completely ignore Chocola until the end of Year 3 and see if her dialogue changes like the other characters. Not so much for the perfect file (since she'd be at max in the final save anyway) but just for the sake of actually seeing everything in the game, and CONFIRMING how it works.

ROSIE'S FRIENDSHIP - Rosie gets married and moves in with Chet later in the game, giving the restaurant over to Chocola. This means you can no longer use the "Talk" function inside the shop to talk to her, as she no longer works there. So there's no way to "prove" that you have max affection with Rosie in a final game save without hacking. So I think I'll just take a screenshot of Rosie's 100FP dialogue when I get to it before she leaves the store.

ITEMS AND MONEY - A popular thing to do to 100% games is to max the number of held items and money. I have no idea where money maxes in this game and don't have terrible interest in finding out, as there's not any kind of trick/exploit to get fast money, and it would just be a terribly slow grind. Like probably 100s of hours of just grinding the game with nothing else to do but see when the money maxes. And then you'd have to buy 99 of each seed to max those out, draining a bunch of money, making you start over... so my goal is just to have at least 1 of each seed in the inventory at the end of the game.

ENDING STATUS - Since the game doesn't have a definitive END (you can continue playing after the evaluation/ending), I like to get my farm in a "perfect" condition before making my final game save. There's no real definition to it -- I just want it the way I like it. So I'll probably save in late Fall (maybe even on my birthday? Which I made Fall 25... which also happens to be a festival in the game... wish I knew that before choosing and getting so far into the game X_X) which gives the farm time to recover from the summer storms. I'll have all three pastures completely full of uncut grass. The crop fields will be completely full of unpicked crops, with some of each type available for the fall. So the farm will be beautiful, have great weather, acccess to mushrooms in the mountains... only downside is there will be no catchable bugs on that day (as bugs only appear in spring and summer).

And here's just some random notes, as I've gotten about halfway through Fall on Pete's game and haven't really started Sara's game yet:

Fishing is OP. It costs 2000G to get the fishing rod, then you can get ~2200G a day if you just fish all day.

I'm prioritizing Sheep Pen first (to get working on sheep asap), then the bridge (since I'll finally be able to use it by the time I build it), then the hothouse (why not get it in early), then FINALLY the house upgrade. I think you're intended to get the house upgrade early to get the super hammer, but honestly outside of that and looking cool, it's pointless.

I think Sara starts with 500G more than Pete...?

Sara has a slightly better start as her crops sell better in spring, but Pete has a much more powerful fall, giving him the advantage in the long run.

You are restored to full STA every day when you wake up whether or not you eat a meal. So having meals on hand basically 'wastes' a meal every morning.

I really want to marry Daisy D: It's a shame there's no marriage in this game.

I also want to marry the doctor... and the mayor... But you can't even befriend them!!

I want to test if the twins (Will and Bill) share the same FP pool, or if Bill is just not befriendable at all.

The Power Berry collection is a real disappointment in this game. No special events or methods to obtain them, just all 10 pop up from the ground while tilling :\ Actually a DOWNGRADE from Harvest Moon GB.

The music is not nearly as catchy and fun Harvest Moon GB.

The time moves MUCH slower than GB, SNES, and 64 versions. This is actually great as those games really pressed you for time. I like the pressure of time management in these games, but those were a little... much, where it made it so you could barely do anything in the day even with good management. The only downside is there's a little TOO MUCH time sometimes, and I spend a lot of time just fishing because I feel like I'd be wasting time otherwise.

You can stay up all night with no punishment. At midnight, you'll just wake up at 6AM fully rested no matter what condition you were in. In addition to the slow clock, this gives you plenty of time to make money during the day and do your chores at night.

Table I made for all the crops:

And that's about it for now :P Will I actually finish my lofty goals for this game? Probably not. But I'll have fun while trying~

Next goal now that I have the treasure map is to catch up to Pete's game with Sara and trade the treasure map over (as well as 4 chickens) so I can get the Miracle Glove and golden chickens before moving on with Pete. After that I think I'll just finish up the main game with Pete, then rush through Sara's game to get the few things I need to trade and see the normal ending, then fully finish my perfect save file with Pete.