#tomyo's backlog

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning (its trans)

So I've finally hit a point where I feel like I can breathe again which means its time to get back into my backlog made majorly of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games. Admittedly the moment I get into the DS era and beyond, I get overwhelmed by all the mechanics but I spent....a dumb amount of money on these games and I have to push myself to try. Between Trio of Towns and A New Beginning, I chose ANB for two reasons; 1.It might be simpler to jump into 2.You can back door hack yourself into being gay....kinda.

You see the thing is you still can only date hetrosexually BUT you can just change your character to basically look completely like a girl. Trans rights??? Except you'll get misgendered all the time...unless this is a transmasc story instead for the fuckers like me that like to be he/him'd while in full femme mode. Either way, time to romance Yuri!

So admittedly this is a little bit mixed of a guide slash person road map, I am using a Fogu guide but that doesn't necessarily make it easy. So, I'm only on spring 14 but here's what to know thus far:

The game is as handholdy as ACNL/NH and will slowly dole out mechanics over thankfully in game days. Only worry about mechanics as they come.

You will spend per usual a good part of the start will be foraging. Sell the bugs but save flowers/herbs/mushrooms. You will need moon drops for the start of the town restoration. Also save Honey Bees for the second part of it too. Blue flowers are for Emma to befriend her. Hold onto all logs and stones for when Iroha comes.

Talk to all villagers to increase friendship, show them an animal as well but be careful of preferences. Most villager friendship is required to progress to more stores/upgrades.

When you unlock crops, only buy two things of grass. You are given all you need for most of your farm already. Plant and water the grass in the barn area so you'll have fodder in time for the free cow you get a few days later.

Work on shipping tons of potatoes in spring, this will be a headstart for Town Restoration #4 where you need to ship 30 of them.

Events Process: You arrive>>You unlock crops>>Neil arrives and gives you a cow>>Iroha arrives and gives you an Axe and Hammer>> Rebecca arrives and needs house help which unlocks blueprints>> Town Restoration #1>> Town Restoration #2>> Town Restoration #3 start>> Tailor Shop Blue print should unlock if you befriended Emma enough.

Yuri also seems extremely easy to woo honestly, her special like is one of the early recipes which is also important to eat regularly. In general I just love her and its a crime she can't be romanced same sexly but its okay because again, we are transing ourselves which she and Allen will help with. Wow! What a little gay gender affirming circle that is lmao.

The goal is to get Yuri in my town by early to mid fall, the biggest road block is during restoration 2 you need to ship 10 honey which will take 6 days to make so the more hives the better from the start. Clearing out the farm during summer is imperative. Hives are made out of small lumber and honey combs which is why collecting as much as possible is important (and collecting bees for them too!).

After Yuri is unlocked, the only goals are to raise a lot of sheep for wool. hatch 10 chicks, and get one yak when the chance is given. Side goals include birthing three Cows, sheep, and Alpaca during my second year. Most of Restoration 3 and beyond involves mining and wool so I expect to spend winter doing a lot of digging while also being aware that I'll probably not complete the storyline until at least late into year 2. There's more focus on festivals in the final two restorations as well as a lot of odd gems.

Post main plot is for clothing, house decoration, and child rearing. Emma, Neil, Olivia, Sanjay, and the travel location people are important towards gift exchanges. Outfits will just unlock as I go thanks to Yuri. I might also do a split save before marrying Yuri simply because Witch Princess is always kinda cool but is so late game that having to rebuild everything to marry her might honestly kill me.

It seems partially ridiculous to be so early in the game and to be writing so much already but its one of those series where you need a huge planning stage before you even start anything. To which I find fun the preplan. Admittedly also because the current game play is so repetitive; Watering and animal care in the morning, chasing after Emma for her daily gift, and then wrapping around foraging a couple of times before the night watering. It doesn't help either that there is no quality of life improvements as you go, apparently not even power berries this time.

The path to repairing a town is kind of a fun mechanic to be real; ACNH widely disappointed me for not really being the civilization maker it promised, Hometown story is interesting for a similar was in how it runs, Pioneers of Olive Town sometimes is the perfect amount of town rebuilder, and of course the ever popular stardew valley is great for slowly building up additions to an already pretty sound townspace, and I yearn for easier access to Animal Parade for how lovely the area is even if a bit of a travelling nightmare at points. I don't expect ANB to be revolutionary necessarily but I'm excited to GET to the point where I can suddenly dish out a bunch of town support. It's kind of cool how there's barely love interests as well because of it.

[tomyo]

Harvest moon Save the homeland

Going into this game, I knew it had a reputation for being a bit short but ironically that’s something that worked for me in the long run as we reach my desire to play through a crap ton of games in a short span. The concept itself didn’t bother me too much to begin with but compared to even it’s neighboring releases it’s a bit empty and maybe that’s the point.

STH is about a dying population, a common occurrence in japan over that last few decades. And you play as a farmer’s son come to clean out dad’s little land before it all get’s demolished in one year. For once, romance isn’t on the table because you aren’t expected to know anyone long enough for this town to survive (albeit they change that in the remake). At most you can buy chickens and cows but you can’t upgrade the barn, only the house a singular time and grow 4 crops that you can’t even ship, just sell to the other villagers. Your world feels small and where it feels a little bit half done, the other sense is its very intentional. Everything you do in STH feels like what one would expect when you drop into a town you don’t expect to survive.

The concept of what HM was doing at this time feels really interesting in context to be real. Like I said, Japan’s dwindling countryside has been a long standing issue for decades at this point and definitely something starting to come up in the millennium. So HM’s releases at this point are the original old times one, the modernized 64 one where one grandkid want to leave for the city, BTN/FoMT that tries not to dwell on that, and alongside STH, AWL which is also a rural and dying country side that’s aging. While population feels pretty unspecific, the look doesn’t. FoMT has nicer looking buildings in a dense organized spacing while AWl and STH had big pockets of emptiness, no formal community events, and older looking houses. Often the conditions barely meet the expectations of basic living like a kitchen or bathroom with dim lighting yet somehow a TV mattering more to the lost parent. I feel like I can smell these places and the sensation of the humidity clinging to the poorly insulated walls.

STH basically makes the player feel the effects of its story despite how much people complain about it.

Now as for my gameplay; For whatever reason I chose the Goddess Robes route to be my playthrough. I actually didn’t expect it to be easy but in the end it’s a pretty straight forward path that only requires 3k money and handing out free items as gifts to various people. Despite this I’m attempting to raise animals although I keep killing so many chicken. Idk if I’m missing something but they get sick so quickly. Halfway through spring I realized being outside is a part of the health system but at the same time I’m lost to how to efficiently move animals in and out of the barn. At this current point, I’ve reached the goddess thread spinning section and all I really need is to wait out the time. In the mean time I’m trying to earn the 10 house renovation to go through on a further playthrough but my success in farm life is absolutely minimal. Outside of speeding towards an ending, there isn’t much side stuff to do and as I waxed about before, I kind of like it in this case.

Now this is on the list of games I am playing through to eventually reward myself with Hero of Leaf Valley of which I expect to burn through up to 6 in a month and then drastically slow down the more I will likely have to play a 3DS game. Playing through this first has given me a lot of thought into what girl I would eventually want to marry in that one and I hate to admit I’m being drawn towards Katie. Narratively, I think she works best towards a ‘true girl’ story most dating sims have some form of. She is the grandduaughter to a man who loved your grandmother and wants to perfect her baking recipe to save the town she acts like she hates. It weaves nicely between change and preservation like the story of the village itself. I’m hoping though I will eventually be drawn to either Auriela or Alice instead.

I keep fearing preemptively posting these write ups before I truly finish the game but at the same time, I am hoping I could finish a playthrough in two or three more play sessions. There is almost certainly the possibility I could just sleep to the end, however I’d prefer to do some things rewarding to me in order to feel fulfilled from the game. Because of that, the house upgrade is a part of my personal completion goal and one I don’t think will be too hard to reach if I just keep a routine of watering my plants and animal care.

After this I think it’s AWL SE

[tomyo]

Animal Parade Harvest Moon Part 3

Hello again reader! After my crash out last time, I had returned to find that some of the corn crop did not in fact eat it. With that I’m happy to announce I made it through the green bell story! While I started the purple bell, I’m less focused on that as I am on farm and friendship building! Yahoo!

In retrospect it feel like the easier part is over with. Noticing that not much has occurred giving the Wizard his best favourites while I’m giving other people a less favourite item paints the picture that it will take a while before I get close to that Purple bell. If I romance all the male leads though, it will hopefully go faster since I’ll have heart scenes and give a chance to diverge for a different relationship saves if I feel like it. As for assets, I’m mostly foucsing towards a barn and coop upgrade (barn pretty much there as is). As much as I had longer lasting goals like going to at least the NYE festival or marrying or a full farm, I do think I’m going to have a nearer stopping point for the sake of longevity. I really like this game and find more and more that I don’t want to rush it.

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon: DS Cute part 1

If you’ve been following my journey, you are probably surprised to see another Harvest Moon game write up already. Today on my day off I decided it was time to actually be around my cat who for reasons I have to lock out of my room where my consoles I’ve currently been using are. I played a little more of STH (we are officially at the final stage and I bought the house upgrade, now halfway to the doghouse purchase) and picked up what I could actually take with me in the near future. The major set up was figuring out what schedule to develop for my character to progress through the story which simply came to be jewelry farming mixed with smaller tasks.

Once again let’s view my goals for the playthrough:

Marry Skye (currently at black heart)

Fully upgrade and furnish house (Currently at 2 with clock)

Build each of the buildings in stone; Barn, Coop, Maker Shed, Silo, and optional mushroom shed. (First 3 obtained)

Save the Harvest Goddess (29/60 sprites)

Now DS Cute is a game I’ve owned since it came out and I basically completed the story but as with everything, guides could be confusing as they were often incomplete text only documents with varying accuracy and I didn’t have a well made farm. Tutorials STILL might not be accurate however, I at least now know of fogu and portable tech to reference.

Gameplay wise I was never deeply fond of the original DS releases, the biggest problem being the touch gameplay was stressful so I think I will be avoiding animal care this time, or at least willingly being bad at it to cover the sprite requirements. Overall the game also felt it turned the chill space of Forget me not into a much more stressful weed addled environment. One of the thing I will probably end up doing is covering wild areas in trees to stave off weed growth even though it may harm my curry making down the road. Which is the real reason I want to play this over, I felt like I missed out on Skye since I think that was the one thing I struggled to finish before as well. Finest Curry is a hard dish to make requiring all the curries and failed dishes to be mixed together. ATM his birthday is in a few days so I’m certain to miss the big point bonus and as it is I’ve been working with just low level gifting. Once I get the kitchen and pot, I hope to move onto regularly giving Black Curry as waiting for any events is frustrating. If I had to think of a HM game that I do not think of a good time to play, it would be the DS duology but ironically Skye’s story most compels me out of all the bachelors from the series, even Animal Parade. I always particularly liked white haired characters, having an anime crush on Soul around the time this game came out and it was exciting to have a pretty boy option for once.

Now that I figured out a daily routine in it (Wake up, take care of pets and chickens, forage, and jewelery mine), I’m hoping to bring my DS along with me an play through it over the course of the next month. Seeing as STH should be complete by the new year, that already sets me at 2 1/2 games to be played through! Exciting! (Please stop me from fooling myself into thinking they’re already played through). The harder aspect to figure out is what to do for my other handheld ones which, is most of them. You see, the trouble is a number of them have dlc on my new 3ds the plain one and I’m struggling to procure a battery for it. Need to actually search up what to find for it since multiple times I ended up with the wrong size. `From there I’d probably jump back into HM3 for the month if I finish early.

[tomyo]

Sonic Advance

Earlier this year I had gone to sell at a gaming convention that had a huge Sonic presence which inevitably influenced me to buy this game for a whopping $30. For a while I wanted to have access to the tiny Chao garden and me and con impulsiveness is real. The irony is I also couldn't play it due to not having a functioning backlit GBA player and then went out of my way to buy a JP DS that I thought didn't work until just recently (the plug I had it in wasn't working for it). Finally after all of that I found the game fully played. For those unaware, the first Advance will corrupt the chao garden if you delete the save file.

Now this isn't much of a problem, it just meant I have access to everything. But it also killed any sense of tangible progress. I basically was handed the 44? Levels for free.

In the end it wasn't much of a problem either as I have played through most of Sonic and Amy's stages in just about an hour's worth of time. When it comes to the idea of completion, I'm less worried about playing fully through a game but rather playing enough through like in the recent case of Minish Cap where I felt satisfied while still having two lands to visit.

I am not fully at a completion point but I get the feeling I will be in a little bit and I'm preemptively writing this for now. Something is maybe a little sad in the end because that means I spent $30 for roughly 2 hours of gameplay but I'm certain I will eventually also find value in the Chao Garden which in itself is worth a bit to me as well.

Even for what little I've played of it, I still found it an engaging pick up, I love the graphics and I actually like it's easy. The DS side houses Rush rn which I'm struggling to pass on the first level. At least I did while it was with the 3DS. I'm hoping by switching it up, I might be able to have better controls since there is no circle pad in the way.

Ratings are fake but it's a solid 8/10

[tomyo]

My 2025 Gaming Goals:

Fighting against my backlog of games is the fact I bought a PSP recently. While the goal was to play through a bunch of games, I think this year will be paired with buying a bunch so I have things for my PSP. That being said I'm trying to force myself into two challenges.

By far, the greatest amount of games I have to play are for Sonic (9-10) and Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons (13-16). For each of them, I've tried to set up a challenge of how many I have to play to buy some bigger games on the list. There's kinda like 3 stages; one that's just a bullshit 1 game requirement, one that a few games, and then close to or the full list of games to buy the grand prize game. For Sonic; Shadow the Hedgehog is currently the bullshit 1 game req due to some copies being accessible rn when it's probs on the verge of jumping in price, midway is Rivals 2, Rush Adventure, and Zero Gravity as they're usually pretty midrange price($20-35), and then the grand prize is Sonic Shuffle which usually hits $70. Not a particularly liked game and I have a bunk copy of it but it's more for the beauty of the style it has. As for HM; low entry is Boy & Girl mostly because there's a cheap cheap copy I might win the bid on, midrange will be Story of Seasons due to its availability for new still, and the really grand prize for all of this is Hero of Leaf Valley which also tends to be $70 for a copy. Like I said I really want games for my PSP so I'm hoping it can motivate me. However I'm not that type of masochist and I'm making it a 10 game entry because up to 16 Harvest Moon games might kill me on top of all the other life stuff I have going on. Either way, the hope is to help curb spending on games by blocking impulsive spending (hah, we'll see if that works).

Overall though, here's my game hunts for 2025:

Sonic Rush Adventure

Sonic Rivals 2

Harvest Moon Hero of Leaf Valley

Story of Seasons

Shadow the Hedgehog ✅

Sonic Lost World

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Sonic Shuffle

Wii Party

Zelda 3ds Remakes

Sega Dreamcast Collection

ZombiU

Amiibo Festival

The Sonic Olympic Series

Sims 1 expansions

For PSP Specifically:

Sims 2 Pets

Sims 2 Castaway

Kingdom Hearts 365/2

Innocent Life

Little Big Planet

A handful of Japanese VNs

That one weird warioware knockoff

And the 2024 carry over:

Just Dance Kinect Series (2014-2019)

Nicola Series

Endless Ocean 1+2

Another Code R

Pokemon Dash

Ultra Sun (easy mode)

Fire Red/Leaf Green at a good price (impossible)

Black/BW2 at a decent price (impossible)

HM Magical Melody Wii

Wii Play Motion

World ends with you ✅

Wii U twilight princess

DuckTales wiiu

Finally for what I actually think I'll actually want to buy in 2025 from the above:

Little Big Planet

Sims 2 Pets

Sims 2 Castaway

Innocent Life

Hero of Leaf Valley

Story of Season

Sonic Rivals 2

Sonic Lost World

Shadow the Hedgehog ✅

Sonic Riders Zero Gravity

Dreamcast Collection

Amiibo Festival

ZombiU

Whatever unintentional finds of Sims, Just Dance or Pokemon Sun might be made.

I really want to utilize my PSP next year to which admittedly I'm a little embarrassed how little of games I want to play on it. Games like Rivals 2 and LBP only made it out of a need for cartoony games.

Anyway that's my ramble into the void. I feel I've thought more about gaming than actually gaming.

[tomyo]

LoZ Minish Cap

I've been really thinking about my backlog again over as I've moved on from Harvest Moon game collecting into Sonic game over collecting and figured it was time to revisit what I currently owned on my Wii U.

So yeah, Minish Cap. Gorgeous game. To be honest I only stopped playing it because I got stuck and this time I had to look up a guide because I couldn't even remember what was wrong.

From my previous session I had just passed the Minish dungeon and at this point I've ended up just before the Hylia section. All in all, that's....two more dungeons? LoZ and I have always struggled with this love hate relationship. I love the design, hate the gameplay. I am not a gamer despite what this adventure may or may not inform you about me. I feel tense whenever basic combat comes into play. In fact I loved the switch saga simply because I could do the elements I found fun while avoiding puzzles and being lean on combat. I think it says a lot I have never challenged a dungeon or boss in either game too.

However, every time an online store goes down I'm confronted with suddenly needing to wisely spend a large sum of money across a large catalog of games, dlc, skins, and avatar goods. Side tangent but I deeply regret not buying a digital copy of Sonic 06 now realizing my og copy might be showing signs of disk rot. Either way, the 8th gen Nintendo console closing led me to a lot of retro game downloads and Minish Cap made the cut.

Why did it? I think most obviously the graphics. I am that person who romantacises my Gaelic heritage and no other Zelda game leans into the aesthetic more. A lot of the Celtic braiding, the kin stones, the Minish, and so forth. But even beyond that, the pixel art is some of the most stunning work on the GBA. It's not too surprising since it's coming out of Capcom who also produced the disgustingly gorgeous Oracle games. The singular graphical complaint I have is for Link himself who looks a little like they based him off a 3D model . Did they? I don't know. It's still amazing that his tiny form manages to work so well though so we can look past it all. The tiny segments though, fucking masterpieces.

Gameplay again, isn't bad it just isn't me. I think I've hit my put down point and it's not the game's fault but I don't think I'm particularly worried about playing more at the moment. As far as I can tell I'm halfway through with 3 more dungeons before the finale. Like usual though, Zelda's side quests shined amazing and the kin stones and gacha were my favourite part of the experience. I liked the feeling I was changing the space of the game though stones and there was calculated strategy what to choose. The gacha however is this somewhat vindictive task because I happened to see a guy talk about how unfair it was and while I'm not saying he's wrong, I just want to prove a point. Currently I have 50/130 with just what I had on me at the time. If I finish this game, it's to spite that video.

What can I say, it was a solid experience but not really me.

[tomyo]

Street Pass Mini Game Special

I truly love my 3DS. Even though I came in to owning one a lot later than everyone else, it's been something I've loved deeply. From themes to kisekae plates to the virtual console IR to AR, I really love exploring the full functionality of the system. At some point I'd probably start a series on other functions of the 3DS but today I wanted to focus on the beloved street pass!

So yes, I did buy ALL the street pass dlc when I hear the shop was closing and it's....an experience to say the least. This has given me the chance to go through them however! So let's go!!

Puzzle Swap

I loved this one a lot when I started using my 3DS. Collecting is definitely a brain activator for me. Admittedly though when they updated to multiple pieces getting collected, it was a lot healthier of a job. Right now, I sit extremely frustrated since my current memory card only shows the standard puzzles and not the ones added over time. I know at one point I was at least to one final puzzle needing filling so now I sit frustratingly finished but not really finished on it.

Find Mii 1&2

Find me was where I truly put more of my attention and also equally frustrating at one point in time as I rarely got passerbys and mostly relied on hires mercs. The biggest struggle was I got my 3DS after I moved back to the suburbs meaning I no longer had the benefit of living in a city or it's huge campus. By the time I did move back to city living, I went to a much smaller school at a time where the switch was about to be released. Sometimes I think back to watching my friends get to play Animal Crossing New Leaf and Pokemon X & Y(which I actually like) with a little bit of envy. There's the tug and pull that I went to a lot of cons at than time and could afford it because I was frugal or how getting an og 3DS likely would've stopped me from getting my beloved new 3DS but sometimes it sucks that I didn't shell out the $180 or so to be apart of all that. The 3DS was probably more of a kawaii golden era staple than any other system could have been and just little things like this suddenly come to mind.... Wait wasn't I supposed to be talking about the games? Ah yes, I truly love the two find Mii games. I think they're extremely fun and you can see the way they paved the path for Miitopia. I still have yet to collect all the rewards you can get partially because of that whole tangent issue but hopefully if I start to walk around with it more I can regularly beat the game. I've started to bring my 3DS to cons and now even own a second one after a lucky find so regular street passing is more common for me!

When it came to the next games, you had to pay for them in I believe $15 increments. Either two to three packages where available alongside the premium upgrade which allowed you to have a longer queue and one additional features. Each game also has a guide character for the stories.

Slot Car Rivals

This was the game I selected from the free choice when they offered that up for the game releases. You race against passers to try and progress and build up your car. If I'm honest I don't get this one much. Your guide character is a race team assistant.

Market Crashers

If somehow you can still get this one I'd choose it of the free choice. You get to do capitalism simply put with more passers equalling better predictions on stock shares going up or down through a session. The gameplay per a session is really short once it starts but I find it fun thus far. Basically rapidly hitting by or sell to make more money as quick as possible. There's also art assets to grab up and hold onto. I definitely get excited at chances to play this one. Your guide character is a reddit looking business man.

Feed Mii

Another concept I really like. You essentially grab ingredients and try to cook the best meals possible for your passers who are going out on quests. Do good and you get good reviews from their success. Sadly also really short gameplay overall. While you're encouraged to try cooking more before ending a session, the gameplay can feel a little to quickly done. Your guide character is a cozy male cook in a bandana.

Ninja launcher

Another extremely quick gameplay session one. You're trying to match up passers to be in your shooting path as they'll give you equipment to fight an enemy but you have a time limit to try and get the most ideal shot. Once you fight the target the session is over. Your guide character is a Yamato nadeshiko ninja.

Mii Trek

This one reaks of edutainment in the best way. Each passed adds to the amount of traveling you can do as you lead an expedition for treasure and find real life animals along the way. It's not fully my cup of tea but I like the journey you get to take being a longer and more complicated game session than the previous ones. Your guide character is a toucan straight out of the 90s era gif graphics.

Mii Force

Another longer game. You're in a classic side scrolling shooter with each passed equating to being a weapon with variation based on shirt color. Its sometimes even a little challenging for me. At points I even feel a bit frustrated because enemy shots aren't always clear on the screen noise but that also means I'll have more reason to come back to it as I progress through it. Your guide character is a robot captain.

Flower Town

One of my favorites and one I was really excited to finally get to play. You raise and breed flowers to create a plethora of breeds. I like anything that involves raising so this one spoke to me a lot. That being said it goes pretty slow hahahah. Your guide character is this calming older dude with glasses.

Warriors Way

I remember my best friend talking good of this one and I do enjoy it. Your troops are your total street passes and then most passer's numbers will also be added to yours which you then use to conquer other nations. Because I started so late I started off with a sizable 900+ and then a few thousand from others joining me. However I did run into a monster army I would of had to of challenged but I was too overwhelmed by the size. The battles are rock paper scissors but with the right number and it letting you know the win outcomes, it can be doable without ever losing. Your guide character is a butler.

Monster Manor

You're stuck in a mansion and collect essentially Tetris pieces that turn into halls to help you discover the stairs to help guide you up to freedom. You also occasionally fight ghosts. I don't know how to put it has more meat of a game but it doesn't hold my attention as much. Your guide character is a tiny girl who you employ (I promise I don't mean it in that way but she's a loli type)

Ultimate Angler

You fish various species with bait you receive from your street passes. It’s even local to your area based on how you registered yourself. To catch certain fish you need the right bait which is based on the color of your street passer’s shirts. When I had a lot of street passes pulled up it was pretty fun but it’s not as great when you struggle to get the right bait. I also wish you could change areas and save bait for new locations but sadly you have to use it all at once. When you get back you can stick the stuff you caught in an aquarium and sometimes get new rods which I haven’t explored much yet. You guide character is a bikini clad girl who runs the desk.

Battleground Z

The final of them is a zombie brawler where passers give you weapons or fight with you. I'm not a big fan of beat em ups so I'm a little sad I'm not a huge fan of this one. Sad because you're guide character is a blonde, Bayonetta looking onee-san.

[tomyo]

Summer Backlog Game Plans:

Harvest Moon A New Beginning

Story of Seasons Trio of Towns

Harvest Moon Animal Parade

Zelda Minish Cap

Harvest Moon GBC 3

Nintendoland

Pokemon Channel

Waku Waku Sweets

Wrap Ups:

HM My Little Shop

Wild World

Kinectimals

Eye Play

Just Dance 4

Sword of Hope

Quick Plays:

Love Hero

Sky Peace

Fairune

Fairune 2

Legend of the Dark Witch

Legend of the Dark Witch 2

Potentials??:

Space Channel 5

Sonic Adventure

Sonic Free Riders

Sonic 06

Sonic Rush

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon My Little Shop

So I've been trying to burn through my Harvest Moon collection and I figured it was time to mess around with My Little Shop.

Sadly for me, it's daily events so I'm gonna have to do long term run through of the game. That being said, it's pretty cute already. A lot of the aesthetic is peak Harvest Moon style. The cut out mixed with 3D gives that nostalgic feel everyone has been trying to do with like, PS1 graphics. I love my happy little kid character too.

So far it lets me do Juice and Egg Decorating. I could probably play more in just one sitting and unlock everything but it's pretty repetitive very fast, especially when I'm not good at the egg mini games. When I bought it for my system I also bought the strawberry cow upgrade so presumably I will also be able to play dlc games soon too.

Sadly there's not really any picture taking features with this one nor can you get it anymore so I'm sorry for the small group of people in this game that I will not be helping towards. I can say it is totally worth pirating but you're basically getting a cooking mama type minigame with very light HM/SoS elements on top.

[tomyo]

Hometown Story

The expectations of this game can be summarized as C grade ds game to awkward mobile game era game to one of those games that they really mean it when it takes time to warm into.

Given my years with Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, I was genuinely expecting a much more in depth experience but came to an admittedly mid experience. When you find out it was also released on iphone with minimal downgrade, it suddenly makes it clear why I was able to buy a sealed copy for $4 . It isn't bad, it's a different focus and while admittedly too bare bones at the start, once I found a good gamefaqs guide for event triggers I found my rhythm. You really don't have to do much in the game, walk around, pick up everything you find, maybe buy some stuff from the village but definitely come to buy from the 2pm merchant, and stop in your shop to check a bunch of people out every so often.

Things I wish I better knew starting out:

Your tables are not limited, the game has you start out by just dropping one down but you can in fact immediately put more down. My dumb ass went in game weeks with just one item for sale awkwardly waiting around for someone to want it thinking I had to desperately wait for the merchant to have more.

The day doesn't start till you open your shop so if you want to reorganize a little first, do it at 6am.

Sometimes events are triggered by putting up key items to be sold on shelves. I didn't want a rando to buy it but the won't. However, also put it into unreachable corners since you won't need to restock those shelves often. I would definitely cross check guide info on what items go to what event if you dgaf about spoilers like me because sometimes you'll get them for characters you haven't even met yet which takes up valuable space. Then there's ones like the masterpiece which might require in game months of sitting around for their event to trigger.

Fill your store with fruits and sewing kits initially as some characters require that for unlock.

ALWAYS. BUY. WOOD. I was so used to wood being such an easy resource but this game has made it hell for me to wait to get 5 pieces. It can only be bought from the merchant and while he stocked it often at the start, suddenly he never had it. I'm making so much money but I'm stuck on level two because of not having wood.

Thus far I've gone a 12 hour playthrough probably with some gratuitous pausing to read several half finished sources to know that I'm supposed to do. I'm the type of person who like to tailor a guide for my HM style games so my ADHD doesn't overwhelm me trying to keep up with all the tasks so having a lot of very barren wikis and gamefaqs is stressful to say the least. It's been more of a game of patchwork this time. Speaking of said ADHD, the point was I'd say I've made it about half way through the story. I'm at a very awkward point where I feel like I've finished some quest lines while still not having met some pivotal characters to the story. So far I think I'm missing 7 story based characters. It is pretty annoying that the cutscene activation is fickle, I'll follow everything but sometimes it just won't activate that day. I'm barely one month through and I'd even say it's possible to see that whole game in just that one month, maybe two at most but its dependent on things you can't control. Multiple items sit on my shelf waiting to introduce a character to me for weeks in game while I had two item based cutscenes for a character back to back. I mean like literally the moment I placed the next item down after having watched the first. The imbalance in that can only make me think I might end up getting stuck in a slow down after this point.

I personally would like to see the story through if I can. I've been mostly playing this while sick at this point so I've had the time to rip through it.

I think the most unexpected thing about it is how the scenes kind of actually stick with me. As a long time fan of the series, I feel like I've always had a surface level relationship with villagers in farm games. I would say older ones give relatable struggles but don't get too deep into them, maybe even the closest being A Wonderful Life but that's a series I consumed as a kid when a lot of things went over my head and admittedly a lot of my backlog is just catching up on a series that admittedly, looks to have gotten extremely fluffier as it went on. Olive Town has not been that deep. I think one of the bachelors has a somewhat deep plot but since I'm not romancing him, I'm just off with my horsegirl girlfriend having cute dates and befriending the locals when I'm not drowning in makers. And then on the other hand theres Stardew Valley which for some reason only hit me in the last year how like, all the townspeople are just as terrible as the villians.

Maybe that's a stretch but it slapped me in the face when I realized the reason why I spent so much time on my farm was because a lot of them had pretty unlikable traits. So in all the places to feel emotionally invested, I did not expect the half baked spinoff to be it. Yet something about how the mayor and his wife are actually kinda cute with each other or how the mayor's wife coyly has an unaging friend wanting to bring her puddings, or the kinda real moments where the fisherman and the girl from the sea are clearly in an intimate moment and I'm let to realize this isn't even a rival moment like it would've been in some other game. This is it, you are irrelevant to the relationships these characters have.

I think maybe there was some really good power to that. The fact that it seems intentionally most of the romancible npcs are the last characters to arrive in town (two still have not moved in for me) but that you aren't in control of the relationship and can't even date till after the main storyline I think is actually a function that would benefit it's parent series. Imagine a Bokumono where you spent the majority of the time focusing on your farm, building the relationship you have with the town, and saving the day (the town, the harvest goddess, the farm etc) and then after all that some of the friends you met turned out to be people who might like you as more than that. I get why the formula is what it is, this series started in the 90s as a simple 'work hard and raise a family' type of life sim narrative and while it's been modernized that's still at its core but when we talk about franchise shake ups, I could see this being a really good one. I think to some extent people look at the marriage candidates as a check list goal rather than characters to bond with and sometimes that dating check mark even made me not really associate with other villagers outside of benefit. I can't say I'm still not doing that to some extent but the fact the character cutscenes are the progression checks has some satisfying merit to them. I can't ignore the village anymore and it's made me appreciate the characters beyond their benefit to my part in the story. How do I put this, I like the idea of being with Reina in PoOT because I like the idea of her with me and it also feels wrong that she's the only person in the whole town who lives in a basement and I could change that. I only ever saw Rick as an absolute dick as a kid because well he was but also out of some competition to win over Karen and I could never understand why she would go for him. In games like Animal Parade, I'm debating my spouse based off of what kids they'd have moreso in the way I'd miss out on content rather than think about how those characters work with each other or why they'd like each other at all. But hell, again I see this fucking probs a mermaid and fisherman and the way he's bothered she likes being with him and its like okay wow fuck, I'm feeling things for these baby faced sprites.

So like yeah, this was low key working up to talking about the big spoilery plot twist that they kill the local boy. He's literally every generic child boy character to exist in one of these games. He's excitable and adventurous and like, I acually hate kids y'know? But fuck if they didn't masterfully try to fuck with your heart to grow attached to him. Of course they use him for a bunch of like, early level questlines. He's basically a tutorial kid but then the town starts to expand and he gets some fellow snot nosed kids in town, a girl he likes and a 'in the shadow of my manly dad' best friend and y'know conveniently he's always there in storylines. His mother has a few about her restaurant and he's there fucking up making a sign because he's a hyper and excitable 9 year old or something. His sister is interested in medicines so one of those episodes revolves around him. Pretty much everything related to his Peter being sidekick to his grizzled shonen warrior dad has him chilling in the background as well or if there's a crowd around some newcomer of course he's apart of it. I applaud how well they probably actually fucked with the few who played this who then had to deal with a dead kid. Digs up a whole bunch reading The Bridge to Terabithia as a teen.

Like I said, I'd love to make it to that point if the spread of content last well. I don't think I'll play much after this weekend of the game if I don't but I'd say in the end $4 is worth the experience I got.

At first the town looks garishly barren. I still can't fully say it looks good either. A lot of areas start to get a couple of houses in it as it goes on and it really changes a lot though I feel the Town Square needed some much more in it. The map is confusing as hell and the fixed angles are nauseating at first but I've mostly worked out a rhythm. It was hard to stick through it this far if I'm honest but I think it was worth it.

[tomyo]

Sonic Adventure

For funsies and the aesthetic, I streamed this on tiktok. I didn’t really even expect an audience yet somehow I’m now 3 dollars richer from it.

I feel like I’ve developed a lot off up and down emotions for it due to how I played it, my emotions mixed with how people we reacting to the stream. But for once, I feel like I can say I actually played through the whole thing unlike a lot of these that have open ended stop points.

The stories ranked:

1. Knuckles; Controls the best and I liked the treasure hunt. I’m not a big Knuckles person personally but I find his story overall fun and feel like I’m starting to get his character better than I used to as a kid.

2. Big; Yes, for realsies. This is a moment were the stream did effect my emotions in a negative light because playing blind kept getting me stuck and the people watching frustrated. Despite that the fishing works for me like a lot. I don’t get why people get stuck with this when it’s just really; 1. Find froggy, 2. Cast and tease your hook a little, 3. Keep doing so until you get a hit and then take your time on the reel. Maybe the only extra being making sure nothing is snaggling on the catch. If there is anything that sucks about Big’s gameplay then I would point more towards the overworld moment and the lack of fishing rod support. I think a lot of people tend to lack patience with fishing mini games which tends to effect the feeling around them but often it’s also how they’re paired with fast games. Pretty much every time I caught Froggy within 3 minutes because I was mentally prepped to play Big.

3. Amy; I actually hate her gameplay concept but I love Amy so that is a lot of bonus points.

4. Gamma; I feel pretty neutral on the set up but Gamma’s story is heartbreaking and I love his little goofy robot noises and his bomb ass theme.

5. Tails; I’m also not a huge Tails fan but Speed Highway put me in a trance.

6. Sonic: Yes, the title character is at the bottom. Sonic is tough to move and naturally has the longest and hardest gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, I love him but I associate his story with frustration.

Sonic Adventure doesn’t really need my praise because so many other people already do it better. I think it could handle better, I wish I couldn’t smack chao or could talk to people from the front but overall it’s as my stream kept saying “a vibe”. I enjoyed my week with it and now need to find out if I could pull off Space Channel 5.

[tomyo]

Sonic and The Black Knight

There is something depressingly stressful that I've managed to run through about half of my Sonic games while sort of making it through one of my HM games for this challenge I've set myself on. Maybe that's for the best considering any given Sonic game I could want usually doesn't cost more than $15 while most Harvest Moon games can hit the 40s (we're talking DS era ones). By their nature, they are two widely different gameplay styles but it really hits that the two Wii games I'm going through (Black Knight and Animal Parade) have a average play time difference of 3 1/2 hours to 60 hours.

Yes, a whole home console game is THAT short. I am not saying that isn't a common occurrence for Sonic games to be quick and finish able very fast but having gotten through over half the story in less than two hours, I'm surprised how light it is.

Sonic is summoned, he's given the lore through two stages, separates from Merlina to go to the black smith for another 4 levels, spends about 8 with Nimue alongside her secret second test, and by then it's revealed that he needs to collect all 3 swords from his opponents of Arthur's court (two of which you already got). I'm already down to the last ~3 of the story in which (spoilers for a 15 year old game) I fight Gawain, fight Arthur, and face Merlina who I guess just isn't here?¿? I think that's the most surprising given how prominent she felt. Really Caliburn is your guide character in this game and he really does trigger the Soul Eater comparison using Fool a little too frequently.

I'm still happy to have gotten the game for the sake of my little shipper heart. At the same time, I've been streaming Sonic Adventure daily for the sake of aesthetics and have had to struggle explaining my feelings on Amy's character and her relationship to Sonic. Yapping into the aether of my surprisingly active chat that I stand by Sonic and Amy are officially unofficial is HARD to do without hitting twenty other hot takes. Black Knight takes place at peak for the mini arc of their relationship; Sonic accepts a date with Amy in Unleashed and this games interrupts said date alongside the dubious canon of Dark Brotherhood and Amy's fake boyfriend arc. He even had bought food for the two of them in the opening cinematic only for all of that to be undone by Generations :').

Gameplay wise, I don't have much to say. It's one of the most waggle heavy games. My attempts to properly fight bosses was met with finding out aggressive waggle was the actual goal. The idea of the game play is fun but I'm less certain with the actual execution. But what I think best sells this game is the art; more beautiful and atmospheric cgs, a mixture of Gaelic knots in a frutegar style, cutscenes based on woodblocks, and gorgeous music for that dumb part of me still thinking it's special to say I'm Irish. The gallery is full of great bits to unlock especially since there are 3 fanart videos of submitted art. I feel a lot of things since this was around my entry point into the online fandom; shit I missed submitting stuff, of course the JP artists are higher quality drawings, and I think I recognize some of the USA art.

Sonic and the Black Knight is what I would call solid. It's compact but what's there is good. Because of this backlog adventure/sonic catch up challenge, I'm grateful for that. I only have so much time for games and short isn't always bad.

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon Animal Parade Part 2

Hi there previous reader, welcome back. It’s been…two days?

As expected from these types of games, I pretty much went from nothing to a lot real fast and yet still not having enough. Since the first post I now have both the yellow and blue bell with just one item for the Green Bell needed. And that is in fact why I am putting it down for now. Cornmeal. In order to get cornmeal, you need corn, and in order to get corn you need to buy double priced seeds from Taylor. Which I did and promptly lost all 5 (1000g) slots of to a typhoon. This is a small hurdle but I have been pretty on top of this game for the last 60ish hours and need to give myself a temporary break for things like art, friends, and a completely different Harvest moon game (Save the homeland) who ironically I also had put aside for hitting a frustration point.

Either way, now that I’ve reached the goal of most of the main story (the bell aspect which should be done by the end of Summer) my goals are towards my house and barn upgrades (supplies are covered buy only 20k of money rn). Seeing as I’m also getting closer to being able to romance the wizard, I’m hoping by next update I will be near a “finish point” (ignoring that whole having kids part that takes about a season to really see through). I love this game enough to actually want to play it long term rather than one and done it so part of the reason I want to partially hold off on full completion is to enjoy it more down the road while still calling it properly “played” for my completion list.

[tomyo]

Harvest Moon Animal Parade Part 1

Of all the Harvest Moon games, the Wii series stands with the highest regards. Possibly the only one where it could get me conflicted on a husband for being too many options. Toby, Chase, Julius, but for this run, The Wizard is our pic.

I am only just doing my first playthrough of this game 16 years after its release but I can say it’s something I wanted for a long time. I think a part of me is sad that my childhood self missed out despite all the other ones I did grab because my patience for game chugging isn’t what it used to be. The background lags, the loading is frequent, and only once in a while will the graphics clear up and run like they are supposed to. Half of me has been wondering if I should try to set it up so that I’m playing on my Wii U instead where I could potentially have faster running cpu and play via my Wii U pad. Honestly I’m questioning as I type this why I haven’t been doing this for most of my Wii games to play (albeit I think it’s a small list rn, mostly Sonic and the Black knight, Tree of Traquility, and Wii music with the 64 Zelda games, Cooking Mama, and Pokémon Battle Revolution benched).

Tangent aside; What are my goals in game?

Finish the Main Story

Full house upgrade with full kitchen and furnishing

Marry the Wizard and have his kid(s) (Roughly two years)

Upgraded Barn and Coop allowing for one of each animal(Do horse raising for white horse)

Collect all the desired clothing.

Big emphasis on the first three at least.

So where am I now? Just past the Red Bell and currently in between the yellow and blue bell arcs. For the blue bell, I have access to everything but the egg which I should have in 5 ish days and the yellow bell requires access to the bell tower which just requires the lettuce I’m growing (reminder: you still need to grow more).

As I mentioned in an earlier post , I’m currently challenging myself to play through most of my Harvest Moon games that I owned but haven’t played….again. Right now I’m jumping between this and Save the homeland with possibly the original and AWL Special Editon in the rotation soon. If I could somehow come out with 3 or 4 finished playthroughs by the end of January, I’d be pretty psyched. After all, I made it a goal that I can’t buy hero of leaf valley until I make it through 10 games and while the above makes that sound easy, the big ones in the way are always the extremely complicated 3DS titles. Part of the problem as well is my 3ds for Trio of Towns has a spicy battery but finding the right one has been a nightmare. It’s also the one that houses my copy of HM3. Thankfully

Overall though, I’ve found Animal Parade unsurprisingly fun and great. I find the story progression somewhat frustrating as a lot is locked behind the red bell (gold ore is easiest?? Found on levels 4-6 btw). Mine floors, characters, tool upgrades, health recovery, and possibly more is all inaccessible until you find one piece of hard to find gold ore. Now though, the concept of the next three bells feels easy to reach albeit just a waiting game. In the time for the first task, I collected tons of stone, enough to build my first house and upgrade a farm building however, wood is a different story. My likely workflow the next few in game weeks will be trying to raise animals and crops to upgrade the stores, befriend enough people for the purple bell, and chop trees. So many trees.

Like a lot of people, I’ve found it really sad that this got stuck on the Wii, its not to say its bad but a straight port to the switch or its successor would likely be a huge hit. Would love it to either come with a sprite plush or or ostrich or a silkworm one but more than likely it would be a horse since they seem to be sticking to four footed animals. The game is gorgeous as is, I love the cutscenes and overall it’s a great cute factor to it. The killer really does stay that the Wii or at least MY Wii is slow as shit. I’ve had the poor thing since 2007. If I somehow get out of Harvest moon hell, I would love to visit a new series of games for it; Cooking Mama or the Olympic titles. But I think the biggest struggle with specifically gen 7 gaming is how hard the start up is. Gen 6 was turn on and go, gen 9 is 5 second start up but both my Wii and 360 chug to start and require a handful before I’m loading the game up. It’s embarrassing to say how much that stops me from starting then combined with the guide load up and the loss of flow state when you stop an HM game.

Speaking of the game returnage, Animal Parade actually fares better. The progression system is complicated enough to grab you back in but not so complicated its intimiadating. I’m certain if I dropped it for a few months, I could figure out again what I needed to do which if not, it really does just come down to basic work and friendship followed by some SELECT items. The Ds and 3ds games specifically scared me away because of excessive mechanics. While I hoped to return to ANB soon as well, remembering my routine scares me especially since it was so time centric. At this point my wife is in town but ugh, the rest worries me to no end.

What was this about again?

[tomyo]

Sonic Riders

This was another game I recently employed the 'if I have my friends play it in front of me then it counts' rule. Tonio and D were extremely excited to get their hands on this one and gasp, I even played some.

Maybe the funniest thing about this game is I had it since 2008 and yet never touched it. Apparently also bought it for $5.

It's hard not to make Snapcube jokes while watching it.

Anyways I made everything above ~a year ago and then apparently forgot everything about the play through which I think says enough. It's a fun game if you are good at it but I am not and I struggled a shit ton. Boy howdy, can't wait to pull out free riders!