April 7 to April 14
Time off for monkeys! Ape Escape 2 called, I answered. Farming is nice but sometimes you've got to catch a few hundred monkeys to keep the action gamer happy.

Picking it up a week later was surprisingly easy. A quick once-over of the inventory and a tour of the fields and I was back in the running with minimal fuss.

The pace is picking up a bit now that year two is in full swing. I've got several new toys for the kid from wandering trader Van, my chickens are starting to lay gold eggs regularly, I'm getting the crop thing down to a science, and I've even gotten a few new tools. That last bit is particularly interesting, because you get a cut scene from the villagers as you visit them where they give you the tools as gifts. So far I've gotten two new sickles, though the descriptions are more mysterious than explanatory, a new watering can that's almost totally useless, and a new fishing pole. The watering can holds a whopping one square's worth of water, although the suspicious gamer in me wonders if it can be upgraded somehow. Everyone who's had any experience gaming knows that if something's almost totally worthless you have to use it as often as possible so that it can somehow become the most powerful item in the game.

Wandering up to the dig site on the northeast side of town, I found out that there's now twice the area to dig in. Making a mental note that it might be worth giving some time to explore this new area, I finished up crops/livestock early one day and just went to work to find out what's new. It turns out there are not only new artifacts you can keep, but finding things the archeologist Carter might want is a bit easier, too. Basically, the dig area is divided up into squares and each square has a graphic for untouched and broken ground. The odds of finding something worth having seem much higher in the untouched squares than they are in the squares you've dug in already, so having twice the area means twice the goodies, both in variety of things found and number you get to keep and either sell or give away. It looks like I'll have to free up a bit more time to excavate now and then.

One of my big complaints with this Harvest Moon is the number of mysteries in the game. What does this do, how does this work, what's needed here, and other questions like that are up to the player to discover answers to, and as much as I like a good mystery it can be a bit much at times. The latest mystery has to do with awakening the Harvest Goddess. In the north side of town on the other side of the stream from the dig, there's a pond or possibly a spring. Beside it is a tree that the Harvest Sprites live in, and they're one of the game's big mysteries. You can talk to them, but for the life of me I can't seem to manage to find anything they want. They say they eat the herbs and mushrooms lying around town, and respond well when you show the herbs to them, but they won't take them at all. They will gripe about being hungry but they won't take the herbs. Now to put another mystery into place I got a cut scene where they explain that the Harvest Goddess is deeply asleep but can probably be awakened by "wonderful". What's wonderful? No idea. Toss it on the heap of unanswered questions out back, but be careful, that pile is overloaded and vicious.

Another mystery is how to raise the quality of my vegetables. I tried fertilizing the ground but that didn't work, so at the moment I'm just going to grow what I can, sell some, toss half into the seed maker, and put a few into the fridge for cooking. It doesn't seem that Nami is using anything in there after all, so I guess the refrigerator is just there for convenience's sake.

Speaking of cooking, why doesn't the game have a cookbook? The GBA version has the option of letting you remake any discovered recipes; why does the GameCube version require me to physically write down anything I want to cook more than once? I wouldn't really care that much, I just scarf down the odd herb whenever I get hungry, but now one of the villagers is asking me to bring him food. Okay, it's a bit strange, but whatever. I'm assuming something interesting will happen if I do, so I'm good with it. Too bad I have no idea what it was I did before. (Sigh.)

Finally, the money issue is beginning to clear up. I'm getting at least one 300g gold egg a day, and sometimes two. Needless to say, it'll be a while before I see that 60,000g milking room, but I can actually start buying more livestock now. My first rooster came in and the next day I had a fertilized egg available. It's nice to see my chickens getting along, and the egg is now sitting in the incubator. Next up, a new cow. Regular or fancy, though? It's a tough decision, but I'm guessing that seeing as the fancy cows are pretty pricey, impatience will win out and I'll get something more normal.

Continue to: Epilogue | Return to: Days 1 and 2