Not that anyone cares, but I'm playing A New Beginning...

[lovelylink]

First off, these boards are really really dead! The only active thread appears to be one similar to the one I'm making, except with Rune Factory. I've been wanting to do a thread like this for a while, and when I got A New Beginning, today, I really wanted to share all of my experiences!

As the game starts out I'm immediately struck by the different art styles of this game. Everyone's a bit cartoony - as is the traditional HM approach - but they're also more tall, and less of stubby children. It took a few minutes to get used to this change, but I'm good, now.

I really love the new option to customize your character's appearance to suit you - it not only helps me relate to my character, but I'm sure it's a welcome change to those who aren't white with brown hair.

After the customization is the intro. I'm not going to go into huge depth here, and I'll try to save you from spoilers, but the intro is really tedious. Dunhill likes to explain things and keeps trying to teach me how to walk and stuff. Like, seriously dude, I've been playing HM for the past 10 years, I'm pretty sure I know how to walk. After he finally gives me control of the game, there's not much to do except go on a quick walk, and go to bed. I wake up to... yet another tutorial from Dunhill. Great. Once he's finally shut up, I'm able to get to my crops.

I must say, Nintendo seems to be doing a lot, lately, to make sure their games are accessible to everyone. Which is great, and all, but I'd really like it if I could skip the bs tutorials and just play the frickin game.

...So I've been playing for a while, and I've finally gotten a cow. I've also gotten quite a bit of money, and I'm tending to a lot of crops. Neil - the animal vendor - moved to town and he sets up his shop every day in the town square... the thing is he makes an announcement everyday saying that his shop is open - much like Van in AWL did, except Neil takes a lot of time to announce it, and I end up just getting annoyed.

On the subject of AWL, they've brought back the select sounds that were in that game when you'd open menus and choose things, and stuff. It's a bit weird, but nostalgic, and I like it. Those appear to be the only two differences in the game.

Anyway, I'm gonna go back to watering my crops... Until next time.

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

Grrrr are you trying to bury my RF TIdes of Destiny thread!!!!

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

double penetration

 

[lovelylink]

aha! no, I'm certainly not trying to bury your thread! Besides, I'd have to make like 50 threads to even come close to burying yours, with the way the HM boards are right now.
I've been enjoying your thread, though lol
I just needed to vent my frustration at ANB. It's great but there's so much tutorial and it irks me to no end.

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

Have you started upgrading plants yet? Do you have to mess with the dirt?? I hate that.

It sucks but crops are pretty meaningless in RF games. There are much better, easier ways to make money. Atleast in the first game you had to grow crops so they would generate energy that you need to explore deeper into dungeons.

I forget if it was RF 1 or 2 but I was making bad ass strawberries and pine apples lol. RF3 has a nice feature.. you put stuff on your plants to level it up, then if you harvest the plant for its seeds and sell them the general store in town will sell you bags of seed at that level. Means you dont have to be hyper vigilant about keeping your entire fields alive, you dont need the plants in order to grow the next generation. If you lose a bunch in a tornado it doesnt really hurt, it just costs you time.

Last HM game I have played was Friends of Mineral town. Why mess with animals and crops when you can also fish, mine, craft weapons/armor/accessories/medicine, go dungeon crawling. I would like to get a HM game that has 3d polygon plants though that has to be awesome.
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Your probably past all the tutorials and stuff now but wasnt there a button you can press to make things go faster? If you hold it down it usually skips right through the text super fast. They should just make another character who you can talk to if you want to see tutorials. Some old fart who used to be a farmer lol. The tutorial would be like "Hey welcome to your new home, if you got any questions about how the hell to run a farm go talk to John".

 

[lovelylink]

Have you started upgrading plants yet? Do you have to mess with the dirt?? I hate that.

It sucks but crops are pretty meaningless in RF games. There are much better, easier ways to make money. Atleast in the first game you had to grow crops so they would generate energy that you need to explore deeper into dungeons.

I forget if it was RF 1 or 2 but I was making bad ass strawberries and pine apples lol. RF3 has a nice feature.. you put stuff on your plants to level it up, then if you harvest the plant for its seeds and sell them the general store in town will sell you bags of seed at that level. Means you dont have to be hyper vigilant about keeping your entire fields alive, you dont need the plants in order to grow the next generation. If you lose a bunch in a tornado it doesnt really hurt, it just costs you time.

Last HM game I have played was Friends of Mineral town. Why mess with animals and crops when you can also fish, mine, craft weapons/armor/accessories/medicine, go dungeon crawling. I would like to get a HM game that has 3d polygon plants though that has to be awesome.
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Your probably past all the tutorials and stuff now but wasnt there a button you can press to make things go faster? If you hold it down it usually skips right through the text super fast. They should just make another character who you can talk to if you want to see tutorials. Some old fart who used to be a farmer lol. The tutorial would be like "Hey welcome to your new home, if you got any questions about how the hell to run a farm go talk to John".

Haha no not yet. I'm mostly just planting a shit ton of turnips, and milking my cow. But I just built a coop, so there's that.

Really? That's interesting, and really nice. I do love the RF series, I just prefer console games usually. Rune Factory has always felt like a happy medium between my two favorites: Harvest Moon and Zelda, so I've always enjoyed it.
FoMT was alright, but the games seem to get better as time goes on, for me.

Yeah, I'm mostly passed the tutorials, and you can make the text go faster but they say so frickin much that it doesn't help that much. And it is a different character that's teaching it all to you, but he forces the tutorials on you. ugh

 

[lovelylink]

Part 2:

Right, so here we go with part two... I brought the game when I went to the gym this morning, and I played it while on the bike thing. I also brought it along to the movie theater and played it during that bs "First Look". Anyway, now I'm home again and continuing to play...

I'm finally able to purchase and use blueprints, so I've added a few things to the village and my farm. I'm also wooing Neil - even though I'm looking forward to the other bachelors - and I experienced my first heart event with him. It was pretty cute, but also a bit unexciting.

Tomorrow's the crop festival, or something, so I've been growing a bunch of turnips, and I'll be entering my highest rated turnip of... ready for it? ... 1 star. But still, it's better than a half of a star.

The game's music is rather unexciting the majority of the time, and all ends up getting really repetitive. I would've liked it if they'd brought back AWL's farm music as well as it's little button sounds. Of course, when it's raining there's absolutely no music, only rain. The rain isn't even exciting; there's no lighting or thunder. It's all just rain.

Despite having had Neil's first heart event, I have no hearts with him, still. And he's still as rude as ever. Right now he's just said to me "Hmm? You're awfully talkative, aren't you. But I'm not in the mood to talk." while his eyebrows furrowed annoyedly. Whatever, hopefully the other bachelors will be more kind. But for now Neil's the best I can get.

On a side note, the map is really great. It shows me where I am and where all of the townspeople are. The only thing is: my character's icon is very obviously a boy. It's obviously a default icon so that they didn't have to make hundreds of options depending on what gender, hair color, and eye color you choose, but it's still annoying that it doesn't have her pink hair and blue eyes. Oh well.

So as a new day dawns, it's now the crop festival or something, and I've got time to kill. Unfortunately, Neil eats breakfast until 8, and he won't accept gifts while he's eating, so I've got to wait before I can give him his daily gift... fodder. I love it when bachelors are easy. Anyway, now all there is to do... is wait. I'm not even sure where the festival is, to be honest. I guess it'll be in the town square - that's where I'd hold a festival if I were in charge. But I've now been sitting here for 5 minutes just waiting. It seems like there's a lot of waiting in Harvest Moon. If you finish your chores and you've got a specific event to attend that doesn't happen for a while, you don't just magically find something to do... You just wait. But I don't see how this can be fixed, so whatever. I'll deal with it, I guess.

Update: Alright so while I waited on the festival I scrolled through my twitter timeline and got a bit to absorbed trying to figure out why Lottie is a snotty bitch. So turns out I was wrong about the festival location and I'm probably late to the festival! Damn, okay so I'm just gonna reload my save... I'll catch you all, later. Bye!

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

lol. Geez if you can get let down by digital boyfriends how hard are you on real ones ? "our first date was unexciting". (considering murdering him his sleep mwahahaha???)

What do you mean Niel is the only bachelor you can get?? You think he is rude(or a jerk?) but your still trying to get with him?

I have a really hard time picking who to date in these games. Well in RF games there is always a girl who finds you and gives you a place to stay. I never pick that one. Seems like a forced option even though they are super nice and caring. Then you got tomboys, workaholics, and domestic personalities.

Sounds like instead of crop levels the quality is shown by stars? I think maybe it was HM FoMT that you had to buy a medicine or whatever to make your cow preggers. I think you had to do it to make the cow produce more milk? Im still scarred from that, had to stick that medicine into the cow.....with no glove... cant imagine what that would be like in 3D

 

[lovelylink]

lol. Geez if you can get let down by digital boyfriends how hard are you on real ones ? "our first date was unexciting". (considering murdering him his sleep mwahahaha???)

What do you mean Niel is the only bachelor you can get?? You think he is rude(or a jerk?) but your still trying to get with him?

I have a really hard time picking who to date in these games. Well in RF games there is always a girl who finds you and gives you a place to stay. I never pick that one. Seems like a forced option even though they are super nice and caring. Then you got tomboys, workaholics, and domestic personalities.

Sounds like instead of crop levels the quality is shown by stars? I think maybe it was HM FoMT that you had to buy a medicine or whatever to make your cow preggers. I think you had to do it to make the cow produce more milk? Im still scarred from that, had to stick that medicine into the cow.....with no glove... cant imagine what that would be like in 3D

lolol well, for starters I've never had a real one, so maybe I'm just too hard on the digital ones or something. lol But it was unexciting; he got yelled at by a customer and then ran out of his house to leave me alone.

Neil's the only bachelor currently living in my town. So, rather than just waiting on the others, I decided to woo him as well. He's not bad looking, at least. He's just really really unsociable and therefore is really blunt cause he doesn't know me. It's annoying, but endearing.

Yeah, my favorite bachelor/ette always ends up being the hardest to woo, so I end up settling for someone else. Yeah, Mist is in RF:F and RF1 and she's alright, and cute enough, but the other girls are way more exciting. Plus Mist has a weird obsession with Turnips...

Yeah, I think you're right. Hmm I don't remember FoMT well enough to remember that - I didn't play it consistently. But I think I vaguely remember that... But yeah that's hella weird. Luckily this one seems to produce milk consistently.

 

[lovelylink]

Part 3:

Well, I didn't win the festival, I took second place. But guess what ! I got a purple heart with Neil, so that's really exciting

So now it's summer, and restoration plans are a go! I'm going to try to get through Restoration Plan #1 as fast as possible, because then I'll be able to build the salon so Allen can come to town. Woo! Anyway, I've got to go pick up the pizza for dinner, so I'll be back later to finish this...

Aand I'm back. Alright, so let's see what I can accomplish with the rest of my evening. I went into the general store in search of seeds, but I guess she's not open on Wednesdays. I guess I should've checked that. Oh well. Now to buy blueprints!

After buying the blueprints I needed, I attempted to also buy the materials, but I don't have enough money to spend on buying 30 pieces of iron from Rebecca, so I guess I'm just gonna wait on that one till later...

Right, so while I waited for Hana's General store to open, I did some foraging. I'm getting close on all of the other requirements, it's just that iron that's gonna be a problem. I guess I should grow some crops, in the mean time. Crop-wise, I'm going to plant some tomatoes, sunflowers, red roses, and onions. Trying to decide if getting an extra area of land to sow seeds in is worth it for wheat.... probably not right now, at least. Seeds in hand, I'm headed home to plant it all, with only a small stop at Neil's shop on the way.

I got all the way to the square where he's usually set up shop, when I realized that it's raining, and therefore he's not working. Oh well. I walked back to his house to discover that he's eating. So now I've just got to wait until he finishes his food. Seriously, who takes 2 hours to eat?? Good grief, Neil.
I ended up constructing a Supply Shed instead of what I was supposed to be building... This way I won't be carrying these 300+ pieces of lumber with me all the time.
On a complete side note, you know what I really miss? I miss FoMT's TV. In all of the other HM games there have been unexciting programs, but in FoMT (and Innocent Life, I think) had interesting stories that had new episodes each week, and if you missed one you'd be way behind! I would literally just sleep, wake up, watch TV, sleep, repeat for days on end because of that. But now all we've got is stuff like "Happy Farming" or something idk
While I was talking, my chick hatched and Neil came to wake me up, Despite his now purple heart, and his slightly nicer demeanor, he's not any nicer at waking me up. I got frustrated with thinking of a good chick name and ended up naming it 'dumb'. I'm now regretting this decision, but eh, what're you gonna do? After Neil left, I walked back into my coop to attend to the new member of Hero Farm to discover that my chicken, Donald, ate all of the food and now dumb has nothing to eat. That's really great since Neil's shop won't be open for 2 days. I guess my chickens will be starving.
Well, I'm gonna post this and give the game my undevided attention. I don't expect to update again tonight, but since I'm pretty sure only one person is actually reading this, I'm not too concerned. Anyway, bye for now!

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

Gee thanx.

Names for chickens...... KFC, Finger Licking, Hawk Bait, Snake Bait, Raccoon Bait, Voodoo, Duster(feather duster). I just name my crap Chicken 1 Chicken 2 or Egg1, Egg2. They dont need names like Bessy and Gertrude. Now in RF where I can actually take my monsters into battle, those guys get names hehe.

You know Niel is anti-social and probably very lonely and your going to drop him like a rock as soon as Allen shows up?? lol. "I thought she loved me..." BLAM.

When you start collecting animals you have to start busting ass on growing grass/feed. You have to grow enough for everything to survive the first winter.

I think if you let chickens outside it counts as them getting to eat, but they might get killed by wildlife if you dont have fences.

 

[lovelylink]

Gee thanx.

Names for chickens...... KFC, Finger Licking, Hawk Bait, Snake Bait, Raccoon Bait, Voodoo, Duster(feather duster). I just name my crap Chicken 1 Chicken 2 or Egg1, Egg2. They dont need names like Bessy and Gertrude. Now in RF where I can actually take my monsters into battle, those guys get names hehe.

You know Niel is anti-social and probably very lonely and your going to drop him like a rock as soon as Allen shows up?? lol. "I thought she loved me..." BLAM.

When you start collecting animals you have to start busting ass on growing grass/feed. You have to grow enough for everything to survive the first winter.

I think if you let chickens outside it counts as them getting to eat, but they might get killed by wildlife if you dont have fences.

oops did something i say come across as rude because it wasn't meant it!

Haha good ideas. I always name my first cow Bell, and I'm intending to name my horse Epona because my girl's name is Zelda.

Hahaha Neil is me(anti-social and probably very lonely). Nah, I won't drop him. I'll keep him going for a bit, probably, I'll just court them both. I'm also planning on courting Soseki when I get him into town because he reminds me of Shigure from Fruits Basket.

Yeah I know ugh. At least I can always buy fodder/feed as well.

Well there's a thing outside for them to eat out of but I didn't put feed in it, so I'm thinking it probably won't work, but I'm tryin anyway. Ugh

 

[lovelylink]

Instead of playing the game some more, I've spent the past hour getting frustrated at photoshop. I want to make a gif but I've never made one in CS6. It seems that my copy doesn't support gif making or something (ugh) so I'm having to redownload CS2 and I'm about to scream. I just wanted to be able to make a new icon for my ign Dx

Anyway, I'll post another update eventually.

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

Let me save you some trouble....

 

[lovelylink]

wait what? What trouble are you saving me from because I've reread both of my responses and I'm confused?

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

Thats for your new icon/avatar.

 

[lovelylink]

oooh thanks but no thanks x) I ended up making my gif, as you can see

 

[lovelylink]

I've just kinda given up on this because I'm way behind now. Basically a lot happened, I'm dating Allen, i have a llama, I'm on town restoration plan #4 and so mch more. yeah