My thoughts on Skytree Village

Restore the powers of the seven magical Skytrees to revitalize the valley and entice the villagers to move back to the local town. [ Game Guide ] JP release = None. NA release = Nov 2016. EU release = Jun 2017.
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So I got myself Skytree Village after it finally got released in Europe, and I've finished the main story, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on it. Note that I haven't played TLV or SoM, so this is my first encounter with the new Harvest Moon.

Overall, I like the game! It's fun and simple, and I like the whole mutation thing. I just got Sam to sell my first mutation seeds, White Berries! That was exciting!

I'd say I like this game more than Story of Seasons, but that game disappointed me a lot, so it was a low bar to clear. Anyway, here are my detailed thoughts:

NOTE: This is going to contain some story spoilers! I've put them behind spoiler tags just in case.

-The characters are all fun and likable, and generally well-written. I liked Melanie and her grandpa's interactions the most, and Elise trying to impress her dad, as well as the whole thing going on between Tabitha and Gareth! Every character has their own story that's usually shown through their requests, and I love that.

-However, some writing isn't that great. The biggest misstep, I think, is the protagonist's writing. You might be thinking, how can you write a silent protagonist badly? Well, randomly giving them a single line of dialogue in the middle of the game, like what happened after
Spoiler:
planting the Skytree next to your house,
is one way. Couldn't Rowan or the narrator have said it instead? If an otherwise silent character suddenly talks, it's bad writing, unless there's a good reason. Second, making them suddenly do the opposite of what you're supposed to do. I feel like a lot of players, like me, must've been annoyed by the protagonist suddenly
Spoiler:
deciding to give the important item they needed to revive the Skytree to Sam just so he could give it to his wife...

A silent protagonist is supposed to be the player avatar with only enough personality so you can decide what kind of a person they are. And the player's goal, the one we're all working for, is to restore the Skytrees. The player's silent avatar shouldn't work against the player's goal.

-Continuing with the last point, like I said, the player character is supposed to be vague enough that the player can self-insert or play a role. The game insisting my character is naive and selfless to a fault rubs me the wrong way. I like to assign a personality to my farmer avatar that's separate from me, and this time I decided my protagonist, who I named Colisse, is a former treasure hunter who decides to help the Harvest Goddess after she saved her life, and slowly starts to enjoy the farming life after hating it at first. She loves treasure, adventure, and is always looking for a profit. For the most part, I managed to play that character believably, but that moment I wrote about up there behind the spoiler tags is something I couldn't, in any way, imagine my character doing. If she got her hands on
Spoiler:
a precious gem that's one of the few of it's kind in the world,
she wouldn't give it up for anything less than to save the Skytrees!
Anyway, enough talk about that single scene.

-The first time I saw fog I was already tired or it and never wanted to see it again. I hear people even get headaches from it? I can see why. Anyway, fog is bad and the only way I can think of to improve it is to remove it completely.

-The first thing I noticed when I got the game was it seemed kinda cheaply made. The cover was just the bachelors and bachelorettes standing in a row with the protagonist, like they don't have any other art available. The text on the spine of the box seemed like it was just slapped on there by somebody with no graphic design skills or any thought to the font or the spacing. Also, even though I've never player TLV, I noticed a lot seemed to be directly copied from it. Like, in the villager info, most of the characters have the wrong job. Even one of the first characters you meet, Dean, had it claim he was the Blacksmith's son, and Sam's said he was the Blacksmith... Funny, but feels like the creators didn't care... It's a bad first impression, and I'm glad the game turned out to be better than that.

-No calendar. This was actually the main reason I resisted buying this at first, because I couldn't imagine how an HM game could be good if it didn't even have something as basic as a calendar. The game manages to make it work somehow, with the dreams and the encyclopedias that tell you about the birthdays and the festivals, but I still feel like it'd be easier and faster to just let you check a calendar next to your bed to see what's coming up. That'd make it easier to pick it up after not playing in a while, too.

-I don't like how it's impossible to wish people a happy birthday when they're involved in a plot. I missed the chance to wish both Sally and Naomi a happy birthday when they were
Spoiler:
waiting at the cave for me to find the materials.
Speaking of which, there was a glitch where talking to Sally while she was in there and asking about requests triggered Naomi's requests instead? I had to wait until she was out of there to turn in Sally's request.

-Animals' eating animation takes too long. I think something like two-three seconds would be better? This one's just a minor complaint, though.

-Harvest Sprites being unavailable during weekends is annoying, and so is having to rely on their work hours to bring your animals out and back in. If they were unavailable only on Sundays, that'd be more workable, but I wish I could at least talk to them while they're gone. Also the one that takes your animals out should take them back in automatically.

-The game takes too long at the start to give you basic functions, like jumping, digging and filling, and especially the hammer. It feels like you were supposed the get the hammer earlier but then they changed the plot and moved it to a later point for some reason? Also the tutorial for terraforming appears in your bookshelf way before you get the ability.

-Speaking of terraforming, it's a lot of fun! I like being able to expand a waterfall and make a river or a hill wherever I want. The controls feel a bit awkward at times, and I wish it was possible to jump without exiting the terraforming menu.

-This might just be me, but I think switching camera modes with start is a bit awkward. Also, for me personally, I think three modes is too much. The mode between normal and farming mode (overhead mode?) is 100% of the time just an extra button press between the modes I actually use. It'd be nice if there was an option to disable it, like, in the options menu or something. Also, I think it's awkward that I can't change directions in farming mode if I'm sowing seeds or using fertilizer. I always have to cancel out of seed-sowing mode before I can change direction, then choose to use seeds again. I'm not sure how to fix this, except if the game allowed you to change directions using L and R while in farming mode. I think it'd be more useful than turning the camera.

-The plot taking away important functions like
Spoiler:
buying flower seeds, and buying crop seeds, fertilizer and animal food,
for several days is just bad video game writing. The plot should never be more important than gameplay in a video game. This could've been fixed by letting another character take over the missing character's function, like, say,
Spoiler:
making Dean sell the flower seeds instead of Carol, and I'm sure somebody could take over for Sam, too.
-Melanie's shop is something I never used, even though I like customization like that, because it was intimidating. The amount of materials you needed for flooring or drapes was too much, but the fact that the default drapes, flooring and wallpaper you had at the beginning were also buyable was worse, because it meant that if I bought a wallpaper and decided I didn't like it, I'd have to buy the old one back if I wanted it again. If this is not how it is, I'd be happy to hear it, but if this is how it is then I don't want to even try it. Too expensive, too temporary, not worth my materials or money. I'd like it more if it only cost money and/or you could swap between the different styles easily without having to rebuy them.

-I think things like cooking recipes and fertilizer and feed recipes requiring different amounts of ingredients is annoying and unintuitive. Why does regular flour need 1 wheat while durum flour needs 3 durum wheat? What kind of logic is that? Durum wheat is rarer, too. And you need like 10 tomatoes to make a single glass of tomato juice. Is that supposed to be for realism? I think fun gameplay should be prioritized over realism. I'd say all of these should only require 1 of each ingredient. As it is, I hardly ever use my fertilizer maker, because buying it is easier than trying to get all the ingredients together.

-Turning Stone into Material Stone at Gus' shop feels like an unnecessary step. I'd rather just use regular old Stone for everything you need Material Stone for, even if it's for triple the stone requirement. It's just annoying to have to go through that extra step.

-Those last three points felt like they were done to copy Story of Seasons/ANB and their crafting system and such. I didn't care for it in those either, and I'd rather new Harvest Moon used simpler mechanics like in older HMs than copy their competitor. I think the basic gameplay loop of Harvest Moon, where you sell things to get money to buy more things and only need wood and stone to expand your house and stuff, works better. I want to buy things with money and not worry about hoarding tens of different materials so I can make my house bigger and prettier.

-I wish there were more dialogue choices. They wouldn't need to affect much either, I just want to choose the option my character would say and maybe have the scene play in a slightly different manner. I can't actually remember more than one dialogue choice in the entire game thus far. I think it was in Cyril's second event? Since it was the first one in the game, I was worried it was super important, and that choosing the wrong one could make Cyril
Spoiler:
actually decide to move away.
-I wish I could marry same gender characters, but that applies for basically any game where you can get married. I chose to play as a girl, and when I met Melanie it was like, "Aww, I'm going to have to replay this as a boy to marry her." Since there are so few marriage candidates, making all of them available for both characters would be an easy way to expand the options, too.

-More in-game hints about how to grow mutations or catch certain fish would be appreciated. I think something like the library in Magical Melody would be nice, with books that give hints about seasonal mutations and fish, and the books would change each season. At least that's how I'd fix this.

This is a long list of complaints, but I want to stress that I like the game! I honestly do! I just feel like it could be better, and wanted to share my thoughts on what would make it better. I tried to write them as more constructive criticism than complaints, too.
Thanks for reading, and sorry it got so long! I hope to hear everyone else's thoughts about the game's good parts and flaws!

Also, Gabe is the best boy and I'm going to marry him. :heart:
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Granny789
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I agree completely. I did play Lost Valley and this game is very very similar. Mutations are easier, tools are better, animals give better products faster (I think). The best upgrade is the town. If you think their hours are bad now you should have played LV where you might have to wait several days for them to show up again. I have found a lot of things that seam to me like they forgot or didn't bother to change the text. I don't use the Feed maker or Fertilizer maker much either. I never have the right ingredients until after the need for a certain product passes. I never want to use any mutation that I haven't unlocked the seeds for. I did at first and found that I was one product short at the end of the season and have to wait a year to grow it again.

I also want to clarify that I am really enjoying the game too. It just would have been nice if they put more effort into the story line and gave us better Makers or Maker options.
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