Love or Hate?

Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS [ Game Guide ]
Chelle-fish
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Whenever this game is mentioned, I hear either people love the game, or hate it.

Apologies if this has been ask many time but I was just curious to people’s disposition on it? and what they loved or hated about it?

Thanks!
anon
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personally i love the game, and have ever since i played it. it was the first harvest moon i actually sunk my teeth into after harvest moon ds: cute - i really wasn't into islands of happiness at all (horrible stylus controls) and never got sunshine islands or grand bazaar.

the farming mechanics are solid although i wish it had the later games seed size - growing only one crop per seed is a sad state of affairs, although it doesn't ruin it for me. the sense of progression is good and it has the usual satisfying exponential money growth. alpacas were a cute addition and i like that you can feed your animals treats to make them produce more, as it saves needing a TON of animals, but the amount of treats needed is honestly way too many and too complicated with random amounts of different ones required.

the cast of characters is great and i personally really like the bachelorettes. i really like the concept of the "two towns" setting, a similar concept was used for one of my favourite harvest moons ever, trio of towns. theres such a ton to do that i never get bored - should i forage today, do requests, collect the last remaining bugs for my collection or go fishing? cooking festivals are fun and im not usually super into cooking in these games so it helps there. the other festivals, especially town exclusive ones, are great too.

all that being said, i definitely admit that this game has huge flaws and i understand why they have often prevented people from enjoying it. much like a new beginning, this game is WAY too slow, especially at the start, which instantly turns people off. only being able to do one expansion request per month is awful - it should be at the very least 2 per month.

i dont mind the freshness mechanic too much and it ties in well with the request system, however, they should have given you the ability to keep produce fresh forever way sooner. waiting until year 3 is just far, far too long to start being able to preserve your precious high quality items.

the mountain is too big, and time passes too fast. i love traversing the mountain and have my own rhythm of how i do it, but not being done with it until 2-3pm in game time is far too late as i then have to do everything else i need to do such as animal care and friendship stuff (giving gifts, going on dates). they were clearly aware of the issue because they let you stay awake until 5am with absolutely no penalties, but they should have just made time go slower so that we could still visit shops etc.

overall although i love it this game is a mixed bag and while i do recommend it it is with caveats that you have to be okay with the slow start and other flaws mentioned above. i also completely recommend trio of towns which feels like a similar game but fixed a lot of the glaring issues with this one. :)
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Chelle
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Thanks for your perspective, very interesting to read. I’ve struggled to like this game every time I play it but I’m encouraged to try it again and give it a ‘longer’ chance after reading.
I usually play a girl and I’m not a fan of the bachelors so I’ll give playing a boy and wooing the bachelorettes a shot, maybe it’ll be a fresh perspective.

I really disliked the board system for upgrades, takes away the satisfaction of the previous games, where you had a progression goal you could see and achieve(visit the blacksmith, view requirements).
Whereas this - upgrades felt like they popped up randomly for me, I like to see what I’m aiming for, gives me an incentive to go out and find those materials. I guess this is what made me feel aimless in the game and I don’t care for the cast of characters so getting to know the towns wasn’t enough daily.

I just picked it up for the 3ds for £2.50 before the store closes, super bargain! So I’ll have to try it again and see how it goes, if I accept the flaws, maybe I’ll find some fun in it.

Good to hear another perspective though, ty.
anon
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of course, no worries! :D it was fun to get my thoughts out. i realise i may have sounded overly negative as i tried to focus on making my review balanced, but i really do love this game! it definitely streamlines a lot when you get to year 3, have your mechanical chicken cart, finish the tunnel and can then just play out the rest of the game until you are satisfied, finishing up all the farm upgrades, fishing lists, bug lists, request levels, getting married having a child and etc! im currently replaying but on my first file played til year 13 and had a blast :) a tip if youre interested in fishing - if you fish with the normal fishing rod at the "lower" fishing spot in konohana-mid during summer, you catch fish fossils which sell for 4k each, a nice way to make some early money and be sure you can always afford the upgrades each month, to give you a better head start.

getting the game for £2.50 is amazing so hopefully you can get even a little bit of enjoyment out of it and its already worth it :D
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Code_Name_Geek
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Been meaning to reply to this forever, but it's a love for me! ToTT was my first 3DS game and it was the only game I had for the 3DS at the time, so I'm a little biased. It's also the first game where I really grasped the concept of befriending villagers, which was helped by the flowers on the dialogue boxes (an amazing feature - I would really like to see more games do visible friendship meters for everyone, not just marriage candidates). I really liked being able to focus on animals, since that's one of my favourite parts of farming games, and I liked the horse cart and the herding pets. ToTT also definitely has one of my favourite mountain areas to explore (even if it can get tedious to travel between the towns), and the foraging spots, hand fishing, and bug catching make it feel more alive than other games where there might only be a couple of things spawning on the ground in pre-determined spots. I like that cooking feels so central to the game as well, and it's very rewarding both profits-wise and story-wise with the cooking festivals (plus I like being able to discover recipes instead of having to buy them). Farming-wise I think the irrigation trenches are awesome, though the controls to make them are a tad inconsistent at times. Oracle is also one of the most unique magical marriage candidates, and I had a hard time picking between the bachelors too (in fact I haven't picked yet... still unmarried lol). And finally, one of my favourite features is the request system which adds a lot of variety to the gameplay, gives interesting rewards, and I enjoy the satisfaction of helping out the villagers even if some of the requests can get repetitive after a while.

That said, ToTT is definitely not without its flaws. Like others have mentioned here, upgrades being time-locked is a big one, especially when the days pass pretty slowly so you can't sit down and blast through months like you could in games with faster clocks. When you add in having to update both farms by moving between them, it takes a lot of planning and waiting. The rotating store inventories can also be a real pain, especially combined with the fact that many stores close completely on full rainy days! So the RNG for getting certain items or animal colours can be so brutal. The 3DS version also had some pretty significant lag and crashing issues - though one way to lower the chances of a particularly common crash on one of the mountain transition screens that seems to be caused by a memory leak is to reboot the game every couple of in-game days.

So yeah that's what I think about ToTT!! Overall it's one of my favourite games in the series, and does some pretty unique things that I wish other games would take note of as well. But there are some frustrating elements as well, so it's by no means a perfect game.
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Getaris
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This game has the strange honor of being the last Marvelous-made farming game that has held my attention for more than one single year, with me reaching year four before losing steam. So I hold it in high regard.

I played A New Beginning first, and that game really disappointed me, so I bought this one digitally only because it looked like the previous DS games and it was cheap, and I got hooked instantly, it was refreshing. It is relaxing in a weird way, and the 2D backgrounds are beautiful.
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I love the game, and it's probably the game I've played most. I love that it's not possible to blast through the expansions and get everything out of the way in a year or two. Love the graphics, and it's the first game I played that had the possibility to play as a girl. I like the mountain areas and go there even after the tunnel's done.

That said, I hate that the tunnel expansions and bed requests replace farm expansions. With how I play, it's one farm expansion (as I make sure my town loses the cooking festivals in spring) , tunnel, tunnel, bed, tunnel, and in fall of year 2 I can make a second farm expansion... My first couple of games, it became tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, bed, and in summer of year 2 my first farm expansion.
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Kikki
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I tried playing it multiple times and I just hate the two towns thing SO MUCH...I can never get out of the first month or so. I hate being separated between animal and crop, and having all the NPCs divided into two camps, and I'm not willing to put up with it until I complete the story.

I thought the hand-fishing was cool, though.
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Mabbie
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I really enjoyed playing this game, I had no issues balancing between the two towns. Depending on what vehicle you have, it can be really fast travelling between them. I always liked more raising crops than animals, so I had no issue living in Konohana and having little space for my animals.

The graphics and outfits are so cute, and so does the soundtracks.

Overall, I think it was a good game. But when it comes to Trio of Towns, I couldn't play for long. I could manage two towns, but three was just too much.
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Kikki
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Trio of Towns was way easier to manage than Two Towns, for me. Trio of Towns has absolutely no FP decay from neglect, perhaps my favourite feature ever, so you had no reason to even bother going to the separate towns, ever, unless you specifically wanted to forage there or buy something special from them, so there was no pressure to visit all three towns regularly. And having the northern passage unlock as soon as you had all three towns open on...Summer 5 Year 1 or something like that?...made it really fast to do a run through all three towns in one go, if you should happen to want to.

The two towns being a pain to traverse and having NPCs divided and FP decay being a thing, forcing you to go from town to town to keep your FP up every 10 days or whatever it was...too much of a pain, for me, too stressy. Plus Trio of Towns had food effects...you could adjust the speed of time whenever you wanted by eating a dish with the slow-down effect to halve it (or a speed up effect to double it, if you wanted something insane like that!) or you could add the speed-running ability, or both. Trio just felt very customizable and never gave me a feeling of pressure, unlike Two Towns, where I always felt pressure. And I just didn't feel compelled by the storyline of having to cook to bring two towns together. Never got why competing over who has the better food should bring them any closer. And I absolutely detest food spoilage and the storage system in Two Towns. I guess it was just a game I found more frustrating than fun.

I have no idea how popular Two Towns is across a broader spectrum, but I did once do a poll and it shows that Two Towns was reasonably popular with a small group of nearly 60 participants, getting 7% of the votes for favourite of the whole series. Two games were more popluar than it, and 3 games tied with it, so in the group who voted, you could see Two Towns as being somewhere between the 3rd and 7th most popular Bokumono game of all time.
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Code_Name_Geek
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Kikki wrote: Mar 26, 2023 5:12 am I have no idea how popular Two Towns is across a broader spectrum, but I did once do a poll and it shows that Two Towns was reasonably popular with a small group of nearly 60 participants, getting 7% of the votes for favourite of the whole series. Two games were more popluar than it, and 3 games tied with it, so in the group who voted, you could see Two Towns as being somewhere between the 3rd and 7th most popular Bokumono game of all time.
Oh that's interesting! I kind of thought it was one of the less popular ones, but maybe more people liked it than I thought. Though it does have the bias of being newer and thus more readily available than say, Harvest Moon 64. I'd probably have to say 3oT for my absolute favourite so ToTT isn't even my standout favourite of the series, but it's definitely in my top 5, if not top 3. :)
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Getaris
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Once you have the tunnel, moving from one town to another to greet any important people becomes trivial. Then again I was ok with taking things slowly, and didn’t really made any serious attempt to forge friendships, I just talked to whoever I had nearby and did quests.

One thing I disliked after unifying the towns, is that the town themes get remixed, and I vastly prefer the original Konohana theme.

Also how can one forget that the best caravan in the game also makes an incessant clucking noise whenever it moves. It’s so annoying it kinda transcends and becomes ingrained in your brain, and you get used to it.

Also, can get have a minute of silence for the digital version of this game? It was the one to buy if you wanted an easy, functional way to play it on the 3DS. Only one more day to get it!
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Kikki
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Code_Name_Geek wrote: Mar 26, 2023 10:44 am
Kikki wrote: Mar 26, 2023 5:12 am I have no idea how popular Two Towns is across a broader spectrum, but I did once do a poll and it shows that Two Towns was reasonably popular with a small group of nearly 60 participants, getting 7% of the votes for favourite of the whole series. Two games were more popluar than it, and 3 games tied with it, so in the group who voted, you could see Two Towns as being somewhere between the 3rd and 7th most popular Bokumono game of all time.
Oh that's interesting! I kind of thought it was one of the less popular ones, but maybe more people liked it than I thought. Though it does have the bias of being newer and thus more readily available than say, Harvest Moon 64. I'd probably have to say 3oT for my absolute favourite so ToTT isn't even my standout favourite of the series, but it's definitely in my top 5, if not top 3. :)
Considering that it was a Fogu poll, 60 participants is quite good, but I'd have been more satisfied if I could somehow have gotten fans from every corner of the Bokumono fandom to vote, so that the results could be in the hundreds or even thousands. Considering the sales numbers of the games in the English-speaking areas of release, there should be hundreds of thousands who've at least tried the games at some point in the 20+ game series, so there should be several thousand who'd consider themselves fans of the series. It'd have been great to get as many of those as possible to take the same poll so I could get a better sample. But I think the number who participated is about as good as it can get while only posting the poll on Fogu.
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In my top three of all games for sure - and the other one is a Rune factory haha (I like the game the best overall and Friends of Mineral Town is the other OG as I love the things you can earn by really grinding out the effort - I just recently found out that there are two levels above gold for animal products in that game and 255 levels for two mines is crazy - add to that the immediate hotspring and later on the hothouse and it's just a joy to play)

What I like \ love about Tale of Two Towns;
1. The depth of the things that can be made and the complexity of the cooking system- Grinding grains to make breads and recipes from scratch is very satisfying
2. The makers on the Bluebell side making coffee teas wine beer is all amazing
3. The love events are cute and not too long or hard to rewatch
4. Aside from Kana and Ash's obsessive behaviors over their loved ones (one of which is a Horse so get over it) Most of the Bachelors\ ettes are nicely designed and fit into their towns well and have very cute facial animations
5. The request system - what the individual dialogues with each character lack over time I find the request system more than makes up for - the details you get about why people made the request are interesting and tell how people really feel about their living situations Grady making requests because Georgia is mad at him and refuses to cook always crack me up and shows the player an attitudy side of her you wouldn't otherwise see - just like when Cam is on a date he sometimes complains about living with Howard who is overbearing
6. The mountain is fun and takes a long time to travel over respective to the game clock of each day - it means you really have to prioritize what your farmer will focus on as he or she cannot spend a day just fishing without missing out on gathering requests or getting to the other side of the mountain for an item or farm upgrade or to buy seeds or flowers or whatever - I also like that the seeds can be watered twice a day and when you buy them you know the range of days that they will come up in
7. The rice paddies are fun even if useless 3 months out of the year and the fish pond at Konohana is perfect if you marry someone whose favorite dish requires a rare fish
8. Animals hardly ever get sick and there are treats that make them produce more items although it would be nice if the game tracked what they've been given already
9. The multiplayer field is useful for you if you want access to certain hard to grow crops all year that you want to gather from yourself (think fruit trees and tea leaves)
10. The owl - there is an owl that actually will fly you down half the mountain the moment you get it as a pet - My favorite thing to do is have my farmer forage half the mountain and fly back down before nightfall or get to some shop before it closes
11. That your characters outfits somehow effect their love lives even if in a small way
12. Some marriage candidates have a reverse proposal which is nice and tells you more about them too
13. After the tunnel connects the towns people's schedules change on their off days so it feels as if the towns really have accepted one another - the characters will also begin to talk about relevant people and things on the other side respective to their jobs or personalities which makes it feel pretty alive
14. I really just find the game to be beautiful so it's relaxing to play and easy to pick back up again after a long spell off - if I want to just make recipes all day my farmer certainly can


What I dislike about TOTT;
1. The freshness of items being so hard to get around and the fact that you can drop old items from storage onto new items you picked of the same star rank to keep the freshness level back to the item you just picked is time consuming - I wish star ranks didn't go by half so I wouldn't run out of storage space every time I'm adopting a new animal or fertilizing a new crop that's not up to 5 stars yet
1a.The mine is dumb and boring and most of what you find there has little to no use
2. Married dialogues are very boring although I like that the date system still runs with the spouce- because my character will not date anyone other than her husband after she is married (although the game allows it I am a Christian and don't feel comfortable playing that way) this means that all rival bachelors that liked her before she got married will literally not like her again unless she goes around apologizing every two weeks or so (Mikhail shall never hear that beautiful music in her voice again- yes Mikhail she knows why you are angry and no she does not care so he will always get told 'Somebody's grumpy' by me and walk off in a huff lol) which brings me to the next point -
3. Rival bachelors do not get married or date anyone after the MC gets married so the towns still feel stale after the tunnel is connected in that regard
4. A year and a half of only upgrading honey boxes at Bluebell is just ridiculous as upgrades are limited to once per month
5. The Oracle - she is dumb and the things she needs to make her 'recipes' are also nonsensical in nature - I get that it's supposed to be rare items she asks for but hard to make food items from every season just to get a few hours more light in the mine or even more harvest out of your crops is just not worth it
6. Hard for me to pet the animals that much - after treats and brushes and talking to them they should be happy enough already - although my IRL son loves this feature
7. Animal befriending is more of a neutral for me and the harvest G should not be interrupting my work so much
8. There should be a late game option to stall festivals so that shops are open more often or the shops should carry all they offer every day after a certain point which would fit the narrative that the towns prosper more when they work together
9. I'd like to save whenever so I don't have to commit to playing a whole day each time I turn it on -although the save and sleep over feature in the rival town is pretty nice

From what I've seen there is northing perfect about any Harvest Moon game - I'd love to play Grand Bazaar or trio of Towns but I just prefer the graphics in the earlier games more and I hate how goofy things look in the fully 3d games - I forget which game came out with the gamecube but it was sad looking and growing a breadfruit to make bread was just too irritating

Shameless plug for my fanfic of TOTT in which I attempt to explain the war between the two towns and how people can actually die if you mess up at the cooking festival - I'm back to playing this game after having my lovely son so I will be writing the story again soon - it's up to 43 some chapters and features both protagonists (Phillip and Lillian) as twins forced to live separately on either side of the mountain to support the ongoing 'war'


Two Towns, One Army -----(Harvest Moon Love & War)


If you read please let me know what you think - also my friend code is 1564-2183-5335
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