In a previous harvest moon (gba?) there were sprites that would help you raise animals & water your crops. You could play games to increase their skills. Is this also available in HM: ANB? I've played it previously and saw nothing where sorites help you farm, thèy just had musical notes.
Also, do people still play ANB regularly? I remember going online and helping others with animals for some "free" work without taxing my game character. Do enough people still play where this is viable daily?
there is no benefit to making friends with the two harvest sprites, but i think they give you that candy that allows your child to be a teenager for a while. But other than that i doubt they do anything.
As for people playing....there will always be SOMEONE out there who is playing. Everyone is focused on the new SoS and the Lost Valley so there might not be a many online, which'll make getting those things a bit harder.
I recently started a new game again there are people on Multi-player all the time. SoS and Lost valley haven't come out in New Zealand and Australia yet so you will get us poor sods waiting on them.