Ushi No Tane Forum

Magical Melody is slow? Funny, it's the one I want to learn to speedrun one day. It always seemed so fast paced to me. AWL's by far the easier NGC game but it becomes so slow and boring after you've already married all three wives. It's my second favorite HM but the replay value is minor. Maybe I'll be able to play it again some day, but even 12+ years later and I can't. I own SE but it's too laggy for me to even get past toddlerhood.

I just found out something that made me feel really stupid. Turns out the chapters don't keep getting longer as you go. I had always assumed that each chapter added a year, because chapter one was one year long, chapter two was two years long, and chapter three was three years long. I had thought chapter four, five, and six followed the same trend, but they don't. Chapter four is only two years long, and chapter five and six are only one year long. I guess AWL isn't as long/slow as I thought it was (though, it's still pretty slow.) Knowing this, if I ever pick up AWL again I may be more motivated to finally get to the end of it.

Nightlight wrote:I just found out something that made me feel really stupid. Turns out the chapters don't keep getting longer as you go. I had always assumed that each chapter added a year, because chapter one was one year long, chapter two was two years long, and chapter three was three years long. I had thought chapter four, five, and six followed the same trend, but they don't. Chapter four is only two years long, and chapter five and six are only one year long. I guess AWL isn't as long/slow as I thought it was (though, it's still pretty slow.) Knowing this, if I ever pick up AWL again I may be more motivated to finally get to the end of it.

Oh wow, I even noticed you said that and didn't correct you because I thought you were exaggerating it on purpose. XD

AWL and ANB for me being the slowest games for me. AWL's problems were fixed in AnWL and AWLSE in my opinion. ANB just prolonged the game's life by adding stuff that you can only unlock if you waited. Not to mention the month long tutorial.

In term of pacing, it's AP and AWL. Especially the original version of AWL that had longer chapters. But in terms of gampeplay, I'll say that DS wins hands down. The requirements to unlock most of the sprites are so goddamn tedious, and you need a lot of them to even get married. I can't believe that people complained about the last two vendors in SOS when this is a game in the same franchise. Not that they weren't right of course, but holy « Puppy Doodoo » the requirements for DS. Ship 100,000 items? Catch 50,000 fish? No thanks, no way! Especially since this game was notoriously glitchy, and some legit ways to speed up the process could completely bork your save...looking at you Fishing Sprite Team. Yeah, I'm never getting 50,000 fish.

So overall, a big no to DS from me. Slow I can deal with, but I cannot deal with the excessive grind of this game. IoH was also annoying with the way the villagers would move out if you didn't ship a certain type of item for a while, but at least I never even noticed the sun and water point system that most people complain about. But those touch controls...and it's such a shame, since I really like the story of this game. I know people say that SI is basically the same thing, but I prefer the "shipwrecked on a deserted island" premise rather than the "move into an island and work on raising new ones" one. It's why I had an interest in Light of Hope when it was announced, but then I saw the graphics and the repeated cast and gave up on it.

Gothicat wrote:In term of pacing, it's AP and AWL. Especially the original version of AWL that had longer chapters. But in terms of gampeplay, I'll say that DS wins hands down. The requirements to unlock most of the sprites are so goddamn tedious, and you need a lot of them to even get married. I can't believe that people complained about the last two vendors in SOS when this is a game in the same franchise. Not that they weren't right of course, but holy « Puppy Doodoo » the requirements for DS. Ship 100,000 items? Catch 50,000 fish? No thanks, no way! Especially since this game was notoriously glitchy, and some legit ways to speed up the process could completely bork your save...looking at you Fishing Sprite Team. Yeah, I'm never getting 50,000 fish.

So overall, a big no to DS from me. Slow I can deal with, but I cannot deal with the excessive grind of this game. IoH was also annoying with the way the villagers would move out if you didn't ship a certain type of item for a while, but at least I never even noticed the sun and water point system that most people complain about. But those touch controls...and it's such a shame, since I really like the story of this game. I know people say that SI is basically the same thing, but I prefer the "shipwrecked on a deserted island" premise rather than the "move into an island and work on raising new ones" one. It's why I had an interest in Light of Hope when it was announced, but then I saw the graphics and the repeated cast and gave up on it.

The last vendors in SoS were tedious because you had to do things you wouldn't normally do and the tools were tied to it. The sprites were mostly pretty natural play things.

I really wish the tools weren't tied to them, I want to play but I feel the pressure more with SoS personally than DS/Cute. But at the same time my experience isn't everyone's.

Yeah, the sprites tend to come about naturally, and you can easily unlock the required 60 by playing normally for about two game years.

Though of course, it helps to make little projects to unlock them, for example, take some time off farming and have the healing team help you find the hidden watering sprites. Kill two birds in one stone.

Getaris wrote:Yeah, the sprites tend to come about naturally, and you can easily unlock the required 60 by playing normally for about two game years.

Though of course, it helps to make little projects to unlock them, for example, take some time off farming and have the healing team help you find the hidden watering sprites. Kill two birds in one stone.

Yeah that was another thing, you weren't on your own. Heck the fishing team was one of the easiest and most profitable since once the goal was hit you only had to catch a single fish to actually unlock.

I forgot about that.

ANB took the longest for me. The tutorial felt like it took a year. You also had to unlock everything.

ChaosAzerothCat wrote:

Getaris wrote:Yeah, the sprites tend to come about naturally, and you can easily unlock the required 60 by playing normally for about two game years.

Though of course, it helps to make little projects to unlock them, for example, take some time off farming and have the healing team help you find the hidden watering sprites. Kill two birds in one stone.

Yeah that was another thing, you weren't on your own. Heck the fishing team was one of the easiest and most profitable since once the goal was hit you only had to catch a single fish to actually unlock.

I forgot about that.

Unfortunately, the fishing team is the one that can cause the save corruption glitch. And it unfortunately happened to me. And no, I wasn't trying to trigger the money glitch, I honestly triggered it by accident; this was only my second harvest moon game and back then I didn't use guides, so I ran into it without knowing.

It's most likely half the reason I dislike this game so much; I lost two years of game thanks to that glitch and I was so close to marrying Flora it hurts. Ever since then, I feel bitter just thinking about it. And I don't even like hiring the sprites in the first place.

Not that I'd like the game regardless, it just doesn't fit my playstyle. I'm a hoarder, it's why I like the new games and ANB especially; I had no issues with waiting for items thanks to this (I also cheated, and reloaded the game until I won yam seeds as a festival prize, so I didn't have to wait for year two for them either). DS is almost the opposite, you have to ship everything to unlock sprites. I also only enjoy having one of each animal type, which is why I love the great variety of them we have in the newer games, not to mention the fact that we can give them treats to increase their productivity, making each animal worth five! So in DS I hate every sprite that requires you to have full barns, it's not my natural playstyle. It's more natural for me to make furniture to unlock ice country using the wood I hoarded for two years, than it is to have 5 barns. This also made some shipping sprites and the brushing sprites way harder to unlock.

Overall, it's just not the game for me, but I can understand why fans of the older games like it. As for me, I'll stick to the new entries and most of the console games.

Unfortunately, unless you got a later run that's true. If you know about it it's easy to avoid as I believe it's very narrow conditions. But if you don't, it's very easy to trigger.

Yeah that's pretty fair.

Honestly SoS was one of the slowest, like I keep wanting to pick it up since I restarted to marry the person I meant to to start with and I can't. It's near anxiety inducing levels of nope. I LOATHE how I feel like I have to burn myself out because of how stupid some of the last vendor things are or miss out on tools when they're actually useful. I think I could deal with some of the messed up pacing if not for that, but that thing tends to spike my anxiety more than soothe it. Shame, otherwise it's fun but since that's such a core thing it's impossible to ignore and just play. I shouldn't have to be up on guard to get all the tool upgrades IMHO, and there's no way I'd do some of that naturally ever.

ChaosAzerothCat wrote:Unfortunately, unless you got a later run that's true. If you know about it it's easy to avoid as I believe it's very narrow conditions. But if you don't, it's very easy to trigger.

Yeah that's pretty fair.

Honestly SoS was one of the slowest, like I keep wanting to pick it up since I restarted to marry the person I meant to to start with and I can't. It's near anxiety inducing levels of nope. I LOATHE how I feel like I have to burn myself out because of how stupid some of the last vendor things are or miss out on tools when they're actually useful. I think I could deal with some of the messed up pacing if not for that, but that thing tends to spike my anxiety more than soothe it. Shame, otherwise it's fun but since that's such a core thing it's impossible to ignore and just play. I shouldn't have to be up on guard to get all the tool upgrades IMHO, and there's no way I'd do some of that naturally ever.

This pacing in SoS is an absolute nightmare, I can't even imagine how the story boarding (?) went for that game

I do agree that SoS feels very stressful, there's so much to do and you can hardly afford to ignore most of the activities; however, DS feels just as stressful to me since it differs so much from what I like and sprites are a requirement for marriage. If I could just ignore them like you can with the last two vendors in SoS (unless you really want the last tool upgrades and Fritz's reverse proposal), then I'd be fine with it.

None of the handheld games ever felt that relaxing to me to be honest, but keep in mind I don't have any of the GB/GBA games. Sunshine islands had the water/sun system and I believe Island of Happiness had people move away if you didn't ship stuff, ToTT had the cooking contests and the infuriating carpenter that refuses to give you tunnel requests, and GrB would be relaxing (since you can take your time with the bazaar) if it didn't have the darned freshness system. Oh, how I loathed it! That system kills hoarders even worse than DS did.

If I want relaxing, I play AWL or AP/ToT, which is why I don't mind their slow pacing as much.

Out of the games I've played, ANB is the slowest for me. The days are somehow really slow and the 1 season tutorial make every day feel even sloweeeerr. Having to unlock pretty much everything makes it feel even longer...

I honestly didn't like ANB at all when I first got it because it's so slow, but recently I've started to appreciate it and it's slowness a bit - it can be quite relaxing to play when I'm stressed out

Gothicat wrote:I do agree that SoS feels very stressful, there's so much to do and you can hardly afford to ignore most of the activities; however, DS feels just as stressful to me since it differs so much from what I like and sprites are a requirement for marriage. If I could just ignore them like you can with the last two vendors in SoS (unless you really want the last tool upgrades and Fritz's reverse proposal), then I'd be fine with it.

None of the handheld games ever felt that relaxing to me to be honest, but keep in mind I don't have any of the GB/GBA games. Sunshine islands had the water/sun system and I believe Island of Happiness had people move away if you didn't ship stuff, ToTT had the cooking contests and the infuriating carpenter that refuses to give you tunnel requests, and GrB would be relaxing (since you can take your time with the bazaar) if it didn't have the darned freshness system. Oh, how I loathed it! That system kills hoarders even worse than DS did.

If I want relaxing, I play AWL or AP/ToT, which is why I don't mind their slow pacing as much.

That's fair, at the same time I don't understand how someone can ignore tool upgrades personally.