Ushi No Tane Forum

I haven't tested very many juices. One of the few annoying things about Harvestella is the 'makers'. I know there's at least one upgrade (though I don't know what the upgrades DO or how you apply them...if they work faster, or produce more, or what). I've only tried two juices so far...lettuce and tomato. It's a bit odd, but I find myself fixating on the fact that lettuce juice ('vegetable' juice) gives you 900 HP while tomato only gives you 700, when lettuce has the least amount of nutrients a vegetable CAN have, while tomatoes have way more, lol. I think they just think 'anything GREEN has to be the very healthiest!'

I want to go back and try blueberries (cool berries, I think they're called?) and carrops, just to see where they come in at HP restoration. I'm not sure why I care, lol. As if it matters how realistic the HP levels are! So far I rarely run out of stamina while playing, so that hasn't been a concern, but now that I not only have an upgraded farm but enough seeds to fill a field, I finally find myself starting to run out, so perhaps from now on stamina will be more of an issue. So far I just wanted that HP hit, which was very easy to get even just from plain old juices. (Especially since up to around level 10 or 12, one juice fully restores your HP.) Now that I'm level 19, it's not so great. Though at least this way I don't feel like I need to wait until my health is nearly completely drained before I can take that healing item, so as not to waste the HPs it can restore.

After hours of side-questing, I have about 10,000 G on hand right now. Gotta decide if I should upgrade the farm again, get another backpack expansion, or another farm expansion. I really need that hammer upgrade but I believe I have to get around 10 more levels before I'll be comfortable taking on the Earth region's dungeon. *pout*

Shortybread wrote: ↑Jul 07, 2023 9:10 pm Ah, Kikki, I had the same problem with fishing when I first started playing. I kept reeling in early and going "...What am I doing wrong??"
Past that, it's super easy though, so when I have extra stamina at the end of the day I just fish and sell everything I catch.
The rewards from turning in dishes to the Inns were so helpful! They helped me get a lot of upgrades that I was lagging behind on otherwise.

I still jerk with surprise EVERY TIME the splash happens, lol. It's like the game installed an auto-fish feature on me. I feel I WAS fishing properly to begin...they said wait for the bobber to go down and a splash. And I did. But they meant wait for it to go FURTHER down and a BIGGER splash...up until then it's just a nibble, not a bite. But at least it's very easy. And the fish icons are gorgeous. This game makes very pretty icon images. Which is a thing I'm really into, for some reason.

~

Still a few small annoyances with the game, features I wish they'd implemented just a little differently, but all the major components are so good, it really doesn't matter. I love the inventory. ALL GAMES should have interlinking, infinite storage! (I don't know if it's infinite, yet, of course, as I've just surpassed one page's worth of items stored recently.) I don't mind upgrading my storage, but making more and more chests, having to remember what is in which chest, and continual inventory management (ala Stardew, aaarrgh!) are such a huge turn-off. I'll forgive a lot of issues on good, low-management inventory alone.

So far, the characters and story aren't that interesting. Aria's slightly interesting, Ches is annoying (one of my little annoyances is that the game has already forced me to interact with her so much that we have 4 levels of FP already while I only have ONE with anyone else, when I don't even like her!) and the Omens are a little interesting, too, but not deeply, yet. NPCs like Lisette or whatever her name is, or Shirin...they're just feel like generic mobs. ANd this is SE so the story is going to turn out to be convoluted and probably seem rather goofy to me, in the end. But I don't care, cuz the gameplay's fantastic.

Wow, somehow time flies by really fast and I just tend to forget that I can write on here. Starting my new job has also taken up quite a bit of my week, recently. But hey, all the talk about juice sure makes me thirsty now, haha, with summer being in full stride where I live.

Since my last post, I...

1. Finished the original Ace Attorney trilogy. I enjoyed it a lot (so much so that I got Great Ace Attorney on Steam today). I really liked how it tied together in the end, and how it feels like the games have just worked towards that one great last case. My favourite characters were Edgeworth, Franziska, Maya and Pearl, though I did discover a soft spot for Gumshoe cause he was just so naive a lot of the time. I enjoyed the courtroom music of the first game the most, but all in all it was a fantastic trilogy for me with memorable moments and characters, and some of the more crazy happenings really amused me.

2. Progressed Trails to Azure to the point that I'm now in chapter 3 and things are starting to take a turn. I like the political angle that this duology takes, more so than Sky did, and, having played Cold Steel I-IV as well, I must say that Crossbell feels the most compact and packed to me, without a lot of filler. Probably also because it's only two games instead of 3 or 4. I definitely enjoy it a lot and, after having played 10 minutes of Reverie yesterday, I decided that I should really finish Azure first to get more out of Reverie's events.

3. Been playing JackJeanne as well, to get my fill of visual novels, and it's been really nice and surprisingly emotional at times. I really feel for these musical/theatre kids, the songs are amazing and I like the rhythm game elements it has. So far I have only played Suzu's route, and started Soshiro's now, but I'm looking forward to learning more about these characters and their struggles.

4. Played Fire Emblem Engage up to like chapter 17 or 18, and then for some unknown reason forgot the game existed... yeahhh I should probably continue it soon, haha. Same as Three Hopes, I just play for a while and enjoy it and then somehow forget about it completely, even if I had a good time. I remember that I really liked Alfred and Ivy though. Should go back to it, soon.

I hope everyone is doing well!

greensara wrote: ↑Jul 07, 2023 2:05 pm Had to delete the Pikmin 4 demo off my Switch as I was getting tired of playing the one stage 5 or 6 times, even to 99%. (Not sure what was missing)

My guess would be the blue onion - it's what I missed on my last run at 98%. It's tricky because you have to time everything right to have enough time on the last day to grab it AND it seems you have to choose the right upgrades for Oatchi to have enough man-power to carry it. I'll be going back in to try for a 100% run once AWL has less of a grip on me (year 3, all hybrids mixed, just need to plant and harvest them! My dreams of a 100% encyclopedia are progressing nicely!)

EDIT: Well, apparently there's treasures that don't show up on the map without using Oatchi's sniffing abilities. Sigh, I guess I'll be doing a fourth run to get that last 1%

There's a lottalotta stuff to buy in Harvestella. I'm having a hard time prioritizing.

Does anybody know a general idea of about what level your WEAPON should be at different points? Say if you're on Chapter 3B, should your party's weapon levels all be...4? Or are there like a hundred levels, so you should be more around 10 or 15? I can't figure out how to judge if my weapon is under-developed or not. I don't have enough silver ore to upgrade anyone to level 5, though, so I figure this must be somewhere around the right level for where I am in the game.

Also finally found something a little more significant not to like. The game is getting harder...which is okay, I can deal with it since the game gives you lost of customization to be able to do so, though it was more fun for me when it was easier to breeze through dungeons. Farming's going well. But the sidequests! UGH. I feel like Ein has been volunteered as shepherd to an entire world of flaming morons, who can't even wipe their own bottoms, because they can't even find said bottom with a map. She has to go, again and again, to the same places, to make people realize the truth that they should have understood from the beginning. The game seems to be full of drastic overthinkers AND underthinkers, and no one in between. Or maybe those people just don't need any help, so Ein never gets quests from them

Not gonna stop doing them because I need the rewards, but to be less annoyed by them, the rewards would need to be bigger. I'd like if they gave XP to help me level up faster. THough enemies in this game seem to level up along with you so it probably doesn't matter all that much what level you are. More money and goodies, then. Not every quest annoys me, but most of them do. Oh well, though they take a REALLY LONG TIME to complete, there aren't that many in the game. Each area only seems to have...around 10 or so sidequests. I'm trying to burn through them as much as I can...the game was more fun before Chapter 3 dropped a flood of them on me, so it'd be nice to get them out of the way.

Still a cool game. I just managed to finally come across a feature that's big enough to complain about, lol. But excepting the food delivery one I'm already done ALL Lethe quests (apparently no more unlock? Weird that every quest is available right in CHapter 3!) and all but one Nemea quest.

Things have been all over the place for me game wise since last time I posted here.

Finished playing Pokemon Violet; had a really good time actually. I was expecting to not like it as much as I did, looking forward to the DLC now.

Randomly decided to play the original Brandish because it's something I've had people recommend me for years now. The camera is complex for no reason, or rather, it's complex as an artistic choice? I understand setting it up so the player can't look at the protagonist's face ever, but it made for an unnecessarily dizzying experience. Beautiful pixel art and music though, and I liked the (minimal) characterization we got from the rival character.

A good friend recommended me "I Was a Teenage Exocolonist" because we both really like stat raising simulators and it was a pretty solid rec! The character design is beautiful, I loved the setting and world building, indie game developers have my entire heart and the project was very ambitious and well executed in my opinion. I had some issues with it by the end and I don't think it's something I'd replay any time soon but I'd still recommend it to fans of the genre.

Currently playing SOS:AWL, planning on getting Paranormasight afterwards, either that or JackJeanne.

AloneInTheDark wrote: ↑Jul 08, 2023 10:34 pmFinished playing Pokemon Violet; had a really good time actually. I was expecting to not like it as much as I did, looking forward to the DLC now.

I've been seeing this a lot lately with the newest Pokemon entries. A lot of people skipped it either due to it looking lackluster or just being burnt out on the formula, but are enjoying it regardless now. It IS fun, I love hopping around on the ride Pokemon, searching for shiny Pokemon, and the story this time around is a lot more serviceable than past entries too. Anyways, glad you enjoyed it and come and join me on the 'waiting for DLC' bench. :3

I actually just finished Scarlet last night myself. I finished Violet when it first came out and then have been waiting for the Home integration for my 'replay' through the second version. It was fun all over again and I even caught some extra story beats I missed the first time around. I'm now in the post game questline where I need to rebattle all the gym leaders and then participate in a tournament, which I don't remember if I did or not in my Violet playthrough. I will be doing it this time around, but I'm not going to rush it either. After I finish that all I have left to do is go hunt down the treasure legendries and then warm the waiting for DLC bench.

I'll probably end up binging Genshin's current event tomorrow and then probably go back to SoS:AWL for awhile. I'm also deciding which game on my Switch to tackle next, but I don't feel overly drawn to any title other than 'I bought this so I should play it'.

Currently playing:

Temtem

Recently beat:

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy (first trilogy/first 3 games) (Switch)
Digimon Survive (first playthrough) (Switch)
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)
Pikmin 1 (Nintendo Switch) (bad end)

I ended up getting the bad end on Pikmin 1 (Switch),and now I'm playing Temtem on Switch. I found the game pre-owned at Gamestop, and decided on a whim to buy it. I forgot that it was a MMORPG!

I'm going to replay Pikmin 1 (probably after I beat Temtem and Pikmin 4). I'm going to use a written walkthrough, but does anyone, in the meantime, have any tips for Pikmin 1 (Switch)? It's hard for me to beat the Wollyhogs/Wollyhops (frogs).

After I beat those three games, I might go back to Winter's Wish: Spirits of Edo, play Pikmin 2 on Switch, or play Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life.

Kikki wrote: ↑Jul 08, 2023 6:56 pm Does anybody know a general idea of about what level your WEAPON should be at different points? Say if you're on Chapter 3B, should your party's weapon levels all be...4?

For weapons, I'm sure somebody has a better guide than this, but...I always just went by MC's weapon. Upgrade that first, since you'll always be in the party, and can keep your weapon maxed out. (You'll eventually hit a point where you don't have access to the materials you need for upgrading [especially following the story as intended]. And at that point, you can judge party member's weapons.)

It's funny, I remember finding the writing for side quests above average by RPG standards. They're definitely just RPG quests, but the attempt at using them for world building was nice. Can't speak to early game side quests as well, though, since I don't remember them individually all that well. Maybe it says more about the general quality of RPG writing than anything. Ah, well. As long as you're having fun overall!

--
Through Chapter 11 of Ghost Trick now. Finding the fast forward button has helped with all the resets. So far there's only been ONE section that got me to look something up, and another that almost did... Still a great game! Puzzle complexity ramps up at a very reasonable pace, story complexity ramps up at a good pace. Should have it knocked out in...a couple more days, I think? Gonna be a really busy week this week, so I hope so.


I did at least START the story stuff in this Genshin update. The area is cuter than I thought it would be, but the story lost my interest before it started. It's very, very rare for me to like a kid character, and Klee is the rule, not the exception.

Just beat Chapter 3B. Used orbs to BLAST the boss' HP away when they got down to the critical point where they hit berserker mode and start flinging out killer attacks as fast as they can...just had to shoot off 3 or 4 of them and it wiped out 25-30% of their HP just like that. Though my party was using Fisherman's Sandwich as the healer, which boosts water and wave damage, so that made it extra effective. (Assuming it also applies to item attacks like orbs.) It's a VERY hard fight if you don't go into it with the right party/jobs and the right boosts and healing items, and if you don't know how the huge AOEs work...but if you do have the right setup, it's done in about thirty seconds. *phew* Thank goodness.

Mikodesu wrote: ↑Jul 09, 2023 9:27 am For weapons, I'm sure somebody has a better guide than this, but...I always just went by MC's weapon. Upgrade that first, since you'll always be in the party, and can keep your weapon maxed out. (You'll eventually hit a point where you don't have access to the materials you need for upgrading [especially following the story as intended]. And at that point, you can judge party member's weapons.)

It's funny, I remember finding the writing for side quests above average by RPG standards. They're definitely just RPG quests, but the attempt at using them for world building was nice. Can't speak to early game side quests as well, though, since I don't remember them individually all that well. Maybe it says more about the general quality of RPG writing than anything. Ah, well. As long as you're having fun overall!

I figured when I ran out of silver ore that I must be at about the right level, since I was cleaning out all dungeons of everything each time I went through...those ores must be more common later, so I must be intended to stop at about the level of upgrade where those ores run out too quickly to go any further. If that makes sense. I decided to judge by material availability. For me, I was able to upgrade the whole party to level 4 for 3B...I MIGHT have been able to get them all up to 5 for the final boss, if I'd grinded the last dungeon for silver multiple times, but I didn't wanna...figured I'd just stick with that. Went okay, anyway

Depends on what you mean by 'the writing', I guess. I mean...I don't think I can name even ONE game that employs truly impressive wordsmithing, whether that be the fault of low-priority writing budget or lackluster translation. Liar Princess had pretty writing in that it was very stylistic, but it's not like it was especially deep or used any impressive level of vocabulary. It was just a retelling of a few fairytales combined. In games, the best you can expect is more-original-than-usual ideas, that use either the fewest cliches, or use them in the cleverest way...or give you the biggest twists on the tropes, or go deeper than usual with the thoughts behind them.

My complaint with Harvestella's quests is that they all feel the same. It's nearly all idiots running off and getting themselves in trouble, or bullishly refusing to COMMUNICATE rather than just taking off to, you know...get themselves in trouble. I am so tired of stories that revolve around misunderstanding via lack of communication/one-sided decision-making.

I don't know what I think of Harvestella's overall story, yet, but the side-quests are irritating, since I find they're typically about NPCs making their own assumptions and not talking it out with the other people in their questlines before going off to do something stupid that I saw coming from a mile away. I swear I'd rather go straight-up gather 5 fire cores for someone than run between a husband and wife who just won't sit down and talk things out and hare off in different directions to solve their lives in incompatible ways that don't take each other into consideration at all. (Etc.) I feel like almost every quest is just a variation on the same theme: misunderstanding via lack of communication. And it's just so annoying.

I just don't want to do even one more quest that could have been entirely avoided if the people involved just had one proper conversation. The writing isn't necessarily bad in itself. The process of the quest feels really immature but which eventually works out to something acceptable...something where all parties actually understand each other, at least, after a bunch of teeth-grindingly aggravating misunderstandings and failure to say what they actually think/feel.

I had the opposite reaction as you, Kikki. I found most of the side quests relatable and very human. People are emotionally messy and that can be irritating. Miscommunication is at the heart of many problems in real life. They didn't bother me too much.

If others like it, that's great; it's nice that they were able to enjoy a larger percentage of the game than me, but...it doesn't make me hate it any less. If others like it, and they do a sequel, that means I'll probably see more of it again, so I guess it's great for them but bad for me, if that's the way they feel, since the devs will probably listen to the majority, if they've made themselves heard. I just feel rotten that a game I was enjoying so much is currently being ruined by all of this, and I have to just live with it or give up on the considerable rewards for doing the quests.

It's one of my absolute pet peeves, so that Havestella is absolutely stomping on it so many times is very frustrating for me. I prefer the quests where the person wants to make an antihistamine, or someone's trying to put the bartender out of business, or etc. I don't want another quest with people making stupid one-sided decisions for the people they supposedly care about because they think they alone get to take everyone's life into their own hands without asking what they think/feel first. Then, surprise...it doesn't turn out well, and Ein has to wade through that, as well, and just...UGH. TOO MANY TIMES. Please stop hitting the same peeve over and over, this bruise is already black and the size of a cantaloupe.

Even if it's realistic (well, not really, not to the absurd extent some of these people are going in the game) it's exactly the kind of realism I am trying to escape by playing a game rather than just living life. It's just like how I do NOT like hte idea of having to deal with insect and soil diseases in farming sims...or rodents or birds destroying your crops after months of work. I have those issues IRL and they're soul-crushing. Games are great because they simulate life without the bits that make you want to tear your hair out or cry.

Burning through quests as fast as I can. Lethe and Nemea's are all done, and Shatolla's at least half done. Dunno how much more will unfold after this but I'll get as much of it over with as I can, so I can enjoy the rest of the game more happily.

yzafre wrote: ↑Jul 08, 2023 10:24 am

greensara wrote: ↑Jul 07, 2023 2:05 pm Had to delete the Pikmin 4 demo off my Switch as I was getting tired of playing the one stage 5 or 6 times, even to 99%. (Not sure what was missing)

My guess would be the blue onion - it's what I missed on my last run at 98%. It's tricky because you have to time everything right to have enough time on the last day to grab it AND it seems you have to choose the right upgrades for Oatchi to have enough man-power to carry it. I'll be going back in to try for a 100% run once AWL has less of a grip on me (year 3, all hybrids mixed, just need to plant and harvest them! My dreams of a 100% encyclopedia are progressing nicely!)

EDIT: Well, apparently there's treasures that don't show up on the map without using Oatchi's sniffing abilities. Sigh, I guess I'll be doing a fourth run to get that last 1%

Yeah, I got the tricky blue onion too. I guess it must have been something with Oatchi I missed then.

Been playing Harvest Moon Mad Dash again, this time with the kids. It's actually easier and more fun as a multiplayer game than to solo it, but that's probably intentional.

Harvest Moon kawaii wrote: ↑Jul 09, 2023 8:48 am I'm going to replay Pikmin 1 (probably after I beat Temtem and Pikmin 4). I'm going to use a written walkthrough, but does anyone, in the meantime, have any tips for Pikmin 1 (Switch)? It's hard for me to beat the Wollyhogs/Wollyhops (frogs).

It's been a while since I played Pikmin 1, specifically, but iirc with a lot of the harder enemies it's a mix of making your initial attack count, and pressing and holding the whistle early. You'll want to try and get them by surprise (from behind, usually) - and the swarm ability can let you get all of your pikmin attacking very quickly. It's sort of up to you to judge for each enemy if throwing or swarming is better. Then, the moment you notice them starting their attack animation (jump, in this case), you hold down that button till all the pikmin rush back to your side and out of the blast radius. From there you just have to balance the timing between adding to a new attack, and calling your pikmin back.


I got that 100% on the pikmin 4 demo - that last treasure was tricky, but now I know. I'd already played a lot of AWL this weekend, so I played the demo for Ghost Trick, and subsequently bought the full game. Hopefully those two will keep me busy until pikmin comes out.

Bluie wrote: ↑Jul 09, 2023 4:37 am I've been seeing this a lot lately with the newest Pokemon entries. A lot of people skipped it either due to it looking lackluster or just being burnt out on the formula, but are enjoying it regardless now. It IS fun, I love hopping around on the ride Pokemon, searching for shiny Pokemon, and the story this time around is a lot more serviceable than past entries too. Anyways, glad you enjoyed it and come and join me on the 'waiting for DLC' bench. :3

I was a little hesitant because of the glitches people would share honestly! By the time I got my hands on a copy they were all patched out though so it was a smooth run and I really liked it! Seconded on all points, the characterization especially I was really impressed by, usually multiple rivals would mean uneven screen time but the way things were split up made for a really satisfying set of character arcs. So many great new Pokemon also! The Maushold line became a bit of a surprise fave of mine. Fingers crossed we get a release date for the first part of the DLC soon!

Forgot to mention I kinda replayed P3P. And by kinda I mean I got halfway through but my PS Vita decided to wipe itself completely? That was before the remake was announced and I've been hesitating starting over... like I might as well wait for that to come out instead. Shame about it basically being a remake of the vanilla release though, Atlus had the chance to finally give us a version that had everything (the original game, The Answer & FeMC) but instead they're making it so everything is spread out across 4 releases of the same game. I'm still gonna play it, might whine about it a little bit but I pretty much grew up with this game so! I will be tuned right in.

Funny thing is...the actual contents of Harvestella's sidequests felt pretty...standard RPG fare to me? Helpless villagers in the dangerous fantasy world BS. The only difference is the set dressing. The writing around the side quests added a sense of place to the world which was really necessary since NPCs have the same dialogue most of the time otherwise.

I may end up going back to my old completed file instead of starting a new one after Ghost Trick. I'm kinda curious to try another RPG now. My first thought was Fallout 1 or 2... got those from Epic last year I think? I'm just curious to try a different, older style RPG and see how the writing compares. I'll rummage through my backlog.

Off the top of my head I can't really think of any game with REALLY GOOD side quests, not that I've watched or played. The major regional set piece stuff in Genshin isn't bad (their regular side quests are dog « Cow Poopoo », though). The best might still be in the Souls series...weirdly? I like a mixture of mundane and high brow, I like the main character not being the center of the universe (or automatically included on ANYTHING), I like not seeing a bunch of pop-ups on a map screaming « Cow Poopoo » TO DO. I'm very mixed on things that are easy to miss, though. That's the major failing.

Or I may just need to chill on picking up new games until I get Star Rail and Genshin into a better place. Not up to date on either story... Star Rail I feel a little more settled on just letting it fill the 'basically an idle game' slot (tried and failed to finish the story tonight, though). Genshin just inherently takes more time. Luckily at this point I don't feel any grand need to go back to the grind. There's no character designs I like enough to even consider spending more than a monthly $5 pass on, so I'll just settle in and bide my time. There's going to be PLENTY of Fontaine story to change my mind before gameplay gets a chance to.

Chapter 13 of Ghost Trick done, though. Story is really starting to pick up the pace now, and just as I'd hoped, there are very, very few unimportant speaking roles.