Ushi No Tane Forum

Xenoblade 3 had great side quests. Actually XCX has some fantastic side quests, too, often about peace-making and befriending alien cultures, which is also in line with much of what you do in 3. XC1 had decent quests, but only in that a few of them really stood out as great content...most were normal. I can't remember XC2s but good chance they were decent as well, so I guess Xenoblade just does quests rather well, for my tastes.

ALL side-questing in games, ime, boils down to either kill quests or fetch quests, if you pare them down to their core. "Get X-many of this item for me!" or "Kill X many of that monster for me!" Sometimes they mix it up a tiny bit with escort quests (where big strong you has to help weak helpless little them through a dangerous area) which I don't actually mind, though it's still really largely a kill quest that's been framed differently. Then there are specific fetch quests, where you have to find an exact item, like a wedding ring that someone has lost, or a person, but to me those still broadly fit into 'fetch' quests. I can't, offhand, think of any quests that don't involve you either having to kill something or gather/find something, so they do all boil down, eventually, to the same thing.

The only other standard quest would be simply to find/talk to this or that NPC...not sure if that boils down to a 'find/fetch' quest or not.

Harvestella is the same in that sense, but it's the stories they built around each quest that drove me crazy. Spoiler contains a summary of many different, specific sidequests. On one hand, it's nice that they went to the bother to build stories around these quests, which still boil down to kill/fetch/talk to X NPC, but they made whole stories for them. The problem for me is that the stories they made are all the bloody same, and all SO frustrating. They're all a result of people not actually TALKING to their loved ones, making incorrect assumptions, and taking unilateral action to solve them to what they have decided is best for their loved one, without ever asking the loved ones what they think/feel. I just find that so...triggering. I'd erase it from real life if I could, so to have it show up in games as well, and so many times...ugh.

I think great quests do a good job in world-building. I don't feel like Harvestella's quests do that. They just give stories to generic NPCs that you'll never see/talk to again in any meaningful way. The characters aren't even unique...they all have designs the same as all the nameless NPCs. It's just very frustrating to me that the large majority revolve around misunderstandings/lack of communication, and in such a drawn-out fashion, too. (The ones that get resolved QUICKLY, like Annie's quest and Leo's quest, don't really bother me, because the misunderstanding isn't drawn out.)

Harvestella is the only game that has ever made me feel this specific way, so while I do think all quests boil down to fetch/kill/talk if you really cut them to the core, I do think that this game is quite different, not at all standard. For anyone who ENJOYS the differences, it's a great situation. For me, how they've done it, it's like low-grade torture. I can't wait to get questing over with. BUT I WANT THOSE REWARDS, so I must finish. (I'd also never be able to tolerate seeing quest icons everywhere if I just ignored them. It would drive me batty.)

The game still has really great balancing in terms of farming/gathering/fighting, and I like the upgrade systems a lot. (More with the farm than with the backpack or weapons.) If the quests didn't almost all revolve around misunderstandings/lack of communication, I'd like the questing, too, but since it is what it is, I'm just trying to get this part done with as much as I can so that I can continue after this chapter without having to worry about questing much (except the ongoing food and fish delivery quests.)

It's my birthday this week, and I'm a bit depressed about it. I'm turning thirty and it just really feels like I've done very little with my life, not to mention I'm really going to miss my twenties...So, to try and keep myself from getting too sad, I've been playing things the past few days.

I'm playing Zelda Breath of the Wild on and off. I think the game is good, but also very frustrating. For one, the controls always feel weird to me and I keep making the same mistake. Secondly, I hate the whole weapon breaking mechanic. It's annoying and I'll be honest, I'll never understand people who like this. It's just annoying and made worse by the controls. What I do like though is the world, exploration, and the towns. Combat is off for me, but doable. Already though I can tell this game is going to be hard. I'm worried if I'll ever finish it and get to the sequel. I'm just not good at Zelda honestly lol...

Next things I've been playing is SoS A Wonderful Life. I've got about thirty hours in, am finally on my third year, and am very close to getting my next facility. Overall, this game has been pretty fun. I do hope I can finish the game this year. If not, I won't be too upset, but I'd like to beat it. I think the biggest problem with be for me to try and not get bored since there's not much to do. Love my animals and family though.

I've also been playing Chrono Cross. Honestly, I've been having a hard time deciding what to play. I finally decided on Chrono Cross because I wanted something that was turn based and had a fun world. Now, I have Dragon Quest 11 and both Ocotpath Traveller games for this, but I'm a bit burned out from them right now. Oddly enough, I want to go back to these games because I love them so much. Anyway, Chrono Cross is okay. It's got some weird gameplay and story telling, but overall it's been fun. I do see myself finishing it, but I hope I can stick with it.

@infel: Being depressed about turning 30 is totally fair (and normal, imo). It's also hard to give yourself space to breathe if everybody around you wants to celebrate. So as much as you can do that, try. And for the rest, forgive yourself. You're human. Not everybody has to like milestones (or birthdays in general). I know I don't.

@Kikki: I definitely get how personal media consumption can be. Sometimes things just grate on you, whether or not you know why. Maybe for relating to something in your life that doesn't click until much later, if ever. And if getting the bits that annoy you out of the way rather than spacing them out is the best way to deal with it, that's great! All the better to enjoy what you DO like.

The whole lack of communication trope seems to be a HUGE problem in Japanese media because it's a huge problem in Japanese culture, from the few Japanese people I've known well enough to ask. There's a huge expectation to be able to "read the room", which ends up to be closer to mind reading, imo.

It's possible the storylines in quests may not have grated on me so much because I spaced them out more, or because they weren't main quest related. Like K8sMum said, people are flawed and messy. If it relates to mundane, everyday things, I can let it go easier than say... "Why didn't you tell me ____ before it lead to a war?" or "Why didn't you tell me ___ when I could have skipped half the main quest and ___ wouldn't have died?" Aah, videogames.

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Heck of a night for games for me. Busy week got sort of rescheduled, to more, starting at the end of this week, so I'm trying to finish up Ghost Trick. Chapter 14 was a DOOZY... I had some real trouble with this one. There was a lot of uh...noise problems for my brain. That being the puzzle terminology "signal and noise", where the signal is leading you to the puzzle solution, and the noise is leading you away from it. So I only got that much done. Story is losing me a little bit, but I'm hoping they bring it back for the end...

I also had a heck of a time playing Star Rail today. Hadn't wished in a while, was waiting to see what Blade/Kafka looked like before I decided on blondie or not, and while I like his design better Blade is basically Xiao 2.0. (So he's probably going to be constellation locked, and/or DEMAND a healer.) Kafka's kit isn't going to help me either, where a second healer would so...I wished! Took WAY TOO MANY Star Rail primos, but I did get my VERY FIRST 2 5 stars in a 10 pull. 4 characters, 2 of them 5 stars. Probably still unlucky, but that pulled it out of the gutter for me!

I'm the exact opposite. I'm mostly fine with huge misunderstandings between countries and major powers in games, because I believe they're generally unavoidable. It's not individuals, in these cases, unless the game features a full-blown megalomaniac or two, and actual insanity makes that sort of thing more acceptable to me than if it happens between two (or so) regular people. The misunderstandings that happen between countries, cultures or planets, especially over years/centuries of history, are so much larger than a single person; all the 'little people' are helpless to do anything about it and even among the powerful, it's often not possible for any one or two people to resolve the situation without some kind of intervention. A hero of some sort, whether that person be an action hero or a skilled politician, has to, with cunning or other strength, forcefully cut through the huge load of events that have lead history astray. I'm okay with that. It's not realistic that the hero COULD do that, but I don't want hopeless realism, I want big heroic stories.

But I'm going through one quest about lightkeeper right now that is driving me up the wall. If it was just a couple of quests that were like that, then I could unclench between the other quests, but almost all of them all like that. I went through the whole list of quests I've completed and around 75-80% of the quests are based around similar 'misunderstandings' and stupid decision-making. That one with Cherie. Such small, personal misunderstandings, so entirely within the control of the person at the heart of the quest. So easy to avoid, so deliberately and nonsensically built into a heap of mess for everybody. The smaller and more ordinary the problem, the less I can forgive it being botched up in such an overblown way.

EDIT: Whee, finished Winter Town! (The dungeon and boss, I mean, not the quests.) I am probably now done CHapter 3 entirely and can have all the basic farm features unlocked...probably. Though I don't know what are on some of the levels, so maybe not. But I should now have all the little helper gals, at least!

My bestest friend in the world has, imho, the weirdest family. Their speech always sounds like a bad soap opera script (ie: "they are dead to me!"). Everyone is so easily offended by what any of the others are saying. They go off on each other like bombs and say horrible things. They never talk about what's actually going on. They all talk about each other behind their backs like an incestuous gossip tree. Someone is always mad at someone, then the music changes and they all switch who they are mad at. Trust me: get togethers where the beer flows are a sight to behold. I've witnessed this for 35 years now and it still baffles me. I just watch warily and keep my mouth shut.

My friend, otoh, is the nicest, sweetest person I've ever known. She hates confrontation and always thinks the best of everyone. She's very forgiving. Basically, I think she's adopted.

Anyway, I think that may be why the side quests didn't bother me that much: I just assumed they were all her extended family.

Ohh boy the lighthouse quest, now THAT is a quintessentially Japanese problem. (It was especially annoying for me too. The context of the quest didn't feel mundane, though, so maybe that's why. I dunno.) The thing I don't get about my general lack of annoyance is that people are incredibly prone to annoying me with their BS in real life. And they're basically impossible to avoid, living in as populated of an area as I do. Ticks and quirks just come off different when they're not impacting me personally, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Probably helps that I don't have to be nice when it's not a real person... Sometimes it's nice not to be nice.

My family is relatively sedate and quite self-controlled, and I don't deal much with anyone else. So I'm more used to people who under-react a little, rather than any kind of over-reaction.

~

That's kind of funny, since I'm NOT that annoyed by people IRL, lol. People online would probably have a hard time believing this, but IRL I'm known for being really easy-going. But then, I have bags of space and can easily ignore/get away from what bothers me. But I could when I lived in the city, too. I've always been able to retreat from society/people relatively easily, even if just in my head, and it may be what makes others (IRL...not so much online) see me as low-key/easy-going. Really it's because I've turned off and don't care. I can flip that switch really easily, I guess. It's stressing me out? Okay, then I just won't care about it any more. Seems to be how I deal with life. But you can't do that with a game you're choosing to play. I bail on interactions irl but have to commit to them in the game, lol.

I guess it all adds up to how you experience games. I'm often the MOST invested in things in games that I LEAST care about, irl. Like getting married in Bokumono games. IRL I've never had even one minute when I wanted to be married, but farming games that don't include that look dull to me. (Perhaps because they have less late-game appeal, or perhaps because I like to play something in my control that I found too problematic to bother with irl.)

~

Got a few companion people up to their maximum 'closeness'. The events were 0% romantic, so I'm not sure how the courtships eventually go. I think they can only be pursued post-game anyway, and I just finished Chapter 3, so I don't think I'm anywhere near there, yet. I doubt the other chapters are as long as 3, though. Ch. 3 felt like three chapters stuck together. If they're all this long, then this is a beast of a game. Got Shatolla's quests about 2/3 done and am approaching the same on...Argene? Am half way through Autumn Year 1.

EDIT: All done Lethe, Nemea, Shatolla and Argene's quests, and have all companions at maximum closeness except the most recent two, though looking at the job wheel it seems like there must be two more to go through, but I haven't met them yet, I guess.

I don't think there'll be too many more quests added from here on out...I think these four towns are the main ones that provide quests. I have the award for finishing quests in the four main towns in that book in your farmhouse, so I know I'm done with them, woo! (Except food delivery.) Thrilled to have the ability to break large rocks, now! Fancy expensive trees, I have room for you now! Year 2 should be a heavy production year at the Bird's Eye Brae farm. :D

EDIT 2: Yay! Caught 3 rare fish and now have the maximum fishing knowledge...permit or lesson or whatever it is that you get in your inventory...and catching all other rare fish should be much easier. Also, that 15,000 from turning in the rare fish refilled most of what I spent on extra tree saplings now that my farm has enough open space for more trees. I also have 3 each of cluffowls and, uh...the other one. Fluffernuggets or something. Will hold off on getting 5 each until I have a feed maker upgrade.

I love getting a reliable source of income permanently set up. :D

So I just finished AWL for my backlog and man, I've collected 86/88 of the wonderfuls in the game (I hate cooking) and I just can't wait to go back to it when I'm in a farming sim mood again and marry Lumina.

For now, it's back to FFXVI.

I finished up all the post game in Pokemon Scarlet last night. I definitely didn't do it in Violet, because I would've remembered Arven being an absolutely adorable little goober during the tournament. Man he's so loveable I just wanna squish him! Hnnngg. My urge to write a fanfiction for him is rising! MUST FIGHT IT, GOTTA HANDLE MY BACKLOG!

And speaking of, I got to year 2 in AWL. While I am enjoying my time with the game, it's a slow burn I can't see myself binging. Just as I started to get bored near the end of year 1, having new residents in the valley (including your child) did give me a little more pep to keep playing. I think I'm still going to need a side game when I need a break from all the farming, and I might go with Samurai Warriors 5? I don't want something turnbased nor do I want another simulation game right now, so it seems like the best option to go with (my other backlog Switch games are Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher and Ace Angler Fishing Spirits - so yeah loooool...)

I did pick up a copy of Harvestella today (it's 50% for Prime Day) but I don't know when I'll be getting to it. Other than that, There's a Splatfest this weekend! Whee! PS5 is still being held hostage by the hubby lol, but he's making great progress on FFXVI!

yzafre wrote: ↑Jul 09, 2023 5:41 pm

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.

Hey, Yzafre! Just wanted to say thanks for the help/advice.

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 played a little of Ghosts over the Water's Edge: Changing Tides of Japan's Future.

And, I've played more Temtem. I haven't made it very far in, as I think the Switch version runs (loads?) a bit slower, plus I don't like using my refillable heal-all. And, I think I'm right before the first dojo, but am unsure. (Dojos are kinds like Pokemon gyms, I think)

I really wonder if you'll like it, Bluie! I actually love it (Harvestella, I mean)...except when I hate it, lol.

To my surprise, I've finished Chapter 5. I was in Chapter 4, and then all of a sudden, Chapter 5 was announcing its ending, lol. I swear I blinked and missed it. 5 was as short as 3 was long. (3 felt like it should have been divided into 3 individual chapters and 5 felt like an interlude.) So I now have NO idea how far I am in the game since the chapter lengths vary so wildly.

I'm finding the story to be really typical to long JRPGs. Big twists if you've never played more than a couple of them before, but nothing surprising if you have...it's got all the familiar tropes. That's what I've found, anyway, based on where I am...though now I don't know where that is, lol. Half way? Three-quarters? The chapter lengths are so unpredictable that I don't know how much is left!

It has some nice farming goals though, so if the story left is short, I'll probably play long enough to get all the goals done in post-game. I even like Karenoid (just not the name of it, lol.)

Finished Ghost Trick last night just in time for the streamer I mentioned to start playing it and...warts and all what a special, lovely game. Cannot say enough good things. There were a COUPLE of puzzles I found a little unfairly obtuse, and ONE story bit that I wasn't happy with, but the rest of everything was SO incredibly well done, how could you not be charmed? I was just...glowing the whole rest of the night after finishing it.

Good writing, funny as hell, SO many little story threads all blended together. I've already caught foreshadowing I forgot about watching the first couple chapters be played by said streamer...

Not much I can say that doesn't spoil the game, just a big endorsement. My biggest complaint about the gameplay is how long it can take to retry puzzles sometimes, just by their nature. Really wish the updated version had implemented some way to speed things up, but...I get why that would be difficult. Probably would mess with animations at some point. So when I got tired of fiddling I looked things up. I found an nice spoiler free guide that basically served as a perfect hint service that I didn't feel too guilty about.

If it's too much money, I'd say wait. Capcom is pretty great about sales. For the right price, it's a very hard game to say no to, imo. One of those rare, special few easy recommendations.


With Ghost Trick done, I'm back to Genshin more regularly. Working my way through the between-regions story. It's about the same as always, story-wise, I do miss the visual spectacle of last year though. And just GAA in general. Though probably the break will make returning some other time that much nicer.

Star Rail, all I can say is now that I've raised him a bit...Luocha is great. Finally unlocked Memory of Chaos, chewing through the roguelite mode I can't remember the name of. Very pretty design, too. Pretty happy.

Kikki wrote: ↑Jul 12, 2023 5:40 pm I really wonder if you'll like it, Bluie! I actually love it (Harvestella, I mean)...except when I hate it, lol.

I feel like I will, it feels like it's just up my alley. I do love me some 'cozy' games with combat attached... or JRPGs with simulation elements attached. I just don't know when I'll tackle it as I already have one farming game on the go and I'll probably need a break once I finish it. Just like how I'm currently taking a break from the VN genre as a whole because I overdosed on it. I'm honestly mostly motivated right now to get through my Switch backlog until my next big release, which I have no idea when that is because everything I want day one either is still up in the air or vaporware. Next year only has one must buy (so far) so I don't really feel pressured to finish up the (ever growing) backlog of games. Meanwhile my wishlist also keep growing so I'm not hurting for options in the event that I actually manage to run out of games (NOT LIKELY LOOOOL).

For now I'm going to duo play SoS:AWL and Samurai Warriors 5 and see how I feel after finishing them both. I'll probably have the PS5 back by then, so that'll be in the mix too. I completely forgot I had preordered Oxenfree II on there and I'd like to play that asap, but I can also just sit and wait while the husband finishes his game. My backlog on the PS5 is mostly games I've picked up on sale and don't have any big burning desire to get into, but I still want to play them regardless. I was also victim to the Steam summer sale as literally everything in my wishlist went on sale, but I limited myself to 3 purchases (which ended up being the Muv Luv duology and a horror VN called Iwahime - the latter being from a beloved author of mine and I plan to probably tackle it closer to spooky season~).

The next Genshin expansion will throw a wrench into everything though, and it's fast approaching, but even then I will eventually run out of content until the next update, so eh.

I've been too busy to even pick up a game for a few minutes before bed this week, but I got really overwhelmed by the fact that I was playing a million different things at once so I've decided to try and stick to a single game again lol. I'm taking a break from SOS:AWL even though I was enjoying it - it just isn't really what I'm in the mood for. Recently I just haven't been as into chill games and farming sims... I feel like they're more of a winter game for me.

I'm trying to get through Baldur's Gate 2 right now and it's MASSIVE. The first game was pretty good but very dated (even for me) so I was expecting BG2 to be the same. But it's actually better than most modern games I've played recently - the sidequests are actually written well and have variety, and there are SO many of them. I ignored the main story for 40+ hours in chapter 2 just trying to get all the side quests done and had no idea that I was barely 1/4 of the way through the game until I looked it up. And now I'm actually working through the main story I'm really invested in it and actually want to know what happens next, when usually I feel pretty apathetic about the actual story in these kind of games and only really care about characters and side quests.

Anyway, I'm hoping to finish this by the end of the month. I'm not sure exactly how long it'll take but I'm hopefully getting some work next week and I'm finding out where I'm going to be moving so I'll be busy with sorting all that out as well. After I finish this I'm probably going to go back and finish Morrowind since I was well into the DLCs and really close to completing most of the game before I dropped it.

It's been a while since I last posted.

Currently playing:

• Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life - I've been getting used to limited days (10 days! XD ) So far, I am enjoying my time with time.

• Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access - It's been a while since I last played this (To be honest, I haven't played when it was released on Early Access). Planning to see the updates and get used to the mechanics. This will be my first game with the dice roll mechanic so it will be overwhelming. XD

Looking forward to:

• Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC

• Stray Gods

• Starfield (Going to try this on Game Pass. Bethesda Games haven't hooked me so far)

For the past months, I've finished these games: I mostly read/played interactive fiction for the past months:

• Wayhaven Chronicles Book Three - One LI route was bittersweet (made me cry) and the other LI route was surprisingly wholesome. I can't wait for Book 4!

• A Tale of Crown - I finally got a chance to update to the latest chapter. Good writing as well!

• The Night Market - It was recommended to me and it was an awesome read. Shame the next book is not yet available

• Superstition Season 1 to Season 3 - It was so good to read some urban fantasy. I can't wait for Season 4!

• Our Life Beginning and Always Baxter route - Oh boy! Definitely my favorite IF so far! I played this VN for 40 hours because of the multiple playthroughs I made to see the variation depending on your choice. I love Baxter's character development so much!! Highly Recommended! I didn't even do the Cove Wedding DLC and Derek's route because I can't move on from Baxter's route.