I’ve shelved Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 3 for the time being while I decide which guy to go for next. I’m very satisfied after dating Konno-senpai, so to throw myself back in the dating game for an inferior guy is like, hmm… But I get the feeling Shitara’s route will be all kinds of awesome, so maybe I’ll do that. Thanks to all who wrote about how to change the picture on my desk. I thought for sure Fujiyama was stalking me, *brrr!*
Right now I’m playing Harvest Moon: Twin Villages (a.k.a Bokujou Monogatari: Futago no Mura
As far as the story goes, there are two villages you can live in: Bluebell Village and Konohana Village. Hundreds of years ago the two mayors had a falling out and the two villages have theoretically been on bad terms ever since. Theoretically. I came into the game expecting some real rivalry and hostility between the two villages, but everyone’s actually really friendly. Even the two mayors have more of a friendly rivalry, they say the funniest things when they compete in the cooking contest (taking part in which is the only way to reunite the villages, go figure). Plus you can go to any of the villages any time you want, shop there all you want, do quests for the other villagers, talk to people, you might even be able to woo the girls on the other side with no real consequences, and basically have a good time with no restrictions.
Furthermore, Bluebell is supposed to be the “ranching” village and Konohana the “farming” village, but you can start keeping cows and chickens in Konohana right away, and I’m pretty sure you can grow crops in Bluebell too. What that means is that apart from the decor, there’s not much to choose between the two. Even better, you can up and move to the other village between the 23rd and the 30th of every season if you want. I’m yet to figure out why this would be a good idea when you can travel there any time, but this is more evidence that the rivalry is practically non-existent.
As far as the game itself goes, I’m only on Year 1 Spring 26, so I don’t want to come down too hard on it just yet. I’ll limit myself to two complaints for now: One, the map is rubbish. Remember the map from Sunshine Islands, how you could see where everyone was with one glance? In Rune Factory 3 the map even tracked movements, which was really convenient. Yeah, well, say goodbye to all that. Twin Villages’ map is awful and lacks a lot of detail. You can only see where your character is at any point in time, nobody else. You get a slightly more in-depth map when you’re in town, but when you’re exploring the mountains and other places, tough luck. It wasn’t so bad in Grand Bazaar because there weren’t that many places to go, but in Twin Villages it’s extremely annoying.
Second complaint, time still moves way too slowly. They brought back that system from Grand Bazaar where if you water the crops twice a day they grow faster, but the minutes pass so slowly that you’ll be done with all your watering, foraging and quests with game-hours to spare. Luckily I learned my lesson in the last game, so I don’t chase those extra days, I just go to bed. Unfortunately the time affects other things, particularly festivals. Most of them start in the afternoon, so you might have to wait up to five real-time minutes to progress with the game if you’re taking part in one. It sounds short, but there’s nothing to DO while you’re waiting, so you’re just sitting there staring at the screen…staring…staring…starinZzZzZz…
But still, I just started. After having to eat crow on my initial Atelier Lina review, I’m going to be as optimistic as possible about this game until I’ve finished at least one year. I’ll write a second post on the game then.
thanks for starting the review. if you could finish the review, i would be very happy! i’m really anticipating this game a lot, but unlike grand bazaar or rune factory, there is no one who has played/playing the game, that wrote out a review for twin villages! i’d like to really know how the game is like! thank you!
Done. https://www.tehvidya.com/2010/11/harvest-moon-twin-villages-i-dont-like-it/