The Grandest Bazaar

Wed, Sep 10, 2025 Year 3, Summer 09

Al and Micah talk about Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:15: What Have We Been Up To
00:33:37: I Know What You Released Last Month
00:36:14: Game News
00:47:38: Story Of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
02:35:52: Outro

Links

Sun Haven Switch Updates
Oppidum 1.1 Update
Disney Dreamlight Valley “Wishblossom Ranch” Expansion
Stardew 1.7
Haunted Chocolatier Blogpost on Stardew 1.7

Contact

Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:31) Al: Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season.
(0:00:34) Al: My name is Al.
(0:00:36) Micah: And I’m Micah.
(0:00:37) Al: And we are here today to talk about Cottagecore games.
(0:00:40) Micah: Yippee. Yippee.
(0:00:44) Al: So you hear my call, and so it must mean it’s Harvest Moon,
(0:00:48) Al: our story of Seasons time.
(0:00:51) Micah: One or the other.
(0:00:55) Micah: That’s my legacy here.
(0:00:57) Al: Well, you know, some everyone has a thing, right?
(0:00:59) Al: Your thing is, harvest minister.
(0:01:00) Al: story of seasons, Cody’s thing is bugs and mobile games.
(0:01:05) Al: Spencer’s thing is Kaiju.
(0:01:08) Al: Kevin’s thing is Sonic for some reason.
(0:01:14) Al: And my thing is whatever anybody doesn’t want to do.
(0:01:17) Al: Woo!
(0:01:19) Al: All right, yeah, so.
(0:01:20) Micah: You’re just a, an every man.
(0:01:21) Micah: Okay.
(0:01:22) Al: Well, absolutely, absolutely.
(0:01:24) Al: All right, so we are going to talk about story of seasons,
(0:01:26) Al: Grand Bazaar.
(0:01:29) Al: the remake of Harvest Moon Grand Design.
(0:01:30) Al: I’m not sure.
(0:01:34) Micah: Yes
(0:01:36) Micah: It was it was DS
(0:01:39) Micah: it was DS and I only know that because I
(0:01:44) Micah: Had never played it on the DS. So I pull I went back and played it in
(0:01:50) Micah: preparation for this just to get like a feel for what it was like in its original state
(0:01:56) Al: Fun times
(0:01:58) Al: Before that though we have some game news
(0:02:01) Al: We also have the I know what you released last month
(0:02:05) Al: Which was missed last episode because Cody forgot to talk about it despite mentioning it in the episode. Thanks, Cody
(0:02:12) Al: So we’re gonna cover that
(0:02:14) Micah: Uh, I’ve been very busy.
(0:02:15) Al: But first of all my Cal what have you been up to?
(0:02:22) Micah: Uh, I just recently got back from the Pokemon world
(0:02:27) Micah: championships in Anaheim.
(0:02:28) Al: Nice, how was that?
(0:02:30) Micah: Uh, it was very fun.
(0:02:31) Micah: It was very nice.
(0:02:33) Micah: It was nice seeing a lot of friends and, you know, just like, it’s always nice
(0:02:39) Micah: for events like that, because there’s so many people that, you know, almost
(0:02:44) Micah: exclusively online that you get to meet in person either for the first time or.
(0:02:50) Micah: Again, you know, you get to see each other again.
(0:02:53) Micah: Um, so it’s, it’s a lot of fun.
(0:02:56) Micah: Uh, and it was, it was very cool.
(0:02:59) Micah: It was, it was in a, an arena that this time the finals were in an arena, which was.
(0:03:02) Al: Yes, I didn’t end up seeing any of the live stream because it’s just dreadful timing for here,
(0:03:11) Al: but I did see some clips and it looked quite interesting being in that sort of surrounding
(0:03:19) Al: the stage rather than kind of your standard looking forwards towards the stage.
(0:03:26) Micah: Yeah. It was like, it’s the, it’s the big leagues now.
(0:03:29) Micah: It’s, it’s a, it’s a real e-sports arena, which is kind of wild that it’s come
(0:03:35) Micah: this far and that’s where we are, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty cool.
(0:03:42) Micah: It was a very cool experience.
(0:03:45) Micah: Uh, I have been to a few worlds before until they started going out of the country.
(0:03:56) Al: Yes, fair enough. You didn’t come to London and you didn’t go to Japan, that’s fair enough.
(0:03:56) Micah: I did not come to London and I did not go to, no, I did.
(0:04:02) Al: So my question for you is then, how did it feel compared to the other ones you’ve been
(0:04:08) Micah: Uh, it felt a lot bigger.
(0:04:11) Micah: I mean, the last time I had gone was pretty pandemic.
(0:04:17) Micah: Uh, and it was, you know, uh, a lot happened to Pokemon as a hobby during
(0:04:23) Al: Did it.
(0:04:26) Micah: the pandemic, um, as evidenced by the state of the card game and, uh, the
(0:04:34) Micah: prices of anything Pokemon.
(0:04:38) Micah: So it was pretty like boom, the big pandemic boom.
(0:04:46) Micah: So it was significantly smaller.
(0:04:49) Micah: Yeah, it was just a lot bigger, a lot more moving parts.
(0:04:54) Micah: It seemed like a lot like higher production was pretty big, pretty big deal.
(0:05:02) Al: Fun times, I’ve only been to one, so I went to the London one, so I don’t have anything
(0:05:06) Al: to compare that to. But it felt pretty big to me. It was definitely a lot of fun, and
(0:05:07) Micah: Oh sure, yeah.
(0:05:14) Al: if I were to get the opportunity to go again, I definitely would. There’s so much, and it
(0:05:19) Al: feels like even if you’re not particularly interested in the matches themselves, which
(0:05:23) Al: I find interesting, like I really only went to, during the Friday and Saturday, I kind
(0:05:30) Al: I walked around and watched a bunch of…
(0:05:32) Al: the qualifications card game matches because they I think are the most accessible when there’s
(0:05:39) Al: loads of them and I watched a little bit of the what’s it called a poking tournament because
(0:05:47) Micah: Oh, right, right, right.
(0:05:48) Al: they were still doing that in London they were they were fun to watch and then other than that
(0:05:52) Micah: Wow, they were still doing Pokken in London?
(0:05:52) Al: it was mostly they were yeah I think that was their last one I think they didn’t do it after that
(0:05:54) Micah: That’s awesome.
(0:05:58) Micah: Oh, that’s sad.
(0:06:00) Al: And and then other.
(0:06:02) Al: Other than that, we just watched the finals on the Sunday, but even not knowing all the
(0:06:06) Al: ins and the outs, they do a really good job of showing you.
(0:06:09) Al: And like, you know, like when they show you’ve got the screen up and they show you like the
(0:06:14) Al: cards for the TCG, they have the like cameras and they actually show you what cards was
(0:06:19) Al: put up.
(0:06:21) Al: So it’s clear.
(0:06:22) Al: You can read it and it’s quite clear.
(0:06:24) Al: And the VGC is a little bit harder to follow because like things happen really fast and
(0:06:30) Al: they don’t but the
(0:06:32) Al: commentators are pretty good at catching you up on what just happens here like yeah I have no
(0:06:35) Al: idea what just something happened but I have no idea what that was and they’re like oh this meant
(0:06:40) Al: this triggered that and this meant that and that’s how that happened you’re like oh okay cool and I
(0:06:44) Al: find it really fun even when you don’t know all the stuff because like I’m not deep into the
(0:06:48) Al: um the tactics of the you know high-end competitive um yeah exactly exactly so it’s
(0:06:52) Micah: sure yeah me neither in any regard you know I don’t cards VGC I don’t really
(0:07:02) Al: exactly exactly we know that the basics of how this thing works right and can
(0:07:02) Micah: know what’s going on but
(0:07:06) Micah: yeah
(0:07:07) Al: can beat everything in game but there’s a whole different level to have competitive um
(0:07:11) Micah: I know when people are cheering that something good have happened
(0:07:15) Al: yes but I think they do yeah
(0:07:15) Micah: usually I can use the context clues to be like oh that was a big move that they
(0:07:22) Al: exactly exactly and it’s like you know it’s it’s really exciting when like something crits or you
(0:07:29) Micah: Yeah
(0:07:29) Al: You know, something doesn’t quite hit like they, they,
(0:07:32) Al: one HP or something that is super fun to watch that.
(0:07:35) Micah: Right, yeah
(0:07:35) Al: But it’s also just fun to be around, even if you don’t care about that.
(0:07:39) Micah: Oh, yeah, definitely
(0:07:40) Al: Because there was loads of other events and stuff.
(0:07:42) Al: There’s obviously the Pokemon Center to spend all your money in.
(0:07:45) Al: But in London, they had like these
(0:07:49) Al: event like areas you could go in, like get some some merch.
(0:07:54) Al: And there was like a whole bunch of free stuff and like just other things,
(0:07:58) Al: other activities and stuff.
(0:10:48) Al: Oh, nice. Did you play it? Thoughts?
(0:11:38) Al: You’re probably not going to be able to elaborate on what that means, I suspect.
(0:11:42) Al: But.
(0:11:45) Al: Try.
(0:13:26) Al: Interesting. You play, and you don’t feel the same about the original legend’s arc.
(0:14:52) Al: - Yeah, no, that’s fair.
(0:15:38) Al: Mm-hmm
(0:16:00) Al: Mm-hmm
(0:16:06) Al: That’s fair
(0:16:48) Al: Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah, the ladder. I can’t remember what they call it either. They’ve
(0:16:56) Al: always got to make up complicated names for things.
(0:17:50) Al: Yes, yeah, yeah
(0:18:00) Al: I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ll probably have to try it to see how I feel about it, right?
(0:18:05) Al: Because, like, I kind of like that Pokémon is mostly turn-based in its combat, right?
(0:18:12) Al: Because you don’t have to think quickly. But equally, if the rest of the game is real time,
(0:18:19) Al: then does it make sense for battles to not be real time, right?
(0:18:25) Al: I actually really liked ZA’s battle system being different.
(0:18:30) Al: But still, essentially turn-based, sorry, yeah, sorry, yeah, Legends Arceus.
(0:18:36) Al: I liked how it was still turn-based, but different.
(0:18:42) Al: I know people didn’t really like that, and that’s fine, but I did.
(0:18:46) Al: So I don’t know, I just, I feel like it’s going to be, I’ll have to try it and see how it feels.
(0:19:48) Al: Yes, yes, I’ve seen that, yeah.
(0:20:02) Al: Yeah, I know what you mean.
(0:20:08) Al: I know what you mean.
(0:20:09) Al: It’s, it’s this battles alphas, right?
(0:20:40) Al: It’s going to be part of the main story, presumably.
(0:20:52) Al: - Yes, of course, of course.
(0:20:56) Al: You’ll figure out what it is and then you’ll be tasked
(0:20:59) Al: with going and camming the rest of them,
(0:21:01) Al: but they’re not gonna get rid of them.
(0:21:58) Al: Yeah, it’s interesting. I guess the thing about the difference between that and how
(0:22:03) Al: Arceus worked was that the way that
(0:22:06) Al: it worked in Arceus is you were trying to catch it rather than battle it.
(0:22:10) Al: Right. So like it kind of made sense to be kind of real time there where you’re
(0:22:14) Al: like trying to throw balls at it. I really like that.
(0:22:17) Al: But when you’re also then trying to decide what your Pokemon will do,
(0:22:21) Al: I wonder how that will feel. That’s, I guess, my question.
(0:22:41) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough.
(0:23:04) Al: Yeah.
(0:23:07) Al: Yeah, yeah.
(0:23:09) Al: I guess I just, I’ll just have to see. We’ve not got, we’ve only got a month and a half now. Not long to go. Looking forward to trying it out.
(0:23:45) Al: Yeah.
(0:23:52) Al: And I’m only in I’m only in one place.
(0:24:00) Al: Yeah.
(0:24:05) Al: Cool, we shall see.
(0:24:20) Al: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it gives them more flexibility as well and allows people to be like, it might
(0:24:32) Al: stop some people complaining about like, “Oh, they’ve removed Megas again” or whatever, and like,
(0:24:38) Al: “Yeah, OK, fine, they’re in this other game, go play them over there if you’ve
(0:24:48) Al: Well, never say never, never say never, although the problem is that August is a difficult
(0:25:00) Al: time because I tend to be on hold like away somewhere for the first couple of weeks of
(0:25:07) Al: August and then it’s like rushing away again at that point, you know, the timing is not
(0:25:13) Al: ideal. So we’ll just, but never say never.
(0:25:18) Al: Look, I love doing it. When it was in London, it was great fun. I would love to go again.
(0:25:37) Al: Look, it definitely makes you reconsider things, let’s put it that way.
(0:25:51) Al: Cool beans.
(0:26:02) Al: Oh, yeah. Have you have you downloaded Silksong yet? Have you bought?
(0:27:08) Al: Yeah, fair enough.
(0:27:12) Al: Yeah, I played most of the way through Hollow Knight.
(0:27:14) Al: I got stuck on one battle and then ended up playing something else
(0:27:17) Al: and I never went back to it, because it’s hard to go back to games sometimes.
(0:27:23) Al: Yeah, but I did enjoy it.
(0:27:28) Al: I’m certainly not picking up Silksong right now.
(0:27:30) Al: I might do it at some point.
(0:27:32) Al: So I really love the combat and the platforming and the…
(0:27:38) Al: But I absolutely hate backtracking in games.
(0:27:44) Al: Just across the board.
(0:27:45) Al: I hate going back to a place I’ve already been, because I’m like, I’ve been here.
(0:27:49) Al: And it’s like, you have to go all the way back through an area you’ve explored
(0:27:52) Al: to get to a new area.
(0:27:53) Al: I don’t find that fun.
(0:27:54) Al: I saw someone describe it as, you know that moment where you walk out to your car
(0:28:00) Al: and then you realize you’ve forgotten your car keys?
(0:28:01) Al: So you have to go back to the house to get the car keys?
(0:28:05) Al: That’s the game.
(0:28:08) Al: I have no idea.
(0:28:13) Al: I was on a TikTok, so I wasn’t really being attention to who it was.
(0:28:46) Al: Oh, it’s the same thing. Yeah, if I, I mean, they’re, I think they’re worse, right.
(0:28:54) Al: Yeah, no, no, I can’t, can’t, can’t with that. Thank you very much.
(0:29:10) Al: This is the problem. It’s hard to get 2D platformers with combat that aren’t Metroidvanias now,
(0:29:18) Al: right? Those don’t really exist anymore, because they’re just all Metroidvanias now.
(0:29:22) Al: It’s kind of like how, yeah, when you’re watching the trailer for gaming,
(0:29:26) Al: you’re like, “Oh, this looks really good. Really good. Oh, it’s rogue-like. OK, fine.”
(0:29:32) Al: And you’re like, “I get that people love it, and I get that it’s a trendy thing, blah, blah, blah.”
(0:29:40) Al: Yeah.
(0:29:54) Al: [LAUGHS] Yeah.
(0:30:02) Al: What’s the problem with this like one specific thing about a genre of games that you don’t like?
(0:30:09) Al: But whatever. Fun times. I have finished up Donkey Kong Bonanza. I hit credits on that game.
(0:30:19) Al: So I enjoyed that game. I am undecided as to whether I’m going to go back and try and,
(0:30:23) Al: you know, 100% everything. There’s many bananas to get and apparently there’s a bunch of levels in
(0:30:28) Al: the postgame. I haven’t done them, mainly because I completed it on
(0:30:32) Al: the day that Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar arrived. So I was like, well, this is my next
(0:30:38) Al: week. We gave ourselves exactly a week and two days to get this to play through the game
(0:30:44) Al: before the episode. So I was like, well, I’m not going to waste more time. Whether I go back to it
(0:30:47) Al: or not after this is an open question. We’ll just see. I did enjoy it. I’m not a huge fan of the
(0:30:54) Al: camera. The camera could do with a bit of improvement. But other than that, I really,
(0:31:00) Al: really enjoyed it. It was good fun.
(0:31:03) Al: I like just being big monkey smashing things, right?
(0:31:50) Al: - Yes, yep.
(0:32:02) Al: Yeah, I don’t want to say much. I think it depends on your opinion on things. I enjoyed
(0:32:11) Al: it. I do know some people who did not enjoy the conclusion, and I understand why they
(0:32:17) Al: didn’t enjoy the conclusion, but it’s very much a, yeah, personal taste thing. I do enjoy,
(0:32:25) Al: no matter what you think about it, I highly recommend avoiding the end spoiler, right?
(0:32:31) Al: Like it is…
(0:32:32) Al: You probably wouldn’t guess it, and it’s nice to not be spot– and I didn’t– I wasn’t
(0:32:38) Al: spoiled for that. And I was like, “Oh, I was not expecting that!” So it’s nice to get that.
(0:32:43) Al: You don’t get that very often.
(0:32:49) Al: Yeah, yeah. And it hit the point where on Monday last week, where I was like, “Oh,
(0:32:55) Al: I feel like I’m so close. I’m just gonna do the bare minimum on each of these levels just to get
(0:33:00) Al: to the end now, I wasn’t
(0:33:02) Al: you know trying to get extra bananas and stuff like that because it’s like I can I just I need
(0:33:07) Al: to get to the end here before I play Grand Bazaar because I can’t guarantee that I’ll
(0:33:12) Al: ever come back to it. I might but I can’t guarantee it you know. But yeah no I enjoyed it and I guess
(0:33:21) Al: we’ll see and other than that I’ve just been playing obviously Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar
(0:33:25) Al: that’s pretty much it. Oh and Pokemon Go obviously but that’s just life.
(0:33:32) Al: Absolutely. All right let’s I know what you released last month so this is where we go
(0:33:42) Al: through all the games that released last month. So in August we had quite a few releases.
(0:33:49) Al: So we had Firefly Village, Herdling, Discounty, Moonlight in Garland,
(0:33:57) Al: of course Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar and then we had three early accesses released.
(0:34:02) Al: Abyss New Dawn, Out and About and Super Farming Boy. Many games.
(0:34:12) Al: I have not. August is a busy month for me. July and August are both busy months for me so
(0:34:21) Al: I haven’t. I do think I’m probably going to play Firefly Village. I’m intrigued by it.
(0:34:30) Al: we will see. It’s always hard.
(0:34:32) Al: to know. I want to play discounty at some point, and probably super farming by, but
(0:34:40) Al: probably not in early access, so. I presume you’ve not played any of these other than
(0:34:45) Al: Grand Bazaar. Have you heard of any of these?
(0:34:56) Al: Firefly Village has got good reviews on Steam. It’s not a huge game, but all of the people
(0:35:06) Al: that have played it, they seem to be enjoying it. So I’m always intrigued when something
(0:35:11) Al: that just looks like a standard farming sim actually has good reviews. I had that with
(0:35:17) Al: Fields of Mystery last year. I was like, “Oh, people are actually liking this one. I guess
(0:35:42) Al: And yeah, it’ll be interesting to see whether it is just Stardew clone or whether it’s doing
(0:35:52) Al: something else.
(0:35:54) Al: And it’s hard to know just by looking at it, because obviously the thing that they’re trying
(0:36:00) Al: to sell you on is the fact that “hey, you like Stardew, you like us” and the kind of
(0:36:04) Al: other stuff is hidden elsewhere.
(0:36:06) Al: So I’ll probably have to play it to find out.
(0:36:12) Al: Shocking.
(0:36:16) Al: All right, so into the news then, there’s a few pieces of news this year, this episode.
(0:36:23) Al: First off, we have Sunhaven have announced that 2.0 and 2.5, those updates are now out
(0:36:31) Al: on the Switch version.
(0:36:33) Al: So I believe that means the Switch version is up to date with the Steam version.
(0:36:39) Al: Not many games get that.
(0:36:42) Al: So that’s good.
(0:36:47) Al: It’s another game that’s on my list that I want to play at some point.
(0:36:49) Al: Will I?
(0:36:50) Al: Who knows?
(0:36:56) Al: It’s RPG farming game with magic.
(0:37:04) Al: I mean, it’s been out for quite a while.
(0:37:07) Al: So it’s possible you have been and then.
(0:37:12) Al: Kind of disappeared like they when did they when when did they first kick start.
(0:37:20) Al: Oh goodness too many updates to go and find that out. I think it might have been 20.
(0:37:32) Al: Yeah, well, that’s not when they released, but yeah, yeah.
(0:37:36) Al: So September 2020 was when their Kickstarter went live,
(0:37:40) Al: and I think they released maybe 22, was there early access or something like that?
(0:37:45) Al: Anyway, it doesn’t matter.
(0:37:48) Al: It is there.
(0:37:51) Al: Next, we have Opidum, Opidum.
(0:37:55) Al: They have released their 1.1 update.
(0:37:58) Al: I won’t go through the details of that,
(0:38:00) Al: because it’s probably very specific to whether
(0:38:02) Al: you’ve played the game, but if you have played
(0:38:03) Al: the game and you wanted an update, there you go.
(0:38:10) Al: It’s got some some new stuff.
(0:38:14) Al: Yeah, it looks quite…
(0:38:17) Al: Yeah.
(0:38:21) Al: It’s one of those things where you’re like, yeah,
(0:38:23) Al: great, new totems.
(0:38:24) Al: What do the totems do?
(0:38:25) Al: You have to play the game to find that out.
(0:38:32) Al: That has with everything.
(0:38:33) Al: But if you’ve been playing that game and you were waiting
(0:38:35) Al: for an update to get back into it, there you go, you’ve got one.
(0:38:38) Al: Speaking of updates, we have an upcoming
(0:38:42) Al: announcement of the next Disney Dreamlight Valley expansion.
(0:38:49) Al: So this will be another paid update.
(0:38:51) Al: So they’ve done their paid updates and their free update.
(0:38:54) Al: The expansions are their paid updates.
(0:38:56) Al: And this one is going to be called Wish Blossom Ranch.
(0:39:02) Al: And in the picture, we have Snow White, Tinker Bell.
(0:39:07) Al: And is that the horse from Tangled?
(0:39:14) Al: No, that’s that’s the Tangled horse.
(0:39:16) Al: Yeah, Maximus.
(0:39:21) Al: I don’t know whether horses are new to the game.
(0:39:24) Al: I don’t remember there being horses before, so maybe that’s a brand new feature.
(0:39:34) Al: » Yes, there we go. There you go.
(0:39:53) Al: on then. What are they? Frozen is one of the few Disney films I’ve not seen. No, there
(0:40:09) Al: What are horses?
(0:40:10) Al: There are three horses in Frozen, apparently.
(0:40:18) Al: I’ve not seen Frozen, so…
(0:40:30) Al: Uh, yeah, well, I mean.
(0:40:38) Al: They did it for the last expansion as well, for the announcement of that.
(0:40:42) Al: So it’s not brand new, but yeah.
(0:40:50) Al: Anyway, that’s happening on the 15th of October.
(0:40:53) Al: So over a month away.
(0:40:54) Al: That is wild, giving us over a month, a month and a half’s notice.
(0:41:01) Al: In fact, when this happens, the next day,
(0:41:04) Al: Pokemon Z comes out
(0:41:08) Al: That’s how far away that is.
(0:41:22) Al: Yeah, well, at least it’s the day before and not the day after. Let’s put it that way.
(0:41:30) Al: And our final piece of news this episode is that Concerned Dave announced at the end of the
(0:41:39) Al: concert for the new tour that they’re doing, Symphony of Seasons, he announced that they are
(0:41:46) Al: going to be releasing a 1.7 update for Stardew Valley to shock and surprise. Nobody ever expected
(0:41:53) Al: that he would do another update after saying that the last three updates were the last one.
(0:42:14) Al: Yeah. Yeah, it’s quite something. Look, if he’s happy, that’s the important thing, and
(0:42:29) Al: he clearly wants to do it. I know he said a bunch of stuff about the expectations and
(0:42:34) Al: stuff, but surely he must know that he could just stop, right?
(0:42:41) Al: interesting thing is he posted on the haunted chocolatiers.
(0:42:44) Al: He says “You might be wondering if Concerned Ape is working on Stardew Valley 1.7. Will
(0:43:10) Al: that cause haunted chocolatier to take longer?”
(0:43:12) Al: The answer may be a little…
(0:43:14) Al: And then basically he goes in to talk about how he is less and less being the key person
(0:43:22) Al: in the game. It sounds like he is the kind of source of ideas and of stuff and he says he wants
(0:43:31) Al: to touch everything but not do everything, which sounds like a fair way to put it.
(0:43:41) Al: Like, he wants to be involved in everything, but not do–
(0:43:44) Al: doing everything so that he doesn’t kind of become the required linchpin for everything to be done and therefore–
(0:44:16) Al: Yeah, that would be really, I’d be fascinated to see whether he’s done everything that would
(0:44:20) Al: be needed for that, right? Like, do they have, like, the logins to, you know,
(0:44:25) Al: the SwitchE store and stuff like that, right? Like, could they actually do that? Fascinating.
(0:44:33) Al: Yeah.
(0:44:38) Al: For sure.
(0:44:46) Al: Yeah.
(0:45:36) Al: I think we have to come to that conclusion. So one of the things he says in this blog post is,
(0:45:44) Al: “I didn’t have to make a 1.7 update for Stardew Valley, but the game is so popular, in fact,
(0:45:50) Al: it’s still growing, that it’s hard to just stop improving it when there are still things that can
(0:45:54) Al: be improved.” So it does sound like it’s not, he feels like people are putting expectations on him
(0:46:01) Al: to do that, but it’s like his brain can’t stop going, “This needs to be improved.”
(0:46:06) Al: “This needs to be improved. I want to do this.” And the internal pressure of “I want to make
(0:46:13) Al: the best thing possible” is completely different from “Everyone expects me to make another update.”
(0:46:21) Al: So I think we just have to live with that and just assume that he is happy,
(0:46:26) Al: because he wouldn’t be continuing to do that if he wasn’t. We’ve talked forever about he has
(0:46:32) Al: more money than he knows what to do is and therefore you can do whatever he wants.
(0:46:36) Al: And he’s choosing to do both of these things and that’s fine. He even says, with our no release
(0:46:45) Al: date approach to the 1.7 update, it’s not certain when that time will come. It might even be after
(0:46:50) Al: Haunted Chocolatier comes out, no guarantees though. So that’ll be interesting if we end up
(0:46:56) Al: getting Haunted Chocolatier first, but I guess that means that he doesn’t even expect to stop
(0:47:01) Al: working on Stardew after Haunted Chocolatier’s released as well, right?
(0:47:11) Al: And we will keep coming back to it every update.
(0:47:21) Al: Interesting. I wonder, look, if Greta Gerwig is involved, I’ll watch it.
(0:47:26) Al: Who am I kidding? I’ll watch it either way, right?
(0:47:40) Al: - All right.
(0:47:41) Al: It’s now that time.
(0:47:42) Al: We’re going to talk about “Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar.”
(0:47:45) Al: So this is, as mentioned earlier on,
(0:47:49) Al: a remake of a DS game, “Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar.”
(0:47:54) Al: You said that you didn’t play it when it came out,
(0:47:57) Al: but you’ve gone back and played it since then.
(0:48:00) Al: Before talking about the new game,
(0:48:02) Al: what did you think of the old game?
(0:50:37) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. We don’t need to go through everything. I just thought it was
(0:50:41) Al: interesting to cover. I checked so the original Friends of Miniro Times, not like the More
(0:50:47) Al: Friends or whatever the other ones were called, that came out in 2003 in Japan and Grand Bazaar
(0:50:55) Al: came out in 2008. So five years difference. There were multiple between, so there was
(0:51:06) Al: friends.
(0:51:07) Al: Do you mean specifically on the handheld console, because obviously they were releasing
(0:51:13) Al: on both, because there was A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life, but they were
(0:51:17) Al: obviously GameCube. There was Harvest Moon DS and Island of Happiness. Yeah, so I think
(0:51:26) Al: DS cute was just the DS, but with a girl, like with all the other ones they’d done up
(0:51:31) Al: to that point. Yeah, there was Island of Happiness.
(0:51:38) Al: They did so many games in this time period. And then there was Sunshine Islands. It looks
(0:51:50) Al: like it was, oh, that looks like it was also the girl version of Island of Happiness. Don’t
(0:52:00) Al: Don’t get to be happy if you’re a girl, you get to have sunshine.
(0:52:10) Al: Yeah, it looks like Grand Bazaar might have been the first one that didn’t do that. Could
(0:52:19) Al: you choose in Grand Bazaar? Well, there you go. Yeah, so that was the first one where
(0:52:24) Al: they didn’t have a separate game for the girl. Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure, well, they did
(0:52:34) Al: with a wonderful life. Obviously, they had another wonderful life. Apparently, they did.
(0:52:40) Al: They released one for PSP called Harvest Moon Boy and Girl, which was back to nature. It
(0:52:52) Al: was back to nature, apparently. And then they had Animal Parade. Oh, they had Tree of Tranquility.
(0:53:02) Al: Tree of Tranquility looks… What is this one? That was Wii, yes. Oh, it looks like it was
(0:53:10) Al: back to nature. Wait, what? No, no, I clicked on the wrong thing there. Sorry. There’s too
(0:53:15) Al: many games. I reckon this one did have both, because the box art has the two characters
(0:53:27) Al: on the front. Yeah, there we go. You could choose either. So there we go. Tree of Tranquility,
(0:53:33) Al: I guess then, was the first one, not Grand Bazaar. But Tree of Tranquility came out in
(0:53:39) Al: in 2007.
(0:53:41) Al: So, yes, yeah, it’s absolutely, it’s just wild how many games they released at that point, right?
(0:53:51) Al: They just threw them out every, every year.
(0:54:34) Al: for sure. Okay so, should we talk about the game that we’re here to talk about then?
(0:54:41) Al: So I want to start off with, before we get into the details of things,
(0:54:46) Al: this, I think, is my favourite story of season’s game.
(0:55:23) Al: Well, that’s the thing, and I don’t have that nostalgia, and the remake was fine.
(0:55:28) Al: I enjoyed it, but it definitely felt more dated.
(0:55:34) Al: I think what they did with Friends of
(0:55:35) Al: Menroton is they tried to keep it like the original, just update the graphics,
(0:55:40) Al: essentially, that when we talked about it, I’m pretty sure that that missed a lot
(0:55:45) Al: of like quality of life improvements that games have had since then.
(0:55:49) Al: Whereas it feels like they really didn’t do that here.
(0:55:53) Al: It felt as if they were like, let’s make a new game,
(0:55:56) Al: but with the same characters and story and town and concepts.
(0:56:02) Al: But make it as if we were making it brand new.
(0:56:26) Al: Yeah.
(0:56:38) Al: Well, let’s let’s go through specific mechanics and and if there’s stuff you want to talk about with the original as well, we can do that in those individual things.
(0:56:47) Al: So I want to talk about the movement first, because I think this is the first game that I’ve played since Fae Farm that I felt has actually tried to do something fun with movement in a farming game.
(0:56:59) Al: I will say it’s not as good as the Fae Farm movement.
(0:57:02) Al: Did you play Fae Farm at all?
(0:57:04) Al: Yeah. Yeah.
(0:57:09) Al: My summary of that game is I loved the movement, I hated the characters, and that is such an important part of these games that I felt like it was a an unforgivable sin for me.
(0:57:32) Al: But yeah, but my coming out of that game, I was like this movement is so good, I want every game to do this now.
(0:57:39) Al: Like, it was just so fluid and so fun, like, okay, I don’t want Stardew to do it, right?
(0:57:44) Al: Stardew is its own unique thing and I want it to continue to be what it is, and when I go back to it, I’ll feel a little bit like, oh, I wish I could move better, but it is still what it is and you have to enjoy it for what it is.
(0:57:56) Al: But just being able to, like, even if you just ignore like the the glider, right, let’s just talk about the jumping.
(0:58:06) Al: being able to walk up to our fence.
(0:58:08) Al: and jump over the fence is so good being able to walk up to a ledge and jump up that
(0:58:15) Al: just amazing the placement of they have these bouncy barrels where if you’re in the town square
(0:58:22) Al: and you walk up you can bounce up a bouncy barrel over this cliff and then bounce up another one
(0:58:27) Al: over to another cliff and bam you’re at the entrance to your farm like that in and of itself
(0:58:32) Al: is is just a game changer not having to like walk the longest direction to get to any
(0:58:39) Al: um but also then they add a glider which means that you can depending on the day because the
(0:58:46) Al: the movement of the gliders dependent on the weather which will i’m sure we can talk about
(0:58:50) Al: but you can like jump off the cliff and like glide all the way to the other side of the map
(0:58:55) Al: it’s so smooth um I think my my one problem with it is that there are especially in the mountains
(0:59:03) Al: a lot of invisible walls that I wish weren’t there that ruin it a little bit in that area
(1:00:27) Al: There’s not, as far as I’m aware, there’s no swimming, but you do get a double jump,
(1:00:40) Al: which makes it makes it so easy to get over things.
(1:00:49) Al: OK, interesting. No, you have to buy the double jump from the town mayor.
(1:01:02) Al: But it’s really good, though, the double jump because, yeah, basically, since I’ve got that,
(1:01:08) Al: there’s only one scenario that I’ve ever fallen in the water now, and that’s a very specific
(1:01:12) Al: scenario, which is there’s a specific area that you can only get to if you bounce off a specific
(1:01:18) Al: big barrel in.
(1:01:19) Al: Like the two-arrow wind, and if you bounce off it in the one-arrow wind, you can’t reach the ledge, but you also can’t get back to land because the wind is pushing you away, and therefore you go in the water.
(1:01:33) Al: So I still try every time I try and get up there because that’s like where the one or a calcium node is that I want to get to.
(1:01:43) Al: And so I try every time, but I’ve still not managed to do it in anything other than two-star wind.
(1:01:49) Al: But be that as it may, yes, it would be nice to be able to swim, but when you get the double jump, I’ve not really felt like I’m annoyed by that anymore.
(1:02:01) Al: It’s pretty, pretty reliable.
(1:02:20) Al: that’s an it was an interesting decision that was yeah
(1:02:54) Al: Well, I I
(1:02:55) Al: Yeah, I don’t know. I think I think it’s just so
(1:02:59) Al: My theory about it is the progression. I don’t know how far in the game. Are you like, where are you time-wise?
(1:03:10) Al: Yeah, okay, have you done a couple of weeks you’ve done a couple of bazaars, okay
(1:03:21) Al: It’s not hard to no one else tries hard
(1:03:29) Al: Yeah, yeah, also herbs work as flowers in the flower festival as well
(1:03:36) Al: the
(1:03:38) Al: progression in this game is
(1:03:40) Al: So much faster than any other farming game I’ve played
(1:03:44) Al: Like I think on my third bazaar I sold like a hundred and twenty two grand
(1:03:50) Al: which is just so much money for Spring 1.
(1:03:54) Al: Um…
(1:04:06) Al: It’s the selling point of this game, it’s what makes this game different.
(1:04:40) Al: You’re the chosen one.
(1:05:44) Al: It will only– the thought bubble will only be things you do have in your inventory, by the way.
(1:05:50) Al: Because I’m now halfway through fall of year one, so I’ve done, what is that, 10 bazaars,
(1:05:58) Al: and not once have I had someone put up a thought bubble that wasn’t something that I had.
(1:06:01) Al: And when you have obscure things, they just happen to have the thought bubble of an obscure
(1:06:06) Al: thing that you have in your inventory, so. Yeah.
(1:06:15) Al: Exactly, yeah. Or the first time that I accidentally put an oral calcium in my store,
(1:06:22) Al: suddenly somebody wants one. Do you happen to have this, by the way?
(1:07:12) Al: I think, yeah, two, ten till two, ten till two and three till seven.
(1:07:46) Al: I love that you took till 6.57 to be like, “huh, are we doing a second shift at all?”
(1:08:00) Al: I’m pretty sure there is a notification that says it’s time for the second one, but it’s
(1:08:06) Al: quite subtle, and I think it’s only there for a couple of seconds. So if you were reading
(1:08:11) Al: something that somebody says and you didn’t notice that there was something popping up,
(1:08:16) Al: it would be quite easy to miss that. So yeah, it would be nice if it was more obvious,
(1:08:20) Al: because they do the same thing in the morning. If you’re not at the Bazaar yet,
(1:08:25) Al: it will pop up and say, “Oh, it’s 10 o’clock. The first Bazaar shift has opened.”
(1:08:33) Al: So I am probably well known on this podcast for hating shops, running a shop in a game.
(1:08:41) Al: I didn’t like it in Suguju Island, but I didn’t like anything about that game.
(1:08:46) Al: I wasn’t a huge… I’m not a fan of it in Ooblets.
(1:08:50) Al: Oh, what was the other one that had one recently?
(1:08:53) Al: Oh, I’m going to forget, forgotten the name of the game,
(1:08:56) Al: but it was our game of the year one year.
(1:09:00) Al: Why have I forgotten the name of it?
(1:09:02) Al: Yes, there we go.
(1:09:03) Al: Mineko’s Night Market was fine, but I didn’t actively hate it,
(1:09:08) Al: but I didn’t feel like it added anything.
(1:09:10) Al: And generally, I find that the way that these shops are,
(1:09:13) Al: It’s just a more
(1:09:16) Al: drawn-out way of selling your stuff, but this game does something different.
(1:09:25) Al: And I want to figure that out during this conversation, what that is.
(1:09:29) Al: But there’s something about this that is
(1:09:34) Al: not addictive, but like it makes you want to do it again.
(1:09:38) Al: Like the the rust, rushed nature of it, I think.
(1:09:43) Al: the, the, the try.
(1:09:46) Al: trying to figure out what it is that people want and putting them out, they’re trying
(1:09:49) Al: to get through the amount of time and sell everything within the time.
(1:09:52) Al: The fact that there is an advantage to doing that and you in doing the shop at the bazaar
(1:09:57) Al: in that you make more money than if you just sell it to the general store.
(1:10:02) Al: I think it’s like you can by default, it’s like 25% more, but you can increase it even
(1:10:08) Al: more with like upgrades to your bazaar and stuff like that.
(1:10:11) Al: So you can make a lot of money and very quickly.
(1:10:16) Al: I don’t know what happened, but I’m very happy about what happened.
(1:10:26) Al: And all of that put together is very satisfying. And also the fact that most of the expensive
(1:10:36) Al: things that you would spend money on, you do at the same time. So it’s like my kind of general
(1:10:43) Al: cycle for the bazaar has been. You go for…
(1:10:46) Al: you know, 10, you do your first one, you sell as much as you can during the first section.
(1:10:49) Al: And then during the break, you go and figure out what it is you want to buy with the, you know,
(1:10:56) Al: 10 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, whatever it is you’ve made. You go and figure out what it
(1:11:01) Al: is you want to buy, whether you want the double jump or you want an extra field or whatever.
(1:11:07) Al: And then you go into the second one, try and, you know, sell out. And I’ve not done a single week
(1:11:12) Al: where I didn’t sell everything out, but I also didn’t feel like…
(1:11:16) Al: I had loads of extra time. It has worked very impressively in terms of just feeling like you
(1:11:23) Al: managed to do it just in time, but still managing to do everything, which is a very hard thing to
(1:11:29) Al: do in games, just in general. And then it’s like, “Okay, I’ve now got half an hour. Let me go and
(1:11:35) Al: check what else there is. What was the last thing I wanted to buy?” But also combining that with
(1:11:41) Al: upgrades you can really only do weekly because of this now, right? Like your farm.
(1:11:46) Al: Upgrades your house upgrades stuff like that. You can only do at the bazaar and you can only
(1:11:51) Al: do one of them with each person. There’s a few different bazaars stalls that open up that also
(1:11:57) Al: do upgrades but with each stall you can only really do one upgrade. Kind of leads to this like
(1:12:03) Al: the progression feels both fast but also slow at the same time in and I don’t dislike either of
(1:12:10) Al: them. So like the first time I tried to do two upgrades to my farm it was like oh you’ve only
(1:12:16) Al: I was like oh that’s really annoying but also I’m gonna be back here in a week. I can do it again
(1:12:20) Al: then and I’ll have more money then so you don’t feel like the constant need to get money all the
(1:12:25) Al: time because what are you gonna do with that money exactly on a Wednesday? So I really I was not
(1:12:34) Al: expecting I was expecting to come into this conversation being I like the game but I really
(1:12:38) Al: hate the bazaar and no I actually really like the bazaar and I don’t get me wrong I don’t want every
(1:12:42) Al: game to have a shop, do not build a shop into your farming game.
(1:12:46) Al: still in general bad, but this is excellent. I love this game for what it is with the Bazaar.
(1:13:29) Al: Off sugar dew island cough cough
(1:14:19) Al: Yes, yep.
(1:15:50) Al: I can’t remember.
(1:16:02) Al: Yeah. And it’s season, it’s season long as well.
(1:16:07) Al: And it tells you right at the beginning of the season.
(1:16:09) Al: So you don’t have like the, oh, I don’t know what to do here.
(1:16:12) Al: It’s like the season starts and it’s like, oh, hey, these are the things that are trending this season.
(1:16:16) Al: And you go, OK, cool. I’ll go buy them.
(1:17:18) Al: Yeah. Every single week I have sold everything between 5pm and 7pm. And I don’t know if that
(1:17:31) Al: is like just, I’m good at figuring out what I have and I’m just like, or whether like
(1:17:37) Al: I suspect the game is just like set up to do that. And if you do, and if you do, like
(1:17:44) Al: Obviously, if you’re not going to, let me give a quick explanation.
(1:17:48) Al: You have a stall and you have a counter. You start off with, I think, three spaces
(1:17:54) Al: on the counter, is that right? Or is it four initially? I think it was three, yeah. I have
(1:18:01) Al: two counters of four now, so it’s hard to remember what it was two months ago. But yeah,
(1:18:08) Al: so you start off with one counter of three spaces and you go up to a space and you press
(1:18:14) Al: X and you choose what item you want to go there. And it’s like a
(1:18:18) Al: stack of one item. And you do that for all your spaces. And then people will come up and you’ve
(1:18:23) Al: got like a bell to ring. So you ring the bell and that makes people notice that you’re there.
(1:18:26) Al: Some of them will notice without you ringing the bell, but if you ring the bell, more people will
(1:18:30) Al: notice and it’s higher likelihood of someone noticing what you have. And then if they want
(1:18:36) Al: what you want, they’ll come up and they’ll ask for a certain amount and you press the
(1:18:40) Al: button once per item that they want. So if they say, I want 10 wheat, you press A 10 times and
(1:18:48) Al: gives them everything. So you have to be on the ball because if they don’t, like there’s only a
(1:18:52) Al: certain amount of time they’ll wait. And if you don’t come and do it, then they’ll walk away.
(1:18:57) Al: So you do have to be on the ball. And then when obviously when things run out, you have to
(1:19:01) Al: replace them. And as we’ve discussed, some people will come and say, what about this? And they’ll
(1:19:05) Al: show a little thought bubble with an item on it. So you can then switch out something you have for
(1:19:10) Al: what they want and they will then come and buy that. So I think it’s a combination
(1:19:18) Al: of both the game timing people so that if you do things well, you will sell everything,
(1:19:23) Al: but you still actually have to do it. Like it’s not like things happen automatically.
(1:19:27) Al: And so if you were just standing there or you miss a bunch of people, you probably wouldn’t sell out.
(1:19:32) Al: But I think the good thing about that is because it’s the way it’s set up,
(1:19:36) Al: you feel satisfaction for doing something. So I feel like I’m actually doing something here.
(1:19:43) Al: If I wasn’t doing something, I wouldn’t be making money, but if I’m doing it,
(1:19:48) Al: perfectly, I will sell everything out. It’s the perfect balance.
(1:20:02) Al: Yeah.
(1:20:58) Al: And I think if you’re if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking,
(1:21:01) Al: oh, I don’t like the idea of the stress of that, this is we’re talking
(1:21:05) Al: probably about five minutes of gameplay in about what, two to two and a half
(1:21:10) Al: hours, depending on how, how much of each day you play, like this doesn’t
(1:21:15) Al: happen very, like I’ve been, I’ve been playing a lot of the game.
(1:21:18) Al: I’ve been doing roughly about a week in game every, every day physically.
(1:21:23) Al: And yeah, it’s like, it’s five minutes at the end of the day.
(1:21:27) Al: I’ve been doing is this bizarre.
(1:21:28) Al: Like the game other than that is very much a cozy cottage core farming game, right?
(1:21:35) Al: It is, it is standard in most of the ways that you would expect.
(1:21:39) Al: And we’ll talk about all the other mechanics after this, but don’t be,
(1:21:45) Al: don’t be worried if you’re like, I don’t want the stress of that because it is
(1:21:49) Al: very fast and it’s very small amount of time and it’s not hard to do.
(1:21:55) Al: You just need to go, right now is the time I’m doing bizarre.
(1:21:59) Al: I’m going to focus on this and I will get it done.
(1:22:02) Al: And if you, if you, if you press the right buttons, you will get it done.
(1:22:06) Al: It is not super stressful.
(1:22:08) Al: It’s not a lot of time and it is surprisingly satisfying in many.
(1:23:06) Al: Yeah, yeah. They just walk away. It doesn’t change anything. I think there are positive
(1:23:24) Al: benefits if you sell to your… The villagers come, but there’s also tourists that come
(1:23:31) Al: to it as well. So most of the people you don’t know, but there are people who you don’t know
(1:23:34) Al: as well. And you get like a friendship.
(1:23:36) Al: Boost with the people you sell to, if they’re your friends, but I’ve not seen any of them being…
(1:23:51) Al: I’ve not seen anything about that. You do have a bunch of things that ups the amount of money
(1:23:55) Al: you get, but I’ve not seen anything specifically about that. That would be funny. That would be
(1:24:01) Al: funny. I do have one complaint about the Bazaar. It’s probably…
(1:24:06) Al: not something you’ve encountered. When you get a second counter, it is a 45-degree angle to the
(1:24:14) Al: other counter. And you probably are away… like away from… yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like away
(1:24:24) Al: from the other people, like towards the stairs and your stall.
(1:24:35) Al: Correct, yeah.
(1:24:36) Al: But no, my problem with this is not that.
(1:24:46) Al: It is how the controls work combined with that, in that the controls work differently
(1:24:51) Al: when you’re in bizarre mode.
(1:24:52) Al: You’re basically just moving left and right.
(1:24:54) Al: You can, I think, move towards the stall, but it doesn’t feel the same as normal.
(1:24:58) Al: It feels really weird, so don’t do that.
(1:25:01) Al: But the problem with that is then, when the second counter’s angled away, and then you
(1:25:06) Al: can’t move on as angled away as well, or towards, I guess, your two-dimensional movement suddenly
(1:25:14) Al: becomes three-dimensional again, but you’re controlling it two-dimensionally.
(1:25:19) Al: So you’re moving left and right to move left and right, but also move backwards.
(1:25:26) Al: And so I frequently can’t figure out the right place to be to sell when I’m on my angled
(1:25:34) Al: counter.
(1:25:36) Al: I feel like they could have just had them all in a single line, and that would have made it so
(1:25:42) Al: much better, because it’s just trying to position yourself on the angled one is really difficult,
(1:25:48) Al: because you’re moving left and right to move backwards. Which just feels so wrong, and also
(1:25:55) Al: trying– it’s like, did you play Crash Bandicoot? So jumping in Crash Bandicoot forwards and
(1:26:02) Al: backwards. Terrible, right? You would always fall down trying to figure it out.
(1:26:06) Al: How to position yourself in the right way. It feels like that. Where you’re, like,
(1:26:11) Al: moving a little bit and, like, “Oh no, the button press isn’t selling just now, right?
(1:26:14) Al: I need to move a different way.” Which way? Is it forwards or backwards? I can’t quite tell.
(1:26:18) Al: So that is just a bit weird.
(1:26:55) Al: Yeah, which is probably good in overall, right, because you want to be fast.
(1:27:17) Al: I think I think you get used to that, but I’m not getting used to the anger.
(1:27:54) Al: I am not seeing any controller sensitivity settings at all.
(1:28:04) Al: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it’s really my like, we’re just a warning to listeners.
(1:28:11) Al: I suspect we’re about to get real nitpicky with the rest of this episode, because this
(1:28:16) Al: is what happens when we love when we like a game is we get real nitpicky about really
(1:28:20) Al: tiny things that really don’t matter, except that they really frustrate you when you’re
(1:28:24) Al: playing the game. So that, I think, is what I would say about that. I really like the
(1:28:29) Al: bizarre other than that one one thing.
(1:28:34) Al: And I do like how most of the stuff that you buy, obviously you do have the general story, you can go buy seeds normally, but I’m not really buying seeds there for a number of reasons, which we’ll probably get into.
(1:28:46) Al: But I like how it’s like this focused time of like this is the time when you buy and sell and the rest of the week is not and it actually makes it instead of less cozy, it makes it more cozy because the rest of the week you are much more chill.
(1:29:17) Al: Yeah, not relaxing, but it’s much more chill because you’re just doing your dailies every day then.
(1:29:24) Al: All right, anything else about the bazaar that we need to talk about?
(1:29:52) Al: Yeah. Field and house expansions. So you can add on, so you start off with one…
(1:29:59) Al: Well, maybe we should talk about that in the farming section. Get to your question.
(1:30:20) Al: This is what this is what this is what two to three is.
(1:30:25) Al: Two to three don’t go elsewhere.
(1:30:26) Al: This is your two p.m. to three p.m.
(1:30:29) Al: between the shifts.
(1:30:31) Al: That’s when you go to the other stalls and buy stuff.
(1:31:14) Al: I think it’s just a fixed list of them, because they’re all opening up in very specific places.
(1:31:24) Al: And I suspect once you get… So yeah, the other thing I should talk about is you
(1:31:28) Al: upgrade the Bazaar over time. So there’s different Bazaar ranks, and the whole story of the game is,
(1:31:33) Al: “Oh, we used to be this Grand Bazaar, and now we’re this tiny little village Bazaar,
(1:31:38) Al: we want to become the Grand Bazaar again.” So there’s like seven different rankings of Bazaar,
(1:31:43) Al: and ask.
(1:31:44) Al: After each Bazaar, there’s like, “Oh, this is what your ranking currently is.”
(1:31:49) Al: And when you rank up by selling things and by opening new stalls.
(1:31:54) Al: So I think the first one is like after like 50,000, after you’ve sold 50,000 and you’ve
(1:31:59) Al: opened one extra stall, then you go up to the next rank and it just increases.
(1:32:05) Al: So the one I’m currently on is I need to do a million and open four more stalls.
(1:32:12) Al: and I think it’s, I think it’s specific.
(1:32:14) Al: The ones that are in total, so you can do, like, when I was on the first level, I think there were two different people I could do a stall with.
(1:32:23) Al: But once you do one and unlock the next one, that other person, you can still open their stall.
(1:32:28) Al: And I suspect if you want to get to Grand Bazaar, I suspect you’ll have to have every stall open.
(1:32:34) Al: I don’t think there’ll be any extra ones.
(1:32:44) Al: I think it is limited space, but I also think it’s limited stalls. I think it just is what it is,
(1:32:49) Al: you’re unlocking things and progressing, and it’s just what order you do them in, really.
(1:32:57) Al: So yeah, there’s like an incentive, because some of them will be other people that come to the
(1:33:03) Al: village to do that, but some of them will be villagers, and they’ll be like, “Oh, I’ve thought
(1:33:09) Al: about opening a stall.” And they will generally be like replacing
(1:33:14) Al: the– because like in the village, there’s only really two shops. There’s the general store,
(1:33:19) Al: which you can basically just– you buy seeds from, and you can buy like fertilizer, and fodder, and
(1:33:25) Al: stuff like that. And then there’s the cafe, where you can buy food. That’s basically it. And every
(1:33:30) Al: other shop that you would normally get in a farming game will be a bizarre stall that you have to
(1:33:38) Al: unlock. And there’s been other ones as well, like I just opened a recycling center, where you can
(1:33:42) Al: antique stuff to be recycled and get.
(1:33:44) Al: Other things from which is is a fun additional one there’s a clothing one there’s a obviously
(1:33:51) Al: there has to be a decorations one for your your bazaar stall because you the decorations
(1:33:56) Al: on the bazaar define your power-ups and they give you like other ways to increase the amount
(1:34:02) Al: of money and stuff like that. There’s also one that the harvest sprites open a stall as well
(1:34:42) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got, yeah, yeah, I unlocked all my backpack
(1:34:59) Al: upgrades on like the third week or something, it was like, I need to do this straight away.
(1:35:12) Al: OK, cool. Let’s go through the other kind of standard mechanics then.
(1:35:17) Al: So let’s talk about farming.
(1:35:18) Al: So I was going to start talking about this and then realized I should probably talk about it in this section.
(1:35:22) Al: You start off with a, what is it, six by nine plot.
(1:35:28) Al: And it’s pretty standard mostly in that, you know, you till the land, you plant the seed, you water, you fertilize, it grows, you harvest.
(1:35:42) Al: But the interesting thing about this is in how the jumping works, right.
(1:35:47) Al: So you.
(1:35:50) Al: So in other farming games, you start off and you do one.
(1:35:56) Al: One button press does one action and then you increase that by like upgrading your tool and like holding the button down or it just automatically does more or whatever.
(1:36:08) Al: In this game, you increase by jumping, so instead of pressing…
(1:36:12) Al: A to tail the land, if you jump and press A, you will tail three plots.
(1:36:18) Al: And then when you upgrade the whole, it will then go to nine on your jump.
(1:36:22) Al: And then you also, you’ll love this, when you get the double jump, that increases it further.
(1:36:29) Al: So you jump once and it will do nine, you double jump and it will do like a three by nine,
(1:36:37) Al: or whatever it is, like it depends on what level it is, right?
(1:36:48) Al: Yeah, it’s fun. And it also gets to like the point where like, so I, the seed sewing, I think you can only do three by three at most, which is fair enough because like I don’t know about you, but I think of the plots of land as being like essentially six, three by three plots, like I’m I’m always doing things in threes on this.
(1:37:13) Al: But…
(1:37:18) Al: Absolutely.
(1:37:22) Al: They are, yeah.
(1:37:24) Al: But also all of the upgrades, they’re always three by something.
(1:37:30) Al: And so they’re actually doing this thing that I hate, or not that I hate, the opposite of what I hate in almost every farming game, which is where you start off doing things in a certain configuration and you’re like, “Oh, now it’s uneven.”
(1:37:42) Al: Right? Because I started doing three and now I’ve upgraded it and I’m now doing four watering at once, so I have to change my…
(1:37:48) Al: configuration of things, whereas this is always threes.
(1:37:52) Al: So it’s like three by one and then three by three and then three by, I think it’s three by four or five.
(1:37:57) Al: It’s not perfect, but it’s always three.
(1:38:00) Al: So you can always like do, you can keep the same configuration each time.
(1:38:04) Al: And I’m now at the point where I’m just doing three waterings per chunk, just up each of the lines.
(1:38:13) Al: I’m doing the three by six is the most efficient for me just now.
(1:38:19) Al: And I’m hoping if I upgrade it might allow me to do two rather than three.
(1:38:24) Al: I really like that.
(1:38:44) Al: Yeah
(1:38:48) Al: Yeah, yeah
(1:38:56) Al: Yes, so this is where I was going with the sewing. So you’ve got the jump and then the
(1:39:11) Al: double jump. When you double jump and sew, you do this weird little gymnastics thing
(1:39:17) Al: where you flip up and you go legs above head and you spin around. It’s such an incredible
(1:39:24) Al: animation that they’ve put in.
(1:39:26) Al: So much effort into it and I have no idea why, but I love it.
(1:39:31) Al: It’s like I’m doing gymnastics to sow these seeds.
(1:39:34) Al: It’s fantastic.
(1:39:37) Al: Well, it’s ultra-sewing when it’s the double jump.
(1:40:48) Al: But it’s also just fun because if I can jump in a game, I will traverse by jumping, because
(1:41:00) Al: that’s just it’s just more fun.
(1:41:02) Al: But also in this game, I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest way to travel is by jumping.
(1:41:06) Al: The horse, there is a horse in the game that you can get, super slow.
(1:41:13) Al: Like I think at its top speed, it is about as fast as you running and jumping, but you
(1:41:18) Al: have to speed up.
(1:41:20) Al: It’s the worst horse I’ve ever seen in a farm.
(1:41:23) Al: No, that’s not true.
(1:41:25) Al: Second worst horse, the worst horse would be in Harvest Moon, Home Sweet Home, where you
(1:41:27) Al: couldn’t even take out the pasture, but that’s a whole other conversation.
(1:41:33) Al: But like you start off slower than walking speed and you have you speed up.
(1:41:38) Al: And so like, and then if you hit anything, you slow down again, it’s not worth it.
(1:41:42) Al: I got a free horse and I went and gave him away because I was like, this is useless.
(1:41:46) Al: I do not want this feature.
(1:41:48) Al: This is such a waste of time.
(1:41:50) Al: And then the horse just ends up eating all your food instead.
(1:41:57) Al: Sure.
(1:42:06) Al: All right, let’s talk about the animals then, shall we?
(1:42:10) Al: So it’s mostly standard, like with almost everything in this game.
(1:42:14) Al: It’s mostly what you would expect.
(1:42:16) Al: You get animals, you put them in, you give them food, you pet them and they give you stuff.
(1:42:23) Al: The have you have you experienced the animals much?
(1:42:44) Al: Yeah. Okay. That’s fair.
(1:42:58) Al: Yeah. Nice.
(1:43:17) Al: So the one thing that’s interesting about this to me is so in most games to get the
(1:43:26) Al: animals outside, you’d go ring a bell and they’d all walk outside and then you’d ring
(1:43:29) Al: a bell and they all go back inside to get them out. You’ve got two options. One is you
(1:43:35) Al: literally grab them and push them outside. Actually, there’s three options. So that’s
(1:43:39) Al: one. You can literally grab them and then push them. Two is you like ring a bell.
(1:43:47) Al: Ring a bell and they follow you, but it’s a really awkward one where you have to like
(1:43:51) Al: ring it inside and then wait till they all go outside and then you go outside. Otherwise
(1:43:55) Al: they don’t go outside. So neither of those are ideal. The third option is dogs. You can
(1:44:03) Al: train your dogs to herd your animals outside automatically. So I have two dogs now. I have
(1:44:09) Al: a Shiba Inu and I have a collie and they both currently herd two.
(1:44:17) Al: Oh, thank you. They both currently herd two animals outside, but as you train them up,
(1:44:23) Al: they will increase. And so they now automatically, I don’t have to do anything. I get up, I go
(1:44:28) Al: and grab the eggs and milk and wool and I give them all a little brush and then at like,
(1:44:35) Al: I think it’s like 7am or something, my dogs will just go take them outside and then they’ll
(1:44:39) Al: bring them back inside before night. It’s great. I love it.
(1:44:56) Al: Yeah, because I’ve always been annoyed that there’s never an automatic thing for getting
(1:45:00) Al: them in and out, because I just don’t bother in most games, because it’s just like, because
(1:45:05) Al: the problem isn’t getting them out, the problem is remembering to put them back in at night.
(1:45:10) Al: And if you like faint, because I faint in this game all the time, because I’m really
(1:45:13) Al: bad at checking my stamina, if you faint, there’s nothing you can do.
(1:45:28) Al: Yeah.
(1:45:40) Al: Yeah, it’s great. I really like.
(1:46:20) Al: Phishing, have you done fishing?
(1:46:22) Al: What are your feelings on it?
(1:46:24) Al: Because every game has a different fishing minigame.
(1:46:26) Al: What are your thoughts on this one?
(1:46:30) Al: It’s easy until you get a hard fish.
(1:46:32) Al: Then you have to be perfect.
(1:46:34) Al: And if you’re not perfect,
(1:46:46) Al: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
(1:46:54) Al: Yeah, yes. Yeah, I know I know exactly what you mean. Yeah
(1:47:19) Al: on the commands. So let’s do a quick explanation. So you’ve got a number of, like, fish icons.
(1:47:28) Al: And for every fish icon, you have to do a directional input on your analog stick. And
(1:47:35) Al: it will say, like, oh, do up. So you do up. And then you do left. You do left. And they’re
(1:47:40) Al: timed. So you, like, have a specific number within a certain time. And there’s also a
(1:47:45) Al: tamer running down. If you do one wrong, the tamer jumps down a big chunk.
(1:47:49) Al: Obviously, some of the fish have like three fish icons, so they’re super easy to do, but some of them have up to like 15 fish icons.
(1:47:58) Al: And so if you were to do one wrong, you’re not catching that fish, because you have to do it as quickly as you can, as soon as they appear, and perfectly, otherwise you will run out of time.
(1:48:11) Al: It’s fine.
(1:48:34) Al: Yeah, I’m not saying I’m losing all the time, but there have been a few that have failed
(1:48:40) Al: just because of that, right? Like you’re just, you’ve muck up one and that’s it, you’re stuffed
(1:48:46) Al: on the hard ones. But I think this feels like maybe the best balance I’ve played of between
(1:48:53) Al: having nothing, you just press a button to reel it in, and the more complicated ones.
(1:48:58) Al: I know some people love the Stardew one, I don’t. I’ve never really found that any of
(1:49:03) Al: them are particularly fun and this
(1:49:04) Al: is obviously not particularly fun either but it does make you do something but it’s not like such
(1:49:10) Al: a difficult thing that you find it so frustrating
(1:49:19) Al: I would be too if any of them were good.
(1:50:38) Al: Bug-catching. Have you figured out how to catch bugs yet?
(1:50:53) Al: you got to jump. Nope. Yeah, you got to get underneath them, get underneath them and then
(1:51:03) Al: jump and catch. So I okay, let me let me just double check my play time, because it’s going to
(1:51:12) Al: be important when I tell you this next thing. My play time in game currently is we’re trying to
(1:51:20) Al: remember where it is in the game.
(1:51:23) Al: So I’ve got 30 hours in this game in the last week.
(1:51:28) Al: I found out how to catch bugs three hours ago.
(1:51:33) Al: Like real Titan three hours ago, like just before we recorded.
(1:51:37) Al: I had no idea how to catch bugs because I was like, “Where’s my net?”
(1:51:44) Al: And I’m sitting in fall of year one being like,
(1:51:46) Al: “Why has nobody given me a net yet to catch any bugs?”
(1:51:54) Al: “No! No net!”
(1:52:01) Al: Exactly! That was the thing. I realized that today. I was like, “Wait, why am I expecting a bug net when I’ve got no spaces left on my toolbar?”
(1:52:11) Al: So I googled it and I was like, “You’re kidding me. You just press, you just sneak up on it and press A. That’s all you do.”
(1:52:19) Al: I was not expecting that.
(1:52:32) Al: Yeah, yeah.
(1:52:47) Al: Yeah, and the thing is, that’s the only indication you get that you can catch them is that little
(1:52:53) Al: thing that pops up in the bottom right in tiny text that says a catch when you’re at the right
(1:53:01) Al: position to catch one. There’s no tutorials. Everything else is introduced to you. It’s like
(1:53:07) Al: someone comes and gives you a fishing rod, and someone comes and gives you a pickaxe,
(1:53:12) Al: or the item for pickaxe, it’s like a combined pickaxe and an axe.
(1:53:17) Al: I really like that being combined.
(1:53:20) Al: Everything else is introduced to you.
(1:53:22) Al: There’s one tutorial screen for catching bugs and you get it after you catch a bug.
(1:53:27) Al: Why do you get it after you catch your first bug?
(1:53:40) Al: they should do is they should show that screen when your first bug runs away from you.
(1:53:46) Al: Like why are they waiting to you’ve caught one and you’ve figured out how to do it that’s such a
(1:54:02) Al: Yeah, you want there’s a bunch of tasks that need bugs and there’s a specific
(1:54:07) Al: thing with the harvest sprites that needs bugs, but yeah, it’s not a big part of anything else.
(1:54:13) Al: All right, mining and wood. This is different from most farming games in that there isn’t
(1:54:21) Al: a mine and you can’t chop down trees, so your mine blocks like rocks and ores that
(1:54:32) Al: are just like in the mountains and also just lying around the ground randomly around the town
(1:54:37) Al: and you get wood from fallen trees as logs on the ground and use them. I really like that
(1:54:42) Al: they combine the two tools into the one, so you just use one for forgetting both of them. I really
(1:55:20) Al: Yeah, that also reminds me, just this tool also has one other use, which I only found
(1:55:26) Al: out today as well. You can uproot your fruit trees and put them in storage and then plant
(1:55:32) Al: them again. I missed that in the Chitotea originally, but it means that, like, because
(1:55:40) Al: your trees don’t die, but it means, like, because they take up the space that you normally
(1:55:44) Al: would be farming and you go out of season and it’s like you don’t want that wasted space.
(1:55:48) Al: So I was going to go chop it down and then I realised you cannot.
(1:55:51) Al: I’ve just put my lemon tree in storage and I’ll bring it back out in next summer.
(1:55:56) Al: It’s a fantastic feature. I love that feature.
(1:56:21) Al: Mm hmm. Yes, it does. It does deplete while they’re in
(1:56:28) Al: storage. So no, the no.
(1:56:43) Al: So, yeah, no, I just it just goes slower in storage and then you can upgrade it to go
(1:56:47) Al: even slower again in storage.
(1:56:50) Al: So I guess for listeners, like the food goes out of date in this game.
(1:56:56) Al: It is very slow.
(1:56:57) Al: Like I had a mushroom in my storage that I think took it was like a season before it
(1:57:03) Al: started warning me that it was about to go out of.
(1:57:06) Al: And then you can you it goes like a little kind of gray background and it’s very clear,
(1:57:10) Al: something is different about this and you hover over it and it says
(1:57:13) Al: it’s like it’s close to expiring and you can then do something with it.
(1:57:18) Al: If it expires, you can also turn it into fertilizer, which is nice.
(1:57:20) Al: This is just a little thing.
(1:57:21) Al: I love that little feature.
(1:57:25) Al: But yeah, if it’s in your storage in your house, it will go out of date slower.
(1:57:31) Al: And then you can then upgrade your storage.
(1:57:34) Al: I think it puts in a fridge, so it goes down even slower.
(1:57:39) Al: Speaking of the storage, I kind of love and kind of dislike the storage.
(1:57:43) Al: Storage, I love the combineness of it, right?
(1:57:46) Al: So you don’t have to have like chests lying everywhere.
(1:57:49) Al: You upgrade your storage and it’s just like one storage.
(1:57:53) Al: But it’s all it’s so close to being perfect.
(1:57:57) Al: So there’s two things that really annoy me.
(1:57:58) Al: So one,
(1:58:00) Al: your kitchen isn’t connected to well, there’s a little store.
(1:58:05) Al: There’s a little door that allows you to get into your storage from your kitchen.
(1:58:09) Al: But it’s not if you go to cook, you have to have things in your bag.
(1:58:13) Al: To cook. Why is it not automatically connected?
(1:58:17) Al: Because I’m like here, like, let me just cook from everything in my storage, right?
(1:58:20) Al: That’s the first thing that’s so annoying to have to go and grab things out of my
(1:58:24) Al: my storage to then cook.
(1:58:30) Al: I haven’t done that one yet.
(1:58:33) Al: But it didn’t mention anything about that.
(1:58:35) Al: All it mentioned was that it just I feel like it would have mentioned that.
(1:58:40) Al: It doesn’t mention it in the description of it.
(1:58:43) Al: It means that things will expire slower.
(1:58:47) Al: But the other thing is the windmills.
(1:58:49) Al: So the windmills are your crafting, right?
(1:58:51) Al: And you’ve got you start off with one windmill and you basically you put
(1:58:55) Al: something in like your eggs and it turns into mayo and you put in your
(1:58:59) Al: weeds and they turn into fertilizer.
(1:59:01) Al: And it’s also how you upgrade your tools and stuff like that.
(1:59:05) Al: There’s a whole bunch of things you can do with it.
(1:59:07) Al: I really like it.
(1:59:11) Al: Basically, yeah, and you can set up six…
(1:59:13) Al: …up to six blocks of up to ten things at once, and like different things take different amounts of time.
(1:59:19) Al: I really like it. It’s a really nice way of combining all these things and stuff.
(1:59:23) Al: There’s two problems I have with it. One is that, again, the storage is not connected.
(1:59:28) Al: You can buy a little thing that allows you to access your storage in there, but it’s still separate, right?
(1:59:34) Al: So like I… it’s like a little thing from the harvest sprites.
(1:59:37) Al: So it’s like a little box and you just… you interact with the box and you can then access your…
(1:59:43) Al: …storage back at home. But then you also have the separate storage for output and input.
(1:59:51) Al: And so I have to, again, go and grab stuff out of this magic box and put it into this other box…
(1:59:57) Al: …and then take it out of this other box and then back into this other box.
(2:00:00) Al: So it’s like, why, when you upgrade the storage, can you not just have it all connected?
(2:00:05) Al: It’s like so close to being perfect.
(2:00:12) Al: You get used to it.
(2:00:13) Al: That’s what it is, right, but I just I feel like it could have been better if they’d done that.
(2:00:39) Al: I mean, things still go off in the fridge, right?
(2:00:41) Al: They just, it just happens slower.
(2:01:32) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah
(2:01:46) Al: So the way that I solved that, and you’re going to initially hate this idea,
(2:01:51) Al: Micah, but the way that I solved that is sell everything at the Bazaar. Basically, sell
(2:01:56) Al: everything. Like, keep a couple of things, right? Like, keep your copper, because you need to use
(2:02:00) Al: that to upgrade. Obviously, keep your gold, you know? But like, sell everything else, right? You
(2:02:05) Al: don’t need all that stuff, and you’ll get more of it, and you’ll get loads of money that way. Like,
(2:02:10) Al: you make so much money if you sell everything, and you also solve your storage issues temporarily,
(2:02:15) Al: then because you make so much
(2:02:16) Al: more money, you then also solve your storage issues long-term as well, because you can
(2:02:22) Al: then afford the storage upgrades. Sell everything. Don’t think of it like you hoard everything
(2:02:28) Al: because you’re like, “I’ll need everything,” but you can always get something else.
(2:02:40) Al: Yeah. You needed you only needed like 15 of them. Yeah.
(2:02:58) Al: Yes.
(2:03:00) Al: Well, so it’s flowers rather than herbs, so they will specifically say in their description if they’re a flower on a herb.
(2:03:06) Al: You can’t sometimes quite tell, right?
(2:03:08) Al: Because, like, mint does not look like mint.
(2:03:10) Al: It looks like a flower, but it is a herb because it’s mint.
(2:03:16) Al: Yeah, it does. It does.
(2:03:41) Al: Was it was it the possibly star rating?
(2:04:24) Al: So those don’t say those don’t say those don’t say any flower, though they do say specific flowers, though they don’t say any flower.
(2:04:32) Al: Which one are you looking at because I can see spring bouquet summer bouquet autumn bouquet and winter.
(2:05:20) Al: Interesting. So I so I have two two questions. One, did you press the Y?
(2:05:31) Al: Are you on switch?
(2:05:32) Al: Yeah, did you press Y button to view the details of it?
(2:05:36) Al: And it said any flower.
(2:05:38) Al: It should be any flower, then, because I’m pretty sure like, obviously,
(2:05:42) Al: I don’t have that one anymore, right, but I’m pretty sure that it is anything that
(2:05:48) Al: specifically in the description calls it to flower.
(2:05:50) Al: Now, the interesting thing is, I don’t think the toy flower is a flower.
(2:05:53) Al: I think the toy flower is a herb, but they’d specifically say in their
(2:05:59) Al: description what they are.
(2:06:00) Al: Um, cause yeah, I had the same thing where I was like, oh, these don’t
(2:06:03) Al: count towards it, but then I looked in the description and they said that they
(2:06:07) Al: were, so like, I’ve got mint here and it says a wild herb.
(2:06:10) Al: You’ve got lavender, it says a wild herb.
(2:06:13) Al: I don’t have any other in my inventory just now, but like, oh no, I do have those.
(2:06:17) Al: So I’ve got the magic red flower.
(2:06:20) Al: And pink cat flower, a flower with cute little buds.
(2:06:24) Al: So like they specifically say in the description whether they’re a flower or not.
(2:06:28) Al: So I think it will be more than just those three ones.
(2:06:31) Al: It’s just that those are the ones that you’ll see around the place because there’s
(2:06:35) Al: only a few things that will be forageable in each season.
(2:06:38) Al: But there are others that you can grow as well.
(2:06:58) Al: Typically. Yeah.
(2:07:37) Al: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe there was something, there must have been something weird about that.
(2:07:43) Al: Yeah, I don’t know. There’s something weird about that, because yeah,
(2:07:46) Al: the moon drop flower should definitely count. I’m pretty sure that I used moon drop flower for it.
(2:07:50) Al: But anyway, it doesn’t matter. This is very, we’re getting so detailed here.
(2:07:55) Al: Let’s move back further out. So the mining and wood stuff, let’s just complete that.
(2:08:03) Al: It’s fine. My one problem is you can’t just like go.
(2:08:07) Al: I’m going to get as many of as much mining as I want today because there’s only a specific
(2:08:11) Al: number of nodes around the map. So it’s really hard to get gold when you get to that point,
(2:08:18) Al: right? It takes ages to get the gold that you want. I would like more, please. I get
(2:08:24) Al: not wanting necessarily to have a mine, but like on so on your farm, all of the things
(2:08:29) Al: respawn when you walk out your farm and walk back into them. So they could do something
(2:08:33) Al: like that where like if you walk out the mountains walk back in the things respawn
(2:08:37) Al: would be nice just more of an opportunity to be able to get stuff would be good.
(2:08:43) Al: Relationships you’ve probably not done a huge amount of relationships you’ve obviously done
(2:08:47) Al: some of the tasks because you were talking about maples, maples task but where are you with
(2:09:44) Al: Yeah, yes. So there’s a so there’s a few different things. So this is an interesting
(2:09:53) Al: way that it does this. I quite like what it does. Once you get used to it, it makes it really clear
(2:09:57) Al: what’s happening. So once you hit certain points, different things will happen. So sometimes it will
(2:10:04) Al: lock it and say you need to get to know this person better. So for example, if you are
(2:10:13) Al: trying to…
(2:10:14) Al: increase your friendship with Sophie, the mayor’s daughter. If you don’t have him at a certain
(2:10:21) Al: point, when you get to a certain point on Sophie, it will say “get to know…” I can’t remember his
(2:10:27) Al: name. What’s the mayor’s name? Harold or something? I can’t remember. No, Harold’s a different…
(2:10:33) Al: Harold’s a different person. The mayor is Felix. So it will say “get to know Felix better” and then
(2:10:42) Al: And then once you get them to a certain point, it will then…
(2:10:45) Al: It will unlock the person.
(2:10:47) Al: So I like that because you’re like getting to know the family of the person that you’re getting to know.
(2:10:53) Al: And it’s like, I quite like that idea.
(2:10:56) Al: Then sometimes it will say nothing and then you just need to wait for a few days and it will pop up and say either has a favor to ask or something special might happen.
(2:11:08) Al: That has a favor to ask, you just have to go talk to them and they’ll give you something to do because that’s
(2:11:24) Al: That’s what that’s what the has a favorite task is that’s that that is that is the unlocking.
(2:11:29) Al: But the third thing is something special might happen.
(2:11:32) Al: And when that’s like your your heart events that you have another one.
(2:11:36) Al: So like it’s they have to be like a specific time in a specific place with specific people.
(2:11:41) Al: But the really good thing about it is you don’t know what they are beforehand.
(2:11:45) Al: But when it is the right time and the right place, it will mark on the map with the little
(2:11:50) Al: red icon.
(2:11:51) Al: So, if you go to the map at that time…
(2:11:54) Al: …then the heart event will start.
(2:11:57) Al: So, it makes it very clear there’s a heart event.
(2:11:59) Al: If you go and do this, you can get this heart event, which I really like.
(2:12:03) Al: Because so many games it’s like basically secret.
(2:12:05) Al: You know, like, I have no idea what to do to get to this point, right?
(2:12:28) Al: Something special might happen.
(2:12:48) Al: It is more clear when it happens. You just haven’t had it experienced. If you go to the resident info and you scroll down, it will either say you’ve got to wait or has a favor to ask, in which case you can go and get it from them now, or it will say something special will happen.
(2:13:08) Al: And that’s the waiting for a specific time for the heart event. So when you have multiple of them, you can scroll down and see that they are different.
(2:13:16) Al: different, I guess it’s just.
(2:13:18) Al: When you encounter the first one, you don’t know that the other ones are going to be different, right?
(2:13:22) Al: So it’s like less clear.
(2:13:25) Al: That’s fair.
(2:13:26) Al: That’s fair.
(2:13:29) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(2:13:33) Al: It’s definitely.
(2:13:36) Al: Yeah, it’s definitely improved in a lot of ways from previous ones.
(2:13:56) Al: - Yeah, for sure.
(2:14:06) Al: That’s fair, that’s fair.
(2:14:10) Al: But you’re not obsessively going and seeing what level your hearts are at on all your characters every day?
(2:14:18) Al: Oh, come on, come on.
(2:14:20) Al: You just see a colour.
(2:14:21) Al: How do you know which, how do you know which level the colour is if you don’t go and look at them and how many hearts they have?
(2:14:40) Al: only one heart there. My very nitpicky thing about this is, on the resident info, let me
(2:14:51) Al: reorder the characters, please, because the ones that I am, shall we say courting, are
(2:14:59) Al: like halfway down the screen. So it’s like when I open up the thing and I want to go
(2:15:04) Al: down and see what my friendship level is on Kagetsu. I have to scroll down like
(2:15:10) Al: ten people to get to her. Let me bring her to the top, please. I want to see her at the
(2:15:15) Al: top and then you can just look and see what you’ve done. Exactly.
(2:15:28) Al: Have you, have you, is there a particular character that you are interested in courting just now?
(2:15:46) Al: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yep.
(2:15:59) Al: She specifically, when you talk to her at the beginning of fall, she explicitly says, “Oh,
(2:16:05) Al: I love fall as well.” So it’s yeah, it’s very deaf.
(2:16:28) Al: Her birthday’s in fall as well. I just realized, and this is something I didn’t notice until now,
(2:16:37) Al: it’s localized here. So it says autumn, not fall.
(2:16:42) Al: Oh, okay, it’s not localized then. That’s just the English translation. Fair enough. All right.
(2:16:48) Al: I’m just so used to saying fall for farming games, because they all say fall.
(2:16:59) Al: I never say a fall outside of conversations about farming games
(2:17:03) Al: on this podcast. Every other time I would say autumn.
(2:17:15) Al: So my thing, you’ll probably remember that I’m a sucker in games for like the mean girl.
(2:17:24) Al: I’m always like, so like Hailey in Stardew, and I’m like, oh, I can get you to like me,
(2:17:29) Al: right? Like it’s a challenge. I like the challenge. There isn’t really a mean girl in this game. I
(2:17:34) Al: mean, maybe June, but like she’s not really, but she’s not really, yeah, not to the same level,
(2:17:42) Al: right? So I was like, okay, maybe I’ll go with someone else.
(2:17:45) Al: Have you met Kagetsu yet?
(2:17:48) Al: Kagetsu is not mean.
(2:17:52) Al: And so initially I was like, hey, she’s definitely the one that I’m quoting just
(2:17:55) Al: now. There’s a few that I’m interested in, but I think Kagetsu is probably the one
(2:17:59) Al: I’m going to focus on for this play through.
(2:18:01) Al: I was like, hey, I managed to be interested in someone who’s not the mean girl.
(2:18:06) Al: But then I realized she’s not mean, but she is completely like she’s a recluse.
(2:18:11) Al: So you don’t meet her for like weeks because she lives in the mountains and you
(2:18:15) Al: are in a portal to get to her house.
(2:18:19) Al: And then she basically tells you, go away, I don’t talk to people.
(2:18:25) Al: So you have to build up that relationship before she even does anything.
(2:18:31) Al: Essentially mean girl, I just ended up with the mean girl again.
(2:18:35) Al: Why does this keep happening to me?
(2:18:37) Al: Which is funny because my wife is not a mean girl.
(2:18:39) Al: She’s the most lovely person in the world.
(2:18:43) Al: Bizarre.
(2:18:45) Al: The what I really like about the characters all feel very kind of full.
(2:18:51) Al: And I’ll give you the example here in Kagetsu is the she doesn’t have any family,
(2:18:58) Al: obviously, and she doesn’t really have any friends.
(2:19:00) Al: You’re really the only person she interacts with.
(2:19:02) Al: Start with like your story with her is like you’re bringing her out of your shell
(2:19:07) Al: and taking her around and introducing her to people.
(2:19:10) Al: But there are no because of that.
(2:19:14) Al: There’s no other characters that you–
(2:19:15) Al: have to increase the heart level with alongside her. So like when I was talking about how
(2:19:21) Al: with Sophie you have to increase the the mayor’s because she’s her father, and with Maple you have
(2:19:27) Al: to do it with the two people who run the hotel. With Kagotsu there’s no one, and I like how they
(2:19:32) Al: didn’t just shoehorn in someone into that just to have that mechanic there and actually go “no it’s
(2:19:39) Al: more important that we have like the the character be true to the character” if that makes sense.
(2:19:52) Al: - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
(2:19:56) Al: - Arata.
(2:20:04) Al: I don’t want to say anything. The story to that.
(2:20:10) Al: It’s not the same. It’s definitely not the same.
(2:20:13) Al: If you continue playing and interacting…
(2:20:16) Al: Well, I don’t think you even need to interact with him.
(2:20:18) Al: There’s a story thing that involves that, so I don’t want to say anything.
(2:20:24) Al: Yeah, so I mean, as far as the relationships go, it’s pretty good.
(2:20:27) Al: I don’t know if I would go so far as to say the characters are as good as stargy ones yet.
(2:20:32) Al: I don’t think I’ve gone through it enough to know that.
(2:20:35) Al: I feel like they could be.
(2:20:37) Al: I’m not thinking…
(2:20:38) Al: They don’t all feel like one note and unique, and it feels like they do have development
(2:20:43) Al: as you get to know them, and you show them your world, and they show you your world,
(2:20:49) Al: and they progress in other ways.
(2:20:51) Al: So it does feel like there’s something there, and whether it’ll end up being as much or…
(2:20:55) Al: I don’t know.
(2:21:22) Al: Yes. They’re meant to be tourists, I think.
(2:22:31) Al: Yes. Yeah, yeah. They’re pretty stock answers they’ve got. They’re like, “Oh, I like it here.
(2:22:37) Al: I’ll come back,” and stuff like that. It’s all pretty generic, which is fine. I think it’s fine.
(2:22:42) Al: You just kind of get used to who you’re going to talk to and who you’re not going to bother talking.
(2:23:14) Al: Yeah, there’s like a person that comes that help, they help you with…
(2:23:18) Al: Yeah, there’s like an overall organization that like defines who’s bazaars and what levels,
(2:23:25) Al: she works for them and comes and helps you build up your…
(2:23:48) Al: Yeah, it does it does build out even more than that. There’s there’s no, no, I think
(2:23:52) Al: you’re totally fair on Isis. I would love to know which of these characters are new
(2:24:00) Al: to this version of the game. Because like Kagetsu is clearly an Asian character as well.
(2:24:11) Al: So it’s like, they start to build out a little bit more. And
(2:24:24) Al: Yes. I’ve turned off my switch now, but I can’t remember his name.
(2:24:32) Al: Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, they definitely build it a little bit more.
(2:24:36) Al: It’s still quite pale, but it’s not like 100%, which is good.
(2:25:46) Al: I think, yeah, I think this is what I’m saying is like, there’s, it depends on how they finish
(2:25:52) Al: the arcs, I think, on whether they are as good as Stardew or not. They’re definitely
(2:25:58) Al: not completely one note. There is, there’s definitely more stuff to them all as you get
(2:26:03) Al: to know them. And there’s lots of little bits and pieces as well. There’s like random events
(2:26:08) Al: that happen that aren’t actually specifically connected to heart events that are just, and
(2:26:13) Al: you’re not interacting with them, you just see them interacting with other people, which
(2:26:16) Al: is quite nice. So like, you know, with Maple, for example, there’s been a couple of times
(2:26:21) Al: I’ve walked into the hotel, and then there’s like a cutscene with the full voice acting
(2:26:26) Al: of her talking to the kids, and they’re like asking her questions and stuff like that.
(2:26:31) Al: And then that’s it. You don’t interact at all. That’s it. And that sort of stuff is
(2:26:35) Al: really nice to build it out.
(2:26:44) Al: Yes, yep.
(2:26:59) Al: Mm hmm. Yeah.
(2:27:28) Al: Well that’s the thing, I don’t know how deep it goes, right, like I’ve got a few of them
(2:27:36) Al: at like five hearts but I’ve not got any further than that with anyone, it takes a lot of work.
(2:28:09) Al: All right, quick conversation about the voice acting.
(2:28:13) Al: I like the voice acting.
(2:28:14) Al: I think it is really nice.
(2:28:17) Al: It’s weird that it’s only in some conversations.
(2:28:28) Al: But yeah, well that’s the thing, like there are some cutscenes that are very
(2:28:36) Al: definitely cutscenes where it’s just like the little noises they make, or like one word. It’s
(2:28:41) Al: like “ha ha” and stuff like that, like okay, it just feels a little bit weird that there wasn’t,
(2:28:46) Al: but I guess I get that voice acting is expensive, whatever.
(2:29:02) Al: Yes, yeah, that’s fair.
(2:29:18) Al: Well, so there’s.
(2:29:21) Al: Yeah, so there’s another interesting thing is you have an auto progression on
(2:29:26) Al: conversations as well, which I love, especially for the full cut
(2:29:30) Al: scenes with the voice acting, because I can like this has made me more likely
(2:29:35) Al: to pay attention to conversations, because what you do is you’re like, oh,
(2:29:39) Al: it’s a cut scene, right? Let me put on the automatic thing.
(2:29:41) Al: Let me put the kickstand out and put it down.
(2:29:43) Al: And like I can go and fiddle away with something with my hands, like my Rubik’s
(2:29:48) Al: listening and watching the conversation.
(2:29:50) Al: And I don’t feel the need to like button mash my way through it.
(2:29:53) Al: I love it. It’s fantastic.
(2:29:55) Al: It’s so good. Every every game should have that.
(2:30:19) Al: And like good voice acting as well, like it’s prop, it’s voice actors doing voice acting and they all feel like real characters talking to you.
(2:30:37) Al: I don’t think, I don’t think like.
(2:30:53) Al: Okay, we’re getting quite long, so let’s bash through a bunch of things. I’ve got a bunch
(2:31:01) Al: of thoughts that I want to bring up that are just really small thoughts. If you’ve got
(2:31:05) Al: anything else, you can add them as well. The map, I quite like the map. I like how it shows
(2:31:11) Al: where people are on them. I hate the different pages and moving between the pages. I think
(2:31:15) Al: it’s just really awkward. I feel like it would have been better to have a directional thing
(2:31:20) Al: to get to different ones depending on where they are on the-
(2:31:23) Al: map. I can never figure out what the next map is going to be if I press the shoulder button. No
(2:31:28) Al: idea.
(2:31:37) Al: Go up and. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(2:31:44) Al: Yeah.
(2:31:49) Al: Exactly.
(2:31:54) Al: Yeah, super, super weird.
(2:31:57) Al: The you can’t change your pronouns after creation.
(2:32:00) Al: Boo is bad, but at least they have, you know,
(2:32:05) Al: generic pronouns as well.
(2:32:07) Al: You can’t be bold.
(2:32:11) Al: What’s that about?
(2:32:12) Al: Let me be bold, please.
(2:32:13) Al: Thank you very much.
(2:32:16) Al: You can’t be bold.
(2:32:16) Al: There’s no bold option.
(2:32:18) Al: Maybe you can unlock it later on,
(2:32:19) Al: but there’s no bold option to start with.
(2:32:21) Al: The best I could do was buzz cut,
(2:32:22) Al: and I hate buzz cut.
(2:32:23) Al: I just want to be bold, please, and thank you.
(2:32:26) Al: Oh yeah, there’s also a conversation log.
(2:32:28) Al: So as you’re calling the conversation,
(2:32:29) Al: if you accidentally press through something quickly,
(2:32:31) Al: you can press the X to view the conversation log.
(2:32:34) Al: But if you accidentally exit the conversation
(2:32:37) Al: you can’t get back to that.
(2:32:39) Al: Please let me get back to that as well.
(2:32:40) Al: So close.
(2:32:42) Al: Oh, there’s a basket.
(2:32:43) Al: Have you, do you know about the basket on your farm?
(2:32:46) Al: So, right, okay.
(2:32:49) Al: So this is a basket that you can take with you around the farm
(2:32:52) Al: and you can put stuff into your storage that way.
(2:32:54) Al: So if your storage is full, you just,
(2:32:56) Al: if your bag is full, you just put stuff in.
(2:32:58) Al: You can’t take stuff out,
(2:32:59) Al: but it is a one-way, put stuff into your storage.
(2:33:04) Al: I think that’s me.
(2:33:05) Al: I think that’s me with all my little
(2:33:07) Al: thoughty thoughts. If you’ve got any other small things.
(2:34:20) Al: Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. It’s, it’s super fun. And I don’t know how much more time I’ll
(2:34:27) Al: put into it, but I’m definitely going, I’m not going in selling this game or turning
(2:34:31) Al: off like I do with some games after the podcast. I’m, I’m, I’m playing this game more. Absolutely.
(2:34:37) Al: I got to, I got to at least get, you know, I got to get my bazaar up to a grand bazaar.
(2:34:41) Al: I feel like that’s, that might be the point that I finish, but I feel like I got to get
(2:34:46) Al: there. I’ve, I’ve got up to like the third highest level. So I’ve got to.
(2:34:50) Al: Two more to go. Um, and I’m like a third of the way through the next one. So, um,
(2:34:56) Al: I feel like, I feel like I’m not far off because obviously the amount that you make
(2:35:00) Al: as well is increasing. Um, I, you, the, oh, one more, one more complaint about the windmills.
(2:35:08) Al: When I unlock a second windmill and the second windmill does different things in the first one,
(2:35:12) Al: also let me do the other things as well. Let it do all of the things. Let me do all of the things
(2:35:17) Al: in all of the windmills. Just let me
(2:35:20) Al: upgrade them, please. I need I want to do all of the things in all of the windmills.
(2:35:31) Al: No! It’s not! It’s not asking too much!
(2:35:46) Al: I mean, they would be able to solve that just by having the storages
(2:35:49) Al: in there just connected to everything.
(2:35:50) Al: And I don’t understand why it’s not, but whatever.
(2:35:52) Al: Anyway, all right, I think we’re done then.
(2:35:56) Al: It’s possible this might have been the longest episode ever, but we’ll
(2:35:59) Al: find out once I’ve finished editing, madness.
(2:36:02) Al: But thank you, Kevin, not Kevin, thank you, Micah, for joining me.
(2:36:10) Al: Yeah, I’ve obviously too used to saying thank you, Kevin, for joining me.
(2:36:14) Al: Thank you, Micah, for joining.
(2:36:16) Al: It has been a delight, as always, to talk to you about a game that we are enjoying, which is such a nice thing.
(2:36:34) Al: Oh, quick, quick thing.
(2:36:38) Al: Maybe I’ll put this as a separate thing.
(2:36:40) Al: Any thoughts on the console version of Harvest Moon Home Sweet Home that’s coming out?
(2:36:46) Al: We did. We did.
(2:36:58) Al: Oh, I think it may be out.
(2:37:10) Al: Oh, October, 31st of October.
(2:37:18) Al: No, no, no, don’t buy that.
(2:37:20) Al: Don’t buy the Cozy Bundle.
(2:37:25) Al: Oh, yeah.
(2:37:26) Al: Well, that’s true. That’s very true.
(2:37:28) Al: Look, I’m not buying the game a second time.
(2:37:30) Al: I just want the update to come to the iPad.
(2:37:33) Al: That’s all.
(2:37:34) Al: All right. Where are we?
(2:37:35) Al: Yes. Where can people find you on the Internet?
(2:38:04) Al: Did you get many?
(2:38:12) Al: Did you get many Dunclub entrants at Worlds?
(2:40:20) Al: Yep.
(2:40:20) Al: And this is why I will come to America next time.
(2:40:29) Al: It would be hilarious if I’ve been to America twice, and once was to LA, and once was to
(2:40:40) Al: San Francisco.
(2:40:41) Al: It’s like…
(2:40:42) Al: Yeah, hilarious.
(2:40:45) Al: Yeah. Hilarious. All right.
(2:40:50) Al: You can find the podcast on Tumblr and Blue Sky at THSPod.
(2:40:54) Al: You can send us feedback from our website,
(2:40:56) Al: HarvestSeason.club, where you can also find links to everything to do with the
(2:41:00) Al: podcast, including a link to our Patreon, Patreon.com/THSPod,
(2:41:05) Al: where you can get access to our Slack and talk about lots of things
(2:41:10) Al: and also get access to our bonus podcasts.
(2:41:14) Al: We have one upcoming that I did not manage to get edited
(2:41:18) Al: for last.
(2:41:20) Al: Saturday, sadly, but should be up for next Saturday. And that is one that Cody and Spencer
(2:41:28) Al: did about insect based kaiju. So I have half edited that, and then I got busy. Fair, fair.
(2:41:43) Al: Yeah, I think that’s everything then. Thank you again for joining me, Michael.
(2:41:58) Al: Yes, I forgot about that.
(2:42:08) Al: I have enjoyed the three episodes that you’ve had.
(2:42:26) Al: Yeah. Fair enough.
(2:42:31) Al: We have a fun thing here of like, what have you most recently been on?
(2:42:38) Al: My podcast or your own podcast?
(2:42:40) Al: And there was a time like between the last time you were on, which was Natsumon in
(2:42:45) Al: February, there was like a three month period where it was this podcast and now
(2:42:49) Al: we’re about to enter another period where it’s going to be this podcast again.
(2:42:55) Al: I am enjoying it as a.
(2:42:56) Al: An ongoing thing.
(2:43:01) Al: Hopefully sometime this year.
(2:43:05) Al: Cool, well, thank you listeners for listening and until next time, have a good harvest.
(2:43:10) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our
(2:43:21) Theme Tune: pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(2:43:25) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(2:43:29) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed
(2:43:35) Theme Tune: in this episode.
(2:43:45) Al: I’m looking at the time, and I think this will definitely be the longest one.
(2:43:55) Al: The longest one before this was our pioneers of all of town episode, which was two hours
(2:44:01) Al: and 29.
(2:44:03) Al: We’ve currently been recording for two hours and 50.
(2:44:07) Al: There’s no way there’s 20 minutes that I cut out of this.
(2:44:11) Al: And then the next longest before that was…
(2:44:15) Al: was Harvest Moon Home Sweet Home at 2.22.
(2:44:20) Al: Oh no, 2.23 was Game of the Year 2024.
(2:44:27) Al: And then Game of the Year 2023 was also 2.22.
(2:44:31) Al: And then we have one that you weren’t on.
(2:44:34) Al: No, no, no, no, no.
(2:44:35) Al: Then we have Story of Seasons mineral town.
(2:44:38) Al: That was 2.21.
(2:44:41) Al: Then we have one that you weren’t on.
(2:44:43) Al: That was Fields of Mistria.
(2:44:46) Al: And then we have Harvest Moon, What on Earth was that one?
(2:44:50) Al: Harvest Moon, One World.
(2:44:53) Al: That was 2.14.
(2:45:00) Al: I think literally out of the over two hour episode ones.
(2:45:10) Al: There’s only two that you weren’t on, and both of those were Kelly.
(2:45:16) Al: So you and Kelly with me are the 10 longest episodes.