HM and the boredom that settles after a while. How to fight?

SNES, HM64, BTN, STH, A Wonderful Life, Another Wonderful Life, AWL:SE, Magical Melody, Puzzle de HM, Tree of Tranquility, Animal Parade, Frantic Farming, Hero of Leaf Valley, My Little Shop, Seeds of Memories, Lil' Farmers, Light of Hope, Popolocrois: SoS, and Doraemon: SoS.
Velvet
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(I didnt know in which forum to post, as the topic covers ALL games in HM series, so I posted wherever, sorry for that :lala: )

I always get addicted to any HM games and play like crazy for about 1 in-game year. Afterwards, I may still be crazy for two seasons (or not). But after that boredom always settles in. :(

My guess is that the beginning is so interesting because you've got nothing and must acquire stuff and money. The initial process of making money involves some creativity and diversity of activities (mining, fishing, foraging, not just farming). There's also typically some kind of storyline to follow. But after about 1 - 1.5 of a year in the game all of that is gone and all you've got is a repetitive routine. At this point I make lots of money per day, but each day is repetitive. And then I lose interest in the game, because there's no more excitement or diversity. Even talking to characters becomes a routine, rather than a pleasant distraction, as I already know everyone's gifts and locations and travel around the town to hand the gifts out in a repetitive effective fashion.

I've never married in any one of those games, although I've played many, but I give up before I can do that. With any of those games, I really want to come back to it later, I like the characters, I like the town, but I just don't like the repetitiveness of gameplay that I ended up with. Any tips?
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Kikki
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Anything related to 'all HM' games typically go in the All Other Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons board. :) This Other Video Games board is for non-Bokumono games. A mod may move it for you if they notice it's not in the right section. (You can also directly ask a mod to move it via PM, if it bothers you. Or you can 'report' your own thread if PMing isn't your thing.)

I'm afraid I don't have any tips for you. When I grow bored with a Bokumono game, I quit. Though it sounds like I naturally stay interested a bit longer than you do, since I always get married and pretty much also always go long enough to have a child, since those are extra bits of story/character content I'm interested in seeing since they come with extra events and dialogue. I just keep farming and making money and maybe going for a few in-game achievements that I haven't gotten yet while I'm waiting on marriage/childbirth/the grow-up stage.

I'm not one who can stay interested just to fill out a list of achievements, though. That doesn't do it for me, as a goal. ANB kept me interested a long time because I really enjoyed collecting all the blueprints and recipies via fishing, trapping, mining, purchasing and the honey tree and trips out to the different locations, as well as via increasing friendships with the villagers. Oh, and because I just loved Sanjay that much, of course. He had one or two lines I kind of lived for, that I could see any number of times and still smile over. But when I have to start manufacturing my own goals to have something to shoot for, I stop playing, because I never find that interesting. I played SoS1 a long time, too, because there was still so much left to unlock in Year 4, and I wanted to unlock all of it.
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Ronin19
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I set goals for myself. Get married, have a kid, and finish the story. Once I've reached those goals, it's a matter of, "What's left to do?" I made myself an endgame and there is stuff in between I can achieve like get all the clothes, get perfect animals, see all the events, etc. etc. etc.

I will say it's different with each game for me. When Save the Homeland and A Wonderful Life Special Edition came to PS4 with trophy support, I made it my goal to get the platinum trophy for both. Animal Parade, Trio of Towns, Story of Seasons, and Tree of Tranquility were about getting the New Game + set up. Sunshine Islands was about getting Sunny Island raised.
Velvet
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Yay, this time I'm close to being married! Now waiting for the blue feather! :lala:

I set a goal of getting all other rivals married and have seen their 2 and 3 heart rival events, and yet noone married. I wonder if they do it quietly in ToT, with no announcement? I hoped for an announcement or even a few wedding cutscenes. Characters don't comment anything on anyone being married, either. Sad...

Anyway, I'm probably not going to lose interest now until we get married, and then... I don't know. The guide says 2 seasons until pregnancy, then 1 more season until baby birth... That's a lot. I think my main problem is that I earn too much money. Once there's nothing to buy in the game, I start to lose interest rapidly. I think I've earned over 100k in three last weeks, that's too much.

I've always run into this problem when playing the Sims games, too: interesting while they're poor and struggling, losing all interest when they've got everything. And ToT offers much less to do than The Sims... Maybe I should've imposed some rules to make the game more difficult, like 'never dye yarn before selling it'.
Ronin19 wrote:Tree of Tranquility were about getting the New Game + set up
I've heard that you still end up looking as your old character even in a New Game +. That said, at least it gives you something to do I guess. But my main issue lies with the money: if I have too much and nothing to spend it on anymore, why even care for animals every day? I could just sell them and sleep my way to the baby birth, etc.
Velvet
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And so, we went to register for the wedding, and the mayor set it to happen in more than 3 weeks... What a jerk! //cries// That was in response to the 'The sooner the better' reply. Yeah I get it, he sucks as a mayor and is super ineffective in managing the town affairs, but Hamilton I wish I could murder you for delaying our wedding like that! :x

I don't use dyes anymore on the yarn, but I'm afraid that I make too much money anyway. It's 4k per day without dyed yarn, and I've already bought all the clothes, all building upgrades, tried all exteriors, and bought a lot of furniture. I don't raise crops, I prefer ranching as opposed to farming, maybe that's the issue? Animals make too much money in this game, just too much.

Well for (my own) future reference I'll try to marry as soon as possible in HM games, coz it takes forever to wait for the wedding. I thought it was going to take place immediately, and now I have to wait for almost a whole season till Julius moves in. :( I wonder if that happened b\c I hooked up all other couples (except for Chase, I feel too sorry for him to be stuck with someone like Maya) and now they're all probably marrying ahead of us, so we got pushed back?.. Argh. I had no idea that it could be such an issue.
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nightshade2010
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Note the marriage times vary in the games ..... sometimes it's the same day as you give the blue flower sometimes it's 3 days or a week.. There's one game where its a random day on the calendar


Normally after the 3rd year after the kid or kids have grown..... you usually have everything you can build /buy them

IN both versions of mfomt they give you stuff after you basically have everything but things like finding all the cursed tools and jewels of truth never appealed to me .....


Now animal parade I played over and over again because of the new game+ upgrades and you could marry everyone without the farming getting too much in the way by the 5th playthrough I farmed as little as possible and bought everything straight out because I had gold in the millions ......
Velvet
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nightshade2010 wrote:Now animal parade I played over and over again because of the new game+ upgrades and you could marry everyone without the farming getting too much in the way by the 5th playthrough I farmed as little as possible and bought everything straight out because I had gold in the millions
But what did you do once the courtship period was over and you were married? You'd still have to wait for the kid to be born, right? I wonder what you were doing in the game during that time. Or did you just start all over a little while after marriage and married someone else? :) (coz as I understand, kids from all bachelors look identical in AP anyway, only their hair and eye colors change)

I'm sincerely hoping to find out what to do with a lot of gold in these games, haha. Right now I still have 3 weeks left to wait for the wedding and I can't find anything to do. I love taking care of farm animals, but it just feels kinda pointless with that much money. I love mining, too, yet I've heard that there's a limit to how much articles of jewelry you can own in ToT, which dampens my mining spirit. :)
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greensara
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One late game AP thing I enjoyed was trying to get all the trophies. I also liked pairing up the other couples after I got married, though I think it is funny how quickly their kids grow in contrast to your own two. I really miss the rival couples in the newer games, they really helped me to keep playing the same file rather than restarting so soon.
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AWESOMEGAMER
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Post  Posted:

If I get bored in a HM game I just move to a diffrent harvest moon game * drum roll*.
:P but yea v(^_~)v
I have cyoa ( create your own adventures) way too much to get bored (blame ac) so I might chilli in HM for a bit then sos then ACNL or MQMT, hang in nintendogs FL or TD
If all fails I have MC , Terraria and the sims my bordoms is hard to come by *sigh*
Besides these games ave nice music and great graphics so just fishing and running around is a great time waster. I do that in harvest moon a lot when I have too much time or none at all :oops:
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