What do you think about Harvest Moon Rival Couples?

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Somerandom
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I am trying to understand how people feel about the rival couples in Harvest Moon games, from what I have seen from being on the forums is that most people like this feature in Harvest Moon games. However rivals are no more and most commentary from the developers of why they removed points to rivals not coming back, which is a shame as it provided additional character development for the candidates and adds some growth to the town.

I would also like to know your favourite and least favourite rival couples in the series and why.
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Kikki
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Lol...it's funny how this topic resurfaces every year or so.

It's based on the Japanese players and not us...it's only in the most recent games that Marvelous has started to care at all about what players outside of Japan like, perhaps since we now make a large enough portion of the income to register on their radar. A little, anyway. Or maybe just because the world becomes increasingly internationally aware every year, I don't know. Certainly it's much easier for international fans to make themselves known via social media and so on, now.

Anyway, Cherubae posted it once on the main site...from an interview with Hashimoto (Cherubae posted this in 2016, from a Famitsu interview done before he'd sectioned off into Hakama.) I'll quote it:
Cherubae wrote:Hashimoto explains the boy players say they stop playing because the love rival took the girl they like, while the girl players feel the rivals are a better match to the marriage candidates than they are. At the moment that's why they don't add rival events to the series, but he said he'd like to add them back in sometime.
Personally, I dislike what rivals do not to the games themselves, but to the fandom. I hate how rivals cause the fandom to become nastier...a very unpleasant place to be. Unbelievably, I saw someone start calling that sweet, supportive Carrie ugly names just because they happened to like the look of Brad and wanted him for themself, and apparently that's a very mild reaction compared to how vicious some people get toward characters who their person of choice shows any interest in. I wasn't into any internet fandoms back when rivals were still current so I didn't see it for myself, but shipping wars can get very ugly in any fandom, and apparently this one is no exception. I have seen hints of it myself, such as people being horrible toward Iris just because she's friends with Klaus.

As far as the games go, I'd like to see rivals come back in a specific way. I would love to have them come back as a post-marriage option (or for players who don't want to get married, they could go though some other rigamarole to activate the option, instead). I'd really love it if I could play matchmaker! Let each candidate have two or three options and let us match them up by encouraging them through dialogue/events/quests on who to date/marry.

This would get way too complicated of course...they'd never do that much extra work just to have rivals. But if I'm just talking what I'd love to see, this is it. :) It'd practically be an entire game's worth of material by itself, but...it'd be so cool. Especially if the resulting marriages and children would actually be different from each other. It'd add a huge amount of replay value, and it would definitely extend my playing time. Also, if locked to post-marriage (or some deliberate task you have to do to enable it) nobody could complain that their rival stole their person before they even realized what was happening, and with multiple candidate options for everyone you'd could also avoid the 'one true love' situation where players might think they're ruining a destined couple.

I don't have any favourite or least favourite rival couples. I honestly haven't cared either way about rivals, whether they leave them in or take them out, since my ideal rival situation is so far out of reality. As long as it isn't too easy to lose your person of choice to a rival, then I don't mind them, but I don't feel a need for them, either.
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Mikodesu
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The waifu wars are real...and they will take my fun away from me. :lol: Sigh.

If I could live in a bubble where this sort of mechanic was possible again, yes please. Rival couples are fantastic. IDEALLY there would be a system in place where you can manipulate who spends time with who (more like the Sims) and not have the characters end up with the same people. Maybe certain couples are more 'ideal' and have a better chance of staying together but others are more attracted to one another/likely to end up together.

(Now that I'm thinking of it, not having 'canon' rival couples could be the way to solve the waifu wars propaganda. Let the arguments be about who's the best alternative for each spouse!)

Favorite and least favorite couples, hm. I don't remember SPECIFICALLY for least favorite but the ones when they've leaned on the 'whipped man' trope. No thanks. For favorite off the top of my head, probably Celia and Marlin? Age gap aside they seem to fill some sort of emotional void for each other that makes my sad, crusty heart happy.
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Kikki
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Yep, that was one of my theories, too...that having multiple options for each character would make things more flexible. People would still find things to get frothy about, I'm sure of that, but it seems to me like they'd be slightly less intense. Firstly I was thinking of Hashimoto saying that female players decide not to get married at all to avoid disrupting rival couples...at least the way I'd like things to be done, there is no 'one true pairing' for anybody, so they don't have to feel like they're breaking soulmates apart.

I also considered the option of marriages that don't work out that well, though didn't bring it up this time because it seemed...not exactly off topic, but wandering a little astray. But I do think that some people are just very poorly suited to each other. Two very passionate, dreamy people, for example, might be impractical. With no one to ground them, maybe they would be impulsive or make poor career choices and always be broke or something. It wouldn't have to be a failure as a marriage or lack love, but different people bring out different qualities in each other. It'd be awesome to have match-making options as detailed as that.
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I love them.
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it's not the same series but i think rf2 had a good rival system in terms of creating less work but not leaving anyone alone. have default rival couples, but also one or two solo people like yue who work well with anyone. they could counter player concerns by 1. making the rivals wait until your marriage, as suggested and 2. do what rf2 didn't and make both the default and alternate pairings appealing to players, giving equal amounts of dialogue and events.

if they did, still may not as fun as fire emblem style matchmaking with more than two options for each and dozens of pairings total. but the less different couples involved, the more likely it would be.
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Burning Spear
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I'm not terribly upset to see the rival system missing, but I feel it added depth and a greater story element to the game. I would prefer it. Maybe just give us an option to toggle it off? Ultimately, I suspect Marvelous will not waste time with a feature that is not universally appreciated. For them, it would be like trying to save the drapes while the house burned down.
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Post  Posted:

I don't miss the rivals. I was happy when they finally got rid of them.
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I’m neutral on rival couples. If they’re there that’s neat but it’s not a make-it-or-break-it for me. I agree that a matchmaking system would be really cool though.
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yzafre
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I liked the rivals system - I enjoyed the extra cut-scenes and the fact that everyone else didn't end up perpetually single just because I didn't choose them. I guess it just made everything feel more... alive and dynamic?

In practice, though, I often didn't see the whole thing through because it took too much in-game time (looking in particular at FoTM which required, what, 4 in game years?).

The idea of a match-making system would be cool - maybe something riffing off of FE:3H mechanic where inviting people to preform an activity at the same time ups an affection stat that would eventually trigger new cut-scenes?
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I didn’t put this in my first post but my least favourite rival couples in Harvest Moon games

1. Ann and Cliff in Harvest Moon 64: After they are married, it is implied that Ann literally hits Cliff and you can see his portrait with a black eye. Domestic violence is wrong and a serious issue.

2. Chase and Maya: They literally argue all the time when they are married and in all their love events Chase is mean to Maya. Maya I believe is a tragic character who wishes to do something she can’t, hardly talks to anyone her age apart from Chase who she loves despite him being downright nasty to her, doesn’t seem to have any dream or ambition apart from loving food and talks like a child (no one past the age of 12 would be caught dead saying ”Thanksies!”). This makes Maya a sad character for me, she doesn’t develop and if she married Chase she gets stuck in a toxic relationship. I also found that Chase is mainly mean to Maya and not as much to the MC if he marries her (although he has his moments), maybe it’s because the player has a whole arsenal of dangerous farming tools?

3. Rock and Lumina Harvest Moon DS: Rock is a terrible person. He has literally no ambition and seems to be happy married to Lumina because she has a butler that does stuff for her! But that’s not the reason this couple is one of the worst, Rock willingly cheats on Lumina and it is in a cutscene seen after they are married. I want to make myself clear, I don’t mind flirts as characters, in fact Skye from DS cute and Laslow from fire emblem fates are some of my favourite characters, it’s just that Rock not only has no hidden depth of desire and willingly cheats on Lumina after marriage that makes me hate this pairing because of how poorly Rock treats Lumina.

Kikki earlier said something about some couples having flaws, I believe this was actually done In DS. An interesting thing about the rival couples in DS is that no one is completely happy with each other. The happiest are Nami and Gustafa, however in a conversation between Nami and Ruby? I think, she worries that she isn’t a good cook. As seen above Rock is a complete sleaze bag, Muffy and Griffin worry that they rushed into marriage, Marlin discovers that Celia is acting more and more like Vesta and in turn Celia is annoyed at Marlin and Carter simply cannot stand Flora’s cooking.
I kind of like this as it shows that not all marriages are wonderful in fact since marriages are between humans who make mistakes and have problems of course every marriage will have its problems and advantages.

I’m sorry for my rant on these rival couples. In general I enjoy most couples and I think they should be brought back but only after after your Marriage in a fire emblem matchmaking like way like others on this thread suggested. Maybe through inviting characters to festivals, delivering presents from one candidate to another, eating with two other characters etc.
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Somerandom wrote:2. Chase and Maya: They literally argue all the time when they are married and in all their love events Chase is mean to Maya. Maya I believe is a tragic character who wishes to do something she can’t, hardly talks to anyone her age apart from Chase who she loves despite him being downright nasty to her, doesn’t seem to have any dream or ambition apart from loving food and talks like a child (no one past the age of 12 would be caught dead saying ”Thanksies!”). This makes Maya a sad character for me, she doesn’t develop and if she married Chase she gets stuck in a toxic relationship. I also found that Chase is mainly mean to Maya and not as much to the MC if he marries her (although he has his moments), maybe it’s because the player has a whole arsenal of dangerous farming tools?

3. Rock and Lumina Harvest Moon DS: Rock is a terrible person. He has literally no ambition and seems to be happy married to Lumina because she has a butler that does stuff for her! But that’s not the reason this couple is one of the worst, Rock willingly cheats on Lumina and it is in a cutscene seen after they are married. I want to make myself clear, I don’t mind flirts as characters, in fact Skye from DS cute and Laslow from fire emblem fates are some of my favourite characters, it’s just that Rock not only has no hidden depth of desire and willingly cheats on Lumina after marriage that makes me hate this pairing because of how poorly Rock treats Lumina.
I think the biggest problem in Chase and Maya's relationship is that Chase doesn't respect Maya. He constantly wants her to be something she just isn't, and I can't remember why he married her in the first place (I think it was because Maya proposed and he, in that moment, couldn't bring himself to reject her). I kinda suspect that Maya really did marry Chase for the food and because he sticks around, even though he's mean to her. I think the relationship between Chase and MC is different because the MC is (probably) a competent farmer that Chase can respect, where Maya is a largely incompetent chef and little else.

Rock, on the other hand, is just unpleasant. In her second file, my mom's character married him in HM:AnWL. She was not amused when one of the first things he says when you get engaged is how he will not work. The other bachelors don't work around the farm or contribute money to the household either, but at least we can assume they do something. Rock wants to a layabout trophy husband, but lacks the golden personality to make him truly valuable. It kinda feels like he got paired with Lumina in HM:DS Cute because they are both relatively young love interests (or because they were basically spare candidates and the writers put them together for the sake of having everyone pair up), not because they are compatible.

As for rival marriage, I like the idea and the extra content that comes with it, but I understand why it is no longer included. I would like it to come back as optional DLC. People who like rival marriage can get it, and those who don't can avoid it.
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I miss the rival couples. It was fun to watch them pair up and added more content to the games. I liked Dirk and Antoinette from Grand Bazaar. They were really opposite, but Antoinette really had a soft spot for Dirk and it felt sincere. I don’t remember any that I really didn’t like. More on Rock though... they listed the character ages in the AnWL booklet. Rock is 22 and Lumina is... wait for it... 14!!!!!
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RodCopper Fishin wrote:I miss the rival couples. It was fun to watch them pair up and added more content to the games. I liked Dirk and Antoinette from Grand Bazaar. They were really opposite, but Antoinette really had a soft spot for Dirk and it felt sincere. I don’t remember any that I really didn’t like. More on Rock though... they listed the character ages in the AnWL booklet. Rock is 22 and Lumina is... wait for it... 14!!!!!
In DS Lumina is an adult and she has her adult design, however Rock has an event with Lumina in AWL, where the characters are these ages and yeah... this makes Rock that much worse than I initially thought. I know people hate Allen as a bachelor because he is rude and arrogant, but at least he has pride in his work and that makes him a little better than Rock in my opinion.


@PaleSunflower, I definitely agree with your assessment on Chase and Maya I think the worst thing about this pairing is that a lot of people just hated Maya for how bad the pairing is... however it takes two to fight and yeah, Chase never respected Maya. Another reason Chase could have accepted is that he is close to and works with the people at the inn especially Yolanda, Maya’s grandmother who he is the apprentice of. If he rejected Maya he could be fired or create an enemy in Maya’s family. The people at the inn could have also tried to set them up to give Maya a partner that can cook and possibly take over the inn when they retired? Something like this is seen during Chase’s arrival in HM ToT. Chase arrives at the inn and asks Coleen where Yolanda is. Her response? Maya is upstairs...hmm. Sadly, I have heard stories of some families setting up similar relationships between their kids in real life, this was especially common in medieval times and among royal families.

Felicity from Anb (being a waitress and esteemed food critic despite not being the best at cooking) is a what Maya could have been as she uses her talents to make a living as opposed to staying in the same place the whole time and being in love with someone just because they cook good food! If they gave Mats an arch that features her going out on her own and becoming a critic, that would be great but then again, that’s basically Felicity’s story!
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RodCopper Fishin wrote:I miss the rival couples. It was fun to watch them pair up and added more content to the games. I liked Dirk and Antoinette from Grand Bazaar. They were really opposite, but Antoinette really had a soft spot for Dirk and it felt sincere. I don’t remember any that I really didn’t like. More on Rock though... they listed the character ages in the AnWL booklet. Rock is 22 and Lumina is... wait for it... 14!!!!!
I'd say all the rival pairings in Grand Bazaar were good. Freya and Ivan both had jobs in the city, Dirk and Antoinette as you mentioned, Daisy and Angelo lived close together and seemed like a natural couple too, Sherry and Lloyd probably just by process of elimination considering gruff Lloyd is practically the opposite of happy bubbly Sherry. Were Emiko and Amir officially referred to as "rivals"? I know they didn't have rival events and I'm not even sure either of them knew the other existed...
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