Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Ann is the Worst (A Harvest Moon 64 Recollection)


           Those of you who do not know are bound to find out eventually.  So, I guess I will spill the beans on the whole situation.  I love the Nintendo 64.  And I am pretty sure my sisters do as well.  There is one game in general that we all loved (fairly equally I think).  That game is the one and only Harvest Moon 64.  Now, OLIVIA and ELENA have become absolutely pro at the game.  Not sure any of us were that good at it back in the day (or maybe it was just me). 

            For anyone who has never played a Harvest Moon game, there is a point in the game where you can marry someone in the village.  In Harvest Moon 64 that is Maria (the Mayor’s Daughter), Elli (the Bakery Girl), Popuri (the Flower Shop Owners’ Daughter), Karen (the Daughter of the Vineyard), and… Ann (the Daughter from the Green Ranch).  There are many reasons to get married.  In real life and in the game! 

            But since I lack the ability to actively talk about real life marriage, we’ll talk about my inability to comprehend video game marriage instead!  Won’t this be fun?  You bet it will (maybe).  Now let us begin!

            I will first explain that my sisters did a very good job of getting a lot of things right on their first try through the game.  There are many things that can happen during the game that are permanent events.  (I.E. Karen leaving, Cliff leaving, Kai leaving, Grandma dying, animals dying due to lack of food and medicine, and even typhoons and stuff)  I seemed to draw the short straw on having all these things happen to me first.  They were warned far in advance by my failures.  My first run through of the game was really rough… You have no idea.  I didn’t know how to make money off of things.  I had no long term financial plans.  My dog didn’t eat for years (this never seemed to bother him, as he would still just piss on my floor like it weren’t no thang).  So, with all these failures riding on me, I decided to marry Ann.  Cause, why not.

            A quick rundown of the beautiful ladies of Harvest Moon 64:  Maria, Elli, and Popuri are considered some of the easiest gals in the game to love and show affection to.  They don’t have expensive tastes in things.  Courting them is relatively simple as you shower them with cheap gifts that raise their affection towards you at a reasonable rate (affection is shown as a small heart down in the right hand corner of the conversation box when you speak to them).  Karen is pretty picky and really only like’s things you can get for her in the Fall (apparently she kind of likes tomatoes).  So she is considered to be one of the harder girls to pursue.  And Ann… oh Harvest Goddess... why did I choose Ann?  We’ll get back to her in a bit.

            The short term benefits of marriage!  Always what you should think about before getting married.  Each bachelorette does stuff for you on your farm.  Maria pulls weeds and crates eggs, Elli feeds the chickens and crates eggs, Karen crates eggs (sometimes she drops one), and Popuri waters your plants and feeds the chickens.  (Again, we’ll get to Ann in a second).  Now a warning in advance to all of you who think Popuri sounds like the most useful, she only waters your plants in the fields.  She doesn’t go in the green house… for some reason I don’t really know.  AND she only waters some of the spaces in the field.  Not really that many at all.  Not to mention the fact that she will water the space even if there is no plant in it.  So, basically she creates mud for you… if that is what you’re in to.  And at a glance, Karen may seem to be the most useless.  She even costs you money in that one broken egg.  This may be true by statistics standards.  But you have yet to hear about Ann… Ugh…

            Ann has incredibly expensive tastes and therefore is harder to woo.  Once you’ve finally (and I do mean FINALLY!) gotten a Pink Heart of Affection with her and you finally marry her, you might suspect that your hard work will pay off.  I mean she is a damn ranch hand for Harvest Goddess’s sake!  She should be the most useful wife at least!  Now, I expected her to take care of the animals for me.  Show them some love.  I don’t think I ever saw her go in the barn.  I recently discovered that she apparently every now and again will feed your chickens and crate their eggs.  It may just have been my game, but she didn’t do anything.  It was like she was just bumming around all the time!  I mean, I understand not wanting to work, believe me.  But this was too much.  And she seemed pleased as punch not to do anything, AND tell me how much she liked doing nothing on my farm!  You can imagine my distaste when I saw my sisters marrying girls who loved their characters.  Taking wives who wanted to help their farm prosper.  And I was stuck with Ann… guhhhhhhhh…

            I’ll admit it may just have been bad luck on my part as far as the game goes.  Maybe it was because I didn’t understand the rules of the game.  My tragedy did seem to be self-inflicted.  But here is the kicker, one of my animals died at random.  Just out of the blue.  I was distraught, but a country boy will survive…  But heaven forbid my wife be there for me in my time of need.  No, the next day when I spoke with her, she actually liked me less.  I didn’t think it was possible.  But her affection level was one whole point lower than what is required to marry her.  WHAT?!  So you’re telling me everything up to this point has been love?!  Son of a…

            Just so you understand why Ann is the worst; if Cliff stays in town and the two of them fall “in love,” she abuses him.  That’s right folks; she beats the nicest homeless guy in town (maybe second nicest, the Fisherman is pretty cool).  There you have it, she’s the worst.  Again, this is all just from my experience in the game.  I’m sure others have wed Ann and had great experiences.  I’m getting Harvest Moon flashbacks.  So… traumatic…

                       

                                                                                    LAZY Rhino “CEO”

                                                                                                Andrew

(If you like my blog, follow me on the Twitters @ANDCauthen.  Or not.  It’s on you.)

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