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Farming games are often contained within a small area, such as the town where your farm exists.Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthoschanges up traditional familiar farming expectations by combining heavy elements of exploration. In fact, exploration is almost more of a focus than the task of farming itself.
This shift in focus is quite different for a farming game, so if you’re used to staying in one main area it’ll take a little bit to adjust to this different style of play. With a few tips, you’ll be prepared to navigate the beginning of this spacious new world.
Complete Quests
If you’ve played farming games before, you might be used to getting right intotypical farming tasks. Perhaps you like tomeet all the people in townas your first goal. In Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos,you’ll have a tutorial that walks you through tasks.
The first in-game week of the tutorial gives youbasic tasks to familiarize you with the game mechanicsand general farming tasks. If you’rebrand new to the farming game genre, this is a helpful game to have.
Most ofthe beginning tutorial is very directin giving you quests and having you complete them immediately, and then it opens up into somenormal farming routine options. It can still feel like a tutorial though, becauseprogress is generally locked behind quests.
If you don’t realize this,it’s easy to become frustrated at how slowly everything is going. Theshops in town aren’t open, and the townspeople just say the same thing repeatedly.
Any quests, especially ones you get from the character Doc Jr., arecritical to your progression. Some quest taskswill take a very long time, and it’s okay to slow down rather than rush your progression.
The Best Way To Make Money In Early Game
Farming games usually allow you to make decent money from your crops, even at the early stages of the game. In Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, however,it’s better to keep many of your crops.
Instead,fishing provides much more money than crops. You’ll need both good money and crops to make yourself enough food to take care of daily tasks.
You can keep and eat the fish if you prefer. You don’t need any recipes, andyou can eat the fish without any cookinginvolved.
You canfish with or without bait, and even without bait you can obtain higher-quality fish. The higher the star quality of the fish,the better the price you’ll getwhen you sell it.
Managing Stamina Is Crucial
Stamina management is not a new mechanic to farming games, however, it’s important to remember thatwalking around will use up stamina. The first bit of progress before you unlock fast travel options is challenging.
In the beginning of the game you may need toprioritize basic tasks, andsave crops for a weekbefore you may venture into the mine.You’ll need lots of mealsjust to get a few floors down into the mine.
One of the nice things about Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos is thatyou don’t actually need to go to bed. The day will switch over, and you’ll get a scene showing the day changing on the calendar.
If you don’t sleep, however,you will suffer from sleep deprivationthe next day. Sleep deprivation basically results in exhaustion. You’lllose stamina more rapidlyin that condition.
Your crops won’t suffer too much if you don’t water them for a day, soit’s okay to stay up all night for some progressgoals. You shouldn’t have too many animals at first, so if you stay up they’ll have a couple of days' worth of feedif you fill up all the feeding troughs.
Talk To Sprites
There’sno need to buy seedsin the early game. Once you unlock the animal barn you might want to buy some grass seeds for feed, but otherwise it isn’t necessary.
Red and purple sprites are abundantin the beginning area. All you need to do is talk to them, and they’ll give you seeds.Talking to the same spriteany daywill give you more of the same seedit originally gave you.
This keeps the cost of farming to a minimum, and alsoencourages traveling. If you want to find different seeds,you’ll have to find and speak with more sprites.
You have a special tab in your inventory for items such as seeds. Make sure toput the contents in storage before you travelto speak with sprites. There’s not much inventory space for the seeds and it will fill up quickly.
Multiple activities likecutting grass, chopping trees, or smashing rockscan reveal hidden sprites. Talk to as many as you may, andyou’ll have more than enough seedsto keep you busy.
Mining
One of the most challenging tasks you’re given in the early game is torepair the animal barn. Instead of needing only wood,you’ll also need silver.
Silver ore is rare to impossible to find in the beginning floors of the mine. You’ll need tomine past level ten to find it.
The good news is thatevery ten levels saves a shortcutfor any future mining sessions. You’ll be able tostart right at level tenand keep working your way down from thereinstead of starting all over at level one.
Keep your cameratilted toward the groundwhen you mine. Rocks fall from above sometimes, and you may get hitif you don’t notice the shadowson the ground, andmove out of the way in time.
You’ll most likely need toplan ahead for lengthy tripsinto the mine. If you want to get through ten or more floors,plan to stay in the mine overnight.
Move Your Farm
During your travels, you’ll be introduced to the game mechanic that lets youmove your farm. You caninteract with little perchesthroughout the world and after a day your farm will be relocated.
It may not be important most of the time, but in the case of events or character birthdays it’s important to know thatyou will skip a day. Youwon’t be able to do anythingelse while your farm is moving. It only takes a few seconds in-game though.
Complete any tasksyou want for the day before initiating the request to move your house.
Check the calendar for anyupcoming important eventsthat you don’t want to miss before moving your farm. Additionally,it will not move your crop landwith you.
You’ll geta whole new plot of landin varying sizes to care for. you may either use just the new farmland when you relocate, or fast travel back to old farmland tocare for multiple plots.
If you will only be using the new farm plot,collect any fencing you may have placedand reuse it in the new location to save resources.
What To Know About Crops
There are a handful of things you should know about crops in Harvest Moon: The Winds Of Anthos. Even thoughseeds come from sprites, there are a couple other bits of information that can help you progress.
You may receive requests and quests whichspecify a particular type of produce or flower. You have a chance to geta mutated version of crops, so you cantry planting red tulip seeds to get an orange tulipfor example.
Keep harvested tulips and daisies. You’ll get an early quest for these flowers and won’t be able to progress much without completing the quest.
Crops won’t wiltwhen the season changes. Manyseeds can grow in multiple seasons. The seeds you get in the starting area are fine to grow, andyou won’t lose all your existing cropswhen it changes from Spring to Summer.
You should alwaysprotect your crops with a fence. If you’re only using the farming plot by your house, make sureno previous plots have fencing. If you successfully protect the crops at your house during bad weather,you may get a gift.
Special Golden Sprites
Unlike the usual seeds,golden spritesoffer you with something unique - theharvest wisp fruit, which will serve asvaluable currencyin the future.
If you’re wandering around atnight, keep an eye out for these special golden sprites. Theyemit a glowthat’s moreobviousin thedarkness.
Gather as many of these as you canbecause they canenhance your staminaandexpand your inventory. You’ll find them listed in thestar symbol tab of your inventory, alongside your essential tools and items.
Improve Your Cultural Level
As you improve your cultural level,more things will become available to you. You’ll receivemore recipes, and stores will offer awider variety of items.
Doing anyquests that are designated with blue exclamation pointsor marked with blue stars will give more experience than doing regular tasks, but you should still do both.
Shipping things from your binis also one of the ways to improve cultural level, but ittakes a long time to get even one star. Stars will fill up slowly, but they will eventually fill up.
Keep completingtasks for townspeople, and exploring. You’ll be a well-traveled adventuring farmer in no time.
