Everyone who reads my blog knows that I love Pokémon and Animal Crossing.  But did you know that I have yet another video game franchise obsession?  It’s true, and the game is Harvest Moon.

I’ve been playing different titles in the Harvest Moon franchise for a few years now, sampling the different versions of the game as they come out.  So far, my favorite Harvest Moon game is HM: Sunshine Islands.  Currently I’m playing Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns (or HM:ToTT for short).  The only reason I’m not listing HM:ToTT as my favorite game is because there are some glitches and lagging problems in the 3DS title.  Cuz otherwise, it’s a kickass game and I’ve been pretty addicted the past couple of weeks.

HM games tend to evolve over time, like many awesome games do.  A few years back, if you played HM:DS Cute, you could lose thousands of dollars and hours of hard work if your chicken coop was demolished in a typhoon.  In the newer games, thankfully, your coops, barns and sheds are a part your farm from the start, and have stable foundations that don’t get destroyed in a storm.

You could argue that this makes the newer games easier and unrealistic (I’m sure a typhoon could very well tear apart a chicken coop in real life) but it also makes players less likely to abandon their game and give up on their harvesting life.  And I’m sure the latter is more important to game developers right??  Another change that comes with HM:ToTT in terms of game dynamics is the fact that if you play as a female character, you can actually trigger a ‘reverse proposal’ with your beau.  “What am I talking about?” you might ask.  Well, in every previous HM title, if you wanted to get married, you had to buy a blue feather (for 10,000 bucks!) and present it to your potential spouse when they were at high enough friendship… and you had to do this whether you were playing as a male or female character.  I’m guessing some female players complained that it would be nice if your in-game beau would propose to YOU, since that’s predominantly the social norm.  So a reverse proposal is when your beau asks you to marry HIM, instead of the other way around.

So last week, wedding bells were ringing on my HM:ToTT farm!  My character, Glux, finally got her beau, Kana, to pop the question!  I took a lot of photos of the proposal but I won’t post it all here…  instead, here’s Kana’s proposal written verbatim:

This blue feather…  You know what the deal is with this?  It means I wanna be with you forever.  You put up with me blabbing about Hayate and my dad and stuff all the time, yeah?  But it’s like… How can I say this…?  Along the way…  I…  fell in love with you.  Once I realized that, the thought of you being with another guy bummed me out.  I’ve been moping about it ever since, but…  That’s not my style, y’know?  So here and now I’m gonna bust out and say it.  Glux, I’m in love with you.  Will you marry me?

[I responded “Yes!”]

Yeah!!  I am TOTALLY STOKED!

You can tell by the dialog why I liked this character the most.  He talks like a surfer dude or something, and it’s really funny and different from the other guys, whose dialog is pretty bland.  So the wedding was set for a week later in-game.  We met all of our friends up at the top of the mountain for a lovely ceremony.

The wedding was officiated by the priest of the Bluebell church, named Nathan.  (Yep, he’s the same priest from older games.)  I thought it was kinda strange that the wedding wasn’t held in the nice church.  It has stained glass windows and it’s very pretty.  Hm..  maybe Kana is buddhist or something lol!  I just thought that it was weird… like, why else would they even make a church in the game…?  But I digress.  (Btw I have a lot more photos of the wedding on my Flickr page.)

So now Kana has moved into my character’s farm house and they have a nice new king size bed.  I won’t be doing the house upgrade (which allows you to start the baby-making process lol) for a while, because there are so many farm upgrades I need to do first.  I still can’t make butter or cheese!  And I need a flour mill!!  PRIORITIES!!!

That’s my HM news for now!  I’ll post another blog about HM when I reach another in-game milestone.

In other news, over the weekend was the 2012 Spring Friendly Tournament in Pokémon Black and White.  Unfortunately I didn’t put any time or thought into my team, so my performance was pretty dismal in the competition.  I only did five battles, and my record was 1-4.  Hey, at least I won one battle!

Things to be excited about in the upcoming months:

• The E3 Expo is June 5-7!
• Pokémon Conquest comes to the U.S. in June
• Pokémon B&W2 comes out in Japan in June (I’ll be getting it!  I’m not missing out on any more cool Japanese WIFI Event Pokémon dammit!)
• New Super Mario Bros. 2 comes out in the U.S. in August