Alrighty, then! This will probably be our last opportunity to show alternate scenes with the other girls. Unless I change my mind and do some festival bonuses, but I've never done them before, so...Nah. Too much effort, Heh.
...Well....Except for maybe one special festival scene. And maybe the alternate location option.
First up is Popuri's. I don't know why, but these scenes can only be triggered in the afternoon.
Yeah, sure, why not? I mean, it'd be silly to trigger the scene and say no.
You can already see how different the set-up for this scene is from Elli's set-up; it's basically a chain of questions as Popuri circles the issue, getting closer and closer until you just want to get on with it.
I like that there's an option just not to tell her. Popuri just says we're no fun if we pick it, though.
If you pick someone other than Popuri she'll say that she liked you -- that she still likes you -- but she'll try to move on. She actually seems more hurt by you not telling her than you liking someone else. I get the vibe that canon-Popuri doesn't take love too seriously...Which is about even with my Popuri, even if I take it more free-love style.
But let's do this right and say we like her.
SUPER HEART-BARRAGE!
Is this the only time we see Popuri's model blush? She blushes a lot in-portrait... But I don't think her model blushes much at all.0
Popuri's scene feels the most weightless of any, which ultimately suits her, I think. That said, I find it pretty middle-of-the-road, neither particularly sweet or particularly funny or so on. Popuri's sort of a tricky one.
The next two are kind of clustered together, location-wise, so they'll be next.
First up, it's Ann's scene! If you're not interested in cute, this is the best confession scene, bar none.
D'aww....Ann's worried about losing our friendship. Small details I like: Ann basically never looks at another character head-on when she's getting emotional about something. This could just be because the viewpoint the player has would make her expressions hard to see...But I think it suits Ann.
Ann'll just laugh it off if we say it muddles things, and ask if we'll still be friends. I don't think her cheer there is entirely sincere.
Well, Fox is all for proving his feelings.
Of course... This is Ann we're talking about.
DENIED. With force.
I love this scene. That's all.
...Oh, what, not enough commentary?
One thing I will say about Ann as a whole is that her scenes are very animated -- she'll switch portraits mid-dialogue, have sweatdrops and emotes flying around, do gestures or little expressions... This makes her really, really hard to screencap well, so it's kind of annoying... But very fun to watch!
The next scene's down at the beach, which means...
It's Karen-time.
For some reason, she walks right through us. I guess I mis-placed my character there.
Karen gets pretty upset if we say no, but she says she doesn't care, and that we're stupid to refuse a girl like her, and she doesn't want to hear us saying we regret it later!
But trying to hide hurt through coldness is just what Karen does. I can't decide if I feel sadder for Ann, who pretends to laugh it off, or for Karen, who just bundles it all under a hard shell. I've actually grown to like Ann a lot during this LP; maybe I'll do a run for myself where I marry her. Sorry, Cliff.
Anyway, let's get on with telling her "yes."
Y-yes ma'am! Karen and Ann, for their own brands of shyness, are pretty forceful about this. Elli says she'll just be waiting for it "someday," and I don't think Maria or Popuri mention it at all.
But I guess if they're letting their guards down for you, they expect you to go all the way with it.
Yeah, Karen. You haven't said what you feel, yet.
And then she walks off...And never, at any point, says she likes us. We're just supposed to know already.
The last confession, and my favorite, takes some extra set-up. See, we need to be able to enter the library to trigger it...But we can't enter the library until the 10th of Winter. Had Maria won, Fox probably wouldn't have made his choice until after that point...Which would have led to some fun antics on Winter Thanksgiving, where the girls would have mobbed him with cake.
Anyway, we'll be jumping to a spare file of mine, currently in first spring, and cheating up Maria's affection for it. I also need to speed through several days of Maria events. Meet you leaving the library then.
As I was saying about the staging of these scenes in the thread... I like that they do just how the whole scene is set up, what sort of choices it offers, differently, and I like being able to read things about the characters into that. It's something I don't see much of in the modern Harvest Moon games, but I think it's a nice touch, and one that gives you a fair bit of story, without having to say much.
Ann basically ambushes you, but you need to talk to Karen and Popuri. Elli stops you as you're leaving, like she wasn't sure she wanted to bring it up...
And shy Maria only chases after you after you've already gone. She almost let you slip away, without saying anything at all.
But not today! Today, she has steeled her courage!
The name of the character in this file, for some reason, is just a string of letters. I think I was just testing something or something; I can't say I recall.
D'aww. You may notice the lack of choice displayed. Maybe it comes later?
I'm glad you got to, even if it's in an alternate universe.
That...is just...so precious.
But wait, there's more!
<3 <3 <3
This is why I like this scene the most. Also, I totally feel they made the wrong translation call, but oh well.
Maria just wanted to tell you for the sake of telling you; she's just so happy to be in love with someone, and to be able to express that feeling.
Maria's concern is not having her feelings returned -- she'll never ask you if you love her, here or anywhere else. Maybe, to her, that doesn't matter. She's happy just to be in love with you.
I find that really, really, sweet, and would have been happy to write scenes around such a pure-hearted feeling.
I'm glad I got to show these off.
Re: 64 Times the Harvesting: Let's Play Harvest Moon 64
LPs:
Originally Posted by Herpestidae
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