The Game Plan to BLESS this MESS in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

Hey all! Will is back and with a special treat just for you.

That's right - you!

Now don't get that too twisted. As you all know, I have eyes only for one certain green lady. The lady that lives in the pond! The lady my therapist keeps insisting does not exist. He needs to get his eyes checked, or maybe see a shrink methinks...

Normally I would probably do some written gag where I'm formulating a survival diary as I delve into the depths of the Lake Mine, southwest of Mineral Town, but as it turns out - I've left that mine already! That's right, the tribulations are over and I grabbed one (1) of every Cursed Tool in the game! That's right - I'm sure I never ever have to go down into these mines to do the same song and dance again!

Surely!

Anyway, here's what my inventory looked like after leaving. The Cursed Tools are the highlight, but I did also need a few more rare gems and minerals to round out my shipping list. I've recorded the updates below:

82.5% done with shipping, and if we look at the summary breakdown, that works out to 85 out of 103 items shipped. 18 more to go, and 12 of those are going to be wrapped up between animal festival medals and this new fishing rod we got. Good times all-around!

Now before we delve into the Cursed Tools and how to, uh, un-curse them? I guess it's more of an exorcism. Kind of hardcore when you interpret it that way-- what I mean to say is, I want to show off the Level 6 stance first, because these cursed and soon-to-be purified tools are REALLY strong. Check out what the stance looks like:

So before, with the Level 6 stance using our Mystrile Tools, our farmer would rear back with the little angry anime vein on his head. Now, as if possessed by Thor himself, it seems our eyes glow gold with a similarly-coloured aura surrounding us. I have no idea if we're channelling some sort of power from the tool itself (Which maybe, since it's cursed...?), but my own headcanon tells me that, due to what happens next, we're maybe channelling some of the Harvest Goddess' power itself. Take a look at the aftermath below from our Cursed Axe:

...Yeah so uh, not much in the way of stumps left standing after that. Keep in mind, I swung a blank here; that tree cannot be felled as it's just a foreground element, and there was clearly no stump in front of us. Now, no stumps!

The Cursed Axe will screen-wipe all stumps in one Level 6 swing, netting us 35 lumber for use in construction and fencing. Convenient, some may even say overkill!

Here's a breakdown of what all the Cursed Tools do:

• Fishing Rod - Allows the farmer to catch the King Fish, Pirate's Treasures and FIsh Fossils;
• Cursed Hoe - Tills a 12x3 rectangle in front of you when on your farm's soil;
• Cursed Axe - Clears all stumps on the screen;
• Cursed Hammer - breaks any boulder in one hit;
• Cursed Watering Can - Waters a 6x12 rectangle of soil at once;
• Cursed Sickle - Cuts down a 9x9 square of grass/crops around the farmer;

So as you can see, these tools are no slouch when it comes to getting the work done! The downside is that they use much more fatigue than the Mystrile tools before them. This is because, while magical in nature, they're still made from a very inefficient metal. If we wanted the best of both worlds - the great stance effects and the lower fatigue/stamina usage - we'd need to take a second set of Cursed Tools, make them Blessed Tools, and then mine for Mystic Ore to craft them into Mystic Tools, the final tools in the game you can upgrade into. Think of them like Ultima weapons but for pacifists in a world that doesn't need saving.

This is all fine and good, but how do we exorcise these tools? Well there's three main methods for making them blessed! They are as follows, and apply to the tools in pairs:

• Fishing Rod & Axe - Use the tools 255 times;
• Hoe & Watering Can - Equip them and ask Carter to bless them 10 times each, each blessing costing 1000G;
• Sickle & Hammer - Equip the tool for 10 days without going to Carter for a blessing;

So there's two main points to cover here. One, which is much more simple and brief to cover, is that right here and now we want that Blessed Fishing Rod so we can start the hunt for those King Fish, as clearing our fish entries is a Harvest Goddess requirement! So that's a top priority for us this Winter.

The second point is the logistical puzzle of making sure we both bless these as efficiently as we can so we can regroup and go back to working on our mining progress. The main reason I wanted these Cursed Tools immediately wasn't necessarily because they're better. In fact, while they're better for everyday workloads on the farm, the hoe and hammer specifically are even worse for mining due to their stamina and fatigue usage.

The secrets lie in both the facts that we need to dig up every single possible thing that can be dug up from the mines in order to have the Goddess' approval; so for the sake of completion we at least had to dig up one of every Cursed Tool for this. Secondly is the methods for getting the Mythic Tools requiring a second set of Cursed Tools to be attained in these same mines. Stick with me here, this is about to get messy and really video game-y.

In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, a second set of Cursed Tools will not spawn in the mines at all until we've blessed all 6 of the current set we have. We can use this to our advantage clearing out the Lake Mine by blessing only the tools we need Blessed versions of - in this case, the hammer and the fishing rod - and then continuing with our requirements without the worry of hitting those floors that end in 9 again and having Cursed Tool tiles mucking up our mining journey!

So I will leave you all with what I plan to do, now that the stage is set: I fully intend on using the festival exploit to bless both the axe and fishing rod. My next chance to do this will be on Winter Thanksgiving on Winter 14. This exploit is the simple fact that during festival attendance, it's impossible to expend Stamina and Fatigue, a measure taken as it would kind of funny but also a downer for the farmer to keel over and ruin Christmas for everyone. You traumatized poor Stu, you monster!

I've also got boatloads of money, so simply picking a Monday, Thursday or snowy day for confessions to be open at the church in order to farm 20,000G-worth of blessings in the hoe and watering can will bring me up to 4 tools blessed! That leaves the hammer, which I want to bless for the sake of exploration due to a few boulders making certain areas inaccessible. I need to hold onto that for 10 straight days, which Winter of all times makes for the best chance to do so! I'll toss the hammer on at that same festival on the 14th, have it blessed by the 24th and my hands will be freed again just in time for Christmas!

It's a perfect plan folks, and I have a freed up saveslot in case I mess any of this up so that I can correct any of this procedure, that way we don't have a repeat of the Sheep Festival incident. In-game for me it's the 10th. I'll likely spend the next few days picking up some screenshots for a smaller post about the harvest sprites, and then it'll be on to showing off how the blessings went. Wish me luck!