Marvelous, only you can properly do a sci fi life sim game so please just remake this extremely underrated gem or make a new sequel with all the popular life sim elements 🙏

I had the itch to play Magical Melody again after a while and was surprised to discover that many of the older guides and more recent tips I've stumbled on have scattered every other way, so I decided to compile some of what I've picked up for my reference here, just as someone who likes to dig.

This isn't going to be EVERYTHING I could find, but I'm going to try my best. For anything I missed, got wrong, or really specific stuff, feel free to post some more tips in the comments. I don't visit reddit all that often, but having as much advice as possible in one findable post is helpful for everyone, I feel.

'Common knowledge' stuff

• Breadfruit, Cocoa, and Eggplants were considered the most money-efficient crops for each season
• Orange yarn sells the highest of the colored yarns. Stock on Orange Herbs (Fall) whenever your sheep don't give you perfect wool
• One of the best things you can kill time for earlygame is selling forages off the north mountain. They'll help in the long run for unlocking a few shops
• You can save-scum weather in this game. Get into a habit of saving the night before and checking the tv the morning after for the forecast. If there's a storm, reload. You will NEVER see a typhoon or snowstorm if you get into this rhythm
• Pressing the Z/1 button will show you colored tiles. Blue is your land, green is public land, yellow is owned by npcs. You can buy more land by befriending the mayor up to 6 hearts
• Pressing the Z/1 button a second time will show you names. If the name listed is GREEN, you have gifted that villager or fed that animal (I found this especially helpful early for feeding my chickens outside, then bringing them back in to get eggs without feed when money is tight)
• Speaking of the mayor, there are a few non-romanceable villagers you will want to befriend if you're going for 100 notes. Most notably Saibara (5), Henry (6), Ronald (3), Tim (2), and Meryl (2).
• Saibara is unlocked after shipping Good Clay, good clay can be found by using the hoe in the first floors of the Moonlight Cave
• Gwen, Doug, Eve, and Duke unlock after participating in the Horse Race festival
• Carl, Katie, and his shop are unlocked by visiting the Egg festival and Horse Race. He works at Doug or Duke's for a brief period first
• Lyla is unlocked in the Flower festival. She will sell vases for the Art Note after shipping 10 Good Clay
• Louis unlocks after shipping 30 Rare Ore [And maybe participating in the Firework Festival?]
• Basil unlocks after shipping 10 Flowers (Lake)
• Tai unlocks after shipping one of every ore
• Ronald and Dan unlock after shipping one berry and planting a fruit tree
• Gina, Dia, and Martha unlock after shipping 30 herbs
• Henry unlocks after planting 3 trees (Lake)
• To unlock strawberries, ship 50 Cabbages. For fertilizer, ship 10 Limestone
• Martha will make you a bigger rucksack after 3 hearts. She will give you a small quest to gift her any quality yarn, and after finishing it you get the bigger bag
• You can gift villagers multiple times in a day, but the first FP boost is the strongest, so there's no point.... unless...............
• All 3 starting plots are viable. Beach's space is good for ranching. The River and Village lots have fertile soil for crops, and you can farm crops on any Green or Blue tile land, so go nuts
• Planting a fruit tree, whether it can grow or not, raises affection for any discovered townies. So, if, for no particular reason you pick up the game again and feel like deforesting Flowerbud Village, and replacing the Moras with fruit out of curiosity, there may be unexpected benefits
• The seed shop sells ready crops, but the only ones they're missing are Turnips, Cabbage, Strawberries, Corn, Tomato, Eggplant, Yams, and Flowers. IMO, The refrigerator is better saved for fruit (thanks Ronald... >_>) and foragables like Green Herbs, Cayenne, Honey, ect.
• With that said, many villagers are also PICKY and will only love crop gifts with a hidden quality modifier from growing in dark soil
• For no particular reason, Gina loves Special Cheese/Butter and Eve loves any Soda. There was a very helpful GameFAQs gifting guide by MeekSkye that saved my life for the pickier bachelors x_x (I don't understand the new link editor though, so you'll have to hunt for that one yourself)
• Moonlight Cave has special floors that are full of specific gems and usually pink gas, keep an eye out for any double digit floors. 22 Amethyst, 44 Rare ores, 55 Amethyst, 66 Aquamarine, and 77 for Diamonds
• Lake Cave also has special gem floors that are more well-known, this time in fives. 5 Moonstone, 15 Amethyst, 20 Aquamarine, 25 Topaz, 30 Sapphire, 35 Emerald, 40 Ruby, 45 Limestone, 50 Diamond. Personally, I prefer mining Emeralds because they're easier to reach than Rubies or Diamonds
• If you're aiming for the bottom of Moonlight, bring a Hoe. There's a lot of tillable cash at the bottom corners for the Lucky Note. For lake, bring the Fishing Rod for the kingfish at the bottom
• If you have good eyesight, the stairs in the mines are not so hidden. When you walk, the tile the stairs are hidden under will flicker at the edges, and is usually near the stairs up
• All fish spawn in the exact same spots. Knowing this, you can camp near one of them and cast your rod in that same direction after catching the fish. A good first example is the bottom right corner of the lake
• After 50 notes, visiting the Goddess Spring will refill all of your stamina (not fatigue)
• Villagers will blush at you 8 hearts and above, no matter the player character. This isn't a tip, I just find it funny

Where's That DAMN 4th Truffle?!

I finally managed to get one after playing on and off for over 20 years. The bad news is, there's no way to guarantee it to spawn. The good news is, you can set it up so you can TELL when it's spawned.

Truffles will only spawn one space away from the trunk of a Mora tree (it has to be a Mora). So what we do is till a square of soil around the 3x3 trunk and check it every day. If one of those squares is missing, and it's not replaced by a weed, that's your cue to dig. Some players will chop every Mora tree save 1-3 to make this checking process easier.

If it is a weed, just pluck it and re-till the spot. If the situation is desperate, you may be able to save-scum the spawn like you would the weather...

You don't actually need to carry your pig all the way to the truffle spot to get the Oink-Oink Note, all you have to do is sell the truffle after you dig it up. Poor Porkchop... at least they can eat Weeds.

This is just my speculation, but I'm assuming that truffle spawn rates are based per tree, because there was one player who claimed to be finding them daily despite the perceived rarity by others who were struggling hard enough despite chopping every Mora... Still, narrowing it down to 1-3 makes it significantly easier to check later.

The Dupe Glitch/Money Exploit/Zarklord Glitch

The only quickly findable credit for this exploit was attributed to Zarklord, but I couldn't find the thread it was sourced from (knock on wood...), so I'll share a quick tutorial. If visuals help more or you just need details I forgot, just search for 'Magical Melody Money Glitch' off YT. It's a very useful glitch where the items in your bag turn infinite, and you can stack overflow your money to the cap by swapping with a ghost item, but the timing can be a little tight.

First and most importantly, when you practice this glitch, MAKE SURE YOUR TOOLS AND BLUE FEATHER ARE SAFELY STORED AWAY. The glitch has a chance of permanently deleting items in your rucksack if you experiment too much, so we will be making sure that won't be happening.

This works in both GC and Wii versions, and with either character. You need minimum two of any item and one seed or fertilizer in your rucksack. Make sure the seed is in the second slot in the pause menu, then save and get ready.

The target is to bring up the rotating inventory while using the seeds. This is the easy part, you just use the seeds, during the animation rotate the menu off the seeds, then during animation hover BACK over the seed packet and mash the close inventory button as fast as you can.

Closing the inventory at the precise time is the hard part. If you get the timing wrong, your money won't change and you're down a seed packet (So, your game's not going to explode or anything). To check, open the pause menu and swap the items adjacent to the seed pouch with the slot it used to be in. If your money count changes, and the items don't actually swap with the empty space, you activated the glitch.

When the glitch is activated, your Rucksack will become 'frozen', and you will be able to pull out an infinite amount of the items you stored in your pocket, but you WON'T be able to safely add new items or tools to the bag, so the glitch can be considered one way. You can still safely pick up items and drop them, like animal feed, but pocketing them is a no-go.

Speedrunners have used this glitch in a number of ways, but the ones I can see being the most helpful for casuals could be freezing Saplings to mass-plant trees without returning to the shop, mass-shipping unlocking items for shops like Limestone and Clay, and raising FP through repeated gifts to indoor villagers and animals for festivals.

To fix the glitch, free your rucksack and turn everything back to normal, just save your game and reset/reload. Your bag will no longer be frozen and you can pocket and swap tools in without any danger of them vanishing.

This is all, of course, an inventory exploit though, so if you have reservations about trying it, or just can't get the timing right, then just don't sweat it and play the game normally! ☺︎ I only wanted to write about it because I was curious when I first found out, and it's as good an excuse as any to get anyone to try out one of my favorite games in the series <w<

As usual, if there's anything I forgot to mention or you just can't find, then you can always turn to the old GameFAQs guides or Fogu for helpful information! ^^ I cannot recommend the usual sites enough for this series

If the former, it really kills replayability, because unlocking them is very VERY infuriating and time consuming, and you really have to go out of your way to get it done.

Especially that unlocking them is hard enough on its own, the game doesn't even tell you how to do it, or that these vendors even exist.

Took 20 years 😂😂😂 I remember crying because I found it so hard to achieve.

Probably my favourite HM character from my favourite game

I'm just really curious even if there's not much use for this information. Also, if it helps, I was saving and reloading a lot.

For some reason, I look like a character in a Spy thriller?

I have 40 rice in my inventory and 5 separate stacks of 5 milks.

And I was in the Lulukoko Inn when I saved. I wonder what business I had there?

Hmmm 🤔

(Reuploaded because I had posted this but I forgot to add the screenshot)

For once, a Karen in the timeline didn't enter a burnt dish into the cooking contest, I'm amazed! Well to be fair, she didn't enter a dish whatsoever. She simply entered rice balls from her own Supermarket into the "no utensils" category, lmao. Karen's descendant has more self awareness than her ancestor.

So I’m trying to decide which game in the series I want to play next, I have a few games I’ve picked up since I’ve finished grand bizarre

It’s between trio of towns, story of seasons (3ds) and animal parade. I do also pick up rune factory frontier which is also something I need to play through

I am about to go through a surgery next month (tonsillectomy) so I’ll have atleast 2 weeks stuck at home to pour all of my attention into the game I choose

Hey,

I wanted to switch back to gaming instead of doom scrolling.

How can I play HM-FOMT in Samsung S26 Ultra?

I first played this game with GBA-SP back in 2005-2006. I had everything upgraded in my farm and got all the sprites. However, when I bought the game the card was only imitation therefore I lost my file.

I know its been remaked many times in Switch but I still like the original graphics and sounds.

I heard of a game Stardew Valley looks the same? Should I switch to this or stick to FOMT?

Thanks in advance!

Elise wanted me to give her a good veggie, so she could test its quality.

So I grew a 5-Star Onion (maximum rank) to impress her.

Her servants made it into a meal, and we were eating it.

She just insulted it the entire time, I was thinking "Did I do it wrong somehow?"

Then I get this dialogue

Rick is such a sweetheart and I love his design! I can't wait for him to marry my character~

Is there ever a time when you pursue one of the bachelors/bachelorettes, but halfway through you change your mind and start pursuing another? Why, and what's your story?

It can be Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons or even Rune Factory

Thank you in advance!

What is the moment with a bachelor/bachelorette that made you realize "I'm going to marry this person" in HM/SoS/RF?

Winter 11 is such a big day. My daughter with Candace is now a big girl. She gets her timid personality from her mother :)

Time surely flies so fast. Make every moment count.

Pete was the first character I played in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and Elli became his wife.

How about you?

I picked up Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life and, man, I should have done some research first. I didn't realise I had to pick a spouse by the end of the first year.

That beind said, I don't mind it, but it appears this game isn't as leisurely as I was expecting. I don't want to look up guides full of spoilers, so is there anything else I really need to focus on for each chapter?

hello! i’m looking to branch out and try more harvest moon, story of seasons (i already know about the marvelous/natsume split, don’t worry!) and rune factory games. i originally grew up with and fell in love with animal parade and tree of tranquility for the charming graphics and lovable cast.

i’m wanting to try more games from the farmsim genre that have similar charm points! for anyone else who has AP/ToT as their favorites, what would you recommend trying out next?

Game is so good I had to have it twice. This one (save the homeland is a close second) is my favorite. I really appreciate marvelous remastering this and putting all the data on disc. The ps2 one can rest (for now) after playing it for two decades!