HARVEST MOON: HERO OF LEAF VALLEY GENERAL SPEEDRUNNING PRIMER AND ANY% NOTES by OHMalleyCat

NOTE: In this guide, I will not be covering things like NPC's schedules or preferred gifts, or even their Event Paths, since all of that info is online (see my HoLV Calendar on speedrun.com for a helpful list of all Character Events) and since its necessity varies depending on which category you're running. If I were to try and incorporate all of that here, it would simply be too long and unnecessary. Instead, this is a basic primer to understanding the current state of speedrunning this game, and should be enough to get anyone interested started in running this game.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend buying the Official Guidebook published by BradyGames. It really has all the basic information about this game and all of its mechanics/characters/events/etc, and made running and routing the game a million times easier. I bought my copy for $20 on eBay and I think it's still about the same price.

In HoLV, there are clear goals and endings to strive for, and the player has two years in-game to achieve these goals/endings. Getting to the end of the game's two-year main storyline and obtaining any ending counts as a completed Any% run. However, each ending has its own requirements, and thus the Any% category for this game is divided into 6 different runs, including 2 miscellaneous runs, which are more boring. They are as follows:

ANY% (ALICE) ENDINGS:

"Alice" -- To obtain this ending, the player must simply raise at least 50,000G by the end of the second year, to save the town from being demolished for an amusement park. The current route for this run involves obtaining 60 mineral crystals in the First Spring, using these to grow a field of 30 Black Watermelons in the First and Second Summers, selling these as Wanted Items to Ronald, then using these profits to buy Fine Cheese at horse races, which is then sold to Ronald for a 1.2x profit. This is a process I've dubbed "Fine Cheese Flipping".

"Alice (Best Ending)" -- This run is the same as an "Alice" run, except in addition to raising the money to save the town, the player must also successfully complete the 5 Mecha-Events and repel the Mech each time. Each Mecha-Event involves completing a fairly-easy mini-game. The player must also be sure to view certain additional cutscenes with the character Alice, and answer her questions in certain ways to obtain this ending. The Mecha-Events are: 1-- CROW -- 1st Winter 2, outside the Tool and Flower shops, pick up all the food on the ground. 2 -- MOLE -- 1st Winter 20, at the Dig Site, hit the Mole twice with your hammer. 3 -- TREE -- 2nd Spring 5th, at Carpenter's, specific answers to questions required, cut down the tree. 4 -- HORSE -- 2nd Spring 22, at Race Track. Player must enter the race in the morning, then return at 2PM and beat the Mecha-Horse in the race. 5 -- FISH -- 2nd Summer 14, at Mallard Lake, specific answers to questions required, catch 3. -- After this, be sure to witness the cutscene with Alice in the Church, and answer her questions correctly, to obtain the Best Ending. And have 50,000G.

ANY% (NATURE/TOURIST) ENDINGS:

Aside from Alice, there are 15 other characters in the game who have Event Paths the player can complete, and each of these 15 Event Paths contribute to either a "Nature Reserve" or "Tourist Spot" Ending. To obtain one of these two endings, however, the player must complete at least THREE Event Paths of the appropriate type. Each Event Path is made of multiple Events, which occur on specific dates, and require specific conditions be met by said dates. If you miss a required Event for an Event Path, you cannot complete the run. Thankfully the windows of time to obtain Events in is generally pretty generous, so long as you don't forget to obtain them. I will note each Ending's current route and the NPCs required, though remember that these could change in the future, as with any route. When selecting which 3 Event Paths you'll run for a Nature% or Tourist% run, there are a couple things to keep in mind. Some Event Paths are simply easier and take less time. For instance: in Rudolph's Event Path, all you really have to do is gift him red herbs everyday until he has 50 AF (my dumb abbreviation of 'affection'), which is not much, and mine 30 items, which is also not hard. By contrast, Katie's Event Path is by its very nature more demanding, since it involves procuring Gold Eggs and Milks, in addition to getting her AF to 110. Also, since Timing for this game always ends after the Ending cutscenes, before the credits, it's faster to choose Event Paths that aren't for any Bachelorettes, because these result in additional "Confession" cutscenes, which add time to the end of the run, as well as just being generally more-involved Event Paths than those of other NPCs.

"Nature Reserve" -- to obtain this ending, the player must complete at least three "Nature Reserve" Event Paths. The NPC's whose Event Paths these are, are: Lyla, Dia, Joe/Kurt, Aurelia, Gwen, Tim/Parsley, Rudolph, and Woody/Wallace/Martha. -- The current route for Nature% is to complete the Event Paths of Parsley, Rudolph and Wallace. Refer to my Event Path Calendar on speedrun.com for the specific Events you must achieve, and the requirements for each. -- Note also that, above, "Tim/Parsley" means that you can befriend either Tim or Parsley for this particular Event Path, and "Woody/Wallace/Martha" means you can befriend any of the three for that Event Path, and Joe/Kurt means you can befriend either of them for their Event Path. Just be sure to keep in mind the specific requirements for each Event in the given Event Path.

"Tourist Spot" -- to obtain this ending, the player must complete at least three "Tourist Spot" Event Paths. The NPC's whose Event Paths these are, are: Gina, Katie, Bob, Goddess, Chester, Ronald, and Louis. -- The current route for Nature% is to complete the Event Paths of Chester, Ronald, and Louis. Refer to my Event Path Calendar on speedrun.com for the specific Events you must achieve, and the requirements for each.

MISC. ANY% ENDINGS:

"Bad Ending" -- You get this ending if you reach the end of Year 2, but have not completed the requirements for the Alice, Nature, or Tourist endings. The fastest way to achieve this is to simply sleep through the two years as fast as possible. This is a boring run, and still takes over an hour, since it takes about 18 seconds for each sleep cycle (IIRC), and there are 239 days to sleep through.

"Reject the Farm" -- The other "Bad" ending, this one only takes about 2 minutes to obtain. To do so, simply refuse to listen to the Harvest Sprites pleas in the opening cutscene.

GENERAL TIPS FOR SPEEDRUNNING:

-- Just like in StH, at the beginning of the game the Harvest Goddess will ask you three questions, each of which you can answer positively (FIRST CHOICE) or negatively (SECOND CHOICE). How you answer these three questions determines which NPCs you get a magical +15 AF boost with at the start of the game. Depending on which Event Paths you're running, answer the questions accordingly to minimize time wooing the NPCs. The Goddess Question AF Boosts are broken down as follows: ANSWER POSITIVELY TO ALL -- Dia, Goddess, Louis, Bob, Joe, Wallace, Chester, and Nak (Blue). ANSWER NEGATIVELY TO ALL -- Katie, Gina, Kurt, Ronald, Charles, Renton, Rudolph, and Nic (Red) MIX OF POSITIVE&NEGATIVE ANSWERS -- Gwen, Lyla, Aurelia, Alice, Parsley, Tim, Woody, Martha, and Flak (Yellow)

-- As mentioned above in the "Alice" run, "Fine Cheese Flipping" is the fastest known way to multiply money in this game. That said, it's only a 20% increase each time, and the player must wait a long time for the Horse Races to open, so strategizing and not messing this up is key. There is also just "(Regular) Cheese Flipping" which you can do anytime in the Spring and Winter, and involves buying Cheese in the evening from the Cafe, and then selling it to Ronald the next day. This only yields a 10% profit, however, and takes time to do, and so it's not extremely useful unless you need 10% more money in a pinch. -- *NOTE: You can also multiply your money further during Fine Cheese Flipping if you actually bet your medals on horses during the races and win. I personally usually just take the 20% instead because losing a bet on a horse will set you back 7+ minutes and is just generally more of gamble than even most HM games.

-- If you want to pass time in the game (let's say you have an Event that occurs in the afternoon or something that you have to wait for), you can do part-time work at several business in the town, to magically have a few hours pass. Remember that the earliest you can do any part-time work is the SECOND day of the game, as you must have first met the required employer, and waited at least one day before they'll ask if you want to work. -- RONALD's Grocery Store is open everyday except Sunday from 8AM-3PM, and you can work for him tending to his chickens once a day, as many days as you want. This nets you 180G and passes 3 hours, even if you leave immediately. -- RUDOLPH will let you work for him in the Dig Site from 9AM-3PM on weekdays. This passes 3 hours and gets you 450G+. However, you can only work for Rudolph 5 TIMES before he let's you dig for free, which let's you then keep everything you mine, but you don't get the benefit of having time pass instantly. -- WOODY will also let you work for him chopping wood, at the Carpenter's shop from 9AM-2PM any day except Tuesday and Thursday. This passes 3 hours and gets you 200G+, however, like Rudolph, you can only work for Woody 5 TIMES before he then lets you chop wood for keeps, which doesn't pass any time or get you any money, and can only be done every 3 days as to prevent deforestation. -- MARTHA will let you work in her kitchen on weekdays from 10AM-3PM for 250G. This passes 3 hours also, I believe... I've never worked at Martha's because it's usually too out of the way and she opens late. -- BOB will let you work in his pasture everyday except Thursday, from 8AM-5PM. This one doesn't pass time any quicker, but it pays 500G/hour, so you could make 4500G in a day, but you'd have to wait in real time. Though, if you still have to pass time on a day, and can't work anywhere else to do so instantly, you can pass the time at Bob's and make a little money if you want to.

-- "Select Sleeping" is a useful tool in this game. Similar to Magical Melody's "Z-Sleep", the player can instantly warp home and go to sleep from anywhere in town, EXCEPT when you're on your own farm. This is obviously used often, when you finish what you need to do for a day and need to go to sleep, it's faster than running home to do so. To do this, press SELECT to open the map, then press TRIANGLE to warp home and sleep.

-- WEATHER! -- In this game, there a few important things to note about how weather works. Weather is important, of course, because it affects your crops, your animals, and NPC behavior/Events. Each season is divided into HOT, RAINY, and DRY periods. What's important here is that it rains a lot during the Rainy periods, it doesn't rain at all in the Dry periods, and the Hot periods are an RNG mix of the two. These periods are as follows: SPRING -- Hot (1st-16th) -- Rainy (17th-21st) -- Dry (22nd-30th) SUMMER -- Hot (5th-20th) -- Rainy (21st-26th) -- Dry (1st-4th, 27th-30th) FALL -- Hot (1st-19th)-- Rainy (20th-24th) -- Dry (25th-30th) WINTER -- Hot (8th-16th, 22th-30th) -- Rainy (17th-21st) -- Dry (1st-7th)

-- Also regarding Weather: be wary of the rains. If you plant seeds when it's raining, there's a 50% chance they'll be washed away by the rain. Likewise, heavy rains have a 10% chance of destroying individual crops, no matter what stage of growth they're in. -- Also, many, if not most, Events must occur on Sunny days, so pay attention because this can actually force you to miss a required Event if the window of days you have to witness it closes.

-- Regarding caring for animals -- After several runs putting too much time into caring for animals, I realized it's actually much simpler than I realized. For all non-Dog animals you can raise, all you need to do is put them outside every Clear day, and keep them inside and feed them on Rainy days. To do this, buy the BELL from Louis' shop. Then, all you have to do is ring the bell when you're outside the barn/coop, and the animals will come outside. They will stay outside until you put them back in (by ringing the bell again), which is useful during the Dry periods when you can leave them out for days at a time, just don't forget to bring them in if it starts raining.

-- You do not need to brush the animals or talk to them to increase affection, as their simply being outside will increase it plenty over time. To feed the animals, buy FEED for the chickens, and you can simply cut the grass always growing in your pasture to feed any animals in the barn on rainy days.

-- Regarding the DOG -- the dog is only useful in the game for getting the Power Berries, which in speedrunning this game, are only gathered in an All Power Berries run. That said, I'll briefly explain how to take care of the dog, you must first put food in the bowl outside your house everyday until you're able to "Adopt" a dog when interacting with it. Once you've adopted a dog, actually preferably before you adopt a dog, it's important to build a dog-house (3000G and 10 Lumber), because trying to keep your Dog happy without one is very difficult. The Dog is very tempermental, and will become unhappy for seemingly no reason, so getting a Doghouse gets rid of the weather's effect on its mood, which is half the battle (the other is feeding it everyday). Otherwise you have to manually move your dog from inside to outside, on top of feeding it, and it's still very easy to mess up. If the dog is not happy, it won't dig up Power Berries, and it can take days before it's happy again.

-- I run this game on emulator (PPSSPP) and it plays fine, just like on UMD, and all my runs have been in the English US version so far. I got a Japanese rom and found that there are less texts boxes in the game's dialogue, meaning it should be the theoretically-faster version of the game, however I also found that loading screens in between areas of the game took much longer. Though everything else ran and appeared just the same as the English copy for me, I couldn't get the loading screens to happen quicker. It's unclear whether this is because of the rom, my settings, just a natural part of that version, or what.

Thanks! I'll update this as necessary.