Let's talk about my first days
Day 1
The starting day will presumably look much the same for all of us. We get to meet the family and briefly explore the house before having a little dinner. I mostly spent my time wandering outside to see the surrounding yard. There are lots of little bonuses you can interact with all across the house; I made sure to try the 麦茶 from the fridge when it was suggested to me. Also my wife and I have been watching Better Call Saul for the first time recently (nearly finished) and that constant bell just makes me feel like Hector is around, which is a very different feeling than the intent no doubt hahaha.
This sort of shot is especially what I have in mind for why I love these fixed angles so much, it’s an inspired choice to put Shirabe right in front of the camera here. Very cute.
Day 2
If you’d like to water the flowers, you can kick a thing next to the house to turn it on! I’ll do my best to remember to do it daily; our aunt promises a present in return! On the other hand, Shirabe does not want me around, oof. The good news is I caught so many bugs the box was getting overfilled. I don’t really understand the use of the second box yet now that one is full but it let me know I needed to send a few there. I spent most of the day taking a long loop through the countryside past Shirabe that eventually lead back to returning home from another entrance.
Along the way I found this guy totally dedicated to bird watching, and also the secret hangout of some kids (probably) where they have been stealing and eating watermelons. Interesting how Boku decides it’s best not to talk about it, but it ultimately feels like a harmless kids being kids thing since his uncle follows up with talking about how he used to take things, too. I wonder if you get the watermelon conversation if you didn’t find the hideout? There was a spot that looked perfect for fishing on the way and one dead end with water I can’t cross, Boku wants to cut down the tree but I’m not yet sure how to do that and it sounds very dangerous for him haha.
It’s so pretty out here; there were several screens I was marveling at.
Day 3
Boku my sweet boy it’s a trap! You gotta stop telling them you like things! I figured out how to register the bugs properly so I did that today, remembered to water the flowers, then I went looking for the fishing rod. Along the way I found the pottery shed. I didn’t mean to break the pottery I’m sorry! I genuinely felt that heart sinking feeling, being a kid and messing up even though you entirely had no bad intentions. I’m waiting to get scolded for that but no one has mentioned it just yet. I really wanted to confess and kept trying to talk to Boku’s uncle but no such luck.
Eventually I found the proper place, went out and bumped into Moe’s… friend? 恋敵 apparently. @VikingSchism I was thinking the same about never finding Moe but she is there briefly when you arrive, I guess you didn’t bump into her like I did. It could be possible this girl is a PSP addition; I dunno who the 3 new NPCs the internet says were added are so I’m keeping record of everyone I find to see if we spot differences. Anyway, it’s funny that they’re doing the who’s on first type joke with the name Boku. Helped pick the corn and they praised me for keeping my promise (even though they just one-sidedly put this on me!) and ran over to try to fish.
Along the way I found a local teacher (looks like the bird watcher, just more interested in talking now) who told me I could ask anything and I had to ask why Moe won’t let me into her room because it’s the funniest thing to expect him to answer that, but he still did his best, to his credit. Anyway yesterday the pond was FULL of like dozens of fish and today there was literally 1. I spent a while going for it but finally got it to bite and caught my first fish.
At this point I have 19 bugs registered already, but remember that there are more bugs on the PSP version. Right now I’m curious about the path to the left of the Jizo statues, I briefly peeked over there and saw a beehive, but at the time I was trying to go to the fishing hole so I turned around and left. I wonder if the bees prevent exploration in that direction or have any associated event. Will investigate next week.
I was going to share my diary entries but they’re identical to what VikingSchism had, so that’s easy!
I definitely do agree that the mix had the voices a little low, but I was using headphones with my PSP which I think ultimately made it way better than it would’ve been with speakers.
@downtimes As I recall day 1 is just very short, when they gave me that period to look around I personally wandered outside straight away but I don’t think I saw more than a couple screens before it was time to eat. Luckily I could look around the house a little more after. With day 2 and 3 being proper full days now that you’ve arrived they felt like the time I had was more workable. So far I’ve felt like most interactables were more or less intuitive (unless I’m missing some and don’t know!) but I do probably need to keep in mind that I likely have more experience than most people with tank controls and exploring these types of environments. I definitely do recommend looking out for anything that looks like it might be something and erring on the side of testing lots of things.
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