Harvest Moon: Back to Nature 98% Speedrun FAQ

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature 98% Speedrun FAQ

Q. Why 98%? Why not 100%
A. The way this game's programmed means that 100% is unachievable due to it not adding up. The max you can get is 98%

Q. What are the requirements?
A. The requirements are as follows:
10 Power Berries 		(1% each)
10 hearts with dog		(1% each)
10 hearts with horse	(1% each)
10 hearts with wife		(1% each)
10 hearts with child 	(1% each)
20 cows/sheep			(1% each)
10 chickens 			(1% each)
5 expansions			(2% each)
64 recipes				(1% for every 8)
The 64 recipes are the reason it adds up to 98% and not 100%

Q. My/your file only says 88% why's that?
A. Some versions of the game, which includes the PSP port don't include power berries in the percentage. I still get them though.

Q. You're playing on the PSP version? Is that allowed?
A. Yes. There aren't really enough differences to make it worth separating consoles. Plus PSP is easier to emulate.

Q. Can you explain everything to do with marriage?
A. Yes. So in this run I marry Popuri.
I don't get married as soon as possible because if you are married before you get 2 chocolate from the Winter thanksgiving festival you can't ever get them which you need for recipes and therefore can't fully complete the game.
I marry Popuri because she's a few minutes faster than Elli, because you can use the flowers that you grow for Anna as gifts for Popuri, and her 3rd heart event cuts out an extra trip to her on her birthday.
I befriend both Elli and Popuri a bit on their birthdays in Year 1 so that they both have enough affection to give me chocolate on the Winter thanksgiving festival.

Q. Why are you waiting around at night?
A. Presumably I am waiting to do the shipping duplication glitch. Basically if you wait until 6am and open your rucksack as the game transitions to the next day, you start the day with this menu open. This allows to move around the world with the rucksack open. If you make your way to a shipping bin, you can make it so that you can ship items without them being removed from your rucksack.

Q. If this glitch is really precise why do it?
A. There are 4 recipes in the game that require unlockable crops. These crops unlock by shipping 100 of every crop from its respective season. This is a lot faster than shipping them the regular way.

Q. Why have you started a new file, but not reset the timer?
A. This is done to set up a dummy file which I then use to exchange animals to and from.

Q. What do you mean exchange animals?
A. This game has a feature that lets you trade animals between files, however they must be different farms/saves, hence why I start a new file.
The way trading/exchanging animals works is that you select the file you wish to trade with, select the animals from the two farms and they trade. However, you are not required to select an animal from both farms, allowing you to send over an animal instead of trading.
On top of this, once the trade has occured, it saves the file you traded to, so that they have the animal, but does not save the file you are playing on. If you then reload the same file, both files will have the animal you sent over.
This is used as a quick way to make any additional money needed after shipping duplication, as well as to send over all the animals I need at the end of the run.

Q. Isn't all that cheating?
A. No :)

Q. What's your estimated time?
A. My current goal is to get a sub 9 hour run. If I get that, I should know roughly how much lower it can go, and whether I'd want to go for that or not.

Q. Is it really a speedrun if it takes you that long?
A. Do it faster yourself and ask again.


This FAQ will be updated as I get more questions about the run, so feel free to ask questions during a stream, or message me on twitch.