02/09/2014

Hometown Story (3): Tips and tricks (to the Blue Feather and beyond!)



Here comes my third and last post about Hometown Story, and it will be all tips & tricks. Because of the game’s elusive and mouldable nature, it is difficult to provide very detailed information about how to wrap up a run—let alone an exhaustive walkthrough; however, there are still some mechanics worth knowing if one wants to progress smoothly through that game, as well as a couple of tips that can prove priceless to get out of a bind. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but there will obviously be some, which I will signal as such. If you want to ask questions regarding a specific matter, you're very welcome!

For starters, here’s a brief account of my run. During the early stages, I was absolutely engrossed by the management of my freshly inherited shop, and I spent most of my time foraging, buying and selling intensively. I didn’t change the price of any of my wares, partly for fear that customers wouldn’t purchase them anymore and partly because I didn’t want to tinker with the system. Cutscenes were scarce at that point, but I was so busy buying, selling, exploring the surroundings and assessing my new universe that I hardly noticed it. When the opportunity to expand my beloved shop finally presented itself, I seized it with gusto; and since I had by then developed the mindset of an ambitious entrepreneur, I decided to jump straight to the fourth and last shop expansion—the so-called ‘very fine shop’, and incidentally the biggest of them. After a stimulating bit of grinding, I managed to obtain the required materials and sum of money for that purchase and my shop suddenly expanded to gigantic proportions. (It was quite a shock at first sight, shall I say.) This brand-new vastness allowed me to put many more items on display and to offer a much larger variety of wares. The results were immediate and quite impressive: cutscenes started flowing en masse, new appetizing wares appeared in my suppliers’ inventories and cash rolled in at a crazy rate. Suddenly, I could afford to buy everything I wanted in greater quantities than ever before, and I luxuriated in that new pecuniary leverage, selling frantically and ringing up impossibly long lines of patrons. At that point, I stopped foraging and instead adopted a comfortable routine of visiting my suppliers every other day to buy wares literally by the dozen, often triggering a flurry of cutscenes in my wake. Life was good, indeed. Then I hit the Wall. I won’t detail that ordeal again since I already did so here; suffice it to say that after trudging and toiling to no avail for hours, I finally overcame the obstacle and completed that coveted Blue Feather. I used it to fulfill someone’s wish and then collected a couple of extra Feathers, granting various wishes as I did so, until I was fully sated with the process and with the game as a whole. And here I am, ready to share my well-earned knowledge of Hometown Story’s mechanics. Here we go! 

The Cutscenes

Ah, those fabled, much infamous cutscenes. They had many a reviewer seething about their apparent elusiveness and randomness; and truth must be said, understanding what triggers them can be somewhat challenging. However, these cutscenes do indeed have triggers, and very well-defined ones at that. There are four different types of triggers and thus four different types of cutscenes, and here they are, exposed for your comfort: 

The Automatic Cutscenes: These cutscenes will play without any input from you and will always start at your shop. They unroll most often within a few second of waking up or opening your shop in the morning, but can also sometimes happen at other hours. Romance cutscenes fall under that category, as well as the retrieving of requested objects by villagers. (See the ‘Key Items’ and ‘Requests’ sections for more on that subject.) The motto of these cutscenes could be “When the time is ripe”: they will happen sooner or later, but your influence on triggering them is close to null. The only thing you can do is create the necessary conditions for their unfolding and then wait until they do so.

The Contextual Cutscenes: The vast majority of cutscenes in Hometown Story belong to that category. To put it simply, those are cutscenes that unroll if you go to a specific place in the village. In practice, it’s a tad more elaborate than that, since the time of the day and the weather can—and often will—play a part in the triggering. The most accessible cutscenes of that category will unfold at virtually any time of the day as soon as you walk into the section of the village where they take place, while the most arcane ones will require you to visit a specific house or a far-off place—as far-off as it can be in that game, anyway—in a specific weather and/or within a very narrow time-frame. (See the section “The Seventh Piece” for spoiler-dripping examples of such infamies.) It’s also worth noting that some of these custcenes will be triggered only if you have a specific item with you, usually a “Key Item” (see below), so it may be a good idea to retrieve any Key Item exposed on your selves before going out for a stroll. The motto of such cutscenes could be “Poke and Probe all ’round the clock”; you have to be instrumental in triggering them, for they won’t do so until you find yourself in the right place at the right moment. 

The Talking Cutscenes: A very small number of cutscenes must be triggered by talking to an NPC. These cutscenes introduce an extra layer in the triggering process: instead of seeing the cutscene unroll when you walk into a specific area under the right conditions, you will specifically need to talk to a present NPC to launch it. This talking requirement is so at odds with the usual ways of triggering cutscenes that one could seriously wonder if this is not a left-over from development. At any rate, these cutscenes can be quite confusing because of their rarity: why would anyone in their right mind assume that talking to an NPC will trigger a cutscene in one particular case when babbling with NPCs usually never triggers anything? And yet that’s the way this game is, and as annoying as it may be, it must be accommodated. The motto of these fairly rare cutscenes could be: “If the cutscene that should have unlocked by now hasn’t, then go for the talk.” 

The Item-based Cutscenes: These constitute the other big batch of cutscenes in Hometown Story, along with the Contextual Cutscenes. They unfold when you put the required Key Item (see below) on display in your shop—or, more rarely, a regular item. As you may expect, such cutscenes are much easier to trigger once your shop has been expanded enough to allow you to have lots of Key Items permanently on display. Just like in the case of the Automatic Cutscenes, there is an element of timing at work here: putting a Key Item on display will not necessarily trigger a cutscene on the spot, but it will do so sooner or later. The motto of such material cutscenes could be: “Flaunt these baubles till the cows come home”; indeed, just be very patient, and every Key Item that is bound to be sold will attract its rightful owner eventually, along with a bunch of fresh cutscenes.   

Apart from knowing these triggers, it’s worth noting that cutscenes are never isolated: each cutscene is part of a narrative arc, usually centered on a specific character or group of characters. With a bit of logical thinking, it’s possible to anticipate the content of the next cutscene in line in any given arc and to follow the most relevant course of action in order to trigger it. While this awareness of each cutscene’s integration into an encompassing narrative arc can be useful at any point, it is crucial in the latter stages of the game. The last arcane cutscenes that are mandatory to complete the Blue Feather indeed show perfect narrative continuity with the rest of their respective arcs, and can be much easier to uncover if one keeps that continuity in mind and tailor their triggering efforts accordingly. (See the section “The Seventh Piece” for more on that subject.) 

The Key Items

The Key Items are these precious, unique items that will allow you to unlock cutscenes and uncover your fellow villagers’ background. They all have a price tag of 300 that cannot be altered and they can be accessed directly in your inventory by tapping the Key icon on the bottom left corner of the touch screen. However, it’s worth noting that not all the items lumped there are Key Items: this section also hosts a range of items designed solely for your avatar’s personal use, like the issues of ‘City Magazine’ that add new hair colours to the ones already available, the fabrics that can be used to sew new outfits at Sunny’s atelier, Pochica’s beloved rubber ball or the Spirit Flute that allows you to travel instantly to any place. Making the difference between the Key Items and the items designed for your sole use can be tricky at first: I kept displaying my massive collection of ‘City Magazine’ for quite some time before realising that no one was ever going to purchase them. (I wish Wada and his team had added another icon to group these personal belongings of sorts; that would certainly have made things clearer. Oh, well.) The most important question regarding these Key Items is obviously where to find them. Just like the cutscenes, they don’t pop out of nowhere, and there are only three ways to get your hands on them:

The 2pm Merchant: This nondescript fellow visiting your shop dutifully at 2pm on a daily basis will be your main purveyor of Key Items in the early stages of the game. The said Key Items always appear at the very bottom of his selection, one or two at a time. The smartest move is to buy them systematically and store them until their true purpose is revealed. On the next day, the merchant will have new Key Items for you to purchase and so on, until his stock of Key Items finally runs dry. Once this happens, there will be fabrics available in lieu of Key Items, which will be a clear indication that the 2pm Merchant source is now depleted and that you won’t get any more Key Items from this punctual fellow. 

The Village Grounds: A certain number of Key Items can be found outdoors, unceremoniously sprawled on the ground and patiently waiting to be picked up. The locations that welcome them are always different from the usual foraging spots but remain very accessible and visible to make sure that you won’t miss anything.  

The Babbling Way: Last but not least, some Key Items will be graciously handed to you by your fellow villagers. Not just any fellow villager, mind you: the ones to display such convenient generosity will always be the villagers with a name, the ones you get to know through cutscenes. (They can be identified and localized by tapping the Magnifying Glass icon on the left side of the touch screen when you’re outside of your shop.) As for you, you don’t even have to give anything in return, which is even neater: the only thing you have to do is talk to them, and voilà! Another precious key Item pocketed and added to your inventory for further good use.

That was it for the sources of Key Items. Once you acquire these precious, you have to unleash their dormant potential, which can be done in two ways only:

—By putting them on display in your shop, knowing that you may have to wait for some time before a cutscene unlocks. 

—By going to a specific place with the required Key Item(s) in your inventory. In this case, it’s mandatory to have the Key Item with you: if you leave it in your shop, the cutscene simply won’t trigger and you’ll have to come back later. 

As a whole, the Key Item business is far from being the murkiest and trickiest to handle in Hometown Story. I never had any problem uncovering a Key Item—except maybe once (more on that latter). As a matter of fact, it was quite the opposite: I owned many Key Items long before they came to use, and more often than not, I already had everything in stock when I had to fulfill an Item request from a fellow villager—which, incidentally, is the perfect transition to this post’s next section. 

The Requests

Ah, the requests. Dear, good ol’ requests. What would an RPG or a simulation game be without requests for all sorts of crazy items? Hometown Story offers a healthy amount of them, but simplifies them considerably. No “twenty-bear-asses” fetch quests or complicated alchemic processes at work here: the only things that will ever be requested by your fellow villagers are wares—not so surprising, given your quality as the owner of the sole shop in the village.

That being said, the request business in Hometown Story is one that troubled many players and critics, who struggled to tell the difference between genuine Requests and insubstantial demands. I mentioned this before, and I will now drive the point home: the only authentic Requests in Hometown Story are the ones that are uttered through specific cutscenes, and they always come from villagers with a name and a backstory (see above). Every other demand that doesn’t take place in a cutscene, like the ones made by customers in your shop—and that includes the named NPCs, incidentally—can basically be ignored altogether. So don’t bother finding some fresh fish for this fine fellow that keeps asking for it, for he will very likely buy something else instead. 

When you’re presented with a genuine Request, the next step is to find the coveted wares. Given that these wares are almost always Key Items, there are two options: either you already have them in your inventory, in which case the deed is done, or you don’t have them. In that case, they may be available from the 2pm merchant and you should check that. If they’re not, or if you’ve already plundered the 2pm merchant’s inventory and bought all his Key Items, you will very likely find the requested wares somewhere in the village. They will either be lying on the ground or be kindly given to you by named NPCs: it’s thus a good idea to run around and talk to every named NPC in sight when you have a Request for wares that neither you nor the 2pm merchant have in store. And don’t forget the Sprites in the process, for they will indeed give you items at some point. (SPOILER: for instance, one of the Light Fragments is offered to you by the Harvest God, who only appears during rainy days at the Shrine Ruins.)

Once you have the necessary Key Items to fulfill a Request, you must hand them to the villager that begged for them in the first place. That’s where things become a bit tricky: in Hometown Story, you can’t simply walk to the person and unceremoniously shove the wares in their hands like in any other RPG under the gaming sun. Those people have their own life, you know, and they are not always available to receive the wares they asked so ardently for: you’ll realise that soon enough when you run to a requester with the items they need, all happy and elated, only to have them ignore you entirely and not make any mention of the precious items. So how must you proceed with these picky villagers? Well, the way they utter their Request is usually the key: they will either ask you to put the requested wares on display in your shop once you have them or to deliver them directly to their house, and you must act accordingly. However, there is also a notion of timing involved: putting the requested items on display or running to deliver them the very same day the quest was uttered won’t wield any result. For some unfathomable reason, Wada and consorts decided that some time should pass before you would be able to hand over the wares, typically one or two in-game days. It’s disconcerting at first, to say the least; but once you spot the pattern, you can relax and simply wait for the right moment to deliver the requested items. That moment will always come, and you can keep your business rolling in the meantime without a hint of worry. 

The Seventh Piece (Spoilers!)

It had to come to this, hadn’t it? That infamous last piece of Blue Feather, so coveted and so infuriatingly elusive. I won’t describe again the torments of being stuck at the Seventh Piece’s doorstep, but rather give clues about how to obtain it at—long—last. 

As I said before, getting the Seventh Piece is troublesome because the requirements to unlock it are quite hard to meet. It doesn’t help that you’re never told about them, in typical Hometown Story fashion; as a result, you can meander for quite some time trying to figure them out. Well, here they are: to get the Seventh Piece, you must first and foremost have 100 NPCs living in your cosy village. You must also unlock some specific cutscenes and obtain all the Key Items related to the fulfillment of your fellow villagers’ future wishes—including your spouses. Note that I wrote spouses, not spouse: you must collect the Key Items related to all the love interests in the game, both ladies and gentlemen, regardless of your own avatar’s gender. This makes very little sense, and I can only imagine that it was designed this way to simplify the programming; but at any rate, that’s how it works, and we have to deal with it.  

So what are these Key Items so precious in your fellow villagers’ eyes? Well, here’s the list: the Powerful Magnet, the Unbreakable Chain, the Shining Sand, the Movie Tickets, the Red Ore, the Boat Ticket, the Silky Silk, the Vibrant Thread and the Crow Rock. In addition, you should have a couple of leftovers from previous quests, namely the Smudged Sketchpad, the Merit Badge, the Divine Protection, the Hero’s Sword, and maybe a couple of Dream Fragments (see the ‘Miscellaneous’ section): these are basically useless but stay in your inventory anyway, which can be a trifle confusing. As far as I’m concerned, I also owned a Wooden Board and the Old Magazine, but I can’t say with absolute certainty if they are mandatory to unlock the Seventh Piece or not, since I haven’t find their true purpose yet. 

As for the cutscenes, they are truly the trickiest part of the arrangement. To unlock the Seventh Piece, you need to witness the closure of some specific narrative arcs. While the vast majority of these arcs is easy to clear and shouldn’t create too much problems, there is a handful of them that feature a final cutscene with arcane requirements: the Mika arc, the Sue arc and the Rachael arc. Now, be aware that these cutscenes are not meant to be the last ones in line before getting the Blue Feather. They were the last ones in my own run, and the ones I struggled the most with; but since narrative arcs can be triggered independantly from one another in Hometown Story, your last cutscenes before getting the Blue Feather could be totally different ones. This flexibility is both the game's blessing and bane: while it allows every player to craft their own unique run, it also complicates the collection of data and hinders the creation of full-blown detailed walkthroughs, which is quite a shame. These three cutscenes may not be much information, but any piece of data is good to take when playing that game. So here they are, conveniently stuffed with spoilers: 

The Mika Arc: To unlock the final scene in Mika’s arc, you need to visit her at her farm at 10am on a sunny or cloudy day. She will be indoors and as you go inside, the cutscene will unroll and you will gain the Crow Rock at the end of it. I had a hard time triggering this one, for my refurbishing routine involved visits to Mika’s farm only in the evening after 9pm, and this cutscene doesn’t trigger at night.

The Sue Arc: The final cutscene of Sue’s arc ramps up the difficulty a little bit. To trigger it, you need to own a Dream Fragment and to put it on display in your shop. Then, you must catch Sue when she’s at home and have her door opened. I unfortunately don't remember at which time of the day this can be done, let alone if the weather plays a part; but I remember that the time frame involved is ridiculously narrow, which considerably complicates matters. Before uncovering that cutscene, I had been trying to check on Sue for quite some time, due to reasons obvious to anyone who’ve played the latter stages of the game; however, because of this ‘blink-and-you-miss-it’ time frame, I kept missing the opportunity to talk to her in private quarters. I had a growing suspicion that I was missing something as far as Sue was concerned, and some thorough research on internet only confirmed that intuition; and after literally standing in front of her house for hours until she unlocked her door, I finally managed to sneak in and to trigger that much-coveted cutscene. After that comes an ‘automatic’ cutscene: Sue visits the shop to purchase the Dream Fragment and then crafts a pendant out of it, letting you admire the result, after which her arc is closed for good. 

The Rachael Arc: When it comes to arcane requirements, the final cutscene of Rachael’s arc gloriously takes the cake. To unlock it, you must go to the Secret Forest at 9pm on a sunny day. While this makes sense from a narrative point of view, this particular area is far from being an obvious destination, especially at night—and specifically on a sunny day to boot. Sure, there are two foraging spots there that could justify regular visits; but at this point in the game, I had virtually given up on foraging, preferring instead to buy beautiful delicacies, confections and bonne bouches from my faithful suppliers. I had to dig up that particular cutscene from internet, and I’m now passing on that knowledge, hopefully to good use. 

Once you trigger the last cutscene of the last narrative arc, and providing that you own all the aforementioned Key Items and have all 100 fellow villagers living in the premises, you will finally obtain that much-coveted last piece of Blue Feather the next morning. The credits will then roll and you will be back to the village after your game is saved, with your precious complete Blue Feather in your pocket and the freedom to grant someone’s wish. Good job!  

Miscellaneous

To conclude this post, here are a few points that can be confusing and will undoubtedly benefit from a bit of exposition. 

Post-game and extra Blue Feathers: Once you’ve granted someone’s wish, the credits roll and the game is automatically saved, and you can immediately start to piece a brand-new Blue Feather. These extra Feathers are much easier to collect, for the obtainment of their pieces depends solely on pecuniary achievements: to put it simply, spend a full day in your shop selling as much as you can, and you should be granted a Piece of Feather the next morning. By chain-assembling Feathers, you can fulfill all the available wishes without having to start a new run, as well as marry your favourite love interest. And since we’re mentioning this…

Romance and Marriage: You can’t actively woo love interests in Hometown Story: here is a game that doesn’t allow you to chit-chat romantically with potential sweethearts or to shower them with their favourite gifts to make them fall desperately in love with your amazing self. Instead, they are the ones romancing you: they will all come to you one after the other when the time is ripe to invite you to dates, before professing their undying love for your indeed amazing self and proposing to you once you have a complete Blue Feather. Your only input is to accept or refuse their invitations to dates, and later their marriage proposal—which always take place during sunny days, en passant. All in all, it’s really just a menu-like situation, in which you’re presented with a variety of options and expected to pick up the one you prefer. 

The Issue of Stealing: All Hometown Story players wondered about this at some point, with a certain amount of dismay. Why are my shelves empty when I come back from a long stroll in the village? Did my faithful customers viciously pocket my wares and walk away? Can I ever go out for hours at a time again, or am I condemned to be stuck in my shop forever, taking only short dashes outside? Well, rest assured: there is not the slightest bit of thievery in Hometown Story. What really happens is that when you make customers wait too long to be rung up for their taste, they will leave the store irritated, abandoning the coveted item in the process. That item will simply be returned to your inventory, where it will be available for display and sale again. 

Expansive Dainties: On a beautiful day, as I was actively inspecting my favourite foraging spots, I found a Ruby in lieu of the usual Red Truffle. O, the joy! I pocketed the precious and quickly run back to my shop to display it in all its shining glory, already rubbing my hands while thinking of all the benefit I would get from its sale. And then… Nothing happened. The precious stood on its shelf for weeks on end, forlorn and ignored by all. I started wondering if this was maybe a Key Item, until other Rubies started appearing in foraging spots, which confused me even more. But I knew Hometown Story’s quirky logic and mechanics by then, and I was confident that everything would eventually fall into place. And sure enough, one day, an old lady stepped in and picked up the precious ruby, to my utter delight. After that breakthrough, that same old lady started purchasing rubies regularly, to my even greater delight.
So what happened exactly? To sum it up, customers are inclined to spend only a certain amount of money at your shop. If an item is too expensive for them, they will simply ignore it. But this pecuniary ceiling of theirs is bound to be raised throughout the game, and the sure-fire way to raise it is to shower your beloved customers with goods and make sure that they purchase them. Sell affordable wares to them on a daily basis, preferably their favourite ones; and once you’ve catered enough to their basic needs and desires for their taste, they will start buying more expensive items. 

The Hidden Friendship Meter: This leads us directly to the subject of the Hidden Friendship Meter. The existence of such a feature is not surprising: affection meters are actually a fixture in simulation games. But Hometown Story chose to complicate matters by withholding any visual representation of the NPCs’ friendship meters; and while this design choice undoubtedly makes the whole experience more organic and seamless, it also leaves the player disoriented and fumbling in the dark. (Talk about collateral damage.) But your fellow villagers have a friendship meter all right, which fills up solely through the purchase of wares. You can speed up the process by selling them their very favourite items once you identify them. (The Residents List, which can be consulted in your shop’s backroom, lists every villager's uttermost favourite item; however, they have other non-listed favourites that they will gladly purchase.) The successful purchase of such a favourite will be indicated by a flower icon displayed over the customer’s head once they are rung up. Of course, the Friendship Meter will also fill up when you sell non-favourite wares, albeit a bit more slowly. That is why the selling process is important and must not be neglected. Once the NPCs’ Friendship Meter is full enough, they will start buying more expensive wares (see above) and some new cutscenes may unfold. I’m saying “may” because I can’t be absolutely positive regarding this point (blame the game’s elusive nature for that uncertainty); but given the interdependency of Hometown Story’s features and gameplay mechanics, it’s highly likely that this is indeed the case. 

The Dream Fragments: What a weird object indeed! This is a Key Item all right, but a highly bizarre one, for this is the only Key Item in Hometown Story that you can buy in greater quantities than needed. Dream Fragments are Sue’s exclusive turf, and she only needs a mere couple of them throughout the whole game; however, because her last pre-Blue Feather cutscene involves one of these fragments (see the “Seventh Piece” section), the 2pm merchant will keep selling them until you unlock the said cutscene, regardless of whether you already own one—or several, for that matter. As a result, you can be left with a couple—if not dozens—of extra useless Dream Fragments when you finally clear the game, which is a funny and slightly ridiculous mishap. However, it may not be so funny in the earlier stages of the game, when you’re trying to figure out the real purpose of these ever-flowing Dream Fragments. It may even undermine their importance as a Key Item: as a matter of fact, I came to consider them as a regular ware of sorts over the course of my run, and I didn’t expect them to have any further influence or purpose past their first uses in the early stages of the game, until Sue’s ultimate cutscene finally taught me better. (Ah, dearest Toybox Inc. Why didn’t you introduce only the necessary amount of Dream Fragments, instead of a potential infinity of them? Oh, well. Let’s say that this is but a cute mistake, shall we?)

Gee, this was a long post indeed! Here was all my knowledge about Hometown Story laid down just for you, and I hope it will come to good use. My attempt to rehabilitate Hometown Story and convey my love for this game is coming to an end, as well as my run of it; I’m now moving to new pastures, but I will most certainly return to Hometown Story’s atmospheric vistas and sugar-coated capitalism sooner or later. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

29 comments:

  1. Your post is very helpful !
    This game is really overcute but has some weakness. The fact that there is no "quest journal" is the main in my opinion.
    But i learnt many tips thanks to you & will have more pleasure to play now :)

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    1. Well, thank you! ^^ If I could help you in some way, that's great. That was the purpose of that post, after all! :)
      Even though I never felt the need for a "quest journal", I agree that it would have been a nice addition. Players that didn't want to use it could have simply ignored it, and it would certainly have made the game more comfortable for many.
      Unfortunately, I don't think Toybox Inc. will have the opportunity to improve the "Hometown Story" formula: the game was such an abject critical failure that it will very likely remain a one-shot instead of becoming the foundation of a new series... It's a pity, for there was a lot of potential there!

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  2. I tried the scarecrow arc and it didn't work, ive been walking around every night and have the pendant but nothings happened and scarecrow still won't talk . Please help

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    1. Hello and welcome! Normally, Scarecrow stops talking entirely after his last cutscene in the town entrance, during which he fights Devil Jack to protect Aisha and the villagers and his true identity is revealed. Did you see this one? If yes, you're done with the Scarecrow arc. The only way to get him to talk again is to use a Blue Feather. I hope this helped! ^^

      (Incidentally, your comment made me ponder whether my data about the Scarecrow arc is actually accurate. I may have messed things up a little bit, which is not so surprising with that game... Just to be sure, I will remove that section for the time being.)

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  3. Oh okay thank you , that made me a bit confused because i did all the others but i still don't have the feather

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    1. You're welcome! Now, if you saw all the cutscenes and own all the Key Items I mentioned in my "7th Piece" section but still didn't get the Blue Feather, you may be missing other cutscenes belonging to other narrative arcs. (Did all the potential sweethearts have several dates with you in their favourite spots? Do you have all 100 inhabitants in your village? These are also important factors.) Keep looking, you'll get to it! ^_^

      That being said, I'm afraid I didn't make clear enough that the cutscenes I mentioned are not meant to be the last ones before the obtention of the Blue Feather; instead, they are the last ones that I triggered before getting it, which led me to believe that they were the toughest of the bunch and could use a bit of exposure. (A belief heavily supported by some internet research which confirmed that I was far from being the only one struggling with them.) I will edit my post to make this point a trifle clearer. Your input was actually quite helpful, so thank you for commenting! :)

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  4. Thank you for your invaluable posts on Hometown Story:) I love the game but I'm currenting stuck on finding the 6th blue feather. Any special scenes I have to view by meeting a character?

    Currently:
    I have all 100 villagers, the 2pm-merchant no longer sell any new key items, I have max cash (yes, I cheated but hey...), I haven't triggered a scene for weeks, I have largest shop-expansion.

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    1. You're welcome! I'm glad these posts are helpful. ^___^

      At that point, the only thing separating you from the coveted 7th are very likely some cutscenes that you've not triggered yet. The three I mention in my post are the hardest ones to trigger, but they are not the only ones necessary to get the 7th feather. However, if you've already witnessed these three cutscenes, the remaining ones should be easy to uncover!

      Here's my advice: drop your shop for a while, cruise the village and talk to everyone in sight. Don't forget remote areas and the inside of houses. Do that at different hours of the day and under different weathers, since these factors play a part in the triggering of cutscenes. If you go hard at it and leave no stone unturned, you should soon obtain the missing cutscenes and the 7th feather in their wake! Good luck! ^___^

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    2. I just realized that you wrote "6th blue feather" instead of "7th"... If this is not a typo and if you really meant the 6th, my advice still stands!^^

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    3. I'm currently have only 5 pcs of blue feather :p

      Ur post is very very useful- I've seen walkthroughs on the game and I find yours the most helpful for a veteran player :)

      By the way, it's been ages since ur post, you still remember all the tips and tricks? :p

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    4. *I currently have only 5 pcs.

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    5. Thank you for the kind words! :)

      I don't remember how to trigger each individual cutscene, obviously, but I still remember the general rules I laid down in this post. If I ever replay the game, I'll keep track of cutscenes and post a more detailed walkthrough!

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  5. This walkthrough is a good one-

    http://rubydragondesign.com/walkthroughs/hometown-story/

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    1. Indeed! There was very likely an awful lot of work behind it, and that's something I respect and admire. I wish it had been available at the time I played the game; I would certainly have struggled less to get the 7th piece of feather!

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    2. Hi again :) I finally got the final piece! I got mine after the devil jack event. 103 hours of play, 3rd month of my 2nd year!

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    3. Congratulations!!! Better late than never. Your perseverance was well-rewarded!:)

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  6. I know this is an old Post, but please help if you can! The blue dragon keeps coming to my shop. I read that I need to get the fruit from the harvest God. I have never seen him before; I keep going to the shrine in the rain in the evening, because that's what I read to find him, but he never appears!

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    1. http://rubydragondesign.com/walkthroughs/hometown-story/
      Try the above FAQ. Good luck!

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    2. I tried that, but it said it couldn't be found. :(

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    3. Maybe u have to trigger another event before he appears

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    4. Welcome, unknown visitor! :) It would have been my pleasure to help you complete your run of Hometown story; but alas, it's been four long years since I played the game, and I can hardly remember any of the story arcs, let alone how to trigger them. I can only encourage you to keep running around at different times of the day and in different weathers, talking to people and selling lots of stuff, and it should eventually fall into place. Good luck! ^^

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  7. Hi! I know it‘s been awhile since you posted these tips, but I just wanted to say thank you for your help! A few years ago I gave up playing, but a few weeks ago I remebered this game and wanted to finally finish it. And I finally made it <3

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    1. Hi! These post are getting ancient indeed; but I'm glad to see that they can still be useful to my fellow gamers! Congratulations on finishing the game — better late than never, indeed! 😄

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  8. Congrats! It'll be my turn again to replay the game. It is very good to see someone else is still playing.

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    1. Hey there! You know, the timing of your comment is pretty uncanny. Yesterday evening, I was perusing my 3DS collection; as my gaze lingered on my Hometown Story cartridge, I wondered if I would ever replay it, and when.
      As it is, I cannot imagine not replaying it at least once. As for when... Time will tell! 😁

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  9. I know it’s from awhile ago but I just also wanted to extend a thank you for this post! I’ve been playing this game on and off for a long time completely in the dark. Trying my best but always end up restarting it trying to figure out what I’m missing about how this thing works. I still find it fun though, hopefully I can actually finish for the first time soon! 😭

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    1. Hey there, and welcome! ^^ Honestly, it's awesome to see that my modest posts can still help some fellow gamers, even 10 years later 🤩

      Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it 😌 Hope you'll finish the game this time; good luck to you! 😁

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