Part 2 of 3 for the Character Opinion Bingo ask from @friendofbats - this time we’re looking at Basil from Harvest Moon 64!
More Friends of Mineral Town was the first game that I played containing Basil, and I was really surprised in HM64 he is both very similar and different to his other incarnation. But we’re going to focus on HM64 here. The first thing that surprised me was that he was the origin of Popuri’s tendency of being treated like a child. He picks her up and swings her around, embarrassing her in front of the player. He refers to her as a girl and Popuri complains about the way he coddles her.
Basil is gone for more than half the year, and in a game where the seasons change so quickly, it can seem like it’s hard to get a hold of him sometimes. This is especially true since in the earlier games, the winter season (one of the ones where he’s gone) are often great times to catch up on socializing with the townsfolk because there are no crops to tend.
I get that Basil leaves the town in the fall and winter because there is nothing growing, but it would be nice if he stayed so we could see more of the family dynamics with Lillia and Popuri. He’s a sentimental guy who is a bit of a romantic, telling the main character of how he was so excited to propose to Lillia that he didn’t give her a blue feather first, not knowing about the tradition. I loved his dialogues on his views on life, comparing it to the plants. He strikes me as a thoughtful person and a bit of a dreamer.
After looking at The Ranch Story Wiki page on Basil, I learned that he was originally supposed to have the ability to improve your crops. It’s wild to think that they were going to implement a mechanic that early in the series! It would’ve been great to see that and have more things for Basil to do.
Thank you so much for the ask!
Character Opinion Bingo!
Bonus chibi Basil!
