Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility

• ToT is a lot like the N64 version, in that it's more laid back and less complex than say, AWL. Coincidentally, I can't make any other comparisons because I've only played HM64, AWL, and ToT.

• You start out with almost no stamina, but within a month or so you'll have upgraded your tools and it won't be much of a problem. It is a slow start though. You can also find the first power berry to increase your stamina at the bottom of Ganache mine, level 30. The other power berries are: when you level your fishing rod to level 3, your next cast you will catch one, when you till 1000 squares, when you bring an animal up to 10 hearts, and in the goddess spring.

• You can choose which plot your house is built on. I like the Hill plot, you are very close to the waterfall(the spring is in the waterfall zone, use it to refill your stamina once a day - it's essential when you're just starting and you have crap stamina),it has the second largest farm plot (10x10), and it's very close to the Ganache mine district which is where the carpenter, blacksmith, mine, and farm you buy seeds from are. It's also only about an hour's ingame time to Waffle Town.

• I haven't done in depth mathematical analysis, but to me it seems like the slower growing but more expensive crops like strawberry and honeydew will make you more money than the fast growing, cheap crops.

• USE FERTILIZER. Soil has variable quality. It's expensive at first, but the perfect and good crops you get will pay for that fertilizer 10 times over. A full 10x10 field of fertilized soil growing honeydew nets me about 40,000 every 10 days.

• You can give 2 gifts to each person/wild animal a day. This really speed up the friend making process and I wish I'd found out about it earlier.

• Fishing and mining are good sources of income after you build up some stamina. Mining also has the benefit of getting you metals, which are used to upgrade your tools at 1/3 the cost of outright buying them.

• Speaking of tools, there are upgrades and levels. Upgrades (Basic->Iron->Copper->Silver->Gold) reduce the stamina cost of the tool, you purchase these. Levels are based on how many time you've used the tool, and these dictate your area of effect shennanigans and tool power (for instance, the level 4 watering can can charge up to a 3x6 spray).

• Silkworms print money. All other animals rely on the quality of their product to make money, but when you dye ANY type of silk thread (or wool, or flax for that matter) it changes price. There is no quality rating for dyed thread, so a decent silk thread dyed blue will sell for the same as a shining silk thread dyed blue. Blue is the best color for selling, by the way.

• Other then losing the rest of the day, there seems to be no drawbacks to passing out due to no stamina. So when mining, instead of leaving early enough to get back home, just work until you drop. It's a shortcut out of the mine, and since mining is pretty much a day long affair anyways, you don't really lose any time. You might wake up with less than max stamina if you drop at say, 4 AM, but a trip to the spring fixes that.