AP: Animal Race is BULL!!!

[Juxapose]

After I got the green bell rung, i found out that Cain can help me practice for the animal race coming Spring. So I got on my trusty cow (I can't beleive I said that) and we started racing animals. GOD IT"S F****** BULL ****!!!!

Let me describe how bad this is:

When you start the race, you have the option of racing by yourself, or racing with some friends. Most likely, your friends are not Harvest Moon fans, and there is no way to connect to the internet with Animal Parade, so 9/10 chances, you'll be racing alone. As soon as you start the race, the nonsense begins.

First of all, the other characters are extremely fast. Even while riding the slowest animals (Sheep + goat) their running speed is incredible. From the start of the race, you are left behind.

Now lets talk about the controls. THEY ARE GOD AWFUL!!! There are three ways to play, none of them work well.

Method #1: You tilt the wiimote to the side, and tilt the controller like a steering wheel to move.
Problem is: Playing this way, your animal moves up/down - left/right about 50% slower than using the directional pad. When you turn too much to make the animal move faster, the controller glitches, and the animal stops moving around except forward.

Method #2: Use the d-pad while the wiimote is tilted to the side.
Problem is: You need to push up and down to move up and down while your horse is racing left or right. Then you need to push left and right to move left and right while your horse is racing up or down. When your animal turns, the controls inverts, causing you to lose control of your animal.

Method #3: Use the classic controller.
Problem is: This method has the same problem as method #2.

Next, lets talk about the crops. As you race, you'll see a bunch of crops that you can pick up. Some of them do nothing, like the strawberry and cabbage. The medicine and carrot makes your animal moves faster temporarily. And the poisonous mushroom makes your animal move slower.

For what reason do they add cabbage and strawberries if they do nothing? To throw you off of course! The strawberry looks almost like a carrot if you are not paying close attention, so you'll most likely move to try to get it, then a real carrot appears, and you cannot turn on time to get it, causing you to miss a perfect opportunity to catch up to the people who are miles ahead.

Also, the poisonous mushroom looks quite similar to the carrot at first glance, so you'll often accidentally pursuing or grabbing a poisonous mushroom by accident, causing an epic fail.

Even if you don't get the three crops confused, getting them in the first place is a disaster. The hit detection in the race is horrible. You have to be pretty damn exact to grab a carrot or medicine to gain the effect. Since about 60% of the carrots and medicines are taken by the people in front, you are left with few chances to get any yourself.

Many of the items appear in the corner of the race. So you'll be turning to get the crop, but as you do, if you are using method #2 or #3 to play, the controls will invert on you unexpectedly, and force you to lose control of your animal. You can use method #1 to try to get the carrot or medicine, but your animal moves so slow to the side, that it will pass you before you make it to where it was.

You can press the #2 button on the wiimote to make your farmer whip your animal, but it doesn't do anything. I whip my cow once, but it does not go any faster. I repeatedly whip the cow, and it doesn't do anything at all. It doesn't move faster, slower, it doesn't get mad or anything! My guess is that it's only there to make racing look cool.

The game makes fun of you all through the race. As soon as the race starts, everyone flies ahead of you. But they refuse to go too far ahead of you as well. As soon as they get to a certain distance, they stop moving so fast, and run like 10 feet ahead of you. As soon as you start moving faster, they move faster. As soon as you move slower, they move slower. Everyone in the race just plainly patranizes you!

If by some miracle, you happen to accidentally get a carrot or medicine, the game decides to play slick. You can push your opponents to the side, and they can do it to you too. Many times when I catch up, they push me into the mushrooms so I can slow down, and get back into last place. I have tried doing it to them, but we have the same problem with hit detection. Unless you are EXACT, it will not work.

I have redone the practice race over a dozen times, and I ALWAYS end up in last place. Selena, who is the second slowest, beats me every single time, and I think her purpose in the race is not to win, but rather to make me last place EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!

Before we start playing 100 questions, let me get these out of your systems:

My cow is 8 hearts, so it's affection is pretty high.
According to the guides, Cows normally outrun sheep and goats. In the race, the sheep and goat are so damn faster than my cow(And even horses!).
During the race, I have tried many things to raise my cows speed. Including picking up crops, whipping my cow quickly/slowly/in tune/ medium pace/once/twice, even whipping the cow while/after grabbing crops. Nothing works.

[Butterscotch]

Oh, God. I tried this last night. The controls are just AWFUL!

[Somethingorother]

The controls are terrible and they should have kept all the stuff from magical melody. I think maybe the cow just cant go as fast, like it has no capacity. But then, that sucks that all of these people horses; I am so done.

[TBustah!]

I read it as "Bully". I thought you were making some sort of comparison to that game. XD

[xoharvestmoonfreakox]

Yeah I've notice that the controls are terrible in that game... I believe though the fasted animal is the ostrich?

[Nate]

I agree that the race is extremely rigged, I've only managed to get second place myself. But the Cabbage and Stawberry don't do nothing, they restore your animals stamina (the blue bar in the bottom left) which is your capacity to whip your animal. Hope this helps some.