Part 3: Rub Eyes to Reduce Sneeze Meter.

So, whenever we manage to find an ingredient the Ham-Hams will automatically return to the lawn, where Bo and Panda will usually be waiting for them.





Boss is with you! I’m sure glad you found him.

We went through a lot to get this orange ingredient! I mean, there were trees, and rivers, and at the end…

OK then! Let’s go ahead and make a rainbow color!

...

Bo gives Boss no respect whatsoever.



Ha ha! Prepare yourselves. It’s about to start!





That’s some interesting magic you’ve got there, Bo. Imagine being able to paint your house just by buying some fruit.





-------



Back in the clubhouse after some unspecified amount of time has passed, it seems we’re getting a delivery.



Hey there, Postie! Is it weird that we have a doll of you in the clubhouse?

Flower Ranch? Who is it from?

Hey! It’s from Cappy and Oxnard!



Oxnard and I are at Flower Ranch!

We’re looking for a sunflower.

You see, a while back, Pepper once said to me…



I’m sure you have never seen such a bold yellow before. I’ll show you the next time you stop by!

When I remembered what she said… I thought the flower petal would work as an ingredient.



Oh! Maxwell!

I think a sunflower petal would work as an ingredient.

Hamtaro, you need to come to Flower Ranch, too!

There are plants all over the place! It’s really amazing!



That’s all well and good, but things got a little bit Castle of Aaargh in that letter, don’t you think?



At least Postie hasn’t changed much. He’s still got his slogan going.



Sounds like a good idea! We can poke Snoozer before we go, but he’s somehow aware of the ranch’s first obstacle before we even go there, so let’s not.



You’re not feeling well, are you? Gain some energy by eating fruit.
The second luckiest one for today is...Aries. You’ll have a clear head all day long. Use it on your homework.♪
The luckiest one for today is...Aquarius. You’ll make progress on your homework. Get ahead of everyone today!
Today will not be very good for...Cancer. Something might get lost. The aquarium is your lucky place.

You heard him, Aries and Aquarius! Get cracking on your homework! We already know the Pisces and Aries among the Ham-Hams; Howdy is an Aquarius and Bijou’s sign is Cancer.



I’m watching quietly so it doesn’t get scared away. So, don’t go this way for now, OK?

This jerk is blocking us from making a side-trip to explore Sunny Peak some more, so let’s go ahead and check out Flower Ranch.



...It lacks something when you’re this low to the ground. (The Clubhouse hams range from the 6.2cm tall Penelope to Boss’s 12cm. Most of them are in the 7-9 range. )



Follow the signs to the sunflower garden and enjoy.

Flower Ranch is actually a pretty large area, especially once we’re able to visit all of it. A little bit of guidance to our goal is appreciated.



Hmm, these two seem familiar. Their conversation is normally relevant and perfectly timed, because there’s just 90 points worth of tasks and minigames on our orange-gathering trip.





One thing that may not be immediately apparent is that these blue fence posts are climbable if the base of them is clear. A log blocks off the one further to the right, since it needs more than three Ham-Hams to carry.



There are two ways to go, so let’s head south to start with.



Wow, that’s a pretty big turnip. You could definitely bop some bad guys with that thing.





Strange.

I’m sure there’s a term for when, for the sake of the narrative, videogame characters have to be oblivious to something that’s incredibly obvious to the player. Something more specific than Failed A Spot Check.

???: Over here!

That voice. It’s… It’s Cappy!

We’ve got to save him now!



...Well, he was out from under the bowl for a second there.

It’s too heavy.

Let’s go find more of our pals to help us.

Hang on, Cappy. We’ll save you!



This is what Sleeper’s current hint is about, by the way. He says:

It seems Cappy’s in a dark place and in trouble. Zzzz… When in danger, it’s good to talk to Maxwell. Zzzz…

So now all it spoils is which of the other two clubhouse hamsters will appear first.



Moving onward, it seems that this path comes to an abrupt end here. It may look like we can go north from here, but…



It doesn’t matter if they win or lose, everyone smiles.

Yeah, it’s too steep to go that way. Also, nuts to that. We play to win!



Two lovers divided, huh? Well, there was that log earlier…



In order to make progress, we have to take the other path from the starting screen. Also pictured: That log.





Hmm, some items up out of reach. The seeds would be nice, but this thing looks much more interesting. Pity we can’t do anything about them right now.



...Bunnies!



Big-bottomed bunnies we can’t begin to budge. That square thing will have to remain uncollected for now.



The hamster at the bottom is just freaking out about this other one admiring the scenery, so let’s keep moving.



“Rub Eyes to Reduce Sneeze Meter”. That’s not a command you see every day.



Butterfly Bridge 1 is the first minigame to introduce extra sunflower points for a better performance, but it’s only a miserly one point per second left on the clock.



The game itself is fairly generous in terms of difficulty, letting Hamtaro tank three hits without sneezing. The dust drifts fairly randomly, so standing near some to wait for it to drift past is somewhat risky, as shown.



And in a mildly amusing turn, our first sticker for reaching 100 sunflower points is the same one being shown off earlier. This is entirely coincidental.





Wow, that’s rude. But if you talk to her again, this hamster explains that you can get more sunflower points in minigames by doing whatever the Tips screen suggests. The bonus condition is always by the pink head icon at the bottom.



Climbing back down to ground level presents us with… whatever this pink lumpy thing is. Still, it looks pickupable!



Geeze kid, calm down.



OK, but I’ll only tell you guys. This thing is called candy. You might see some pieces in the Ham Games… If you do, you really should grab as many as you can.

Candy collection serves as one of the most common bonus conditions for minigames, typically appearing in 5-point pink pieces or 2-point yellow pieces. I assume they’re little pop rocks or something.

Edit: An interesting tidbit from Picayune!



Naturally, the south exit from this area is the first minigame to use candy for extra points, Slippy Slidy Slope 1.



...Some of them are there to tempt you into crashing. If you’re not an idiot, I would suggest:



Actually using the brake button.





This first slide brings us out back past Cappy’s prison, so let’s loop back around and head north instead.



The next screen has three carrots for us to collect. Yes, we are actually collecting them.





See? No other task gives you an item like this, and gathering them up will be handy later on. So in addition to sunflower seeds, make sure to get some veggies!



The next room gives us the option of going up the fence post for Butterfly Bridge 3. Why 3, you ask? Well, we’ll see. It’s currently a dead end though, because another log blocks the fence post on the other side. So we’ll go and do that later.



The normal conversations for these two hamsters are uninteresting (I got all the candy/This minigame’s too hard for me), but this item is somewhat important. Walnuts are what you need to skip a minigame; getting any aside from this one requires a different method which I’ll show off later. It’s worth noting that skipping minigames means missing out on stickers and sunflower points.



In order to progress, it’s time for Slippy Slidy Slope 2! This one has the lesser yellow candies, but both it and its predecessor are alright sources of sunflower points at the moment. Getting 40-50 per round trip is pretty easy.



Ending up on the opposite side of the lover’s divide, we’ve hit a temporary point of no return. Until we can bridge the gap with a log, we can’t get back to the Clubhouse.



I heard that there’s a hamster’s vegetable garden near here… So, which way is it…

I’ve heard that you are what you eat, but geeze. There is indeed a vegetable garden fairly nearby, but it’s blocked off for the moment.



Boss, where were you hiding that pickaxe? Also, that rock must have had a serious weak point there to completely split in two.



Well, the sign says the sunflower garden is thattaway, so you know where we have to go first. Every other direction in search of treasure!





Part of the next screen is blocked off because that sleeping hamster is weighing the farmer’s cart down, so we need to get around behind them another way and push the cart in order to make a shortcut.



See? He even says so. The sad purple hamster in the back is just sad that he can’t beat the minigame next to him. But before we do that, there’s a southern exit to the room.



Nothing for us here at the moment, though. Something like a boat, hmm…



Well, let’s play a minigame in the meantime. This guy better watch that he doesn’t hurt somebody with that stick.



Finally, we have a minigame for someone other than Hamtaro.





You can change the timing to hop one, two or three steps at a time. The opponent actually seems to rubberband a bit, so you have more time to try and gather candy than it would appear if you try to speed through it. The base reward is only ten points, but you do need to play it whenever you want to go to…



Another screen with three carrots! And another sleepy hamster blocking potential exploration.



There’s nothing for it; we have to continue on toward the sunflower garden.





Another turnip is keeping us out of the enclosure with a crying kid inside, and we’ve come out on the other side of the blocked Butterfly Bridge 3 path. We still only have three Ham-Hams though, so we can’t unblock it.



Oh, and Elder Ham is here too. Snoozing as usual, I see.



_Eyebrows.

We’re going to the sunflower garden.

I see. I see. That reminds me… I too… Umm… Where was I?



Oh yeah, my favorite place to nap is near here. Climb some stairs and find a comfy red bench. It will make you sleep peacefully. Well...Thinking of that bench...I should get going. Take care!



Enjoy your fifty-seventh nap today then, gramps.





The next screen has three of Boss’ little task rocks and this much larger one, though it’s an obstacle we can actually do something about for once.



A very good question indeed. Don’t worry though, there’s a signpost. Its presence is kind of like a cutscene, giving us powers behind anything we’d display otherwise.



Boulder Bash is a very simple minigame, but I’ll admit my button-mashing skills kind of suck. It’s also troublesome if you have to move a finger from one button to the next whenever it changes, say, because you’re using a keyboard instead of a controller. Y’know, hypothetically.



This is a non-repeatable minigame, which is a real shame when it gives 10 points plus 3 per second remaining.



Also, we get a permanent display of Boss’ narcissism to admire. Although, the way the stubble-eque fur is carved kind of looks strange to me.



Coming to another intersection, this area has an odd little quirk.



There’s a butterfly on top of this post. Try touching it. You should be able to play “Butterfly Bridge” again!

See, there are some minigames that are slightly different based on which direction you approach them from. (We ‘skipped’ Butterfly Bridge 2, since that’s played by approaching 1 from the other way. They’re both counted as being the same minigame though, because the layout is identical aside from being flipped.) In some cases, you have to complete the second version of a minigame to play the first one again, because you’ll have moved something from one end of the course to the other.

However, you do not typically have to go somewhere else entirely unrelated in order to reset a minigame. Butterfly Bridge 1/2 and 3/4 are the only exceptions to this that I can recall.



Now, we could go left from here… But let’s talk to the other guy first.





Seems to be a store in that tree. I wonder how you get in.

How do you know it’s a store then? And for that matter, why would someone set up a store where nobody can reach it?



Clearly this calls for more investigation.



The power of nature is amazing!

...Feel free to make your own jokes about this one, folks.



There’s also a carrot over here, but who cares about that?



Boingee~



Heading over to the other screen, it seems we can’t quite Haaam our way up to that supposed store. Looks like we’re about halfway there, so we’ll probably need everyone that came to Flower Ranch for this.



Better hop on down and see what’s to the left now then.



...That is one sad-looking horse.



If you say so, old ham. Still, never mind the horse. Looks like we’ve finally caught up with Maxwell!



Oxnard has already left.

You can climb up this horse to get to the sunflower garden.



He’s trapped under a bowl and can’t get out!

What?! That is most terrible.



_{I would make a .gif of everyone making a fuss about saving Cappy, but getting their animations to sync up just won’t happen. Especially since the horse also flicks its ear in the background.}

Let’s hurry!

Yes. I agree. Together, we should be able to save him right away!



Excellent, now we’re able to go back and rescue Cappy! We can also open up a few shortcuts to help us get around the farm; we’ll get to retracing our steps next time.