Headscratchers / Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar

• What's the point of having rivals, if they won't get married?; honestly.
  • Magical Melody had the same thing; it's probably to not delete the rival system all together and make fans mad, plus it'd seem odd for everyone else to stay single. Not everyone gets married in real life, and not everyone gets married quickly, so it's realistic.
• Regarding the Pumpkin Festival, how come the kids don't think chocolate is candy, but are willing to consider things that obviously aren't (pudding, cookies, etc.) candy? This is especially strange because chocolate was the go-to gift in Mineral Town...
  • Probably a cultural thing. In Japan, Halloween is more about the costumes than it is the candy ("Amature Night of Cosplay" is all the more true across the Pacific), and adding this holiday was clearly for the benefit of the Western audiences (though why they chose to call it the Pumpkin Festival in the first place makes little sense when it's not much to do with pumpkins; call it Children's Day or something, though I realize that's an actual, unrelated holiday in Japan). So, any sweet item could be seen as good enough through the lens of another culture. As to why chocolate no longer counts, the only reason I could possibly think of is that chocolate is connected to Valentine's Day, so maybe some Japanese Moral Guardians thought giving "romantic" chocolate to prepubescent children had Unfortunate Implications even they didn't like?