Greetings! I've noticed that there isn't really a real strategy guide for this game other than an incomplete one that has not been updated for what seems to be in a year if not two.  So I've suffered through the mysteries of the game and figured things out on my own along with a ton of googling and friend talking to gather together my current knowledge on the best way to go about this game. Hope you find this useful in your days as a farmer in Harvest Moon Friends in Mineral Town!

::Crops::
Crops are really your main source of income. Planting them and watering them is your best method of getting the big bucks. I recommend planting them in a specific pattern known as the Donut pattern. Basically, you make a square but leave out the middle when using your hoe, and when making multiple donuts, leave them at least one square of space between each other in the event that a weed grows in the middle, and you're unable to jump(you can do this by holding the key that is equivalent to the R button) into the middle to water or harvest anything you might not be able to reach.

When choosing what crop to plant, I suggest using ones that return to maturity once they're harvested, and in the summer time grow heap tons of corn and stuff the mill down by your chicken house with them until you have 999 seeds for your chickens. You wont have to go and buy seeds for them again for years!

You can check what crops grow back in the Library in the northern part of town, the books on the shelves will provide information on how long it takes crops to grow, and if they return to maturity or not along with what you can grow with each season.The only season you can't grow stuff in, is Winter. Winter is the time where you're going to have to rely on your animals and mining for income.

For other seasons, I suggest you dig up 12 of the donut formations of crops or less/more if you find you can't handle it or see that you can do more. Continue doing this until you have befriended and trained Harvest Sprites(we'll get back to those later). I suggest saving your cash up before Winter comes, as its a bit difficult to make easy cash like with crops.

::Animals::
Another source of Income is Animals(Chickens, Cows, and Sheep to be specific). Each need to be fed everyday or they might not produce things for you to sell. Be sure to talk/pet/brush the animals every day to raise their affection to you, this will cause them to produce large items that sell for more. Time does not move when inside the coop/barn, but stamina and fatigue still does.

-Chickens-
Chickens are the cheapest animals in the game (if you don't count the horse and dog) and are the easiest to care for if you followed instructions mentioned earlier about the corn. You walk in, pick them up and put them down, collect the eggs, feed, and you're done! When getting chickens, I highly suggest buying one chicken and simply hatching the rest as the time period for their growth is short enough to favor them over buying more. You can put your chickens outside to feed if you find you don't have enough food, but I advise against this as Wild Dogs could attack your chickens and possibly kill them.A chicken with maxed affection that has won the chicken contest will lay a golden egg, worth more than the usual egg.

-Sheep-
Sheep are the second most expensive animal, and take a while to grow their wool. They require being spoken to, Brushing, feeding, and shearing when needed. You will know when to shear them by when they appear rather fluffy and full of wool. If you see the sheep contest coming on your calendar, don't sheer the sheep! They will not accept sheep that have been sheered or pregnant for the contest. To get more sheep, I suggest simply buying them as then you can sheer them right away as opposed to waiting more than a month for the sheep to impregnate and for the lamb to grow up. A sheep with max affection and has won the contest will produce Golden Wool, worth more then usual wool.

-Cows-
Cows are the most expensive animal, costing at 5,000G per cow. They can be milked everyday, and require to be spoken to, brushing, and feeding. They share the same feed as sheep, along with the same barn. If you have a full house with four cows and four sheep, then I suggest counting cows that you care for and counting the number of sheep that you have cared for until you are at a ratio of 4:4, to avoid accidentally not interacting with some due to the amount of animals in the room. A cow with max affection and has won the cow contest will produce Golden/Giant jugs of milk.

::Mining::
Mining is yet another source of income, along with a method of upgrading tools. It is the best source of income in Winter. You can go into deeper levels of the mine by digging around with your hoe and happening across stairs. There are 255 levels to each mine, and the only way to get that far is to use a specific method. First you save(not save state) before going down a set of stairs. Once you have gone down those stairs, Save State with the F2 button(Ah the wonders of emulators <3) and dig around for the stairs, once you have found them, load the save state with the F4 button go straight to them and dig them up. Save right before going down the stairs again, and Save State once you have gone down them. Saving before going down stairs is in the case that you run into a dead end and cannot proceed. When this happens, you must restart the game and try again, but at least with this method you wont have to start the entire mine over again. Time does not pass in mines.

-Spring Mine-
In the spring mine, by the Hot Springs south-ward of your farm, you can find many items like Mystrile, Gold, Silver, Copper, and Junk ore. These items are not worth much, and are better used to upgrade your tools. Tools and Upgrades will be explained later on. You can find Goddess Jewels on floor 60, 102, 123, 152, 155, 171, 190, 202, and 222. Each jewel can only be found once on each floor, and can only be found once you have bought the shelf from the shopping channel on Saturdays. When all are collected, they will form the Goddess Gem which increases your stamina when equipped. You can also find Mythic Stones, Teleport Stone, A Power Berry, and the French Fries recipe here. Mythic will only appear after you have gotten the Cursed Tools (explained in Tools and Upgrades) and are found on the same floors as Goddess Gems, the Teleport stone will not appear until after year three of the game,  Power Berry appears on floor 100, and French Fries Recipe appears all the way on floor 255(but I can save you the time by saying Frying Pan, Knife, Potato, and Oil is the recipe.).

-Lake Mine-
The lake mine is only accessible in the winter, and is a better place to go than Spring Mine when looking from some quick bucks. If you have the teleport stone however, you can go any time of the year. The mine contains many jewels, and I suggest bringing a Basket, bought from the supermarket, when mining for money. You can find a Power Berry at the 19th floor as well. The mine is also the holder of the Cursed Tools, below is a list of the tools and their floors;
Cursed Fishing Rod - Floor 29
Cursed Hoe - Floor 39
Cursed Ax - Floor 49
Cursed Hammer - Floor 59
Cursed Watering Can - 69
Cursed Sickle - 79

::Tools and Upgrades::
Tools are your best friend, without them you can't do much in the game. At first you can only hold three tools at once, but if you buy the rucksack upgrades in the supermarket you will be able to hold more and more. What each tool does is rather self explanatory and even explained in the game. So I'm going to cut to the upgrades.-Ore Upgrades-When upgrading, I suggest skipping straight to Mystrile level or Gold tools rather than wasting time and money with Copper and Silver. Mystrile upgrades cost 5,000G and takes around 4 days for the blacksmith to make, so be sure to upgrade at appropriate times. 

The Fishing Rod can be upgraded anytime without stress.Hoe should be upgraded while crops have already been planted and you don't plan to do more for a while.

The Ax can be upgraded anytime without stress.

Hammer can be upgraded anytime but winter as you will need to mine.

Watering Can is best upgraded in Winter where you wont even need to touch it for 30 days.

Sickle should be upgraded while crops have just been planted or in winter.

 -Cursed Tools-
Cursed Tools are found in the Winter Mine, as said before, and the only way to obtain them is to go to their designated floor, with an empty tool slot for each one you plan to get(I think you're going to need multiple trips, haven't gotten them myself yet) and once you find them, you cannot take them out of your tools. They're stuck there until they've been blessed. These tools have monstrous abilities and take up a large amount of your stamina, like seriously these things take a lot out of you. The only way to be able to remove them is through Blessing them, each one has a different method of blessing, each explained below;

-Cursed Fishing Rod-
Use it 255 times.I suggest going to an event such as the horse races, where time and stamina cease to exist and holding space to fast-forward the game and using the tool over and over again.

-Cursed Hoe- 
Go to the church and have Carter "bless" the tool 10 times, each will cost 1000G, so make sure you have the money to do it before grabbing this item.

-Cursed Ax-
Use it 255 times. I suggest going to an event such as the horse races, where time and stamina cease to exist and holding space to fast-forward the game and using the tool over and over again.

-Cursed Hammer- 
Equip it for 10 consecutive days, meaning keep it in your hand, no taking it off even to brush your cow. Be sure to do this in the winter and get the Harvest Sprite's assistance with your animals.

-Cursed Watering Can- 
Go to the church and have Carter "bless" the tool 10 times, each will cost 1000G, so make sure you have the money to do it before grabbing this item.

-Cursed Sickle-
Equip it for 10 consecutive days, meaning keep it in your hand, no taking it off even to brush your cow. Be sure to do this in the winter and get the Harvest Sprite's assistance with your animals.

Once your tool is Blessed, you can un-equip it and be able to use it like a normal tool without the huge stamina drain, but still keep the monstrous abilities! But wait! This isn't even their final form! Go back to the Spring Mine and grab Mythic Stones to upgrade your tools even more, and get even larger abilities!

::Harvest Sprites::

These seven sprites are quite important if you want to make big bucks fast and help deal with your cursed tools. Its best to befriend them very early in the game and begin "training" them as soon as possible. You can only begin "training" (to them its playing) once they have reached three hearts. Once they have gotten there, you can play the mini-games that will up their stat in the said area. Its best to have 3 of them focus on Watering, while the other 4 focus on Harvesting and all of them work together on Animal Husbandry. When using the Sprites to help your farms with crops, you can ignore the donut method and go all out in covering the desired area in crops. The sprites can pass through anything, and can get to the crops that you can't get to. You can use your watering can, best if Mystrile level or higher, to water the crops and harvest the edges while the sprites get to the places you can't reach.

However, you cannot just spam them and drive them like little slaves. You must give them gifts, help them out, talk to them, and continue befriending them along with giving them breaks between each time they work at the farm. If you do not, they will lose their friendship with you and you will not be able to play with them or ask assistance of them. The best gifts to give them would be Flour, as you can just run to the supermarket and buy it for 50G. Fill up your inventory and spam them with gifts! Its highly effective on Birthdays, the only birthday I know about is the red one's is on Fall 14th, and the one named Nappy is on the Winter of 22nd, not positive on this though.

::Marriage::
Yes you can get married, the bachelorettes are the females with a little heart beating on their chest. Each one has a rival, and you must win her over the rival and avoid the events where the rival bonds with her. The best thing to do is to choose a woman from the beginning, find out her favorite item, and shove as many gifts into their face that you can afford. If you manage to get her to a higher heart level than the rival's (For example you get Karen to an Orange Heart before the rival can even perform the black heart event) then you will never see the rival event unless you give them many horrible gifts like weeds and fish bones to drop their hearts down. Some women may raise a heart level despite you never having spoken to them before, and talking to them every day also assists in raising heart level, but giving gifts is much faster. Below is a list of easy to obtain gifts that are effective to give.
Recommended Gifts:
Karen - Wine/Bamboo Shoot(Spring Only)
Elli - Milk
Ann - Chocolate
Mary - Wool/Bamboo Shoot(Spring Only)/Honey
Popuri - Accessories, Eggs, Chocolate

There is ONE more Bachelorette, but she is meant to be a secret, and so she shall stay. Unless you go Google and ruin the fun of finding it yourself of course.

:: Summons ::

There are two people you can summon, and each is very helpful. If you go to the Hot Springs, there is a river nearby. Take any item, and throw it into the river to summon the Harvest Goddess. She is a method of connecting to the Gamecube in the normal GBA games, but if she is given offers for 10 consecutive days she will grant you a power berry. If you keep this up for a few weeks, she will ask you who you have a crush on and give you a list of the bachelorettes. Take your pick and she will raise the heart level of that woman to like you more than she did before.

The second summon is Kappa, a strange monster fish that lives in Lake Mother, the lake that freezes over in the winter. If you throw cucumbers into the river for 10 consecutive days, each time summoning Kappa, he will give you a special berry that stops your stamina and fatigue from draining fast in rain/snow.

::Contests::
Contests and Festivals are all announced on your calendar with the occasional person dropping by to let you know what was going on. Festivals are rather self explanatory, and if you talk to your love interest a day before some festivals, she will invite you or you will invite her on the date. If you see your love interest at Festivals, be sure to talk to her as well.If you're in a contest, you can abuse the save state to your advantage. The cow and sheep festival are based on affection(I think), while Chicken, Horse, and Dog, require you to perform a mini-game. 

On the chicken one, save state before each round begins, and if you lose the re-load that save state. 

In the Horse Races you can save-state before watching the race, watch it and see who the winner is, and reload and make bets accordingly. When you're actually racing, I suggest save-stating, placing everything on you, and win the mini-game. If you lose the re-load and try again until you win.

In the dog contest you can save state and then keep trying until you get a better score, I haven't been able to play around with the dog contest much, so I can't provide any better tip than to be sure to play with your dog at the beach whenever you can in order to do better in these.

::End::
Hope you found my first tips/guide useful! This is all I've learned from the past like four to five days of playing. This game is rather addicting, weird how humans can find simple things that repeat over and over again so addicting!

Bluekat12 : It is a little bit of a suspension, because normally when a newbie makes a guide and it's their first 10 posts, more likely it's plagiarized, but I have researched this guide and this is 100% legit. So what I do got to say, I think with this walkthrough you made, I think personally, I think you have a future on here, I hope you keep up the good work on these walkthroughs.