Rune Factory 4

Check out the official site: http://www.runefactory4.com/
Marvel at a website in 2013 using frames!
Check out all the voice clips from the dub! Yes, it's dub-only. But the voices are excellent!



So why will this game be awesome? Because, by all accounts, it's a better Rune Factory 3, and that game was incredible. What makes the series so special is the way everything ties into everything else. Farming nets you crops, which can be sold or made into food and medicine. Food and medicine heal you when you're off exploring. Exploration and combat nets you materials that can be crafted into new tools and equipment. The same monsters you fight can be befriended and then used as farm labour or for the resources they produce (like fur or milk). And this is on top of all the characters you get to know and can eventually marry. I think those extra elements really make it better than its parent series, Harvest Moon. There's a use for everything in Rune Factory, while Harvest Moon has a lot of dead ends where items are only worthwhile as gifts or to sell.

The major new thing this time around is the ability to choose between a male or female protagonist. Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny let you pick your protagonist at the very end of the story, but this one does it right at the beginning. So if you're into that sort of thing, there are bachelors as well as bachelorettes to woo. There are also a lot of multi-character events (rather than just the one-on-one conversations that make up the majority of the character interactions in previous games), as well as a script that's apparently as long as Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. So there's definitely going to be a LOT to see and do.

Excellent. I'll start RF3 as soon as i finish one of these other games... Probably after i'm done with Mother 3

Rune Factory 4 Life Lessons #1: All guys love flying. All girls are scared of heights.

At the beginning of the game, it asks your reaction to flying. If you're favorable the game says you must be a dude and asks you to confirm your gender. Rune Factory 5 will ask if you like sweets, I bet. Or jewelry.

This starts off fairly slowly. They limit you to one tutorial quest per day at the beginning, though thankfully you can just go out and start dungeon crawling right away. I like how characters have little golden speech bubbles if you haven't talked to them that day. It makes it so much easier to keep track of who you have talked to each day.

I really enjoyed the first game in the series, which is the best sequel?

Rune Factory 3. No doubt about it. 4 might be better, but I need to spend more time with it to decide.

This is my first handheld RF, though I've played Frontier (Wii) and Tides of Destiny (PS3). Tides sucked. Frontier was great, outside the Runey bullshit.

I'm really liking this one, though I'm missing some things from Frontier. In frontier, the spa was once a day, no cost. It's 300 here and seemingly unlimited use, though I haven't taken more than two baths a day yet. Time doesn't stop even when indoors like Frontier, so you're GOGOGO 100 percent of the time. Not sure which way I like better. I'm really missing the critical bar used for fishing/crafting/cooking, etc. That was fun.

I'm really digging the mailbox quests in this one, though. Just one more thing to have to fit in, heh. Farming, tending livestock, talking to everyone once a day, buying, selling, learning new recipes via bread (I think I liked Frontiers better in that way) exploring dungeons, fishing crafting/cooking, festivals, events, etc.

I love these games. So far I'm 2/3 the way through the first spring. Won the fishing competition! Needed around 20 fish to win. Got a barn with a chicken, a cow and a lamb. Gonna see about taming another chicken and cow monster, although hopefully it won't bump my fodder use up to two a day. Beat the first "dungeon". Bought a knife for sashima, a mixer for juice and a pan for fried fish. Got my cooking up so I can sashimi just about every fish I catch. Bought a chemists set and got my chemistry up to about 16. Bought a forge and I'm working towards a crafting table, though I haven't forged anything yet. I think I like China Girl best, but sleepy butler girl is still in the running. Learnt that I shouldn't mess with giant chickens yet. One day, giant chicken. One day.

I just finished the fishing contest too. Won with 18 fish. Apparently the horse guy is a beast at it, so I'm kinda glad he didn't get out of the clinic until after the fishing contest ended.

I don't really find the bath particularly useful in this game. It's often easier and cheaper to just make some RP-restoring food.

Town events are pretty neat. One of the best things about Tides of Destiny is how multiple characters are almost always involved in character events. It's also fun to puzzle them out and find the next part of the event sequence, though I don't like some of the restrictions the game puts on grouping up to go dungeon crawling when one is happening. You can't get people involved in an ongoing event to join your party. On the flip side, it also looks like you HAVE to have specific party configurations outside of town in order to trigger some.

If you're running low on fodder, you can swipe some from that giant chicken's nest. However, 8 or so squares of fodder seems to give me plenty of surplus so I don't have to resort to thievery.

And man, the 3D in this game is just terrible. The animated cutscenes are well done but everything else looks strange. It's like all the 2D elements are on the wrong plane or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bVork

Rune Factory 3. No doubt about it. 4 might be better, but I need to spend more time with it to decide.

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That's how I'm feeling so far (and agreed on the 3D - I keep it off because it feels so wrong and confusing)

I'm pretty sure that Rune Factory 4 is the best in the series. Not the most accessible, mind you. But the best. There's a fairly sharp difficulty spike beginning with the third dungeon that really forces you to start upgrading your weapons and armour and either taming monsters or making friends so you can assault the place as a group. Rune Factory 3 lets you safely ignore those elements if you don't want to touch them, but RF4 really makes you want to delve into every bit of the game.

More and more things keep opening up, too. I got a clothing shop just outside of town that lets me change my duds. I'm pretty sure I can eventually run my own shop. I've found some fruit seeds so that I can plant fruit trees in addition to normal crops. Soil quality is split into about a half dozen different variables, all of which affect crops. I'm beginning to see why the bath is set up the way it is. My typical morning routine in RF4 is to take care of the crops, then to craft and cook stuff until I'm out of RP, then take a bath. Then I go dungeon crawling or whatever else I feel I should do that day. And then, when I come back, I take another bath and then craft and cook and go to bed.

I planted four different kinds of trees in one square of land and it shot up the soil quality like whut. Havested fruits for a couple weeks then chopped 'em down to get at that beautiful soil. Probably going to repeat the process on two or three other squares so I can have a couple awesome patches of land. I should name them. Soil health and growth rate decrease as you keep crops on them, but health is easily fixed by hoeing some withered grass on the patch and growth rate can be boosted back up to the 5x multiplier max by using...I forget the name, but it ends in A or B or C depending on the quality. A is a green bottle, B is blue. My cows and chickens along with cooking skill are my money makers (in frontier it was fishing + cooking. At first it was omelettes, then it was cheese bread, now it's cake.


When you get a guy called Leon into the village, you can hand him spells *not abilities* and he'll level them up in exchange for money or gems/rare metal. He finally told me that after having him in the village awhile and I was like "Gee, thanks for telling me, dickhead."

More friendly tips: When you get to the third arc dungeons, rather than continuing to grind craft/blksmthing (it's significantly tougher than what comes before) you could also unlock the super high level bonus dungeon and (with much patience) tame a ridable monster there. My trusty earth dragon steed could whoop fifty of me. He stays well fed.

The final relationship sub-events are so character based it's almost silly to choose a waifu until you've seen a couple. Didn't help me though, I still can't choose between Xiao Pai and Clorica. Thank god for multiple save files.

Poor Clorica. Her final sub-event turns her sleeping thing from just a generic lolzy anime quirk to something you seriously feel bad about. Turns out it's some mental thing. She doesn't just fall asleep all the time, she also takes a super long time thinking/making decisions. So, at first, when you she does that you intervene, but that ends up pissing her off since everyone does that to her. Then you say you'll let her make the decisions, which makes her happy 'till Illuminata basically says "one party doing the decision making isnt' much of a relationship...unless that works for you, I guess". And it continues from there.

Pai's deals with her father's somewhat harsh methods of trying to make sure she doesn't resent her mother for being more attractive/better/luckier and is equally as endearing (he starts a rumor that you're using your relationship with Pai to get close to her mom)

The developer of the Rune Series (Neverland) filed for bankruptcy:

http://mobile.siliconera.com/silicon...12186c9396ec/1

Unfortunate, the IP is still in the hands of Marvelous though.