Never played a Rune Factory, but I am honestly pretty interested.

I guess I will look into it when I finish playing Dark Souls.

Initial impressions:

- the introductory phase of the game is pretty long. It will take half an hour before you'll really get to do anything (and I actually mean anything - you'll just follow Odette as she'll explain all sorts of things)
- I spent additional 30 minutes running around town greeting all characters because that's what I thought I have to do. Wrong. From what I gather you can call it a day the moment Odette tells you you're free to do whatever you feel like doing. Nothing will happen on the first day so you might as well go to sleep.
- the town appears to be pretty big at first. Luckily, it's not. You will memorize where everything is after 10 minutes. The town itself is rather pretty, with lots of greenery around.
- the minimap appears to be useless at first. Luckily, it's not. Trust me on that one, you'll get used to it and you'll start appreaciating it's simplicity after some time.
- two names haven't been unlocalized - Iris is now known as Violet and Sera has been changed to Sierra (various side characters have been left with their localized name but it's a relatively minor inconvenience)
- this game breaks a bit of a tradition of RF associated with the 'why-can't-I-marry-[x]' syndrome. That's mostly because everybody is an orphan (not literally of course but there just aren't any mothers around). The only exception is Electra but I don't think you'd be interested in her mother anyway. The other two female characters you can't marry are Jocelyn (a slight nod to the 'why-can't-I-marry-[x]' but she doesn't live on the same island and only appears on plaza on certain days) and Quinn/Kilt (loli).
- the sprites during conversations are gone. Instead of them the game uses in-game character models. I knew that much before I began playing and it didn't seem like the best idea. Contrary to my exceptations it works surprisingly well. Now that the characters can actually move they appear to be much more expressive. Also, the accesories will remain visible even during conversations. I'm not gonna say the new system is an improvement but I definitely won't say it's a bad thing, either. It's just different and a matter of preference I guess. I grew to like the way the characters are portrayed.
- don't quote me on that one but it appears fainting (either from overworking or being defeated by a monster) results in catching a cold. That's it. I don't think you lose any items or money.
- crafting and cooking now resolve around a small minigame. It's not much of an inconvenience but cooking/crafting stuff en masse takes more time.
- the new system of controlling the golem and looking for islands around the sea is nice BUT the golem itself has it's own HP/RP, too. Walking around consumes it at fast pace. I don't know if there is any way to replenish them (other than sleeping of course). I'm fine with the RP itself but the sea is really big and you'd have to waste several days to get from one end to the other. Also, there are monsters that are lurking around. That itself is fine, too. The problem begins when you encounter one when your RP is low. Fighting it is not an option (the golem consumes RP really fast), neither is running away. If something like that happens you're pretty much fucked (I know from experience).
- figthing consumes A LOT (compared to other RF games of course) RP now. You will run out of it just by fighting, trust me.
- the RP regenerates automatically at a small rate. Also, time is stopped while you're inside buildings (it flows normally in dungeons, though).

This is all fine and I can't complain about any of it (other than lightning fast RP depletion but it just changes the game a little instead of ruining it) but the most important change really sucks in my opinion. The first thing I did after Odette's tour was running to general store to buy me some seeds. There were no seeds at general store. I figured I'll get them later (at that point I didn't have any field to plant them on). I didn't. Seeds are gone. You won't be able to water your plants, too. Wood is apparently gone. Grass (not the colored grass, the grass you fed to your monsters) is gone (it's replaced by monster cookies which you can buy at general store). I don't know what happened to fishing but I don't think it's completely gone as you can still prepare fish dishes.
In all honesty I still don't get how farming works now. I know one thing for sure - it has been completely overhauled and ridiculously downsized. I think they wanted to make the distinction between Harvest Moon and Rune Factory clearer* and so Oceans appears to be much more RPG focused. Unfortunately that's now what I expected and needless to I'm very disappointed. I don't want to say it plain sucks because the new system is completely different and pretty hard to compare to the old one but I'm pretty sure I won't grow to like it no matter how long I'll play. Without spending half a day farming it just doesn't feel like RF anymore.



* The joke? RF4 apparently goes back to standard HM/RF farming with some minor tweaks. Maybe that's the way spin-offs work - Fortiner was pretty conventional compared to Oceans but it did use Runeys.

>>4918
If you're still having trouble I could explain the farming to you.

Now that someone replied I kinda have an excuse to write something again - I would feel bad about bumping a thread nobody seems to have interest in for no reason (shame, our RF3 thread was quite successful).

>>5119

I got a hang of it by now. I wrote that 'initial impressions' thing shortly after I got Spring Island. I wouldn't call myself a HM/RF veteran but I played a few games of each series and got used to the way farming works in them. My initinal confusion was through the roof. If anyone is still wondering here's how it works:

- even though the game uses standard 4-seasons calendar (I digress but the way the town looks changes vastly throughout the year - it looks great) the seasons are completely irrelevant to farming. You have an island for each season (named simply Spring Island, Summer Island etc.) and it's Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter all year long on them. You don't get all of them at once, you 'unlock' more as the story progresses. The thing is even their names are of no importance as you can plant any flower/vegetable/tree (more about them later on) on Spring/Summer/Autumn Island.
- Like I said, you don't really get to plant jack's shit. What happens is this: you've got a so-called spirit wand and using it you can plant seeds on certain spots of island(s). Then the monsters you tamed plant seeds on those spots. Each monster has up to 4 types of seeds it can plant. Sadly, it picks whatever it plant at random (although it's based on your 'friendship level' with said monsers, too) so you'll get to use your sickle a lot (if I'll see strawberries and spinach one more time...). Then they simply grow those vegetables/flowers/trees until they are ready to harvest.
- each Island needs to get revived to get used. You collect spirits to do so. There are 4 (or 5, depending how you look at it - at first you can't use the islands at all) levels of uh... 'liveliness' of any island. The higher the level the more spots to plant seeds on you unlock.
- some monsters don't either plant stuff nor do they give you ingridents (like Buffamoos etc.), they are responsible for harvesting instead. At first I kinda ignored them but once you grow your islanda to the full size it gets really big and it will take a lot of time to harvest everything. You might want to pick up those harvester type monsters.
- also, there are seperate spots to grow trees on. There are only two types of them - oak and maple. They are used for making all sorts of things using carpentry.
- now, Winter Island. I'm not eactly a fan of the new system but it works so I don't complain about it but Winter Island is what I really love about it. Instead of growing vegetables/flowers on Winter Island you grow ores. It's a great idea - now you can stockpile on gold/sliver/platinum and all sorts of other things.
- that more or less covers it I think. Each island has 5 spots for animals, you have 10 additional spaces in your barn. That's pretty much it.

So that's farming. I have some other things I want to comment on, though:

- I LOVE how big the storage is now. 180 itmes! That's really great.
- I said that the new system of using 3D models instead of sprites is a matter of preference. After getting used to it I can honestly say that I prefer the new way.
- you can't buy any useful weapons/accessories at shop anymore. I really like that, too. You have to craft your own stuff.
- I liked how hard it was to get some money initially. Sadly, it gets much, much easier later on.
- I also dislike how you can buy eggs/milk/wool at shop. What's the point of taming and nurturing Buffamoos, Woolies etc.? (I still do it but it's a matter of habit I guess.) Shame.
- oh yeah, wood is gone, like I said. You enlarge your house etc. by buying upgrades (with money). The finishing works like it always did (more or less), I just didn't get the fishing rod from Joe for some reason.
- Like I said, time gets stopped in buliding. I love it. That's the way it should be.
- Your golem won't run out of RP as fast as I thought it will. Well it does hapen intiallly but later on (when it gains a few levels) it's not that much of a problem.
- items don't have 'levels' anymore. An item either has a star (i.e. it's kinda upgraded) or it doesn't. So now lv 5 onions anymore. I like it better this way in all honesty.
- I'm pretty sure there were lots of other things wanted to comment on but I kinda forgot them already and I'm getting tired from typing all of this so...
- Oh yeah, one thing I need to correct - the RP doesn't get replenished on it's own. I somehow got confsued about it (probably because it does get replenished a little once you gain a level in some skill).



All in all I think it's a great game. It's a shame nobody seems to be interested in it.

>>5120
well, It still only came out recently. I love rune factory. I'm doodling woolies everywhere

I really enjoy how you get a cutscene every time you earn friendship points. I'm really curious though. You eventually have to choose which character you want to play as but the dialogue is written for sonja to be in adens body.

I just recently beat the Wii version. Easily my favorite RF game of the bunch. I'm glad they FINALLY fixed the dull combat that plagued the other games. You can rotate the camera and the fighting in general is more complex than circling around the enemy and button-mashing (though the game is easy enough that you can still kind of do that with enough healing items).

>>4918
Fast RP depletion? Are we playing the same game? My RP lasts four times as long as it did in Frontier. Magic takes a lot more RP than melee, but that's always been the case.

On a side note, do people really hate the English dub to the point of refusing to play it until an undub is released? That's some pretty /a/-like behavior.

>I really enjoy how you get a cutscene every time you earn friendship points.

Yeah, that was a nice addition. It also lets you control your friendship level(s). If (for whatever reason) you don't want to raise your friendship level with some character you can simply choose not to do so.

But there's still lots of room for improvement in the whole dating-sim-esque area. For one I wish they would change what the characters talk about as your friendship level gets higher. That would be far more natural. It's silly when Melprin/Elena ask 'who are you again?' when your friendship level with them is at it's max. You might be able to make some unconvincing excuse in Elena's case but it's hard to do the same for Melprin. It kinda ruins the illusion that you actually get closer to the characters and reminds you that all that changed between the two of you over last x hours (or x in-game days) is a certain stat.

The other thing that bothers me are RF's trademark 'minimalistic' voice-overs. I was able too look past it in DS versions (lack of space) but they don't have any real excuse now. I don't mind that lots of stuff is unvoiced but at very least the friendship level-related skits should be fully voiced.

Also, I found the character development to be visibly poorer than in previous RF games. In many cases the skits were virtually the same and you could switch them around and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

>I'm glad they FINALLY fixed the dull combat that plagued the other games.

I'd argue they fixed that in RF3. Not only that, magic became actually useful! That was quite an improvemnt.

>>5225

>the fighting in general is more complex than circling around the enemy and button-mashing (though the game is easy enough that you can still kind of do that with enough healing items).

I wonder about that. Then again I can't say much about it as by the time I reached Wind Temple I had the best possible gear (the boss did like 14 dmg with every hit to me while I struck him for som 400 each time).

>Fast RP depletion? Are we playing the same game? My RP lasts four times as long as it did in Frontier. Magic takes a lot more RP than melee, but that's always been the case.

Ah, busted. I knew it'll be obvious sooner or later. I actually haven't played Frontier. When I said it gets depleted fast I compared it to the DS games.

>On a side note, do people really hate the English dub to the point of refusing to play it until an undub is released?

Part of fun of RF games is just how amazing the voice casts always are. Marvelous is invloced in anime and music business so that's only natural. I could list all the big-name seiyuu who voiced characters in RF games but at this point it would be easier to name those who haven't voiced anyone. I wanted to say that Yuuki Aoi is one of few big-shots who hasn't voiced any characters so far but she'll voice a character in RF4 (and she wasn't hired before because she wasn't half as well known even a year ago). The only seiyuu that come to my mind when I think of ones who havem't voiced any characters yet and whom I'd like to see in the franchise are Omigawa Chiaki and Matsuki Miyu (but the former still has some time left and the latter would probably have to voice somebody's mom).

This game in particular was great as even though some characters are voiced by seiyuu whom I wouldn't classify as big shots I listed two of them in my Top 5 in our /an/ thread (Kobayashi Yuu and Tamura Yukari) while another one who barely missed the cut (Hirohashi Ryou) voiced another character.



It's nice to see the RF games get better with every new entry. The progress might not be lightning-fast but it's proceeding at it's steady pace.

The thing that I think desperately needs some attention is the in-game economy (or lack thereof). They tried to give you some illusion of it this time around but ultimately it amounted to nothing. The products you sell should get cheaper the more of them you sell while the ones you buy should get more expensive. I accidentaly made 400k (it really wasn't my intention) in one day because I wanted to raise my crafting level and made shittons of handknit scarves. By the time I sold them 100th scarf they should be worth about 5G each.

>>5235
To be completely honest, I don't know shit about seiyuus. I only watch anime on very rare occasions, and I never bother noting any of the VAs when I do.

So I guess it wasn't really my place to comment on that, but it seemed kind of silly to wait for an undub when the game lets you mute voices without muting the SE or BGM. The English dub was actually surprisingly good this time, anyway. A couple of the cutscenes in the beginning weren't done right, but everything else was fine.

>by the time I reached Wind Temple I had the best possible gear (the boss did like 14 dmg with every hit to me while I struck him for som 400 each time).
That boss was actually somewhat difficult with medium-level armor. I did have the best weapons, though.

>When I said it gets depleted fast I compared it to the DS games
Maybe it's just me, but it still seems like it lasts longer in Oceans/ToD. Frontier was particularly horrible with RP though, no doubt. If you tried using a high level weapon without a high enough skill level, your RP disappeared in like 3 swings. As such you had to grind your weapon level, usually by swinging your weapon around in thin air for days (something that this RF doesn't let you do anymore).

>The thing that I think desperately needs some attention is the in-game economy (or lack thereof).
Completely agreed. This was actually my biggest gripe about the entire game, along with the fact that you can't get married until you beat the game and have nothing else to do. I had more money than I ever needed by the end of the first season thanks to the ridiculous amount of money the carpentry products sold for. Almost 3k for a low level piece of furniture that only requires one very common monster drop? Really?

>>5237

>That boss was actually somewhat difficult with medium-level armor. I did have the best weapons, though.

See, the thing about the RPG parts of RF is that food/potions are way too powerful. You can make yourself a chocolate pudding out of 3 items you can buy at a store and unless you grinded A LOT it will heal you completely and replenish all of your RP. I try to always carry around 30 or so of them because they are great for both healing your HP (not like I ever needed that, though) and replenish your RP.

Of course one could argue you couldn't actually use them if you didn't have high enough skill in cooking but if that wasn't the case you could simply use XL potions to replenish 800HP. Hard to lose against a boss with stuff like that lying around.

>Maybe it's just me, but it still seems like it lasts longer in Oceans/ToD.

Huh, when I played RF3 I actually wondered if swining those blades depletes any RP. For a while I thought they actually changed them and it's now a free action.

>Completely agreed. This was actually my biggest gripe about the entire game, along with the fact that you can't get married until you beat the game and have nothing else to do. I had more money than I ever needed by the end of the first season thanks to the ridiculous amount of money the carpentry products sold for. Almost 3k for a low level piece of furniture that only requires one very common monster drop? Really?

I didn't even get into carpentry (I still have some 400 pieces of oak and lots of maple in storage box) and I always had more money than I needed, too. Like I said, it was nice while you only had a limited amount of space on one island. I had to make lots of pineapple juice and strawberry milk to earn some money. I wish making money would be as hard throughout the whole game.

Of course I do realize how much money you could make with carpentry because I did look through the items. It's kinda ridiculous.

I just came back from an 12 hour session and damn this is pretty fun. This is my first RF game and I have about 30 hours clocked so far. It was pretty slow at first though and I wasn't sure what to do but then it picked up from there and I couldn't stop playing.

Also, where do I get the undub? Will my normal save work with it?

>>5269
you can turn most of the voices off in the game menu screen under options.

>>5327

Undub traditionally means uh... undubbing the game. As in, getting the original voice back.

>>5269

I just downloaded a torrent from TPB. I'm sure you could find it elsewhere, too, if you have something against TPB/public trackers in general.