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 What's Rune Factory? It's the notably more anime spinoff of Harvest Moon that also has RPG combat and stuff- it was doing the Swords & Sowing thing before things like Stardew came along. The farming's still there, it's just that you get swords, monsters, and world domination plots/saving the world as well. Also all the protagonists have amnesia. Well, most of them. Sometimes they actually do something with that, other times it's just to give you not much of a backstory. What's Frontier? It's the only game in the series that's a sequel, (at least sort of,) continuing off with part of the cast from the first game. It also stands as the series's first console debut, as up until this point the games were only on the DS. It's somewhat more... anime, I guess, than its two predecessors. Has some improvements, some questionable design choices, and a decent soundtrack. This game is the third in the series, coming just after the game that lets a 7 year old fake marry their 14 year old unaging aunt. wait what I'm inclined to say it was a programming oversight and/or laziness. RF2 had a lot of that. Well, if it's a sequel, do I need to know anything about the first game? Not really, no. It's a rather loose sequel at best, and I'll fill in any necessary details regarding the first game as we go along. There's an excellent LP of it here by Lord Hippoman if you want to see it all for yourself. Is it any good? It's... okay, from what I remember. I'll let you decide for yourself. It's been like... seven years since I last tried playing this and I got about halfway through it if we're being generous. ...Now I must ask, Why? I've got a big backlog of unfinished games and I figured this would be a fun way of going about finishing said games. Frontier's been on the list a long time, having gotten put aside in favor other games. The other console release, Tides of Destiny is also on said list, though I played through even less of that game. If this goes well, I'll probably LP ToD as well- it's been long enough I don't remember too much about it aside from the hot milk exploit. Still, seemed like a natural choice for a first attempt at LP. What about spoilers? Would rather you didn't spoil anything for this game at least. There's honestly not that much to spoil, this game's got more grind than story, but still. Feel free to talk about RF1, I guess, since it's relevant, but don't randomly spoil the other games unless it's necessary. Thread Particpation? For sure! There's gonna be a good bit of naming, potential marriage candidates, what we wield and more. I'm going to be letting the thread dictate a great deal of what I do.  SPRING, YEAR 1 Update 01: Orange Air Spaghetti Update 02: It's Free Real Estate Update 03: In Which The First Day Is Ended Update 04: Dirt Nap Update 05: Dirt Is Magnetic to Faces - A Theory Update 06: KNOWLEDGE Update 07: I got the turnip. Update 08: Aerial Assault Animes Update 09: Questionable Update 10: Questionable, Part 2 Update 11: The Runey Situation Update 12: Nowhere Near Fin-ished Update 13: Hot Dogs Update 14: Inedible Set Dressing Update 15: At Least I've Got Chicken Update 16: I'll have some vegetables Update 17: Jammin' Update 18: Bakin' Carrot Biscuits Update 19: Money and Lumber Update 20: The Update Where People Insist It's Summer But It's Not SUMMER, YEAR 1 Update 21: The Beach Episode- Much Ado About Melons Update 22: The Lady and the Trampoli Update 23: Master Bush's Monster Update 24: tomato Update 25: HILTMOALTG Update 26: How To Spend An Exorbitant Amount Of Money On Grass Update 27: Mercantile Mercy Update 28: Axes to Grind Update 29: This Day Sucks Update 30: A Diamond In the Rough Update 31: Workin' In the Magic Mines Update 32: Hey Nineteenth Update 33: A Clean Bed of Dirt Update 34: Ecological Warfare - Call of Runey Update 35: bath family Update 36: The Day Bush Didn't Bathe Update 37: Flowers of Contrast Update 38: Much Ado About Marriage and Kids Update 39: "i do regret the rainbow can" Update 40: Bush Becomes a Debt Collector AUTUMN, YEAR 1 Update 41: Over Jumbled Lines of Localization Update 42: Bush, Reloaded Update 43: Moon Made of Cheese Confirmed, Researcher Says Update 44: The Legend of Mist - Grimoire of Time Update 45: The Day of Bachelorettes Update 46: It's Yours, My Friend Update 47: As Long As You Have Enough Rubies Update 48: Magic Windfall Update 49: Tree Mom (and Crystal Flowers) Update 50: Blooper Reel Update 51: A Date With... Update 52: Destiny Update 53: The Great Turnip Heist WINTER, YEAR 1 Update 54: Snow Jean Update 55: QUIZ DAY Update 56: Lady of the Rings- Two Vampires Update 57: The Hotpot Faux Pas Update 58: The Future of Bush Shrub YEAR 2 Update 59: Into A New Year Update 60: Waiting for Coquille Update 61: Secret Agent Man Update 62: The Juniper Bush Final Update: The Epilogue Thread Voting Intermission 1: Green Ruins, Whale Island Cave & Fin Intermission 2: Status Update & Bachelorette Voting 1 Intermission 3: The Bonus Commentary Round Bonus Anette's Autumn Date (Update 51) Cinnamon's Autumn Date (Update 51) Melody's Autumn Date (Update 51) Tabatha's Autumn Date (Update 51) Lara's Autumn Date (Update 51) The Darkest Timeline (Intermission 3) Unused Dialogue & Events (Final Update) Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2021 02:33
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Reserving this, just in case.
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Oct 8, 2021 02:33
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Update 01: Orange Air Spaghetti This game has motion controls if you want them. The box even says they're "innovative". You, uh, swing the remote.  Marvelous Entertainment has a long background with the Harvest Moon, (or rather Story of Seasons nowadays). They did a merger in 2011 to become Marvelous AQL, and 3 years later they just changed it back to Marvelous. They do a lot of publishing, basically.  XSEED is a subsidiary of theirs, apparently originally founded by ex-Squeenix US employees. It's possible you've heard of them. They do a lot of localization.  Neverland is the actual developers of the Rune Factory series, as well as Lufia and some other things. They went out of business in 2013 and the majority of its employees got absorbed by Marvelous.  This guy's the head of the Story of Seasons series, since this whole spinoff series was a sort of collaboration effort. After this starts the opening FMV, and you bet it's got J-Pop. And, it's uh...unique. Here's the video if you wanted to watch it and ignore the following 40 screenshots.  Music: The Sweetest Time(I'll also be doing music links as this game's soundtrack is pretty alright overall, with some real good stuff mixed in. Outside of the J-Pop intro and outro, it's all done by Tomoko Morita, who's basically done the score for the majority if not all of Neverland's games. Fortuntately, someone's already uploaded the soundtrack on Youtube, so hey, saves me time- you're a credit to this LP, mate.) (Note From Future Odd: If you run into an ad while loading one up, it's because Marvelous apparently copyright claimed them. Better than being taken down, I guess.)  There's some sort of light flying in this tiny aspect ratio screen.  It and the screen get bigger. It's some sort of hyped up butterfly or something.  We go green.  Now there's a bird flying towards the light.  We've gone blue now.  Hey there, title card, that was fast. I almost forgot what game I was LPing.  As the lyrics kick in, the bird flies over a horizon that looks like the title screen of the first game.  Then the bird vanishes into light spaghetti.   Now we get two very uncomfortably close close-ups of our protagonist.  Ah, yes, the peaceful pose in idyllic agricultural scenery.  Well, it's more of his face. Decidedly not so idyllic.  By staring at the bushes, he uses his innate farmer-ness to create... oranges?  That bird comes by again and makes everything orange.  We now turn our attention to another anime now holding a candle in a snowy cabin.  She gets out of the chair and it's suddenly spring now, and also the house is gone.  The candle is now a butterfly and the chair is gone. I don't think this farmer magic follows the laws of conservation of mass.   And then an orange falls into this person's hand and she turns it into air spaghetti again. She's a new face at least!  This anime is fascinated by fish, apparently.  Oh, and now there's a nun.  A brief interlude of our protagonist looking very serious alongside a squirrel.  This anime gets barely 3 seconds of screen time.     They're just throwing them at us rapid fire now. All of these characters have similarly short screen time.  Well, this guy's not happy.  Cut back to more animes being fascinated by air spaghetti/oranges/birds/butterflies.   And also this cool pose for about 4 seconds. I guess we slashed the big demon guy into a bunch of petals or something.  Then there's these two- red/magenta eyes is always a good sign, right?   We've got a witch running through a field. No information right now on whether or not she practices orange air spaghetti magic.  If those hands get any closer I'm gonna have to come up with a censor filter.    And we cut to our protagonist running through a field much bigger than we'll ever hope to have.  Thanks to the sunlight blurring some features, most of these people don't look that happy to be here.  Music: Title Theme(This one's a nice theme, although you really don't hear it much.) Wow, I spent 40 screenshots of your time on that.  Amazingly, we get 3 save slots this time. As far as I remember, every game after this point has 3 save files, which is a bit nicer than the two the previous games gave you. Doesn't really affect me as I've got savestates, but whatever.  These things on the loading screen are a new mechanic exclusive to this game we'll get to in due time. Probably in a couple updates. This game starts slow. For now, we've got some intro narration!  Music: To You(This track so happens to be a remix of the intro theme from RF1. A number of tracks are, which makes sense with this being a sequel and all.) YOUNG MAN: I had lost everything: my memory, a place to live...   YOUNG MAN: When I was on the verge of collapse, I met her. YOUNG MAN: She provided me with food, a home, and... new memories. This is a rather generous recollection of the events. He literally passes out in front of her house, 3 minutes away from the nearest town, and gets suckered into ownership of a run-down farm. The "having garbage farm foisted upon you" is a recurring theme in this series, unlike Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons where you usually willingly take it.   YOUNG MAN: However, she suddenly disappeared one day without a single word to anybody. YOUNG MAN: That very next day, I left the town behind to search for her. But yeah, this is the plot that links this game to the first. This girl up and moves out, and our protagonist decides to track her down her whereabouts immediately, apparently infinitely grateful or something. Yep. As to how many of the events of the first game transpired, this game doesn't make it clear. If this was supposed to make it easier to connect this game to your playthrough of the first, it just ends up doing the opposite. In practice it usually feels like a retcon remake, but with our protagonist having a bit of backstory now instead of only "has amnesia". You'll see what I mean much later. Music: Night Ambience(This isn't actually a song. It's just crickets and owls and whatever and I would've told you to imagine it yourself, but it seems this playlist's got me covered again.)   YOUNG MAN: Man, it's getting pretty dark. I'd better look for a place to rest for the night...  YOUNG MAN: I wonder if I can find lodging over there. I don't know if it's because I was just used to the art of the other games, but Raguna in this game always looked a bit off to me.  The screen fades again as we move towards that large-ish church in the distance. This whole scene makes a little less sense when you get an idea of the town's layout.   SISTER: You're looking for a missing girl? I'm very sorry to hear that. SISTER: If you don't mind this humble place, you should stay here for the night. YOUNG MAN: Thank you so much! Sister, um...  SISTER: Stella. Earlier Rune Factory games always had this unexplained religion around, though this is the last game that has it, I believe. It's vaguely Catholic given the nuns, I guess. It changes to either being unmentioned or dragon worship later.  YOUNG MAN: Sister Stella, thank you very much. My name is...  And here is where we name our character. Raguna is his standard name, (Ragna in Japan,) but I would presume that the thread has a better name. There's a 6 character limit, so keep that in mind, and make it easy to tell what your vote is or I might miss it. I'm new to this thing after all. We've also got access to roman numerals for some reason...? Try to keep the name sensible, I guess. Oh, and I'll need a name for our farm as well. Bit of a spoiler, I know, getting a farm in a series about farming, but we do get one soon. It's similarly 6 letters long. Anyways, I'll cut this update here not to make it a pagebuster, even if hardly 20% of the screen shots were even part of the game. Could I have put the FMV in a different post? Yes, but I didn't. Next time we engage the struggles of being an agricultural landowner (actual gameplay) and become acquainted with our neighbors (more dialogue). Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2021 02:34
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TeeQueue posted:Ooh, Rune Factory Frontier. The game that, were it not for one specific mechanic, I probably would still be playing when I felt like I wanted something more relaxed. I still have vaguely fond memories of it, at least. Yeah, I know the one you're talking about. It takes a while to show itself, but show itself it will. Aside from that, it is a pretty good chill experience, and the soundtrack really helps for that. "Vaguely fond memories" describes what I remember too. Exhaustion comes fast in this game, I'd actually forgotten how mechanically small your HP/RP starts in this game compared to the others. BraveLittleToaster posted:Ooh, Rune Factory. I've read the last LPs of some of the other Rune Factory games, played one for myself, it always seemed fascinating. And now with more Anime. The LPs of the other RF games definitely had a role in inspiring me to do this, I'll admit. I haven't seriously played one in years, though I used to be rather invested in the series. I still remember seeing RF1 in Nintendo Power. There is indeed more Anime. I think it's mostly thanks to this game being on a console with more than 128MB of storage to it's carts, and perhaps trying to find their footing somewhat after RF2. Ratoslov posted:And this is the UprIVer farm. Well, there is indeed a wide stream nearby the farm we'll have. Not a full river, but it's there and has just about as many fish. Edit: I'll probably call the votes in about 12 hours unless we end up needing another tiebreaker. I'll just be doing up the portraits for the rest of the cast in the meantime. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Oct 8, 2021 |
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Oct 8, 2021 17:41
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Alright, looks like we're gonna be Bush of Shrub farm. Next update should be out pretty fast after this. There will be plenty of naming opportunities for later when it comes to our tamed monsters.
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Oct 9, 2021 15:14
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AltaBrown posted:I just found this, so my vote's a bit late, but Bush and Shrub are definitely Good Names. I probably could've kept the vote open longer, (it was like barely open for two days,) but I was also really wanting to get around to start recording some gameplay. 5 hours and 5GB of video later... I'm at Spring 10th. It's amazing how the game is simultaneously holding back and throwing so much at you in the early game. This'll be a few updates all on it's own. I'd say the next update should be out within the next two days, easily.
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Oct 9, 2021 20:47
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Update 02: It's Free Real Estate Results of the very short poll are in, and it's been decided that we are Bush of Shrub Farm. I think it's a fitting name.  STELLA: Bush, huh? That's a wonderful name. See, even the nun thinks so! STELLA: By the way, Bush, was this missing girl your sweetheart? BUSH: N-no! It's nothing like that at all!  BUSH: ...But, she is a very important person to me.  STELLA: I see. Well, let's just leave the matter be for now, eh? It's getting late, you should rest. Good night. This will be a subject that comes up occasionally, but it's not nearly as prevalent as you might think.  We fade out as they head for the door on the left, and we finally get some rest. Hey, at least we didn't fall out half-conscious in front of some stranger's house this time!  Music: Goodnight(This is a callback to RF1's sleeping tune, being almost identical but just cleaner. It's typically remixed for reuse throughout the series, and it's always nostalgic hearing it again.) Music: St. Poli Church(Being a new day, the Goodnight theme gives way to the church's dedicated music. It is sufficiently holy. I also don't remember if we ever learn who St. Poli even is.)   BUSH: Thank you for last night, Sister Stella. How can I repay you? STELLA: We must all help each other out in times of need. I'll be praying your search goes well. BUSH: Thank you.  With that, we cut to an FMV showing a light beginning to shine into the church. Are we about to become the chosen one, destined to save the world?  A voice calls out, and the first notes of the title theme start playing.  :UNKNOWN GIRL: Good morning!    Oh, hey, it's you. The one with the candle from the intro.   UNKNOWN GIRL: You are...  --------------- 1. Have we met? 2. Mi-Mist?! ---------------- Dialogue choices! We get a number of these throughout the game, and they rarely matter, but I'll show off the branching dialogue anyways. As the second option suggests, this is indeed Mist, the girl Bush has been looking for and the one whose house he passed out in front of in the first game. She's also got these odd, toe-less boots, and some sort of circlet on. It's never been easy to see, and it's basically defined by that one V between the part in her hair. We've also got some sort of circlet or thin headband that is also very hard to see. Maybe if we act like we don't know her, we can escape our impending gift-of-garbage-farm. ------------------------------- Have we met?  MIST: Of course, Bush.  MIST: It's me, Mist! Don't tell me you forgot. MIST: Ooh, I get it! You must have amnesia again!  BUSH: No...  BUSH: I just couldn't believe it was really you because I never imagined I'd find you so easily, that's all. Alas, the game doesn't let you escape your backstory.  MIST: Haha. Bush, you're still saying such silly things. BUSH: ... Moving to the other branch... ------------------------------- M-Mist?!  MIST: Yes, I'm Mist. And you... You look just like Bush!  BUSH: That's 'cause I AM him! MIST: Oh, what a coincidence to meet a place like this. BUSH: I came looking for you, Mist!! Just wanted to say, if you see weird punctuation or a typo, 99% of the time, it's the game's fault. This game's got it's fair share of translation mishaps, although it's usually good about it most of the time. I'm not going to harp on them, but I am going to joke about them.  STELLA: Ahahaha! So Mist was the missing girl Bush was looking for! That being said, Stella's just talking to nobody specific right now.  MIST: Sister Stella, I didn't know you knew Bush. BUSH: I just happened to stop here for the night while I was looking for you.  BUSH: More importantly, What in the world are you doing here, Mist?! Everyone's worried about you because you left so suddenly. I've found that the second choice in these situations usually ends up giving more dialogue than the first. The two branches meet up somewhere around this point. MIST: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, then could you return to town and tell everyone I'm fine? BUSH: Huh...? You're not coming with me?  MIST: I can't. Someone is calling for me. BUSH: Again, with the nonsense... MIST: I know! Bush, you should stay here! Mist hears the call of the plot, and you're not escaping it, Bush.  BUSH: What?! I can't do that! MIST: If I remember correctly, there's an empty house next to the one I live in.  STELLA: Well, yes, there is, but no one has lived there for so long, it's a mess. Not to mention the farm... MIST: Don't worry. Bush is very skilled at tending to such things. I'm sure he'll clean this one right up! BUSH: Um... I don't remember agreeing to stay here... MIST: Come, Bush. It's this way!  As if by cruel fate, Bush is being roped into managing a run-down farm again. Some early Harvest Moon games would let you just say no and get a game over/ early credits sequence, but this is not one of them.  Music: Spring(This is our first seasonal theme! This one's quite relaxing, but the unfortunate truth of the seasonal themes in this game is that you'll be hearing way too much of them. This game also doesn't remember track placement either, so there's a good chance the opening section will wear its welcome even thinner. Even with all of that, I still, I do quite like this one. It has a feel to it that's rather unique to this game.) MIST: Just down this path! BUSH: Please wait!  STELLA: Bush, once you finish up some work, can you come to my place? BUSH: Sure. I mean, sure why not, we're basically going to be neighbors now.  Staring at the door, rendered still from shock, we can now actually control Bush. While movement in this game isn't as finely tuned as the games that would come after, it's a lot better than RF1 for sure. It's also Spring 2nd, a Monday, as evidenced by the clock at the upper part of the screen. While that may seem arbitrary, this is done because the 1st would've been New Years and thus all the businesses would be closed on our first day as we explore town. This was a notable issue RF1 had. Technically, we did get here on the 1st, but we did sleep at the church, so, uh, here we are. Time doesn't move right now, and we can't enter any other buildings because we're not out of the tutorial yet. 3 seconds of movement down the hill, and we have control taken away from us again.    BUSH: What is that?  MIST: That's Whale Island. It's always in the sky above Trampoli village. The name of the town hasn't been named up until this point, so yes, it's called Trampoli. Also there's a flying whale shaped island in the sky above it. It's always flying whales. What a strange island... I heard there's a cave inside it. Piques your interest doesn't it? -------------- 1. Yeah... 2. Not really. ------------- Meh, I'm sure it'll be entirely irrelevant to the plot. ------------------------------- Not really. I'm not so sure. Mist: Really? You always say things like that but still go out on adventures, Bush. Okay fine, you got me, I do want to know about the rock whale. ------------------------------- Yeah...  BUSH: Yeah. How does an island float above the clouds like that? MIST: I'm sure you'll be able to find the answer to that, Bush. I just know it. Surprisingly, the answer to this question is really quite easy to find.  MIST: Anyway, let's go. Follow me. It's this way. With that, we head off across the bridge we came from last night.     We get many establishing shots of the surrounding area.  MIST: This is your new home, Bush. How do you like it? Isn't it great? Well, it's a lot prettier than the old one.  BUSH: Um... Well... I guess so... I can understand Bush's reluctance though-  -this field is pretty awful... and I mean that mechanically. We got some garbage RNG here- just terrible spawns. My test run had a lot better field than this. Oh well, I guess it's got a decent bit of open space. Said open space won't last long, but it's there! Not speaking mechanically, it's a free house with farmland in the front, Bush, what more could you want?  MIST: Feel free to use this house and the farm in front however you like. MIST: You know what? We should give your farm a name.  "Mist" was the default name in the first game too. I'm sure you can guess why.  We'll be going with Shrub Farm, as per thread vote.  MIST: That's a great name. I think it suits the place.  BUSH: I hope you weren't planning on saying that no matter what I named it. She in fact, was. She has this response to everything you name your farm, even Farm Farm. The only thing that nets a different response is the default: ----------------------------------------   MIST: "Mist Farm"? Sounds like a name that could spread across town in a wink. BUSH: Ahahaha... You think so? It's not even your farm this time, Mist. Hell, I don't even know by what authority you're allowed to give this to us. ----------------------------------------  MIST: It's gonna be great to have you here. See you later! She then walks away for a second, visibly remembers something, then walks back. This was her main sort of quirk in the first game.    MIST: I almost forgot! You're going to need this. You got Cheap Hoe! You got Cheap Can! Somehow, Mist has managed to find another batch of junk tools to bestow upon us as she once did before. They go well with our equally garbage farm. We'll work on fixing it up in time, but it won't come quickly.  Bush shows us that he still knows what to do with these.  MIST: It looks good on you. Don't forget to fill the watering can with water before using it. Common sense, and also the information that these junk tools are apparently a fashion statement. I'm sure Evelyn from RF3 would be happy to know about this.  MIST: You definitely have a knack for being an Earthmate, Bush. I can tell by just looking at you. Probably gonna have to explain this as well, as I don't believe the game really ever covers what this means. Earthmates are a plot point in most Rune Factory games as your protagonist is either one or has powers similar to one (RF3, ToD). You've got some deeper connection to the spirits of the world, which makes you good at farming and whatnot, alongside communicating to dragons. In practice, it means if there's some ancient device or ritual, we're probably needed to start or stop it. And yeah, uh, that's pretty much it. The royal knights of Norad, (the kingdom we're in,) are all probably earthmates, and we also have some sort of secret language we made up but mostly forgot, as per RF2. I wouldn't put it past this game to forget this plot point up until the end like the first game, or just entirely. Oh, and another thing. I wanted to give this to you, Bush. It's a Turnip Seed.You got Turnip Seed!  MIST: I'll be looking forward to those turnips.  BUSH: ... Does this mean I have to give her some turnips later...? Take a wild guess what items she likes.  With the clock starting to finally move, the game has finally started. That being said, this game opens up gradually and will play the majority of it's cards over the course of the next update or three. If you've played a Rune Factory game before, you might notice something odd. It's basically a given in these games that they throw you a tutorial on how to farm immediately, and with that, a random monster will show up to give you the barest understanding of combat. Frontier does neither of these. In fact, I'm pretty sure it never even does the latter. Some characters will periodically offer farming advice and short tutorials in the early game as well as a step-by-step guide in your house, but mentions of combat are brief to nonexistent. Just an observation.  We can also finally open our menu. We brought absolutely nothing with us aside from 500g, so all we've got is the stuff Mist gave us. This is gonna be an fixer-upper operation from the ground up.  And when I say Bush brought absolutely nothing with him, I mean even physically. He's go no skill in anything, even farming, which he's supposedly good at. This is our status screen. There's a lot to cover here, and I've got more to get to in this update, so covering all of this will wait until later. HP is HP, and RP is effectively our stamina & mana bar. You might be surprised to see that our RP is a massive 500 max which puts the two previous games to shame, with their 100 RP permanent maximums. It is simultaneously both as good as it looks, and also not. You'll see soon enough that 500 does not last nearly as long as you might think it would.  We do not have a barn. It will be quite some time before we get a barn, but when we do, we can check it any time from this menu.  Options! I can disable the motion controls if I want, but this is already on emulator, so uh  Had we any recipe books for crafting, they would be here.   "Stella- The very person that made Trampoli what it is today. Considered the town's mother." And on this page, we can psychically check other people's opinions of us, as well as watch them spin slowly in our brainspace.   "Mist- The girl next door. A bit aloof and random but is very nice. Likes Turnips." You can't zoom up or anything. Also, for as much a friend as Bush thinks Mist is, she doesn't really care about him. A flat 0/0 Friendship and Love.  But as I said earlier, this farm spawn is bad. Unlike RF1, the starting layout is random, and this one has no bamboo shoots. My test file had three, and they're worth 110g each when sold. I guess we're gonna have to work a bit harder for our early money then.  All the non-rock, non-wood objects in our field can be picked up. The majority of what you see is weeds, but some of these are minorly useful herbs. They'll be better later if we get a pharmacy.  I pick the upper right part of the field to use for now as it's closer to a water source, and luckily somewhat clear already. After tilling the wrong tile, and whiffing a blow against the impenetrable grass, I till the tile I meant to and become more skilled at farming. This reduces the cost of RP it takes to swing our farming implements, which means we are slightly more fit. Our maximum RP will never improve from that 500, so skilling up is the only way to make farming more efficient in terms of personal growth.  These games are all about tilling 3x3s. You can see how our RP has already taken a hefty dent from just this.  One must have water in their watering can to water crops. Unfortunately, this can only holds up to 12 tiles of water, which is annoyingly little given that watering crops is the job you have to do nearly every day. Trying to keep my crops close to the water will lessen the length of the refill trips, but the refill trips will be many.  Rune Factory 3 would go on to alleviate a good amount of the garbage tool blues by allowing the hoe to chain up to three swings and letting the player keep using the watering can as you walk, but this game provides no such luxury. This thing is first on the list to be upgraded, for sure.  This is why we farm in 3x3s. All the seeds in the series up until RF4 are just thrown in a big circle around you. We can walk through all of our crops in this game, so there's no need to leave some tiles out like in other Harvest Moon games. I can't begin to tell you how nice that is.  Ah, idyllic. Nothing like the sight of freshly sown soil. Anyways, let's go bug some people.  If we head down the right path from our farm, we find Mist's house. It's safe to say Bush was very close to just finding Mist from the start last night.  MIST: Bush, are you using the "Return Magic" spell? Ah, yes, random tutorial. BUSH: Return magic? MIST: Yes. It's a spell that returns you to where you can be at peace. Using this will instantly bring you back to your home. MIST: It's a very nice spell that also takes you back to the entrance when using it in the dungeons. BUSH: That sounds pretty convenient... How do I use it? MIST: It's very simple. Just press the 2 Button and select "Return". MIST: As long as you have this, you can easily escape even when surrounded by monsters!  MIST: Plus, it doesn't use any RP. Isn't thast great? Get used to a bit of fourth wall breaking for a while as the tutorials persist. BUSH: That sounds incredible. MIST: But, sometimes it's unavailable for some reason. A.K.A.: Plot reasons. BUSH: What?! What if that happens when I'm fighting monsters?  MIST: Well there's that saying, "Only God knows." BUSH: Oh, come on... To be fair, the effects of this spell was split into two different ones in Rune Factory 1, so it'd actually make some sense that Bush doesn't know what it is. It's not even really a spell though, just a menu function, and we just kinda innately have it without actively learning or anything, so I don't really know what to tell you. Anyways, I'm going to keep talking until she runs out of new stuff to say.  MIST: Good morning, Bush. MIST: It's so warm. MIST: The other day, I dreamt of climbing a giant beanstalk to get to Whale Island. MIST: It would be wonderful if such a beanstalk actually existed. Ah, that'll never happen, I'm sure. A good number of lines in this game are actually voiced. Mist always draws her words out a bit long, sounding as if she's slightly high, which is basically in character for her. It hasn't shown itself fully, but "aloof and random" from the Relationships page is a pretty effective description of how she is. Whether or not she's just airheaded or is actually a social mastermind, manipulating us strategically is up to you to decide. I'm just partially convinced she's smoking those turnips. Uh, you'll see what I mean later. (I'm going to be saying that a lot aren't I.)  MIST: I like seeing people who work by the sweat of their brow. Is it truly coincidence she's given us two different farms? Or are we her unwitting supply of turnips? This is also her generic line that lets you know she's out of fun stuff to say. We'll be seeing this even into the late game, as conversations work a bit differently in this game than in the adjacent releases.  Regardless of Mist's true form, Stella's got a job for us and it begins a short quest chain to meet the other folks of Trampoli. BUSH: What is it? STELLA: I'm glad you could come. Can you do me a favor and take this Bamboo Shoot to Turner at the inn? BUSH: To Turner at the inn? STELLA: The inn is all the way west. It's right around the corner. The fat man there is Turner. I feel like there's a better identifier you could use than just calling him "the fat man", but okay, Stella. BUSH: All right.  You got Bamboo Shoot! STELLA: Oh, and if you don't know where the inn is, just look at the map. : BUSH: The map? STELLA: Press the 2 Button to look at the map at any time. It should help you a lot. The map is useful at first, but mostly irrelevant once you know your way around town. STELLA: There are maps in the village, too, so you should look at those, as well. Lots of commas there. The maps in town just pull up the same map, so they're just slightly less convenient but more immersive I guess.  STELLA: I'm counting on you to get the "Bamboo Shoot" to Turner.  Here is said map. Finding your way around town isn't really hard in this game, it's finding the other people and memorizing their schedules that proves challenging.  To the left side of town we go! We'll fully explore everything later. I know I'm already going to have to cut this update a tad short thanks to all the dialogue and new content. Later updates will cover a lot more than this.  Music: Trampoli(Another new track! This plays, hilariously, in less areas of the town than the seasonal theme does. It's also unaffected by season, so you'll be hearing this throughout the entire game.) We finally enter Trampoli proper, though you'll find that the living density is barely higher than the other places we've been. Such is life in a small hamlet like Trampoli.   [Danny's Groceries] - Closed for preparations.  [Damascus] - Closed for preparations. There's some buildings, but they're closed until we do the next part of the questline. At least "Groceries" is a better name than "PARTS". I feel like the blacksmith's sign might be nigh unreadable on older televisions, as this is being done with 2x native resolution.  To the "INN" we go then.  Music: Business District Buildings  UNKNOWN GIRL: Oh! Are you a customer?  Oh, hey, a new face!   UNKNOWN GIRL: Dad! We have a customer! Where are you, Dad?! She quickly runs down the stairs.   UNKNOWN GIRL: I'm sorry for being so hasty. I'm still unsure of what this means.  UNKNOWN GIRL: Well, umm...  UNKNOWN GIRL: W-welcome! Will you be staying? You are staying, right?!  UNKNOWN GIRL: U-umm... That'll be 100 Gold. Will you be staying?  ---------------------------- 1. No, I didn't come here fore that... 2. Yes, please. ---------------------------- With a sales pitch like that, how could I say no? Yes, please. BUSH: Uh, yes, please.  UNKNOWN GIRL: Thank you very much. Enjoy your stay. Music: Goodnight UNKNOWN GIRL: G-good morning. UNKNOWN GIRL: ... UNKNOWN GIRL: Um... I heard this from Mist yesterday...  UNKNOWN GIRL: You just moved in next to her, right? UNKNOWN GIRL: You could have said something! Y-you're horrible.. BUSH: Sorry... I just couldn't bring myself to say it. I'm Bush. I just moved in next to Mist. Nice to meet you.  EUNICE: I'm Eunice. My family runs the inn. Nice to meet you, too. Apparently Bush must have went to sleep immediately because it was just noon when I got here yesterday. Somehow these two didn't communicate this in all that time.  Also, yes, the game does take the 100g from you and change the day over. That's commitment to the joke right there. And that's that. This update is getting a bit long, so I'll cut it here and we'll finish off the, uh, first day and the proper timeline next time. In hindsight, maybe I really should've just put the opening FMV in a separate update. ...Nah. But before we go, a word from our esteemed guest on today's lesson of Amnesic Agriculture 102:  EUNICE: I love sweets! You heard it here first, folks. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2021 00:29
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BraveLittleToaster posted:Can’t wait to get a look at the diverse cast of characters and latch onto the weirdest one of the lot. Also, I’m impressed the joke choice actually mattered. Well, it's Rune Factory, so we're gonna have a quirky cast no matter what, even the first game managed it. Next update will be quite a flood of new characters, and they'll keep on showing up for quite a long while. I love that they went through with the joke. Sure, it wastes the day and costs you early money, but I have only respect for them actually going through with it. Dr Pepper posted:I put hundreds of hours into this game. I love it by and large. Oh, fantastic! I was hoping someone who thoroughly enjoyed this game would check into the thread at some point. Looking forward to what you've got to say as the LP moves forward, if you don't mind sharing. It's definitely one of the slowest paced games in the series, but it definitely doesn't leave you with nothing to do like RF1 and RF2's 1st generation were prone to doing. It has a lot more room for letting you find your way around rather than being guided along, something RF3 admittedly battled with regularly thanks to the size limitations of the DS cart. 4.3 GB versus 128 MB offers a lot more, and I would've loved to see what RF3 could've been with that amount of room at it's disposal- it's safe to say this game knows how to use it.
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Oct 11, 2021 06:33
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Update 03: In Which The First Day Is EndedMusic: Business District Buildings (I forgot to comment on this track last time because I linked the track for the inn's nighttime theme. This one's nice, though it's very prone to you hearing just the opening bit as it plays in every building in this area.) Right, last time we spent 100g on a inn stay we didn't need. Prepare the time paradox. ---------------------------------------- No, I didn't come here for that.  BUSH: No, I didn't come here to stay over. BUSH: I'm Bush. I just moved in next to Mist, so I came to say hi. That's not why we're here, but okay, sure. It's a better introduction than "I need to give a bamboo shoot to your dad".  EUNICE: Oh, really? I'm sorry I babbled on and on without knowing that. EUNICE: I'm Eunice. My family runs the inn... But, I guess you can tell just by looking. Nice to meet you.  EUNICE: At night, the bar next to the inn will be open so please come whenever you feel like it. That's about all she's got to say for now.  BUSH: It's a fireplace. The fire's dying down though. You can also inspect some things in people's houses. Not that many things, but still. I'll show these off when I can find them.  Eunice- The innkeeper's daughter. Loves housework but suffers from her father's genes. Here is Eunice's profile- she's one of our potential marriage candidates for the distant future. Every character has Friendship Points (FP) and Love Points (LP) designated by the smiley and the heart respectively. These numbers max out at 10, and the bar is the progress to the next point. You may notice that Mist is slightly starting to like us, presumably from the farm work we're doing. Characters who you can't romance will never gain LP, but for whatever reason the profiles still show the bar. It should be mostly obvious who we can and cannot marry, but I'll point it out anyways. I'll get deeper into explaining the mechanics somewhere later, when we have time to focus on LP. Right now, we've got bamboo to deliver.  Up the stairs we go. There's a variety of rooms in here, though nobody's in them.  Going back downstairs, Turner is suddenly at the reception desk. He's a man of stealth.   TURNER: Hey. You must be bush. How do you do? TURNER: Sorry if my Eunice caused you any trouble. BUSH: Haha... TURNER: I'm Turner, the owner of this inn. BUSH: Hello.  BUSH: (Ah! Didn't Stella tell me to give Turner a Bamboo Shoot?) Yeah, we should do that.  This is just a short bit to teach you that you can give people stuff. In the realms of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, the best way to obtain friendship is bribery.   TURNER: It's from Stella, right? Thanks. TURNER: Since it's on the way, can you call Ganesha the blacksmith for me? The forge is north of the inn. The fetch quest continues. Before we go on with that, let's see what other stuff Turner has to say. TURNER: Hi, Bush.  TURNER: Welcome. Does I look like I just stand around all day? TURNER: I'm actually really busy. I organize the payment slips and listen to customer requests among other things. ...I don't see any customers, though.   Up the stairs again, we find this lady, already identified as Rita.  RITA: Are you new here? BUSH: Nice to meet you. My name is Bush. I just moved here.  RITA: Oh, welcome then. I'm Rita. I'm hostess of this bar, "Snowstyle". RITA: It's a bar but we also sell food. Come by if you feel like eating anything. The bar will be open at night.  RITA: But, you probably shouldn't drink Bush. We can, in fact, purchase very expensive wine and drink it to no ill effects. Rita can be found here on most days until the bar is open. She's Eunice's mother, though it leads one to wonder: which side gave her the green hair and purple eyes?  Anime genetics are complicated. Eunice is usually found doing some sort of cleaning work around the inn. Today's laundry day, apparently.  Through the other door outside (or the other set of stairs on the second floor) is the tavern proper, but it doesn't open until late in the day. I'll remember to stop by here eventually, but it won't be for a few updates. With that... fetch quest, away!   Nice place.   GANESHA: Are you new? BUSH: Yes. I just moved here and my name is Bush. Get used to Bush introducing himself for quite a while.  GANESHA: I'm Ganesha. As you can see, I'm a blacksmith. So the RF series has elves, because fantasy! Every game in the series has had at least one, but they're not the only ones around with pointy ears. Ganesha's probably got the biggest ears in the series.   GANESHA: Ahahaha. What? You never saw an elven blacksmith before? She is in fact, the only fully elven blacksmith I know of. Elves usually work in housekeeping industries in this series for some reason. BUSH: Um, no. I guess.. GANESHA: You're an honest one. I like you. GANESHA: Elven blacksmiths are rare, but I can recommend with confidence anything I sell! GANESHA: I'm especially proud of the relief on the edge of this Shield...  BUSH: N-no, I'm not here to shop. I came here because Turner... GANESHA: Turner? Oh, he must have chipped the blade on the kitchen knife again. I'll go later. He's so hopeless... GANESHA: Bush, was it? Thanks for telling me. Just come to my store at any time.  GANESHA: Oh, can I ask you for something else? The fetch quest continues. BUSH: What is it? GANESHA: Can you give Danny of the General Store the payment for my tab? The general store is right next to my place. BUSH: All right. GANESHA: Thanks.  Said tab is 100g, apparently. Ganesha's cool though, so I'm not going to run off with the money.  The fetch quest can wait, Ganesha's too awesome for that. It's worth noting that her default expression is actually the wink, and every time you start a conversation with her, she changes back to neutral.  GANESHA: I might not compare to dwarven blacksmiths in strength, but I can say with confidence that my detailed work is unequaled! GANESHA: The selling points of my equipment are that they have both form and function. GANESHA: That engraving on the edge of the blade is something that not all blacksmiths can do.   Ganesha sells basic weapons and element crystals. Her stock gets better later, but we'll definitely rely on those basic weapons if we ever want to be a blacksmith ourselves.  Here's a better look at her giant gently caress-off hammer that she swings pretty easily. So, about that "dwarven strength"... Anyways, she also has a son, Marco, but he's hard to find so it takes me a bit to meet him. Alas, we now resume the fetch quest.  Grocery shopping, away!   DANNY: A customer? You're not? What do you want? Who are you? whoa slow down there  BUSH: H-hello. My name is Bush and I just moved here.  DANNY: Oh, so you're just making your rounds? I'm the owner of the general store and the name's Danny! Nice to meet you! Given the poses of the characters, I always found it a bit odd that Danny just stares straight at us instead of having that sorta-3/4ths pose everyone else has.  BUSH: Nice to meet you, too. Mr. Danny. DANNY: You don't need to call me that. Just "Danny" is fine.  DANNY: I'm the only general store in the village so even if you don't like it, don't complain! I don't think that's how it works, Danny. BUSH: Oh... DANNY: What did you come to buy? Seeds? Accessories? BUSH: No, I didn't come here to buy anything... DANNY: You're not a customer? Then get out. I don't have time for window shoppers. Not even giving us a chance to talk. Funnily enough, this is the most talkative he'll be all game- this isn't his quirk or anything. He usually has very little to say.  BUSH: No, I brought some money from Ganesha... DANNY: Oh. DANNY: One, two... Yup. All there. BUSH: I'll be going now. Bush is outta here. Let's go before he asks us to- DANNY: Wait. drat. BUSH: Yes?  DANNY: You're going around greeting everyone, right? Oh, here we go again DANNY: Then can you go to Erik and do something for me?  BUSH: Again? "Listen, mate, I didn't sign up for any of this nonsense" DANNY: Again? BUSH: Never mind. So, someone named Erik? DANNY: Yeah. Erik lives in the house with a field straight south of here. BUSH: All right.  DANNY: Thanks. Oh, and buy something next time. But, uh, what are we supposed to do about Erik, Danny?  DANNY: I got some seeds in stock so buy some. Danny, you're not helping DANNY: It's spring but it's still really cold. wow, i didnt notice maybe you should close your pec window or whatever, now what am i supposed to do about erik DANNY: This is so far into the countryside.  Also, I have no idea what Ganesha bought here for 100g. The cooking oil is 260g, and the accessories are over 500g. Did she buy 10 turnip seeds?  Also, yeah, turnip seeds cost 10g in this game. The market on those things just died apparently, as they were worth 200g or more in previous games. 10g is as much as a weed sells for. Really.  Anyways, let's go see what Erik has to say.  Music: SpringThis is just to the left of our farm. In fact, just a little south from here is the only entrance to Trampoli...  So in the intro, Bush went past these two houses, the empty homestead house, and then arbitrarily took a turn towards the church. Had he continued forward he would have found Mist's house. Had he taken that turn left earlier, he would've ended up at the Snowstyle Inn or he could have asked the residents of these two houses about her. seriously, Bush, how did you end up in front of the church of all things  Oh, hey, are you Erik?  Music: Kross' Theme(This is a really nice theme, and plays basically any time you talk to this guy. I'm sure this has nothing to do with plot relevance! I like just humming along to this.)  SOFT SPOKEN GUY: Heh... SOFT SPOKEN GUY: ...Are you new here? BUSH: Nice to meet you. I just moved here and my name is Bush. And you are...?  SOFT SPOKEN GUY: You... don't need to know what my name is. The villagers always forget it anyway. BUSH: Um... Are you Kross? Hello.   KROSS: ...?! How do you know my name?! BUSH: Huh? It's written on your mailbox. BUSH: You really write your name with really cute letters, Kross.  KROSS: That isn't my writing. I'm sure the mailman just wrote it herself out of consideration. KROSS: You should take a look inside your mailbox some time. It should be in front of your house. KROSS: Heh... Now then, I should get back to work. I should note that these are sighs rather than laughs. "Heh..." is just how they chose to represent it.   KROSS: Your name was Bush, was it? When you need some help, don't hesitate to ask. Just come to me when you want extensions. ---------------------------- 1. I just came to chat. 2. I'd like to expand my house. ---------------------------- Kross is indeed our resident carpenter. He will be quite instrumental to our run-down farm fixer-upper operation. There's another guy we'll meet in a few days who will be the other major help. KROSS: Hi. Oh, it's you.  KROSS: Answer me, tree stump. What is a house and what are extensions... KROSS: Even if you break the stumps, a despairing tomorrow awaits you because you don't know when it can come back. KROSS: Why, oh why, do I swing the axe...?  BUSH: That's a sad song... KROSS: Heh... Yes. When I was young, a man I knew very well the man who wrote that song... And anyone who has played RF1 or 2 knows the pain it speaks of.  KROSS: Did you know? No one wants to grow dead grass... KROSS: Heh...  KROSS: But it always ends up like that. Nothing more, nothing less. He has a number of these songs. Hell, a good portion of his dialogue are simply these. To avoid any more depression, let's see what it takes to upgrade our house some.  --------------------------------- 1. I want to build a kitchen. 2. I want to build a laboratory. 3. I want to build a forge. 4. I want a bedroom. 5. Never mind. --------------------------------- Sure, uh, kitchen. Why not?  ---------------------- 1. I'd like a Bulging Kitchen Area. 2. I'd like a Ba-Bump Kitchen Area. 3. I'd like a Pointy Kitchen Area. 4. Back. ---------------------- "Uh, what?" is probably the reaction most players have to this. So, the extensions you add to your house are visible from the outside, and you can pick the style.  KROSS: The only difference between this kitchen area and others is the look, not function. So choose whichever you like. KROSS: Let's see...  KROSS: You're gonna need 120 lumber and 10,000 gold. Are you all right with that? Kross's costs are pretty cheap on the whole, which is a great relief coming from the terrifying grinds of RF1 and RF2. Still, ten grand is far out of our price range right now- we have only 500g.  KROSS: You don't have enough lumber. Don't worry. I'm sure you'll have enough soon. Oh, that too. We, uh, won't have enough soon. We don't even have an axe.  Well, let's go to the other house and hopefully be done with this fetch quest business.   Music: Town Buildings(This theme plays only in Erik's house, Mist's house, and the Rune Archives, a.k.a. the library I've skipped over for the moment. As result, you really don't hear much of it.) That's a lot of vegetables.   ERIK: Hello, young man!  ERIK: I'm Erik and I run this farm. Nice to meet you! BUSH: Nice to meet you. I'm Bush. I just moved in next door. ERIK: Oh, in that house with the large field? If you need any advice about your field, you can ask me any time. Yeah, Erik is the designated farming tutorial dispenser. I know how to play this game and I can explain it pretty simply, so we won't need his-  ERIK: W-what? Do I have a girlfriend? ERIK: I can't tell you! Hahaha! I... didn't ask.  BUSH: ... BUSH: I didn't ask... Hey, I already said that. ERIK: Then why are you here? BUSH: I have something from Danny... ...?  BUSH: ...Uh... I don't know what I'm supposed to ask you for... This is true.  ERIK: You're quite young and immature for running off without hearing what to do, young man! Hey, he wouldn't tell us! ERIK: But I know the situation. The seed that he wanted has just arrived. Thank you for relaying the message. What seed? More turnip seeds?  ERIK: Oh, right. I can share the crops I grow at my farm with you. Just ask. Erik also sells stuff, primarily the seeds for vegetables other than turnips, although he sells those too. He sells some produce as well, just in case you're not feeling it when it comes to growing it yourself. ERIK: If you want to know anything about farming, just ask me.  ERIK: W-what? Do I have a girlfriend? Not this again... BUSH: Give that a rest... Even Bush is on my side with this one. Anyways, that's Erik's quirk. He's basically the same age as us, but thinks he's older than he is and is, uh... vocally insecure about not having a girlfriend.  ERIK: When the weather is good, the crops grow really well! The crops are so full of energy today! Actually, outside of tornadoes messing up your field and rain watering your crops for free, the weather has no effect on crop growth. There's something else that does, but it's not weather. Evidently, Erik doesn't know the mechanics of farming as well I do   ERIK: Young man! Crops in the field will wither at the end of a season! You must be careful! ERIK: Then will crops not wither if they're grown where the season doesn't change? Where in the world would that be, then?! Really not as far away as you think, actually. Crops withering at the end of the season is a classic farming sim mechanic that was only done away with in this series with the release of RF4, in which crops could care less if there's a blizzard as long as you've got enough compost. This bit of dialogue is a reference to farming inside dungeons. It'll be another few updates before we get there, but be assured it's something we can do. It's a staple of the series to treat dungeons like greenhouses.  ERIK: There is an old legend that says turnips that go through another season become monsters and start trashing your field. Unless said turnip monsters grow up into a girl named Mist who regularly gives us trashed fields, I don't believe it. ERIK: But when morning comes, those monster turnips run out of strength and dry up. ERIK: B-b-but I'm not scared of it at all. Yeah sure, whatever. Erik might be slightly patronizing, but let's check out his stock.  Yeah, now this is the good stuff. Danny's store is even redundant because Erik sells turnip seeds here as well. Although, it's worth noting that Erik doesn't spend all his time at the counter, so buying from him takes somewhat more precise timing over, say, Danny, but as this is the only means of getting these other seeds we just have to put up with it. What I want to know is why there's no farmer's catalogue or something we can order our own seeds from instead of having to deal with the middleman here.  Also this place is bloody expensive, or rather, everything but turnips and fodder is expensive. Fodder seeds are the next cheapest at 30g a bag, with the next cheapest being strawberries at 200g. Everything here pays for itself pretty well once it grows, and the plants that can be harvested multiple times can make us lots of money. If you put them where the season doesn't change, well, it's infinite money as long as you put up with watering them. For now, I buy 3 more turnip seeds and 2 strawberry seeds. Strawberries will be useful in the coming days, and the turnips will make us a surprising amount of early cash.  With that, we're free from the introductory quest and have met everyone living in town  ...Nah, let's go explore a bit.   Nothing here looks out of the ordinary at all.  A branching path lets us head a little bit further up the mountain.   The path up the mountain branches again and leaves us a side area that has two trees and this empty flat area. These have uses, but it'll be a bit before either becomes relevant.  We can also hit 1 on the wiimote to look at the sky. ...That's it.   Back down a bit and following the initial path to the right brings us to Lake Poli. It's bigger than the business district, though it's not that big a lake.  There's also a free gondola here. We're not gonna mess around with it today, but it's how we get to those other bits of land. Anyways, let's go home and do that farming thing we're supposed to be doing or something.  Here's the Return spell in action- just compressing out of the universe must hurt a bit.  Back on the farm, there is much weeding to be done. Interestingly, you can make a surprising bit of early profit from just selling weeds. Actually growing something is far more profitable, but every gold piece matters right now.  Oh, and Mist has nothing to do for a good portion of her day so she comes and watches you work pretty regularly. She did this in RF1 as well.  If you like seeing us work so much, why don't you help? Or are you just here to oversee my contribution to your underground turnip operation?   Here, look what I found.  MIST: Thank you, but don't give me your trash. It's worth 10g! You can buy a whole bag of turnip seeds with that! Unfortunately, if you give someone something that's not plot important, they will keep it even if they hate it.  Well, whatever. It's worth noting that my hoe can't even break these branches- they fully obstruct me from using this space for gardening right now. The same goes for those groups of little rocks that you see scattered about. The handheld releases just let you pick these up. In practice it means our field will look terrible and completely unorganized in the early days.   I plant wherever I can for now.  To the left is our giant shipping box. You can either pull something out and put it in manually...  Or you can just move stuff straight from your inventory to and from it. The shipping box is not an all consuming beast in this game and will let you freely remove and add items to it. Pretty convenient, really. It even tells you how much you'll make! As I head back out to the field it hits 5:00.  Uh, why are we fading to white?  1. I was right next to the shipping bin, why are you suddenly coming from this direction, Bush? 2. Who is stealing my herbs and weeds I was shipping out?   BLONDE GIRL: I'm getting what's in the shipping box right now. Just a second. Oh, neat, she's not stealing our weeds. If you were wondering who actually takes the stuff I'm selling, the game is ready to answer that and the answer isn't Danny. Jokes aside, this event will trigger in the early game as long as you're near your shipping bin at around 5PM- it can even be triggered on the first day, as I've done here. BLONDE GIRL: I can't sell your harvested crops unless I do this. I better come to collect it everyday. With this, she closes the lid and turns around to face us. BLONDE GIRL: Huh...?   ROSETTA: Oh! It's you, Bush! It's me, Rosetta, from the general store in the town you came from. Returning characters, ahoy! I don't think it's been specified how long Bush traveled to get here, but given that Rosetta can get here in one day and back, I don't think it's actually that far. Which also means we've been gone from the town for like, two days at the most. Apparently Bush must have been quite reclusive to need an introduction like this. That, or she thinks we have amnesia again. (It could also just be that I'm not supposed to trigger this event this early, but  ) ROSETTA: I was wondering where you disappeared off to. What are you doing here? BUSH: I live here. ROSETTA: Oh, really? I came to collect the items in the shipping box because I heard someone new had moved here.   ROSETTA: So it was you, Bush. You should have told me... ROSETTA: So, what are you doing here? You already asked that. BUSH: Mist said she needed to do something here. She lives right next door.  ROSETTA: So you tagged along and now you're living together?! ROSETTA: What is she doing here? We're playing 20 questions at this point, aren't we? BUSH: I don't know... ROSETTA: *sigh...* I never know what she's thinking.  ROSETTA: You have to be more independent... *sigh* Forget about it. ROSETTA: You have to "ship" your harvest crops to make money. Just put your crops in this "Shipping Box" and consider it shipped. ROSETTA: I'll be here everyday at 5 in the afternoon to collect what's in the shipping box. So be sure to put it in here by then.  ROSETTA: Vegetables, minerals, dishes, fish, grass and even trees, can be shipped off. BUSH: Thank you. ROSETTA: Well, I hope we'll get along. The cutscene is over, but we can still chat her up as she figures out what to do with the weeds I put in the box.  BUSH: By the way, Rosetta. ROSETTA: Yes? BUSH: This village already has a general store. Do you have the time to be collecting the things in the shipping boxes?  ROSETTA: It's okay. You snooze, you lose, you know? ROSETTA: You have to keep expanding your market. This is Rosetta's main thing, she's basically entrepreneur extraordinaire. She's good at business, she knows marketing, and she knows capitalism. If there's money to be made, she'll make it. If there's a profitable opportunity, she'll take it.  ROSETTA: Does Mist come here every day? Basically, yeah. She's still over there.  ROSETTA: Well, it's not like I care or anything.  You sure about that?  ROSETTA: Go a bunch of crops and then ship it all out! I'll be waiting! As in, waiting here? It's gonna take about 6 days for those turnips to grow or something like that.  I guess that's as good a cue as ever to get back to the farming. I prioritize getting the strawberries in the ground first so I can get maximum profit from them.  When you run out of RP, all of your actions start using your HP instead. Rune Factory games after this one apply a very high multipler, but they also had scaling RP and better ways to restore it so it not as bad as it sounds. In Frontier, we can just treat our HP like a reserve RP bar, but it's dangerous to forget that it's 1/5th the size presently. 15 RP isn't much, but 15 HP is a lot. The only way to increase HP is by leveling up in combat and increasing our Vitality stat, and it's not a fast growth on either. With poor Bush about to keel over from exhaustion for the second day in a row, I decide it's about time we hit the bed.  Music: Trampoli Daily Life(I suppose a more appropriate title is Daily Life - Trampoli. This is a remix of the RF1 house theme named Daily Life. It's a nice tune nonetheless, though you'll hear a lot of it during lengthy crafting sessions.) It's only been about 200 screenshots since we recieved it, but we finally enter our house. It's pretty cozy in here and nowhere near as run-down as our field is. We'll check out the house some other time- Bush needs his sleep.  See you next time, where we're finally not on the first day of the game. In fact, we get through 2 days! Look forward to it! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2021 17:35
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BraveLittleToaster posted:I find it a bit odd that the general store owner Danny apparently lets people put their purchases on a tab. A turnip seed tab. you know those days you just ain't got the cash for the turnip seed It's kinda interesting Frontier has this fetch quest, because the majority of the games don't really bother. RF3 does directly make you meet everyone, but there's no delivery chain or forced order involved. You just find 'em yourself. As for the other characters, there's gonna be a pretty big influx of new characters over the next ten days. The place basically doubles in size. That being said, we don't really ever leave the town, dungeons excluded. Black Robe posted:There's like six houses, it's not as if he can't find them when it's time to pay up. He's the only general store in town, so don't complain about it either.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:58
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Update 04: Dirt Nap Music: Trampoli Daily Life*Someone knocking on our door* Welcome back! Apparently someone needs our help at 6AM in the morning. It's probably Mist or something, but who knows?  Music: SpringGotta finish putting those double layered gloves on first. Can't answer the door unless we look like we always do.  Oh, hey, mail.  I think it's entirely too early for Bush to be doing this, though part of it may just be him remembering that everything that happened yesterday was not an extended dream.   ANETTE: You have to fill out an application if you moved!  BUSH: I-I'm sorry. By the way, those things next to her are woolies. They're like bipedal sheep with floppy ears and effectively the series mascot.   ANETTE: Never mind. ANETTE: Here you go. I have some mail for you.  BUSH: Mail...? Bush's only concept of mail is festival flyers stuffed in his mailbox from the town mayor sneaking out at midnight to advertise said festivals that everyone already knows about. Kardia's an interesting place.   ANETTE: Yup. I'm Anette. I deliver the mail here in Trampoli.  ANETTE: And you? BUSH: Oh... I'm Bush. ANETTE: Oh. Nice to meet you, Bush.  And with that she runs off.   BUSH: Anette... So you're a mailman. Wouldn't it be mailwoman? BUSH: Oh right, I got some mail. Let's see...  ------------------------- Welcome. Nice to meet you! From Anette. -------------------------  BUSH: ...Thanks very much, Anette. Anette's the fourth of our potential romance options, and the answer to who actually delivers our mail. There's no post office in Trampoli, so she presumably comes from somewhere else. This means she's only in town for a few hours after completing her mail route. That being said, she comes by our house at the same time (6:30 AM) every day, so it's really hard to miss a chance to talk to her. I will still somehow do this very often. She won't start her route proper until tomorrow, so this is all we'll see of her today.  Our shrub farm has produced more natural bounty for us on this day. The colored herbs are a Harvest Moon staple "weed", but they happen to be useful for crafting medicines and what not. They heal really minor amounts of HP on their own if you're desperate. That bright green plant is a Medicinal Herb which has sadly been nerfed from the strength of it's earlier incarnations. On it's own, it heals 7 HP, but they can be turned into much better potions later. Well... somewhat better potions later. They kinda nerfed medicine in general. Stockpiling these will be beneficial in the long run, so I pick them up on sight.  As tilled ground just stays tilled, we only have to water our plants to maintain them. We shouldn't be as deathly tired today after handling our crops. Right now, all of our crops are in the process of growing, as plants do, but the earliest visual state for any crop looks identical. So if you were applying fertilizer or something and forgot what was what, I guess it could be a problem.  Still got a number of seeds left over from yesterday, as I was barely able to get just the strawberries planted and watered without dying. Farming is serious business.  Just as I finish planting the next set, it hits 9:00, so it's time to go chat up the town.  MIST: Good morning, Bush. MIST: Growing crops in your fields and then shipping them out is one of the fundamentals of ranch life.  MIST: Good luck to you. Alternatively, you can just ship other stuff. In previous games, there was a lot of money to be made that way. They did kinda nerf the hell out doing that for this game though. I guess making more money from mining in a farming sim partially defeats the purpose. If you've been noticing all those weird floating lights everywhere, (and given how they photobomb half my screenshots you probably have,) well...  BUSH: Speaking of which... BUSH: What are those red and yellow things floating around here?  MIST: Those are Runeys. There aren't any Red runeys, so I don't know what Bush is on about. Maybe he means the purple ones? It's likely another translation mishap, but if you want to headcanon that he's partially colorblind it's there. BUSH: Runeys?  MIST: Yes. I don't understand it fully but they're supposed to gather around land that is thriving. Don't worry, Mist, nobody does.  MIST: When crops become ripe, other lands produce "Rune Crystals," but here, they just turn into Runeys. In all other RF games, crops produce these little floating blue or white spheres when fully grown. They're the actual 'runes' that the name of the series refers to, and restore RP when collected. These runeys are part of the big controversial mechanic in this game, and as result didn't carry over to following games. Tides has sorta something like it, but it's different. Regardless, we won't have the means of doing anything with runeys until about Spring 10th. For now, I'll just leave it at the mechanic is a weak analogue for soil fertility. MIST: Some place that isn't part of the village, the dungeon for example, will yield Rune Crystals. If you can tolerate heading into dungeons for all your farming, then I theorize you can just ignore these things. They'll still be turning every location into a crazy, smiley-faced lightshow though.  MIST: The Runeys look cute so I prefer them much more. The majority of Frontier players disagree with this sentiment, I believe. That's all she's got for us, so let's explore around a bit.  There is this field of overgrown jpeg grass to the south of her house. I'm sure this will never be relevant.  Up the path that runs north from her house is this little stream and a log bridge over it that doesn't look particularly stable.  If we keep following it, it leads to a spot somewhat behind the church and a path that links up with the main road..  Said spot behind the church has this giant tree that I'm sure will never be relevant.   BUSH: That's such a big clock tower. It doesn't seem to be working though. To the right of the church and up the small hill is a broken clock tower.  We get a long, slowly panning shot of it to establish that it is indeed broken. We're staring at this thing for half a minute, no joke.  Then Stella shows up. STELLA: Isn't that a grand clock tower? This clock tower was here before I came to the village. STELLA: But I've never seen it working, not even once. I had a lot of people look at it but it just won't work. You can't go inside right now, but it'll be opened after the cleanup is done.  ---------------------------------- [Clock Tower] Moving in on the 7th of spring. Entrance is restricted at this time due to move-in preparations. ---------------------------------- Well, at least they tell us when it opens.  There's also this completely ordinary plant nearby that I'm sure does nothing at all and will never be relevant. Anyways, to the church!  Music: St. Poli ChurchSTELLA: Are you an acquaintance of Mist? Looks like she has you at her beck and call. i mean, she ain't wrong also we already told you we knew her BUSH: Haha... STELLA: Some weird plants have been growing in front of the clock tower recently.  STELLA: No one planted any seeds, so I wonder what it is... Give it some water and I bet it'll grow even more. Hey, I've got enough watering work to do as it is.  STELLA: Ahahaha, I'm kidding. I'm not.  STELLA: You can ask me any time if you need anything. STELLA: It's my job to maintain a peaceful life for everyone.  STELLA: What's up? Did you come to listen to a sermon? BUSH: N-no... Maybe another time. Every RF protagonist tries their hardest to dodge religion, and Bush is no exception.  BUSH: What a splendid organ. It is rather impressive. It took a bit of work to get that, actually. Now it's just an old memory.Unfortunately, that's all she has to say about that right now. If you were interested in the storied history of this organ, I'm sorry, I guess.  Still ignoring the library until it's relevant. Won't be too long.    There's a rising staircase on the path between the Church District and the Business District. Up here's this big... amphitheatre? It's basically the town's square. If you stand near that funny rock in the center, you can hear someone singing. Yeah, doesn't sound very plot important to me either.  Music: Business District BuildingsDANNY: This is so far into the countryside. Despite his incredibly talkative introduction, Danny rarely has much to say.  We can also go upstairs to his bedroom and he does not care. It's rather spartan, though it's not lacking in space.  Eunice is, uh, sweeping the pavement outside the inn. EUNICE: Good morning, Bush. EUNICE: The weather is good today so I hung the bedding out in the sun. EUNICE: It feels really good to wash the laundry on days like this. She doesn't have much going on in her life aside from housework.  EUNICE: We run an inn, but the bar is open at night so please come when you feel like it. This line is voiced. There's your interesting bit of LP trivia for the day. BUSH: Sure. I don't drink, but I'll take a look. I'll remember to show it off eventually.   TURNER: Hey, Bush. Morning. TURNER: Bush, why don't you stop over tonight? We'll drink until the sun comes up. BUSH: Well... I said I'd remember to show it off!  RITA: Good morning, Bush. RITA: What's up? Is there something on my face? Yeah, it's right underneath your eyes. Actually a lot of folks seem to have it, please explain  GANESHA: Good morning... You seem lively so early... It's true, Bush wakes up with an unparalleled amount of energy every morning.  GANESHA: I wonder what weapon with what patten I should make this time...? Generic lines!  BUSH: It's a weapons display case. GANESHA: Whoa, hold on. I can't sell that one yet. It doesn't have Retornen cast on it. The weapon may be ready, but I can't sell something that doesn't have Retornen. GANESHA: I'll move it back over to this shelf soon enough, so check back again later. This is gonna get mentioned a decent bit, and explained more than once, so I'll go ahead and do it myself. Retornen is a thing that keeps getting a slightly different name things due to translation, and it basically makes weapons not physically harm monsters. It just kinda boots them off this plane of existence and back to their world instead in a not really well explained manner. With this existing, monster slaying is family-friendly now. Although, fun fact, previously established lore states that this handwavium magic has no effect on non-monsters and thus we can still beat each other up. I don't think it's ever said specifically what effect it has on half-monsters or mermaids, because this world has those. Also later lore establishes that everything made with materials in the place we live in has this automatically applied, so I guess Ganesha's got outsourced steel or something. Rune Factory lore is massively convoluted!  Upstairs is kinda fancy.  Music: Kross' ThemeKross has a lot going on is his place, so we'll investigate it all at a later date.  hey man, I'm talking to you, please stop hitting me with your hoe KROSS: Oh, it's you. Good morning...  KROSS: Rumor says that you have no memory of your past. KROSS: Heh... Being able to forget your past is a good thing. It's always about how you view things. I've definitely got stuff I'd like to forget. Bush's plot amnesia wasn't really voluntary. Here's the entire plot of RF1 in a spoiler: he was kidnapped by the neighboring evil empire and given memory loss inducing magic drugs so he could be manipulated into using his Earthmate powers to awaken one of the four Dragon Gods so that said empire could weaponize it. Said Earthmate powers was just, uh, farming and fighting. No, seriously.  BUSH: It's a note... There re memos about crops written in it... Erik has a memo on crops. This is all we get, we can't actually read said memo and steal our rival farmer's secrets.  ERIK: It feels refreshing when it's this sunny! I don't like overcast days much myself, so I agree. Although I'd prioritize having a mild breeze over the sun. A hot day with still air is awful.  I'm not going to write up all of Erik's tutorial dialogue unless someone wants me to, but he will give you a free bag of turnip seeds for asking about how to plant seeds. (I've been cutting out a little bit of other redundant tutorial dialogue as well in these updates ) I guess I gotta get back to that farming thing, then.  Mist doesn't stare at you the entire time you're on the farm, sometimes she heads over here to do... something to these flowers in front of our house.  I get the rest of our seeds planted. Turnips sell for 210g a piece, so having this growing will be a big influx of cash.  Wait, no Bush don't do it  I...c-can't...Bush? Bush?! Buuuuuuush!  Oh hey, it's the infirmary so I guess we're fine. So, in early Rune Factory games there's no punishment for passing out-  You caught a cold. drat. I guess sleeping face first in the dirt isn't the best for health.   Not only does the Cold status effect triple RP usage, we start the day with half HP and RP and at 10:00 AM. It's real rough, but I guess when knocking yourself out cold to start the day late was such a prevalent strategy in the first game you have to balance it somehow. You could just let us pick when to wake up, Starting the day at 10:00 AM may have it's advantages in previous games and in this one, but it also means we're highly unlikely to meet Anette on days like these. The church presently isn't staffed with a nurse, so er, we can't do anything about the cold either. Alas.  STELLA: I heard that Mist is ill. Hey, so am I. BUSH: Really? Now I'm worried... STELLA: It's really nothing serious, but can you go check up on her? BUSH: Sure!  STELLA: How is the field? Is it a bit prettier now? BUSH: Just a bit. BUSH: I don't know what to do with the twigs and branches that are all over the field. Yeah, I mean, we used to be able to pick those up by hand.  STELLA: Chopping up branches with an axe automatically turns it into lumber and stores it in the Lumber Shed. BUSH: But I don't have an axe... STELLA: Oh, really? Well you can use my axe.  You got Cheap Axe!  STELLA: I used it when I was younger so it's a bit old, but I'm sure it can break twigs with no problems. STELLA: But you probably won't be able to do anything about the tree stumps. You might be able to if you had a better axe, but just leave it be for now. If you're questioning why the nun has an axe, I'd at least say it makes more sense than getting it from the short, spoiled, rich girl in the first game. Actually neither really makes any sense, but some later dialogue kinda explains it, I guess?  BUSH: Thank you very much. But yeah, this is a nice get. You have to talk to Stella a decent bit each day to trigger this, and it's best to get it as early as possible. It's also best to upgrade it quickly as well as we'll want to get started on lumber collection early.  Oh, hey, we finally got a bamboo shoot in our field! Took it long enough. They're worth 110g, (20g less than they were in RF1,) so they help for some real early game income.  Mist isn't watering her plants like usual, so I guess we'll have to go inside. Music: Town Buildings BUSH: A frying pan... I wonder if Mist cooks. Don't know why you're getting red in the face about that, maybe it's just the cold.   Seems to be happening for her, at least. BUSH: Mist, are you okay? MIST: It's just a cold. I'll be fine with a little rest. MIST: There's this old wives' tale that infecting someone with your cold will make you better. 1. please dont do this 2. Bush already has a cold. 3. Did you sleep face first on the ground like we did?  BUSH: Uh... Bye now... Yeah, let's get out of here before she-  BUSH: This is Mist's bed...  ------------------------------- 1. I should go to sleep. 2. I still have things to do. ---------------------------  what  MIST: Bush, you seem very interested in my stuff. oh no   So, Bush can inspect the beds in everyone's house and get a yes/no prompt in a similar manner, but nothing ever happens regardless of choice. If the characters are in the area at the time, they'll react to you looking at it. Mist's interaction trigger while in her bed isn't large enough to block you from interacting with it if you angle yourself right, creating this... suggestive situation. Also, Mist is not a good role model.  Stunned by these events, Bush goes to investigate the empty plot of land to the upper right of his farm. This is where our barn goes when we make one. It's rather cheap to make, it's just that it's low priority right now since we haven't even seen a monster.  Since it's past 9:00 already, I head out to chat up the town. I'm not getting much farming done today.  DANNY: The weather is so nice. I want to go outside! Then why don't you?  BUSH: Ganesha, do you do maintenance work on farming tools? GANESHA: I do, but I don't recommend it. BUSH: Why is that? GANESHA: Farming tools are the tools of your own trade. I think it's best for you to maintain those things on your own. GANESHA: Well, but there are people like Turner who get me to sharpen his kitchen knives.  GANESHA: But in truth, I want them to do it themselves. BUSH: No... If that's the case, then I'll try to do it on my own. GANESHA: Good boy! Then let me give a gift to our fledgling craftsman. You got Farming Companion BUSH: Thank you.  GANESHA: With this recipe, you can care for your farming tools easily. GANESHA: And about forging... every week during holidays, a peddler called Lute comes to the square to sell things. You can buy some simple blacksmith equipment from Lute. GANESHA: After you buy the equipment, just keep trying until you get it right. BUSH: I'll try. Ganesha's not in it for the money, she's in it to spread the trade  That being said, Ganesha obviously won't upgrade your tools for you, (an option that hasn't been available since RF1,) which is why obtaining a decent amount of cash to buy a forge is our top priority.  GANESHA: That one's used by Noradian Knights. I think it may be too heavy for you, Bush. Norad is the name of the kingdom we live in, and it's suggested by RF1's ending that Bush was part of its high ranking group of knights or something. No helmet for us for now though. I don't think we ever get any real armor   That's Marco down there on the lower center of the screen. I didn't notice I'd walked past him until I looked at this recording. Usually he's over at the stove if he's in the house. Sorry, Marco. I meet you tomorrow, I think.  EUNICE: I'm thinking of some new dishes to make for the guests at the inn. I wonder what I should make. Hey, new line. And it's fully voiced! There's more to Eunice than this, but I'm not going to lie and say that housework isn't going to be a big part of her character.  TURNER: How do you like Trampoli? I hope you like it here. TURNER: This is a nice village. I think you'll like this place a lot. Well, I got sick when I took a nap in the dirt, but then again I think that'd happen anywhere so it's not really a point against the place. TURNER: I guess the villagers have no use for an inn. TURNER: But we can be the entrance of the village to welcome anyone from the outside. It might help if you were a little closer to the actual entrance of the village, but sure.  TURNER: In order for the village to have a good impression of you, you have to keep communicating with the villagers. Already on it, my man. Haven't got much else to do just yet, though I know that's going to change in a few updates.  RITA: Are you cooking on your own? BUSH: No. I don't have any tools to cook at home... In fact, Bush hasn't eaten anything since he came to Trampoli! RITA: Oh, really? Why not buy some from Lute, then?  RITA: He's a travelling peddler that comes once a week. Why don't you try going to the square during the day on holidays. RITA: He'll be a guy in weird clothes pushing a cart. Not only does he sell cooking utensils, there's a lot of other stuff that's worth a look. BUSH: But I've never cooked before... RITA: Perfect opportunity then. Take that as your chance to start. You can have this. There are some simple recipes in it. You got Quick-step Cook! Another early game recipe book for us!  RITA: Just stick with the recipe and you can make pretty good dishes. BUSH: Thank you so much for everything. RITA: Don't mention it. Never gonna complain about free recipe books. Food is actually good in this game, even a mere pickled turnip can easily be made to restore 100 RP.  Music: SpringKross was on his rooftop as I passed by, so I didn't have the chance to talk to him. You just can't interact with him at all while he's up there. It's highly serious work, I hope you understand.  Erik tells us how to use an axe, mostly saying the same stuff as Stella more or less. Running into repeat tutorials when you already know the game can be a bit annoying, but it's nice that they exist if I'm honest.  Communications with the Wii Remote have been interrupted. The runeys are dead from lack of bluetooth signal, apparently. I don't remember what I was doing here, but Dolphin got left idle long enough for this to happen.  ERIK: Young man! You seem to be tilling the fields with so much vigor. That's fine and dandy. Yes, with so much vigor I fall unconscious! ERIK: All right! In recognition of your effort, let me give you a farming tool as a gift! ERIK: This "Cheap Sickle" will help you weed your fields without having to pluck them out one by one. But if we do that, we can't sell the weeds for profit! You got Cheap Sickle!  ERIK: No need to thank me! But I do understand if you want to tell all the girls in the village about what a nice guy I am! There are two girls our age who live in the village, Erik. Two. Anyways, getting the sickle here is the same deal as getting the axe from Stella, just talk to him a decent bit each day until he gives it to you. The sickle's really only useful for cutting fodder, but it can make a decent weapon at some upgrade levels.  Well, time to do as much work as I can without passing out. It'd sure be nice if past me remembered that the bar exists and I could get some food from it, but spoiler, that doesn't happen.  Yep, that's all I can manage to do! Unfortunately, if the disorganized nature of my planting was bothering you, now we'll have to both deal with the fact that two strawberry plants will always be a day behind until the end of spring.  The bamboo shoots should make me some money though. It's not much, but it's something.  Later on, I won't need to do this as I'm going to be struggling to get done with everything before midnight on some days. The game does sound hilarious when sped up, but maybe I'm just easily entertained. For now, I stand and look wistfully at the stream this impenentrable fence and double bush combo blocks me from, making my watering route longer.  "Rosetta: Her words may sting at times, but she is always hard at work." At some point, I remembered to show off these profiles. The pink loafers go with her pink... eyes? Is that normal? Should we be worried, or is that just something that happens when Capitalism runs through your veins?  "Anette: The ever energetic mail delivery girl. Has a problem of being chased by monsters." I don't really know if the monster thing ever comes up again. Hell, we never see those three woolies again.  "Rita: Tavern Master. Rumored to be the biggest drinker in town." Now that's a pose. She's also one of the few characters that actually have one outside of the "generic stand"!  "Erik: A farmer in Trampoli. Always calls Bush a young man, but he is, too." At first I was asking myself "what kind of weird shirt does he have tied around his waist" but then I realized it's actually overalls. Dude, you're wearing a lot of layers for working by the sweat of your brow.  "Ganesha: The owner of Damascus Forge. A rare but skilled elven smithy, with many fans." Still love that giant hammer.  "Ganesha- Runs a grocery store. There seems to be a deep reason why he came to this town." As deep as the front cut in his shirt?  "Kross: You may not have noticed him, but he lives next door to Erik. A skilled carpenter."[/b] No, I noticed him.  Around this time I realize I can just collect weeds while I wait.  Rosetta only shows up at 5, and if you want to see her daily event, you have to wait until 5:30 PM. Believe it or not, this is not the latest in the day we'll have to wait just to talk to a girl.  Music: By the Ocean(I don't remember ever hearing this theme at the beach, only here. It probably does play there.) ROSETTA: Good evening! ROSETTA: I'm here to pick up the items for today. If I didn't do this, neither of us would make any money.  ROSETTA: Omph. She just throws that lid open. ROSETTA: Let's see...  And digs around for a bit. Through the, um, 2 bamboo shoots. ROSETTA: Oh...  ROSETTA: The items I'm picking up today really make my work worthwhile. She has special responses for shipping certain items, this is just the line you'll see otherwise. *kaching* ROSETTA: *phew* Done. Now you, me, and my customers will all be happy.  ROSETTA: I'll be back tomorrow. Be sure to fill up the shipping box with crops before then. That depends on what you consider a crop. Do you take random grass? I value it at 10g per handful.  ROSETTA: Mist and I are childhood friends, but I always feel like competing with her. I wonder why? This is established in the first game, but never properly explained as to why. We'll get to see some of this later. Mist is too oblivious to notice, or perhaps is just playing Rosetta like she's playing us all ROSETTA: It's getting a lot warmer in the morning and night now. Thanks to that, doing my rounds is much easier.  Just screenshotted this to reiterate that it takes her 30 minutes to walk from the bridge to our shipping box. ROSETTA: I'll come to pick up the merchandise at 5pm every day. Be sure fill up your shipping box before then. ROSETTA: I recommend cabbage and strawberries during spring. Strawberries are good because they can bear multiple crops. ROSETTA: All you need to do is wait a while after harvesting. After some time, you'll be able to harvest them again. ROSETTA: You don't even have to sow seeds again so it's cost efficient. They also happen to be a preferred gift of hers. Not favorite, that'd be too easy, but just a liked gift. In fact, 2 other candidates and another non-candidate also like strawberries so they're a good crop to grow.  Music: Trampoli Daily LifeWith that done, I'd say Bush is bushed. Time to hit the hay.  Another day, but luckily our cold is cured and we're back at full. Yes, I did spend most of yesterday talking to the town while sick, after telling Mist to not give her colds to other people. I'm sure this won't come back to bite me at all. No, seriously. Colds aren't actually contagious in this world, and an instant remedy is already known.  Time for a brand new- wait why is there a cutscene  BUSH: Huh...? Everything... is spinning...   Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2021 16:51
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Slaan posted:Well that was a short game. Interesting though, shame about the protagonist dieing so soon yeah, a real shame, I was starting to like this game LP not over yet though, got some bonus content to show MarquiseMindfang posted:Ah, another victim of Sudden Anime Death Syndrome. Alas. She was the one that said giving us the illness would cure hers, BraveLittleToaster posted:Yep, still firmly in the setup phase of the game, it seems. It'll be said in the next update, but yeah, this game has a long setup phase. I can technically make more progress than I have been, but I'm really waiting on having the first sets of crafting tools and, well, money at all. Retornen's an easily forgotten detail, as they usually mention it once or twice at the beginning of a Rune Factory game and then never again. Don't know why Ganesha has those weapons, but it could be part of Mist's dark plot
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Oct 16, 2021 20:59
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Rody One Half posted:We need to bang the muscle elf milf, this is my vote. Dr Pepper posted:She is not one of the Bachelorettes Ganesha has had "the childrens", and is this defined by the rules of Anime Dating Conventions as being immensely out of our league and forever ineligible. She is undeniably one of the best characters, and it is indeed the greatest flaw this game has. If it's any consolation, I will get her FP up to max by the end of this LP. So far, Mist, Rosetta, Eunice, and Anette are the only options present. This number will increase rapidly, up to a maximum of 12- two more join next update, even. But none of them are ever Ganesha megane posted:Clearly Mist is some sort of mastermind who tricks her friends into doing difficult manual labor while she gets to lounge around all day and eat free turnips. Her wit and guile is extraordinary, and she plays everyone she meets. Even if Bush found out, nobody would believe him. Hell, she's capable of warping reality in RF4 and permanently changing your name.
Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 17, 2021 |
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Oct 17, 2021 20:38
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Update 05: Dirt Is Magnetic to Faces - A Theory Welcome back, all. Now where were we?  Oh. Right.   Well, this sure is a sight to disrupt a nice morning walk. Music: Pinch It seems like this unknown nun is here to save us. Thank the undefined god/s!  Music: St. Poli Churchlizard *Morning birds chirping*     *Also these curtains sound like wind chimes for some reason*  Well, she done saved us. Is she Mist 2 now?    BUSH: Y-you're...  LARA: Bush! You really need to hold back! You might die next time! Well, no. This is a familiar face for a lot of people who played Rune Factory 1.   STELLA: Lara came over just to work as a nun. STELLA: But she's also a licensed nurse. Lara was the nurse in Kardia, (the town, Bush, Mist, and Rosetta are from,) but is also a nun. If you abused passing out in RF1, you're probably used to seeing her face and hearing her voice line for "take care". Had I not passed out on the day I met Anette, there's a bit of foreshadowing for this in the form of a letter from Wesley, (Lara's father and Kardia's priest), if you wait by the church on Spring 4th.  LARA: It's fortunate that you're fine, but you need to take better care of yourself. BUSH: I'm sorry... BUSH: You can go home for today, but please be more careful ths time. Bush has ended up apologizing to most of the girls he's met at this point.  And with that, we're unceremoniously dumped outside the clinic at 6:00 AM like nothing happened. Lara's intro is really short and kind of stilted. It always happens the day after Mist falls sick, which is always Spring 04. Me being sick the day before was entirely planned to add onto the narrative presented by the game. It was not a coincidental mistake I just rolled with, I assure you.  But the church isn't closed, and it being a Thursday, we can find Lara praying. ...As result, we can interrupt her prayers with zero respect to anything but my need for content.   LARA: I asked Sister Stella if I could stay in this village a little longer. BUSH: Oh...? But why?  LARA: It's because you're so reckless, Bush! You're the first patient that has gotten me this worried! BUSH: I'm sorry.  LARA: Never mind... Just please don't make me worry about you so much. Lara is able smile at us while angry- a terrifying combination. In her transition to this game, she's gotten somewhat more pushy than she was before. She remains very polite nonetheless. Presumably, she was here for just a short visit, but in finding us again in a state of face-to-dirt, she quickly negotiated more time to stay here so that we don't get ourselves killed. Overworking ourself and passing out is regularly canon for ...Yet Bush isn't so nearly reverently thankful to her as he is to Mist. Well, luckily for Lara, I don't plan on getting knocked out any more. LARA: There is no doctor in this village, so while I train to be a sister...  LARA: I'm also trying to maintain everyone's health as a nurse.  LARA: Please be quiet in the church. This is a nice way of telling us to go away.  Erik is also here. ERIK: Ah! It's the young agricultualist! Have you been using your sickle? We've never equipped it- I won't equip it for a few weeks, really. After this he just reiterates what he's already told us about using it.  Music: SpringJust wanted to note that your shadow is affected by the time of the day, if you haven't noticed. It's a small detail, but rather neat.   I burn a little time on the farm, so this can happen. Anette's here!  ANETTE: Bush! Good morning! ANETTE: You have to respond before they all start piling up. After putting the letter in, she stops and waves at us, triggering this short little dialogue. If you catch her before she makes it to your box, you can also ask for your letters personally. ANETTE: Hey, good morning! Bush, did you read your letters? BUSH: Yes. Thank you for that wonderful letter.  ANETTE: I deliver mail every morning from both villagers and outsiders. ANETTE: You can put your mail on the table at home and read it later when you have time. ANETTE: Also, if you have something you want to send, just bring it to me. BUSH: Okay.  ANETTE: I'm still making my rounds so I have to go. Bye! An even more fun thing is that Anette's mail route happens in full in every day.  Also she runs fast. She breaks the sound barrier when starting up, and leaves dust trails behind her the entire time. On slowing down, she sends up sparks. Forget mail vans, here's just calves of steel.   ----------------------------------------------------- ~"I have a favor to ask of you." - Erik~ It looks as if you have tilled your farm quite nicely. Well, young man, I have a favor to ask you. I am in dire need of a Turnip. If you have any, hand it to Anette during her rounds, and she'll deliver it to me. I'll give you something in return for your service, of course. -----------------------------------------------------  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"We're neighbors again!" - Mist~ Good morning, Bush. Or is it good evening...? Maybe just a hello? Ahaha, it's kinda hard to tell time when you talk through letters. So weird. Anyway, keep in touch. ----------------------------------------------------- Like a fool, past me checks my mail instead of doing the more fun thing here, which is following Anette through her entire mail route. There's short dialogues at everyone's mailboxes, and she's not as hard to keep up with as you think. Alas. I get around to it tomorrow. In regards to the letters, Erik wants a turnip from us, and Mist is being Mist.  While doing the farming thing, I notice that I have collected 41 weeds. That is all.  The farm is in varying states of growth thanks to yesterday, so if you were already bothered by the arrangement, you can be even more bothered. You're welcome.   MIST: Good morning, Bush. When it hits 9:00, I stop farming and go about and do that talking thing.  MIST: Good luck with your farm. The more crops you grow the more fertile the earth will get and the more Spirits will gather. This does happen, but it's not as good as the other options involving runeys. This is pretty much the only interesting thing Mist said today, so it's off to other places.  Hey, look, it's Marco! I finally found you!   MARCO: I've never seen you before... Who are you?! Reasonable response.  ------------------------- 1. I moved here recently. 2. I came to kidnap you! -------------------------  Yeah, I don't even know what to say here. I do know that's one conversation branch I'm not going down.  MARCO: Oh, so you're the guy that moved in next door to Mist. That girl is so weird, don't you think? Correct on both accounts there, Marco. MARCO: I'm Marco. My mom is the blacksmith here.  BUSH: I'm Bush. Nice to meet you Marco. Nice to meet you too!You didn't think we were gonna get through an update without Bush introducing himself, did you?  MARCO: Let's fight some other time. I think I'e gotten a lot stronger so I think I can take you on! Marco's whole thing is he wants to grow up to be a swordsman and adventurer- that second dialogue branch is likely the option that says more about that and explains this bit of otherwise random daily dialogue. For all I know, this whole thing could just be another translation mishap, but... just, no. To rewrite this with little effort, I'd append something like "Who are you- friend or foe!?" and make the options those two choices. There's a lot more you could do to expand Marco's intro (and Lara's, for that matter,) but I'm not here to rewrite the game. Anyways. Marco is cool, just kind of hard to find without checking a character schedule guide. Unlike Roy from RF2, he appreciates his cool blacksmith mom and is therefore leagues more cool.  ----------------------------------------- *Changing Room* Please keep the changing room clean. ----------------------------------------- Before we leave the beach, I will note that this is the first Rune Factory to actually feature swimsuits and stuff, but that's for the Summer season, not now.    Now that it's normal opening time, Lara is in the clinic. She has the classic "cure all my status effects for some cash" option, as well as an outright store where she sells some basic medicines and oddly, chemicals to boost crop growth speed.  EUNICE: The bar is open at night so please come during then. I promise you, game, I will do this. ...It just takes me almost another in-game week to do so.  DANNY: What's up, Bush? DANNY: What do you want? BUSH: How is your store, Danny? DANNY: Hm? Yeah, business is fine. There's only one general store, so it's a guaranteed profit even if there are only a few customers. That's... that's not exactly how profit works, Danny.  I accidentally water the floor of the inn. It's not the first time- I end up doing this a lot all across Trampoli, and it costs me RP every time because I keep forgetting to unequip the watering can.   TURNER: I recommend going to Lake Poli when it's sunny. Now all that's left is to wait for guests I can guide there. It ends up reminding Turner of Lake Poli, and he gives us a recommendation of it. We can head there whenever we feel like it.  RITA: We have such nice weather today. Eunice is getting carried away with the laundry, so I better keep up, too. I would like to note that I never see Rita doing anything. She's either here, or at the spot just above the stairs.  Music: Kross' ThemeKROSS: Oh, it's you. Good morning. KROSS: I don't really like it when it's so sunny. Heh.... KROSS: The sunlight is so cruel. It shines upon all the beautiful things as well as the dirty things. Don't you think so?  KROSS: Oh please tell me, monsters. Where, oh where, have the lovely monsters gone? KROSS: Aren't there any monsters I can relate to...  KROSS: ...where I want to stick a blue rose into their fluffy fur...? BUSH: That sounds like a very sad song... KROSS: Heh... Yes... There used to be monsters in the village and we all lived in harmony. Daily dose of sad songs. Seems like Trampoli underwent some large change at some point.  Music: SpringChecking out Lake Poli happens to have an interesting bonus today.   LUTE: Hi there. You're a new face, aren't you? LUTE: Um, are you from this village? BUSH: Yes. I just moved here and my name is Bush.  LUTE: Nice to meet you. I'm a traveling painter and my name is Lute. LUTE: But I'm still a fledgling painter so I'm also a peddler on the side. Lute's our resident, or non-resident rather, traveling merchant. He's much more like Ivan from RF1 than Yue from RF2, as he just sells utensils and furniture. He's also similarly absent- he only shows up to sell stuff at the amphitheater place on weekends. He's likely to be here on Thursdays as well, but he doesn't carry any merchandise as he's just here to paint. BUSH: Oh really? What kind of paintings do you do, Lute? LUTE: I paint all kinds of scenery. I think it's fate that we met here, Bush!  LUTE: Tell me if you need anything! I don't believe we can buy any paintings until we get a house expansion, which is unfortunate, but his other merchandise will be must-haves as time goes on. Regardless, he's a cool guy, and I really like him in spite of how little we see him.   LUTE: I want to make a living by painting but things never go the way you want them to. --------------------------- 1. I'm sure you can do it, Lute. 2. I'm sure it'll be hard. --------------------------- Oh hey, a dialogue choice! -------------------------- I'm sure it'll be hard. LUTE: If you say so. I guess I may have some talent in me. That was... brief. Anyways, he's chill and I'd rather support his efforts. -------------------------- I'm sure you can do it, Lute.  LUTE: Really? If you say so, it makes me feel like it can come true. LUTE: I'm thankful you're saying that, but...  LUTE: Can you buy my paintings?! I don't think he gets much business, and unfortunately it will be quite some time before we can buy said paintings.  I get on the gondola for a bit, and it controls pretty simply: left and right make you start turning, forward makes you go forward. You hit B or swing the remote to speed up, which then goes on a brief cooldown. The strength of the speed boost is dependent on some timing that's a bit hard to explain. I guess it's almost more of an audio cue with the water splashing.  Suddenly, this is Animal Crossing and we have cartoon cherries high up in a tree. This row of trees and those two back on the mountain path all bear seasonal fruit, but we currently lack the way to make them fall. So, uh, back to the farm I guess.  Having finished everything to do on the farm by 1 PM, I spend the rest of my RP and HP on another particularly important activity: cutting lumber.  30Bush is particularly aggressive in both visibly and audibly with the axe in this game, having rather pronounced battle cries of "hyuh!" and "yuuugh!" with each swing. They're the same has the larger weapon sound bites, and while it may get tiring, I usually kinda find it hilarious that he's going around just smiting these branches out of existence.  Also, yes, the axe has a gigantic blade on it because while they may have downsized the hoes to be really thin, they kept the comically oversized axes and hammers from the DS games.  Honestly, I wish I had kept all those weeds- it was starting to be quite the collection. Curse your lack of foresight, past me!  "Marco- Ganesha's son. Still a child but trains hard to become a great fighter." Some more profiles while I'm at it. I think it would've been neat if you got to see Marco swinging his sword around.  "Lute- A painter and a peddler. Dreams to one day become a renown painter." Lute's got a hell of a look going on.  "Lara- The nurse/sister at the church. Nice to everyone but tends to worry a bit too much." And here's an odd angle of Lara because I forgot to wait around long enough.  I did wait around for Rosetta's daily event again.  ROSETTA: Oh...  Music: Sadness/ResolveROSETTA: Jeez... You're shipping out weeds again... Part of the reason why I sold the weeds was to see this line. Supposedly this makes her dislike you, but it only went up for me.  Guess that's a myth debunked.   Ah, a new day. I'll eventually be able to start going more than two days at a time, I swear. It'll still take a long time to get there though.    Here's that farming guide I mentioned in some previous update. I'm not going to go through it all, just showing that it's here at the bookshelf by the chest. Well, time to go outside-  what is with the dirt in this place, and why are faces magnetic to it BUSH: !!  BUSH: Ah! Someone collapsed! BUSH: Are you all right? For some reason, we needed a fade to black to move 4 steps.   UNKNOWN GIRL: Ugh... BUSH: Thank goodness... Looks like she's still conscious. UNKNOWN GIRL: W... Water...  Bush obliges in the only way he knows how as a farmer.   UNKNOWN GIRL: N-no... Not that kind of water... UNKNOWN GIRL: Are you doing this on purpose?  BUSH: I better hurry up and get Lara!  BUSH: Lara! Someone is passed out in front of my house!  LARA: That's terrible! Let's go right away! Untrained in the art of rescuing people lacking food and water, despite having been through it himself once before, we need the aid of the local nurse nun. Nunse? Nurnse?  UNKNOWN GIRL: Huh... One more fade to black later and we seem to have rescued her. This act being done, I can only wonder if we can now pawn off our farm and house on her. LARA: Are you all right? Do you know your name?   SELPHY: I'm Selphius Josephi... Selphy.  SELPHY: I'm Selphy. Where am I? LARA: This is the infirmary of Trampoli. You were found collapsed on the ground and were brought here.  SELPHY: Right... I ran away... I mean, I was traveling and hadn't eaten anything in a long time.  SELPHY: I guess not eating for a week will do that to you. I better write that down somewhere. Hey, Bush hasn't eaten anything in a week either now that I think about it. Maybe we've got a lot more in common than I thought. BUSH: A week?! LARA: You really didn't eat for a week? SELPHY: Yeah, I often forget to eat! But one week is certainly a first for me. Hahaha! Selphy thinks this is funny.  Music: Pinch(This wasn't even playing until just now. I think Lara might trigger this more often than the story will.) LARA: This is no laughing matter! Lara disagrees. Heavily. LARA: I'll be keeping you here over tonight!  LARA: Starting tomorrow, you'll be staying in this village to recuperate. Well, looks like the town population just increased by one. SELPHY: Seriously? That sounds like a real pain in the...  LARA: Did you say something? SELPHY: N-nothing...  Music: St. Poli ChurchLARA: Good morning, Bush. LARA: If you get sick or poisoned, please come to me. I like to think this is the first time she's had to give a proper greeting, and everything this morning was a mad dash. It's a pretty Lara thing to do. LARA: Why are you walking around in that state?! Please get some rest right now! This is an order to you from your nurse! I presume this is aimed at the new girl and not us.  SELPHY: So you're Bush? SELPHY: Thanks for saving me. I really thought I was going to die. Actually, I was dying. SELPHY: Ahahaha.   SELPHY: Th-thanks... This is a really weird present... Okay, maybe we don't have as much in common as I thought. -------------------------- Alternate Timeline  BUSH: If I give a gift without saying hi first, it would seem weird. The game apparently has a prompt for trying to gift someone something before properly meeting them. It makes sense, yet it remains rather peculiar to me. -------------------------- Unfortunately, this is all we get out of her today. Her proper introduction is tomorrow, but it's safe to say she's an interesting one.  While we don't get to see any more of Selphy, we can see a lot more of Anette today. I was late in getting here because I still had to run from the church, (and I forgot to Return to save time,) so we won't see a comment on Erik's house, but we'll get to start with Kross. Music: Title ThemeKross's theme does play here and is good as always, but instead of re-linking the tracks, have one we don't hear very often.  ANETTE: Oh? Was the address written wrong? Who lives here again? ANETTE: Let's see... Um... I got it! It's "Kross"! Silly me! I even wrote his name on the mailbox so I wouldn't forget! ANETTE: Whoops... that was close. Why do I always forget about this house when I do deliveries? I wonder why.  KROSS: Hello, Ms. Mailman. ANETTE: Did someone call me? KROSS: Good morning. ANETTE: That voice again... I knew this area was haunted... I'm scared! KROSS: Heh...  KROSS: ...  This plays out similarly every morning, with Anette unable to see him for some reason, and Kross always trying to communicate but being similarly unable to. I can't just keep using but every time I can't help it. BUSH: (Speaking of which, I was supposed to get Erik some Turnip...) Bush will remind us if a request needs something whenever we first talk to Anette each day. ANETTE: Hey, there's a letter with your name on it, Bush.    ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Hello to my new neighbors." - Lara~ Hello, I am Lara. I had just moved to Trampolie as a nurse. I will be taking patients at the church in the mornings. I may be absent due to other duties on some days, but please feel free to come by any time with concerns regarding your health. ----------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- ~"I forgot." - Mist~ I forgot to mention something very important in my last letter. Apparently it is considered bad manners if you do not write back in this town. So... as a test, could you reply with a Turnip? Hand it to Anette during her rounds, and she'll deliver it for you. ----------------------------------------------------- Mist also wants a turnip. Shocker. Bush won't be replying to many letters, but that's because the game just won't let us reply to most letters. I feel like more was planned for this feature, possibly for it to be a lot more like the request system of RF2 and 3, but it didn't get implemented all the way.   ANETTE: You want this Turnip delivered, right? Leave it to me. I happen to have exactly a single turnip in the field grown, (I've lost track as to why,) so let's deliver that. This will go to Erik by default, as he asked for a Turnip first. Should've been faster, Mist.  ANETTE: Mist! You got mail! Speaking of Mist... Music: Confusion(This track is pretty self-explanatory.) ANETTE: Mist seems to get a lot more mail than I thought. Seeing some of those letters written in some weird foreign language makes it feel kind of off.  ANETTE: Stella. You got mail! ♪ ANETTE: That's a really thick book. I wonder if it has the teachings of the church in it... ANETTE: It feels so much lighter now with the books gone! On to the business district!  DANNY: You're late today! Come on, Anette! She's not late, but okay whatever. Danny's usually outside to meet her, and in this case is shouting from across the district for some reason. ANETTE: Here's your mail, Danny.  ANETTE: You've got mail. Isn't it nice to have someone send you so much mail?  Yeah, he's like way over here. This happens some days.   ANETTE: Ganesha, you've got mail! Is it from your teacher? Ganesha gets a number of letters referencing the other games. This isn't one of them. Well... it could be, but I have no idea if it is.  Just in case you didn't believe me when I mentioned it before, here's Anette sending sparks everywhere after flying up the steps.  ANETTE: Turner, you've got mail! Mail to the Snowstyle is usually the least interesting, which I find a bit odd. You'd think the local inn would get all sorts of stuff.  ANETTE: Wow...! When she finishes her route at exactly 9:00 AM, she does this stretch and says that voiced line.  ANETTE: There! Now I'm done with the deliveries for today. I'm feeling a bit hungry now. ANETTE: I just love to have some "Cheesecake" after a hard day's work! This is also how you most easily learn what gifts she likes, but she also likes strawberries equally, so you're probably never going to give her anything else. I'll be honest, this is one of those slow days that not much else happens on, so I'm going to speed through it as tomorrow is going to be quite eventful. Our playthrough won't truly open up until about Spring 14th, but we'll meet some more characters soon and I'm definitely getting to the point where I can fast forward through stuff we've already seen a lot of. So, here's me highlighting the only few interesting things that happen on this lazy Friday.  EUNICE: I used to feel lonely but I have many more friends now. EUNICE: I often have tea with Mist. Eunice is possibly in cahoots with Mist.     I show off the things in Kross's house, revealing some interesting details. Lots of blueprints, but a few war chronicles too for some reason. We'll look at these again when he's around so we can get his input on the matter.  KROSS: When I see the flowers scatter, it reminds me of my old friends... KROSS: I thought we would always be together. But now they're all gone... BUSH: Did everyone move to the big city when they grew up? KROSS: Heh... Something like that. Everyone became free. Kross proceeds to exceed the capacity for this update. ERIK: It's not much, but please accept this as a token of my gratitude. You got Formula C! Erik rewards us with the highest tier growth booster that I will likely never use. These only work on 1 tile at a time, and I rarely find that to be useful. I suppose I could find a use for them but...   I then get axe happy in the field and miss two swings and uh  My promise to not pass out didn't last long.  At this point, I may have enough gifs of Bush hitting the dirt. Well, join us for the next lesson in which I, er, continue to show you what not to do! Yes, that's what I'm doing. Exactly. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 19, 2021 15:55
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Last Transmission posted:I see it's time we're getting introduced to the really kooky bachelorettes. There's not as many wacky gals as you'd find in say, RF3, but this game's definitely got a few. The next few bachelorettes, Selphy included, are some of the kookier ones for sure. We'll get her proper introduction in the next update.
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Oct 19, 2021 21:31
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BraveLittleToaster posted:Selphy's a stylish looking bachelorette, that's for sure. I kind of dig her hat and clothes. And likable already. Selphy's definitely got a good look going, and when it comes to hats, this game has a pretty good showing. The next three bachelorettes have got some good hats in fact. As for introductions via pass out, this was the last one... though some of the next ones will still be as rough on our boy's constitution. Hopefully when we get some good gear at hand, we can work on improving it.
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Oct 19, 2021 23:01
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Update 6: KNOWLEDGE LARA: Did you work until you collapsed again?! LARA: Be sure to go home and rest before you collapse. Last time I immediately broke my promise to not pass out. I'll try to do better, I guess.  Luckily, with Lara to save us, no cold this time. I can still manage with just this.  Every time you pass out, Lara's LP supposedly takes a hit. This was true in RF1 as well. It's not like we had any to begin with though.  MIST: Good morning, Bush. MIST: The weather is so nice. Mist is inside the church today it seems.  Music: ConfusionMIST: There have been a lot of weeds growing in front of my house recently... MIST: Please take care of it, Bush.  BUSH: Take care of what?  what why is everything going green Music: Pinch MIST: Oh, you. You weeded my lawn, right? wait, when did we-  it's not even-  BUSH: ...   I don't even know what happened. That's definitely not supposed to happen at the church and there's some translation funk going on. I sat here for a few seconds just stunned, it caught me so off guard. I knew this could happen, this little event can be triggered as soon as you have the sickle, but it was just that sudden. Well, here we are staring at Mist's weed covered lawn.  Let's just not for now. From a few updates ago, I mentioned that the clock tower would open on the 7th, and that so happens to be today!  Music: Clock Tower(This theme is... unique. I can't say it doesn't fit, I... It sure is something.)  BUSH: Is this some sort of blueprint? Whoever lives here has been hard at work, it seems.   Totally normal gigantic stone and metal dais in here, nothing to see, I'm sure.   BUSH: There's a memo pad. But it's blank.  BUSH: What is this? It doesn't seem to move...  BUSH: There are various books about the Spirits. Lots of strange new things in here. Except for that memo pad. We've seen one of those before.  Looks like this is the resident!  He's got a cool hat.  KANNO: Are you from this village? BUSH: Yes... but I just moved here. KANNO: I see. I am the same.  KANNO: My name is Kanno. I heard about this village from Sister Stella so I came all the way here. BUSH: I'm Bush. I do some farm work around here in the village. Why did you come to this village, Kanno?  KANNO: Because of that Whale Island. I do research on magic that uses Runes. Ah, yes, the main subject of the plot that I have ignored up until this moment. This game has one, but I'd forgive you if you already forgot.  KANNO: I retired and have lots of free... *cough cough* My chronic illness... BUSH: A-are you okay? KANNO: I'm fine. I heard about that island from Stella and decided to come here. BUSH: Is that right? KANNO: If you have any questions about Runes or Spirits, you can come ask me. BUSH: Thank you.  We inch ever closer to that dreaded mechanic. We're still not at the point of being able to interact with it, but it'll only be a few days. For now, I'll run through Kanno's normal dialogue.  KANNO: The clock tower itself has this mysterious air about it. I find that very interesting. KANNO: It's so warm. I'm sure strawberry shortcakes will taste great during this season. KANNO: This is a great place. Runeys only grow in a very specific environment. It is rare to find a place that can grow Runeys at such a stable rate. I cannot wait to research this.  KANNO: By the way, be sure to tell me if you find something. My specialty is ancient magic so I can decipher ancient text. I'm sure this will never be relevant.  KANNO: Um... Who are you again? BUSH: Bush! KANNO: Right! BUSH: Are you doing this on purpose?  KANNO: Hohoho. Well, let's get the infodump on the world.  KANNO: I like people who want to learn. So what do you want to know?  ----------------------------------- What are Spirits? KANNO: In short, Spirits are "things that form the world." They exist anywhere in the world and give energy to the earth, plants, and animals. KANNO: Of course, humans feel them, too. That's why land with a lot of Spirits is fertile and has kind people. With no Spirits, there is the opposite effect. KANNO: When Spirits gather, they either become "Rune Crystals" or "Runeys." ----------------------------------- What are Runes? KANNO: Runes, well Rune Crystals to be exact, are collections of Spirits large enough to be seen with the naked eye. You know about the fields on Whale Island? No, actually. We've never been there. KANNO: When crops have ripened there, a white orb appears. That is a "Rune Crystal." Spirits are a source of energy for humans. Health can be regained when one touches one of those Runes Crystals. KANNO: Runes gather at fertile land, so when you till those fields and make it more arable, even more Runes will come. ----------------------------------- What are Monsters? KANNO: These are the troubling things found inside the dungeons. Not much is known about them. What we do know is that they come from a "gate" that is opened through some sort of trigger. KANNO: That's why if the gate is destroyed, monsters will not appear for a while. But, regarding what to do about the monsters that are already here... KANNO: Weapons and farming tools around here all have the "Retornen" spell cast on them. Bush, the ones you have are no exception. KANNO: Weapons with Retornen cast on them can return the monsters to the "First Forest" when attacked with it. This is thanks to our ancestors who wanted to take care of things peacefully without hurting the monsters. ----------------------------------- What are Runeys? KANNO: "Runeys" are the things that are born when you grow crops in the fields of the village. Runes and Runeys are both things that joined Spirits become. But, their properties are completely different. KANNO: Runeys have elements of "Grass," "Wood," "Stone," and "Water." Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Under certain favorable conditions, a corresponding Runey type will multiply. The reverse is also true. KANNO: Unlike Runes, Runeys can be caught so you can move Runeys around the village to proliferate.  KANNO: You'll have to do trial and error to see how you can increase them in number. And this is probably why most of everyone hates the runeys. KANNO: By the way, Runeys can only grow in certain environments. You have to watch out for the Whale Island and dungeons. So, yeah. The goofy little spirit things is what a lot of people dislike in this game. What's still not been said is that if the runeys are doing badly, your crops will grow slower or randomly wither. On the off hand, you can somewhat increase your growth rate if the runeys are doing excellent in many places. We still lack the means to really do anything about this, so interacting with will wait for another update or two. It's a time consuming thing to work with, but I'll give working with it a shot instead of ignoring it.   Great knowledge acquired, and much text transcribed, the only thing of interest left in here is to look through the keyholes at these two rooms. Nobody's inside, but they do seem to be set up.  I suppose since Kanno kind of brought Whale Island out into the open, foiling my attempts to manage the pace at which I show stuff off, I might as well do this...   Obvious hint about watering the sapling bears fruit! Or, er, a stalk, I guess.  BUSH: Wow! That surprised me. I didn't think it could grow this big. BUSH: Still... it's so huge. It's like it reaches the heavens... Should I try to climb it?  BUSH: Oh? Whale Island isn't in the sky today.  And yet my attempts to pace things my own way both succeeds and equally backfires. Normally, Whale Island is situated right above this beanstalk, but on Holidays it moves to Lake Poli. And that's not like, holiday holidays, I mean Holiday. The Rune Factory calendar is weird. It only has 6 days per week, so Saturday and Sunday are just morphed into Holiday. Months are also exactly 30 days long, each corresponding to a season. There are 4 seasons to a year, so it's 120 days.  Anyways, I hope you are ready for MORE KNOWLEDGE  BUSH: This stone tablet looks... ...suspicious... But first, a weird giant rock.  Music: Town Buildings *Sound of something collapsing*   *The chair slowly turns around*    SELPHY: Hiya!  It's like an earthquake hit in here BUSH: Why is it so messy in here? BUSH: What are you doing here in the first place?  SELPHY: I asked Lara to let me stay here! SELPHY: This library has a lot more books than it looks! I like it! SELPHY: I organized them all so it's so clean now! Time to start reading!  BUSH: Organized...? You call this organized? SELPHY: Yeah. All the books I want to read are in the perfect position for me to reach them!  SELPHY: Oh, by the way I discovered a new book while I was reorganizing.  SELPHY: I'll sell you the books I don't want so just come talk to me about it! As you might've guessed, Selphy will be our resident librarian from now on.  So, uh... Just to note, this:  is what it looks like before she gets here. Honestly, it looks like my desk does.  SELPHY: Good morning. You seem so lively so early...  SELPHY: Your're free to read any book here, but there are still lots of books I haven't read yet. Be sure not to take those. SELPHY: I'll sell you the books I don't need anymore. SELPHY: ...I wonder what I should read next. I can't wait! As you can tell, she is a bit of a bookworm. Just a bit. Although, I can't deny, she's a fun change to the usual ellipsis obsessed, bespectacled bookworms you usually get. She and Lara are also romance options, forgot to mention that. Honestly, I probably don't need to tell you.  Time for MORE KNOWLEDGE  ----------------------------------------------------- ~Ask a Ninja~ "Know yourself before your enemy. No enemy is greater than ignorance. Knowing the pros and cons of the weapon you hold is the first step to victory. This book will discuss swords." "*One-handed Sword One-handed swords allow for fast attacks but lack in power and range. Special attacks are characterized by consecutive strikes." "*Two-handed Sword Two-handed swords have great power and a wide attack range but lack speed. Special attacks are omni-directional." ----------------------------------------------------- Wow, I feel so educated.  So a lot of these books are basic tutorial stuff, but there's some lore and flavor books around. You can even go to the second floor.  You may notice that we already have a tiny amount of LP with Selphy. She gets small LP bonuses every time you read a book in the Rune Archives (that's this building). I assume it doesn't count for re-reading the same book, and I've no idea yet if it's a once per day thing. Well, I say book, but that was more of a pamphlet. Let's go see the kind of stuff Selphy's reading right now, maybe it'll be more interesting.  BUSH: This must be what Selphy's reading right now. Let's see... BUSH: ... BUSH: ...  BUSH: ... BUSH: ... ... Shocking...  BUSH: (W-well, I guess everyone is into different things...) Bush is an open minded guy. Re-entering the building so she actually gets back to her job...  SELPHY: I like the size of this place. Everything you want is just within reach. SELPHY: The place I used to live was way too big.  Her stock is basically all crafting recipes. No Mr. Shield's guides yet, though. We're too broke worry about these for the time being, but rest assured, we'll probably buy everything in time.  SELPHY: Ah, yes... Surrounded by books... This is the life! BUSH: You really like your books.  SELPHY: I don't just like them! Books are my life! Books are a part of me! I LOVE BOOKS! This is also voice acted, and it's most excellent. Well, that's about all there is to do here for the time being. ----------------------------------------------   ANETTE: Selphy, you got a package.   ANETTE: Is this a scroll? You'll even read from this? What a book nut... Anette delivered to here yesterday, despite Selphy still being at the clinic. I didn't show it last update because it made more sense to throw it in with Selphy's proper introduction. ----------------------------------------------  Speaking of introductions, I just spent half this update on two people. Luckily I can breeze through the rest of this day.   LUTE: It sure is spring. I feel like I could fly if I jumped off Whale Island! BUSH: L-Lute! LUTE: Haha, I'm kidding. Lute is here as it's a Holiday, and we can finally buy some utensils.  He's got a wide array of things, but what we're most interested in right now is the facilities.  The forge is the highest priority, but Bush is too broke to afford that, so the kitchen it is. Luckily, this game doesn't hide crafting behind ridiculous grinds, (looking at you RF1 and 2,) and the three crafting types are available from the start with no house upgrades needed. It's only when you move up to the higher class tools that you'll need the expansions.   MARCO: Starting with Mist and you, there have been lots of people moving to this village recently. MARCO: Is that the new fad nowadays? Marco is genre savvy.  STELLA: I feel really good. There are times that you just want to relax because you work at a church all day. Stella hangs out at Lake Poli on Holidays. Church service in Trampoli seems to be all week and excluding the weekends instead.  Also, here's Whale Island.  Had I not been eating so much dirt, I could've set myself up to have a big harvest today. It'll be coming a day late, unfortunately.  Instead, I only got these few turnips. Past me could have been smart and liquidated everything and gotten the forge today as well, (Rosetta pays you at 5:30 and Lute leaves at 6:00, you have just enough time to catch him for a late purchase,) but I didn't.  Turnips are worth a lot more than their seeds, but aren't that profitable in the long run.  Here's a skill update as I leave myself 1 water tile away from death again.   ROSETTA: Oh, a turnip. You've got some nerve. ROSETTA: I welcome anything that brings profits to my store. Mist likes turnips and Rosetta notably comments on you shipping them. Though I feel it's possible it's a little backwards, because if I'm selling these turnips it means I'm not giving them to Mist. Maybe she just doesn't like them in general.  A new day begins!   ANETTE: Erik, you've got mail.   ANETTE: Hey, this is a girl's handwriting... ANETTE: ...So it's from your mother. You're living apart from her? She gets tears in her eyes from this. Anette and Kross probably get that the most, but it doesn't come across well in screenshots, so I figured I'd mention it. Oh, and I also managed to catch up to Anette early enough today.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"Greetings!" - Selphy~ Hello! I just wanted to greet everyone and also let you know that I have moved into the Rune Archives. I found books that were buried under other books, so come by to read them! ----------------------------------------------------- Selphy sent an introduction letter. ANETTE: In this season, there are really nice flowers blooming everywhere. I just can't get tired of this scenery.  I also get a turnip delivered to Mist.  ANETTE: There's no one here but I hear voices... Is it a monster? Daily dose of sadness. I honestly don't know if there's something we can do about this later. On to less sad things:  TURNIPS GREAT AND GLORIOUS TURNIPS We're gonna be rich, folks. ...Well, compared to how we have been.  35 Turnips! That's 7,350g! That may not sound like a lot, but we can improve that. How, you might ask?   With our fancy new kitchen!  Unlike previous Rune Factory games, this one has a minigame attached. It's rather easy though.  A bar will start sliding from left to right, and bounces back and forth endlessly. It's speed isn't really that fast, but it has a tricky input delay. We stop the bar in the blue to succeed with our cooking.  Should we hit the green zones, we boost the level of the final product by 1. We also get a crowd from nowhere going "wooaaah" instead of a little success chime. I think you get some more skill experience for it as well, but I don't know for sure.  The higher level an item, the better it's effects and sell value are. If we got every turnip in our inventory to level 2 pickled turnips, we'd get about an extra 2,500g in profit. We're not going to do all of them like that of course, But I'll take an extra few hundred gold.  If you hit the red zones, Bush displays his other culinary talent: turning anything into a pile of charcoal dust. Bush, you were using a knife, not a flame. how did you do this  Regardless, this ought to be a healthy profit. We keep this up all week, and we'll be able to get the other important items from Lute this weekend.  Um, you're a bit early, aren't you?  BUSH: Oh, Rosetta... It's not time to collect the items from the shipping box, is it?   ROSETTA: It's not. I ran away from home. BUSH: Huh?! Why? ROSETTA: Hear me out... My father runs a general store. But, the other day, he forgot to do a delivery and the customer said he was so angry he said he'd take his business elsewhere... ROSETTA: The deliveries are my father's responsibility It's partially my fault for not making sure of it. ROSETTA: But when we talked it over, he just said, "It can't be helped."  ROSETTA: Can you believe that?! Does he even care about his business? Rosetta is serious about business, if you haven't noticed. ROSETTA: That's why I ran away. BUSH: But... Won't your father be worried about you? ROSETTA: It's fine. I left a letter there and being alone will force him to get his act together.  ROSETTA: I'm going to be staying at Mist's place for the time being. Oh, that can't go wrong at all. ROSETTA: But don't worry. I'll still be making my collection rounds.  Mist has nothing to say about the turnip I sent or the fact that Rosetta moved in. That's... very Mist.  MIST: Thank you! I love this Turnip! I start paying my dues to her underground turnip operation.  Whale Island is here at the normal place today, and it's what I wanted to get to, but there's just been so much new dialogue to cover, so let's enter speed LP mode.  KANNO: I'm sorry. Can you come back later? I'm thinking right now. Kanno says this. Riveting.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~(Stella's Diary)~ "Spring, Day 1 (Sunny) A traveler stopped by looking for a place to sleep even though there's an inn..." ----------------------------------------------------- Stella also has a diary in her room that dunks on Bush.  BUSH: I don't know much about plants used for decoration, but I can tell it's well taken care of. Lara has a potted plant.  BUSH: I can't really read anything here... Sometimes when trying to read out of the library, you find shelves Bush is presently too uncultured to read.   So I read another pamphlet instead. ----------------------------------------------------- ~Beautiful Letter~ "A letter is what keeps distant friends in touch and connected. This book was written to aid such friends in mastering the art of communication over distance and to instruct them of its usefulness." "After you have moved, place a delivery request at your new post office. If you don't, you won't be able to receive any mail. Once registered, ask someone to send you a letter." "Mail is usually delivered early in the morning. You can also get mail directly from the mailman if you see them on their rounds. If you are not a morning person, check your mail box." "Once you have received a letter, you can always choose to read it however many times you want, as long as you keep it somewhere safe." ----------------------------------------------------- Something about this  Before I decide to climb up to Whale Island, I buy a broadsword. The starting farming tools aren't that bad at combat, but even a basic sword outmatches them greatly. We won't have access to magic for quite a while yet, but I'm going to be using it as well.   RITA: During this season, it feels the best when you drink a cocktail with flowers in it. Rita has a new line.  Kross sometimes stands at the front of his field and you can talk to him across the fence. This saves you from having to enter his house first.   Now that everything else of possible interest is out of the way, Bush shall climb to the heavens. There's no way this can go wrong.  Music: Whale Island Entrance - Ambient  BUSH: So this is Whale Island... It's a lot bigger than it looked from below... ...Nothing went wrong, evidently.  Ah, no, I take that back. The altitude is getting to us, we're hearing voices now. WHALE: Ah, a new face... Are you an adventurer? WHALE: I am below you. Nay, perhaps it is better to say I am above you? BUSH: Who's there? Where are you? WHALE: Hahaha. My apologies. My mischief was excessive.  WHALE: I am the awareness of the very whale on which you stand. Great, even the giant rock whale is messing with us. BUSH: Whale...? You mean this island? WHALE: Correct. I was a mere cluster of rocks when I was gifted with awareness by the influence of the Runes and began swimming through the skies. BUSH: Runes? Bush, you just learned this yesterday  WHALE: Runes are collections of Spirits. Although Runes are formed by the earth, there are times when the Runes affect the earth instead.  WHALE: Adventurer... What is your name?  BUSH: I am Bush. WHALE: Bush, I seek a favor. Although my awareness and body are sustained by Runes, I feel as though the Rune within me grows weak. WHALE: If the Rune were ever to disappear, my awareness would fade and my journey through the sky would end.  WHALE: This would be of grave danger to those who reside below... BUSH: I understand. I'll search for the answer to your failing Rune. You have my word. WHALE: You have my gratitude. It is not much, but as a sign of thanks, allow me to guide you.  WHALE: Do you see that stone tablet?  WHALE: It seems to have existed since before I became aware, and I sense a strong magic from it. It may be of use to you.  BUSH: All right. WHALE: I have yet more advice. Monsters inhabit the lands beyond here. They may reside here now, but they must return to their own world. WHALE: Bush, your weapons are enchanted with "Retornen" magic. "Retornen" is a magic that sends monster back to their original place, their home, to which they must return, the "First Forest." WHALE: Bush, please. Return the monsters lost in this world to their own.  WHALE: I am counting on you, Bush... And with that, Bush has been infodumped his new main quest. The free land we got was too good to be true, and it so happens that this island is going to eventually crash into it and Majora's moon the countryside. Bush stands up to be the hero once again, as his future gets suddenly more complicated. His first act shall be...  To make more pickled turnips.  Actually no, we're going to see what's up here, it will just have to wait until next time. This update's already larger than I'd like it to be. Join us next lesson as we welcome back another familiar face! Believe me, we're not done introducing new characters yet! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2021 05:33
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BraveLittleToaster posted:The proper introduction to Selphy already has me pulling for her. A stylish, messy bookworm, already shot way up the charts. The other bachelorettes would have to work hard to top that. We've got some more good ones coming up, but Selphy does put up a very strong first impression. I'll be honest, she's won me over quite a lot. For me on the LPer side, it's going to be interesting to see how the eventual voting rounds turn out. I have my predictions, but we'll see. BraveLittleToaster posted:Well, alright. That sudden leap to weeding Mist's lawn has convinced me she's magical and up to turnip related no-goodery. Using her dark powers to get others to do her work. Is that scene usually so abrupt? sandorius posted:I think that cutscene just triggers when you encounter Mist once you have the sickle - she spends her weekends in the church, so Bush woke up in the church it just fired off. Also, tt probably should have been translated as "You WILL weed my lawn for me, right?" rather than "You weeded my lawn for me, right?". It can be difficult to translate stuff like this without context. Yeah, this is exactly what happened, I just had no idea it could trigger from the church. That translation error is definitely an out-of context one, and from my limited translation work, it's easy to make these kinds of mistakes. ...Is what she wants us to think. It's all part of her grand plan Fat Samurai posted:"Was synthesised with expertise" is a very weird way to put it. It's not incorrect use of "synthesize," but it's definitely an odd choice. They use the same prompts for all 4 kinds of crafting, but one can only wonder why they didn't use "made" or "created" instead. Given that messing up results in a pile of ash from using a knife, and we're synthesizing, I can only assume there's some kind of Atelier-level alchemy cooking going on here.
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Oct 22, 2021 15:47
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Slaan posted:Annette is the best, we need Annette. Anette is very good, and another contender for the hat wars Slaan posted:Also, no dirt nap at the end of the update. Voted 1/5 
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Oct 22, 2021 16:27
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Update 07: I got the Turnip. Music: Whale Island Entrance(Another song that suffers from re-hearing the first part way too often, this is a neat theme. I think it matches the mysterious, mystical feel of being on a flying whale island.) On this Monday, right at noon, Bush has climbed a skyscraper of a beanstalk, at zero cost to his stamina, to reach a talking whale shaped sky island that is apparently going to plummet to the ground and destroy our house at some indeterminate time. Also Bush is standing weird.   This is because we're finally in a combat zone! Watering cans are held like one-handed swords and hoes are held like two-handed swords for some reason, though their animations are the same as you use for farming.  Last time, the island told us to look at this weird rock.  BUSH: "The melody of trust grows within 12 maidens." I wonder what this means...  *Some balls of energy form and shoot outwards!*  ...Okay. I don't actually know what this is for, as I only got halfway through the game originally, and it wasn't relevant by that point. I have some ideas on what it might be for, but nothing solid. BUSH: What was that just now...? BUSH: I guess I should keep moving.   Music: Whale Island Cave(I don't have too much to say about this track, really. It's good, but it feels a bit forgettable compared to others in this game.) Progressing further past this gets us to a cave! It took us 6 updates, but we're finally getting to combat in this game about farming and combat!    These here are Gates, openings to the First Forest that occasionally spew out monsters in the form of lightning bolts. In this case, we have a goblin!  Our low level pacifist magic sword lacks any interesting abilities aside from it's spammable basic attack: a back and forth diagonal swing combo. It's still more than enough to easily defeat this goblin as they also similarly lack variety. They have a weak lunging kick and a sword slash. That's it.   Our sword can also damage Gates and destroy them. How a sword or a hoe can mend a dimensional rift is beyond me, but I guess we banish the gates too.   The goblin also dropped this, a Warrior Medal (previously called Proof Of Warrior). The 48 in a row thing is probably a reference to something, but I've no idea what it is. Goblins can also drop Cheap Cloth and Blade Pieces. Honestly, the medal is the least useful item they could drop.  To the south from there is a few farm fields and thankfully nearby water. Where the other dungeons will have a rather obvious season to them, Whale Island is special in that it counts as Spring, Summer, and Autumn all at the same time. You can grow whatever you want up here. The caveat is that Whale Island is unreachable on Sundays and the fields require a lot more time to get to. It's still a good deal at the end of the day if you need out of season crops early.  Instead of bamboo shoots, it also grows mushrooms. They're worth the same, but they've got a chance of poison on consumption.   I'm mostly running to the right and past the goblins for the time being- there's something else here I'm looking for, and my RP is quite low.  Here's um, ants. They're big, they can bite or shoot this stuff. Neither attack does much damage. They can drop insect jaws or insect skin when defeated, which makes you question how much truth there is to the pacifist magic our weapons are supposedly enchanted with.  I ignore them as well for now, as this section of the cave is what I'm looking for. I've fought one enemy since I've been in here   Red robes and big witch hat, here's a returning character if I ever saw one!   WITCH GIRL: Oh?  MELODY: Hey, Bush!♪ It's me! Bathhouse Melody!  MELODY: What are you doing here? Apparently, Bathhouse Melody is her full name now.  BUSH: That's what I want to know. There are a lot of monsters around here, you know. It's really not that hard to avoid the enemies in here, Bush. Also screenshotting on the fade between sprites is terrifying. Though, this event is a lot funnier if you grow the beanstalk and make it here in one go, as it effectively means Melody has somehow just been up here the entire time.   MELODY: That's what I want to know. There are a lot of monsters around here, you know. MELODY: I think it's somewhere around that rock. Also, her hat shadow makes her look almost a bit sinister now, that can't just be me, right? I wouldn't be surprised if she effortlessly fought off all the monsters on the way here.  MELODY: Why don't you try breaking that rock?  You got Cheap Hammer!  As I noted when I got the axe, the hammers also still have crazy proportions.    *So Bush gives the cracked boulder a right smack...*  *And a large amount of hot spring water spews forth!*  She performs the charging hug maneuver on Bush, which I believe is colliquially known as "the glomp." This information is outside the purview of Amnesic Agriculture 102, and is not guaranteed to be factual.   MELODY: Yaaay! You dug up a hot spring!  um could you let me go now Bush has just the most uncomfortable, unreacting pose and I can only say that I have probably done this before.  MELODY: Woohoo!♪ I knew my intuition was right. MELODY: I have no time to waste!  MELODY: Oh right, I'll be running a bathhouse, so be sure to come by!♪ If you guessed that Bathhouse Melody would run a bathhouse, then you are good at context clues.   She waves goodbye to us and then waltzes off into the darkness in her toeless boots, humming.   With that done, I clear some ants off me and I prepare to use the hammer for it's common use.  Not only is it as vocally violent as cutting lumber, it's even more visually impressive.  The game is also nice enough to let you hit multiple ore rocks at the same time.   This nets me a bit of Scrap Iron and Iron. These will be important when I finally get a forge.  With that, we're outta here. Our HP and RP are in a bad way right now, and while I could try to get enough EXP to level up and restore both fully, (because that happens), I'd also be cutting it close.  Hey, this wasn't here when I left! Apparently Melody can construct a bathhouse in 30 minutes.  The bathhouse opens at 3:00 PM, which is annoying when you need it at say, any time before that. My memory is dim, but I'm pretty sure later games just started opening them at the same time as other businesses.  Music: Business District BuildingsRegardless, welcome to Laga Springs. What or who is Laga, you might ask?  MELODY: Welcome, Bush, to the "Laga Springs"!♪ BUSH: "Laga Springs"?   MELODY: Yup. That's the whale's name. It's called Laga. That's why it's called "Laga Springs." But I'm the one that named it. Melody just up and named the sky whale island without asking anyone, including it. To be fair, Whale Island Springs would be a confusing name as this is not situated on the island. MELODY: Taking a bath cleans the soul! So you should come everyday! ♪  MELODY: Welcome!♪ The bath is perfect as always today!  Believe me, Bush will have a very clean soul by the end of this LP. The bathhouses in Rune Factory games are an incredible bargain for what they do, and we'll be coming here nearly every day.  MELODY: The men's bath is on the right side. I'll put you in a world of pain if you try to go in the women's bath! MELODY: Did you just try to imagine what I'd do to you? BUSH: N-no... Yeah, I'm convinced the monsters weren't an issue for her.   MELODY: Thanks!♪ I can use the herbs to make medicine so I was looking for it! A gift, but also perhaps more of a peace offering. Melody's changed her perspective on gifts since Rune Factory 1, where the only act that would increase LP was using the bath. It still increases it here, but she now actually gets LP for gifts as well.  MELODY: That will be 10 Gold! Thank you! Enjoy!♪ A bath only costs the price of a turnip seed or handful of weeds- Melody charges the least in the series for this.  BUSH: (Let's take a bath.)  BUSH: (*phew* That's nice...) This man has no nip. Such is the fate of our skinny Ken doll physique. Regardless, we haven't had a bath in presumably a week, so we probably needed this.  BUSH: (That felt great...)   10g for a full restore is absolutely busted, and it boosts the quality of life in this game by a ton. We can effectively do double the work now, every day. I waited this long just for the sake of pacing the LP a bit, but you can get this as early as day 1. If you're playing along or just casually, open it as early as you can.  BUSH: The room is adorned with flowers.  BUSH: There are a lot of books about magic. Melody must study a lot... The latter gives a bit of information on Melody that is probably predictable: the girl in a witch outfit studies magic. They do a little bit more with this than you'd think at first though.  BUSH: This is Melody's bed... BUSH: No, wait... Sleeping here would be bad.  BUSH: Something smells very soothing. There must be herbs inside the stuffed animals. BUSH: ... Zzz....  Music: GoodnightBush, what did you just  BUSH: Huh?! I fell asleep. You and your fakeouts, game!  This doesn't actually move the clock any, alas. If it did, I'm sure it'd be a speedrunning strat or something.  Anyways, before we head off to bed today, we make some serious bank. We also jump our cooking skill to about 12 or so.  "Melody - The always lively bathhouse owner. Always in search for the perfect bath."  "Kanno - The old man of the Clock Tower. Very knowledgeable but only when he wants to." Here's also the profiles for Melody and Kanno. I wish I could be smart whenever I wanted.  Music: SpringNew day!  This morning starts with a lone turnip. My watering got really off there thanks to all the passing out.  ANETTE: Bush! Good morning! ANETTE: Who did you write a letter to today? ANETTE: The weather is so nice.  ANETTE: Your house has been empty for a really long time. I always thought it was a waste since it had such a nice field. ANETTE: It might be weird coming from me, but take good care of it, okay? Anette's had her eyes on this house for quite a while.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"I got the Turnip." - Mist~ I have recieved the Turnip. It feels so strange communicating with you through letters like this. Anyway, thank you. ----------------------------------------------------- You could've just asked me in person. We're neighbors, you know.  ANETTE: Seeing some of those letters written in some weird foreign language makes it feel kind of off. Mist is still recieving missives relating to her dark plot.  ANETTE: Kanno! You've got mail! ANETTE: That's a really old book. Is it a magical book that Kanno is researching? Now I'm getting kind of interested. Kanno also has books delivered. Anette has to carry so many books to just this side of town every day.  ANETTE: Whoops. I almost dropped my wallet. She never actually loses it as far as I know, so no returning it for those LP gains.  ANETTE: This thick dictionary isn't going to fit in the mailbox. I guess she leaves it on the doorstop? She'll also say this when it's raining, and I can only wonder what happens to the dictionary then.   ANETTE: Melody, you got mail!♪ ANETTE: It's a letter from Lynette!♪  Lynette has trouble fitting in, so it's nice to see that she and Melody are friends. Also that the devs didn't forget about her. Still wish she made a cameo in a later game. It also brings into question what exactly happened in the first game. Lynette is your main antagonist, and the person mostly responsible for your amnesia. That being said, she has a change of heart after our hero defeats the dragon god her plan centered around. Given we carry over no skills, no items, and barely anyone says anything about what we've supposedly done in the past, did it happen? I guess these are just the unplanned sequel blues. Makes me kinda wish they had found some way to pull your data from RF1 to use in this game. The Wii can connect to a DS after all...  ANETTE: That's a really cute letter. Is it from your little sister? Can't remember if we've seen this already, but Danny's got a family elsewhere.   DANNY: Oh. So you've been to Whale Island? DANNY: Anyway, buy something. Now that we have interacted with the plot people will remark on this. The large majority of people will be unimpressed by the idea that we managed to climb a skyscraper beanstalk to reach a flying sky whale island, but such is life in a fantasy world.    EUNICE: You went to Whale Island? How did you get to such a high place?  EUNICE: Bush, you can fly? Some villagers are more easily impressed.  ANETTE: Ganesha, you've got an order from Alverna! Going back to the mail, Alverna, or rather, Alvarna, is the town from Rune Factory 2. Frontier is still around 10 or so years before the events of that game. That being said, I can only wonder what Tanya and Ganesha in the same room would be like.  ANETTE: Turner, you've got mail! Really, they usually get the least interesting mail.   I pay my turnip dues, once again.  Then she starts humming some song, but as to what it is, I don't know. I think this has something to do with the strange rock on Whale Island.  BUSH: Mist, you've said before that someone is calling to you, right? MIST: Yeah. The person appears in my dreams and speaks to me sometimes. MIST: He seemed to be in a lot of pain lately, so I got a bit worried. That's why I came to this town to look for him, but I can't find him anywhere. BUSH: How strange...  MIST: I know! Next time I see him, I'll ask him to appear in your dreams, too. Oh great, she's pulling us further into her schemes! Bush, don't fall for it! BUSH: Um... Okay... Thanks, I guess. Curses!  Jokes aside, it's pretty obvious it's the whale in this case, I'd think. I also think it's about time I cut this JPEG grass. It doesn't give any fodder, but I also don't have a barn so that's whatever.   BUSH: What is this? Does it lead to some underground ruins...? The Green Ruins are now open! Here's the real prize here.   MIST: You cleaned up the front of my house and I want to thank you for it. MIST: Let me give you this. Please take care of it.  You recieved Turnip Seed! What's funny about this is that Bush doesn't even have a dialogue box, just a  to end the conversation. Music: Green Ruins(This is a remix of the first cave in RF1, Carmite Cave. It's quite good and makes for a nice callback.) A second dungeon in the same update! Egads! This one has a season of eternal Spring, and is somewhat tougher than what we're facing in Whale Island's cave. We'll be making periodic progress in here, but this dungeon has a special aspect to it that I don't believe the other dungeons have. It'll be quite some time before we see that, as it requires us to reach the first boss of the game.   This dungeon also has daily respawning crates that drop low tier crafting materials sometimes. I don't know who restocks them. I go ahead and till one of those farm plots for later. I'll eventually want them to plant the two multiple harvest spring plants, Strawberries and Cucumbers. Doing that will establish me having a supply of them for as long as I want with the added benefit of being in a rather easy to reach location. At least one batch of strawberries here will give you enough to give the four townies who like strawberries one per day, and still get an extra one as surplus every harvest. As three of those are romance candidates, (Rosetta, Anette, and Lara,) it's not a bad deal at all.  To progress further, we have to cut some vines out of our way.  This here is a Chipsqueek. They can either throw a volley of acorns at you, or do a very telegraphed bite.  They also go out on their own terms, by throwing an acorn in the air and hitting themselves in the head with it. At least, that's how I choose to interpret it.   Thankfully, the majority of the dungeon farm plots have water sources nearby. These are even closer than the ones at our actual farm  Fighting ants and stuff really starts to wear me out, but...  Here's that full restore on level up I mentioned earlier.  Further in is a box that disappointingly nothing in it, and a good few more rocks to smash.  Hammers can sometimes daze enemies on hit. The fact that I did this to one of the cute squirrel foxes is because I was smashing a rock at the same time. Bush is unrelenting in his farm work.  There's a lot farm plots in this place, really. A number of them are just far enough out of the way to be inconvenient.  More farm plots! And that's about it for Green Ruins today. We'll have to skill up and gear a good deal more before we take it on for real.  I should've saved these monster parts, but also they're not too hard to grind out, so I think the extra cash was worth it. Off to the bathhouse for the last part of this update!   FANCY OLD MAN: Hot springs are so nice... FANCY OLD MAN: Don't you think so, young man? BUSH: Yes.  NOLAN: I think that you and I will get along fine. My name is Nolan. I am traveling around sampling hot springs all over. NOLAN: Where did you come from? BUSH: Nice to meet you. My name is Bush. I am borrowing a field of this village and making my living here. As far as I'm concerned, that field is ours.  NOLAN: A field, I see. I'm sure the bath feels very nice after a day of work in the fields. NOLAN: This hot spring is very effective on back pain. Please rest here to heal yourself.  BUSH: Huh?! No, I... NOLAN: Hm? NOLAN: Oh, you'll have to excuse me for being so rude. I just cannot get out of the habit of speaking about things only from my point of view.  NOLAN: I suppose that young people like yourself wouldn't have back pain. I'm sorry. And with that, we've met Nolan. He, uh, likes baths. About as much as Melody does. He does have that cat chilling on his shoulder though. Anyways, that's all for this time. Next time we meet even more characters! I would say it never ends, but it does! ...Just not any time soon. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2021 15:26
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MarquiseMindfang posted:Mist's "TURNIP RECIEVED, OVER!" type message cracked me up for some reason. She takes it so seriously! The underground turnip trade is serious business  I don't remember if anyone mentions Nolan's cat. Some villagers will comment on others from time to time, so it's possible it gets mentioned, it's possible it remains an enigma. SimplyUnknown1 posted:As someone with a cat, I'm convinced Nolan's cat is fake because mine would never put up with lying on my shoulder like that all the time. Not a good angle for pets. We haven't seen it yet, but some of the extra emotions Nolan makes are made by the cat and not Nolan. I think it may be just so relaxed somehow it doesn't care. As for the Melody of Trust, what knowledge I do have of it would suggest that max LP isn't it's requirement, thankfully. I could be wrong though, so we'll have to see.
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Oct 25, 2021 18:31
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Update 08: Aerial Assault Animes NOLAN: Well, now. I was secretly drinking in the bath the other day...  NOLAN: Melody found me out by the smell and she gave me quite a scolding. Hahahaha. This time on Rune Factory: Frontier, irresponsible drinking!  Before I close this day out, I grab some turnips so I've got something to do with all this RP I've got leftover.  Music: Night Ambience10:27 PM. Yeah, that took a bit longer than expected.  To bed we go!  Music: Visions(You don't get to hear this much, but it's a good track.) BLUE VOICE: Help... Please help me... Great, now Mist has inoculated us to her psychic wavelength.  BLUE VOICE: A great power flows into me from somewhere. I don't want this power... Oh, this doesn't sound like the whale. Um.  BLUE VOICE: Help... Please help... I would but I have no idea where you are. Seriously.  Well, great, we've possibly got two people to save now.  Music: SpringUnfortunately for them and us, farming comes first. I really want those upgraded tools. They're such a huge quality of life improvement.   In other news, we now have Strawberries. They only sell for 100 a pop, but they regrow every two days and they're highly giftable, so I can't complain.  ANETTE: Who did you write a letter to today? Nobody, alas. We will get letters we can reply to, but there's no way to initiate them as far as I know. If that was the case, I'd be bothering everyone in town.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~"I hear you found the Green Ruins" - Kanno~ I hear you have entered the Green Ruins. That place once was a Norad research facility, studying how to utilize Runes more effectively by using Rune Stones. It may be a good idea to try taking some Rune Stones down there with you. ----------------------------------------------------- Sure, sounds like a great plan. Well except for the fact I can't even get those yet, and nobody has even mentioned them before.  ANETTE: That book looks complicated. Being a nurse must be tough. Missed some mailboxes today, but I got really distracted by watering.  ANETTE: Omph. The entire set isn't going to fit in the mailbox... Even more books than last time   ANETTE: It's a letter from Camus!♪ Camus was a rival rancher in Kardia, in a really generous sense of the term. He was also into Melody, but that never went anywhere between them evidently.  Since that was the last box I wanted to see the text for, I hit up the Rune Archives. It's open almost 24/7 so I can head in at 8:00 like this, but Selphy's only usually behind the front desk to sell stuff at the usual 9 to 5 business hours.  SELPHY: Good morning. You seem so lively so early... I say usually, because she's just sometimes still back here anyways. The pursuit of merchantry is secondary to that of her love for books. SELPHY: The weather is so nice, but the sun is way too bright... SELPHY: It sure is spring now. Spring is the season for reading. I would've thought Winter would be, but I suppose I'll take the bookaholic's word for it.  As it is Spring, we shall read. ----------------------------------------------------- ~Beautiful Letter: Part 2~ "There may come a time when you want to send the receiver of your letters a present." "In such a case, hand the item to the mailman in person. Do not make the mistake of putting it in your mailbox." ----------------------------------------------------- Well, that was a short one. We can't even put things in our mailbox!  As a random aside, here's a look at our stats because I regularly forget to look at them, and as result, show them off. It's still really early in the game, so they're not much to look at. After that, it's time to go talk to everyone in town.   ROSETTA: I'm bored so maybe I should go wander the area. ROSETTA: Say, Bush. Take me somewhere. BUSH: What? Me?  ROSETTA: I'm kidding. Why are you getting all serious? There's no way I'd go on a date with you. Being honest, this dialogue is very out of place for Rosetta and the only explanation I can think of is that Mist is here. She doesn't have this tsundere bent at any other time from what I know, and it's not really present in her RF1 dialogue (though that's sparse). In fact, she's rather into Bush in that game, and rather forward about it at times.   ROSETTA: Thank you. ROSETTA: But how did you know what I liked? I remembered from the first game. (It's strawberries.)   ROSETTA: Don't tell me you like me. ...No way. But thanks anyway. The answer to that is the thread's choice.  More back alley turnip dues to be paid.  MIST: I need a favor from you, Bush. BUSH: What is it? Oh, hey, I thought this game didn't have a request system!  MIST: Please grow turnips. BUSH: Haha... We're already doing that  Music: Clock TowerWell, let's get some more KNOWLEDGE bestowed upon us.  KANNO: This is a nice and quiet place. KANNO: But it has one flaw! There is no one here to bring me my food! I, uh, have turnips and strawberries. Want either of those? BUSH: Just get it yourself...  KANNO: *cough cough*... My chronic disease is... Hm? Did you say something? KANNO: What was it? Bush kept butting in so I forgot. Oh, right!  KANNO: Since no one is here to make food, I had my granddaughters come! BUSH: Please don't call your grandchildren over just to make you food... KANNO: Well, that's that. I think they'll be here soon so you can go greet them. BUSH: Are they already on their way?  BUSH: Wait, I'm going to get them? You're so pushy... KANNO: Thanks, Bush. Such are the prices we pay for knowledge. These grandkids are going to be quite helpful in the coming days, so I wouldn't complain too much, Bush.   YOUNG GIRL: Aaaaaaah...!      *Suddenly, two girls come falling down from the sky!*   *SMASH*  BUSH: Grk, ugh, o-ow...!   YOUNG GIRL: I'm so sorry, are you okay?!  Okay, well you've got right to complain now. Also, this cutscene is very fast outside of screenshot. It's basically a blur at the beginning.  BUSH: Y-yes, I'm fine.  YOUNG GIRL: That's good to hear. The voice acting makes it apparent it still hurts. I imagine any anime, child or not, will hurt if thrown at you at high velocity.  Music: By the Ocean(I still swear this plays more in conversations than it does at the actual ocean.) YOUNG GIRL: The spirits are mad! They said that the landing failed because we're too heavy. Maybe you got fatter.   QUIET GIRL: ...I didn't. You just got bigger. YOUNG GIRL: You sure? BUSH: Um, are you Kanno's granddaughters? Luckily for us, Bush is on point to change the subject. YOUNG GIRL: Oh, I'm sorry! I suppose I need to introduce myself.  CANDY: I'm Candy! Kanno's my grandfather! BUSH: Nice to meet you, Candy. I'm Bush. CANDY: Nice to meet you, Bush! CANDY: This is my older sister.    CINNAMON: ... ... ...Cinnamon. I find it funny that for some earlier introductions they accidentally name the girl ahead of time, but they give Cinnamon the brief name of Candy's Sister.   CINNAMON: ... ... ...Hi. She usually doesn't use this many ellipsis in daily communication. This isn't a Tori... or Dorothy... type situation... here, at... least.... ... BUSH: N-nice to meet you, Cinnamon. CANDY: Heehee. My sister is a bit... reserved. But she's really nice! CANDY: We have to get going to see our grandfather! Bye!  Cinnamon gives us a slow wave goodbye. Well, we might as well go and chat them up.  CANDY: Do you know about the Spirit Song? BUSH: Spirit... Song? CANDY: Yeah. It's a song where you can speak to the Spirits.  CANDY: It seems I have the talent for the Spirit Song so I can cause miracles like Rune Wonders by asking the Spirits. So, this will definitely be a thing. I won't really be able to make use of it for quite a while, but it's good that it's open. BUSH: Rune Wonders? CANDY: Yeah. It can change the weather or speed the growth of plants. BUSH: Oh, that sounds amazing. CANDY: Hey! You sound like you don't believe me! Just watch.  Music: Candy's Spirit Song(la la, lala la, la la, lala la) You do have to listen to this every time.  CANDY: Okay. You should have more bamboo shoots at your field tomorrow. Actually, it'll only be like 400g, but still, free money. CANDY: To cause Rune Wonders, you need Runeys. CANDY: So if you want to do Rune Wonders, you have to bring me Runeys. If you're asking yourself how we collect them, well, we'll also be getting that tool soon. Which means it's time I have to start approaching the dreaded mechanic.  CANDY: How may I help you today?  I won't explore all the Rune Wonder options in detail until later, but be rest assured I'll get to it at some point.  Here's the basic list of what we can do though- mostly a large variety of boosting the rate at which we can obtain various natural resources, though some definitely sound exciting. It's like an expanded version of Alicia's fortune telling from RF2, but with complicated pricing that requires damaging the environment.  Asking where runeys can be found gives us this map. We'll end up having to manage the population of these little buggers in order to keep our crops growing right, or we can forget about ever using our main field effectively. Luckily, the environment already present should be rather stable for a long while.  Runeys will die off and consume each other in a brutal cycle on their own, and each zone naturally produces a certain type of runey... except for our Homestead. No runeys will decay here, but the natural growth of runeys is based on the amount of crops we have grown and unharvested. There's a sort of easy strategy I'll be trying to employ later that hinges on this aspect. I would just ignore them and move to farming in the dungeons over time, but I feel like it'd be an injustice to not actually try to interact with this system. Of course, I won't really get around to any of this until another update or three.  CANDY: Hmm hmm! Cooking is so fun! If you say so, kid. Before I can leave, I need to ask about Rune Wonders to collect the last piece of the puzzle.  CANDY: Rune wonders are, in short, miracles that are caused by Runeys. CANDY: If you can bring some Runeys over, I can try to wish for them to cause miracles. BUSH: Bring Runeys? CANDY: Here, take this with you. Got the Harvester!  CANDY: You can gather nearby Runeys by using this "Harvester." CANDY: The Runeys you gather will be inside your bag. So, just keep them there and talk to me. CANDY: When you release those Runeys, they'll start wandering around in the area. You can take advantage of this to put Runeys where you want them. So, yeah, the best way of managing the things are to abduct them and forcefully allocate them strategically. Anyways, we've got all we need from the rather smart 10 year old, so let's talk to her sister.  Just like Kanno and her younger sister, she's got a rather neat hat. The giant zipper theme is a fashion statement of some kind- on the whole it's a very Rune Factory kind of outfit. CINNAMON: ... BUSH: Um... CINNAMON: ...What?  BUSH: You fell from the sky, right? BUSH: What was that all about?  CINNAMON: ...Candy can sing the Spirit Melody. She can communicate with the Spirits with her song. I thought it was the "Spirit Song" though? CINNAMON: We were running late so Candy asked the Spirits to carry us on their winds. BUSH: Spirits...? Spirit Melody...? This stuff's just not sticking in his head very well. Maybe all that passing out on the ground brought our amnesia back. Either that, or that landing gave him a concussion. CINNAMON: Normal humans can't see the spirits. But they become visible when they group together in large numbers.  CINNAMON: ... You must have seen them somewhere. Yeah, they're all over the place, photobombing my screenshots. BUSH: The spirits...? Maybe I did... CINNAMON: Grouped Spirits that become visible are called Runes or Runeys. BUSH: Oh... So Runeys are just grouped Spirits... I didn't know that. But you knew this already. Bush, are you okay?  BUSH: You're really knowledgeable, Cinnamon! Well that, or it was some sort of way to line up a compliment.  CINNAMON: ...I just know about this a bit more than others. I guess it worked.  It's worth noting her voice is rather tired and notably monotone all the time as well. I guess like the average college student in the morning. She's less shy, and more existentially empty. Like the average college student. CINNAMON: ...I'm sleepy everyday. CINNAMON: There's nothing you'd find interesting here, but make yourself at home.  CINNAMON: ... ... ... BUSH: Um... um... What sort of hobbies do you have, Cinnamon? CINNAMON: Celestial observation... and fishing. Well, that's concise. Now you know what she's about. The majority of the time we talk to her, she'll be chilling out somewhere in town fishing.  So, if you remember the rooms we took a peek at before, it should be obvious this is Cinnamon's given all the fishing poles. Hopefully Bush can get one of his own soon, as fishing isn't too bad in this game.  Candy's room is rather basic by comparison.  Speaking of Candy, if you can't find her, this machine lets us look at the distribution the same way she does, and we can use that memo pad behind us to schedule Rune Wonders. She usually hangs out with Marco and is thus, hard to find, so I may end up using this at some point. That's about all there is to the clock tower today.   LARA: Bush, please live your life so you don't have use my services here. I find this is a better sentiment than Nurse Joy from Pokemon telling you to "come back again." Like, do you want my Pokemon to get beat up or something?    GANESHA: Nice! I was just out of this! I love considerate men! Just kidding. It's been a while since we've seen our favorite elven smith, so I made a stop by with a gift of some iron. I'd be concerned that she was just out of iron, but then again there's a lot more powerful metals in this world.  "Cinnamon - Magician girl living in the Clock Tower. Does not like talking. Likes fishing."  "Candy - Cinnamon's younger sister. Cannot use magic, but can speak to the Spirits." I then take a stop to look at the profiles for Cinnamon and Candy. I just don't usually think to actively check these. The Spirit Song/Melody isn't technically magic, apparently. It's mostly asking magic things to do magic for you from what I can tell, but isn't that using magic indirectly?  "Nolan - A frequent patron of the bathhouse. Loves bathhouses and cats." Regardless of these questions, here is Nolan. The cat has much in the way of ragdoll physics, but I'm pretty sure it's alive. Just... really chilled out. I... think.  Kross was on his roof, so no sad songs for the time being.  At this point I figured I'd show off our fancy new harvester. It's a multitool that can not only vaccuum in Runeys, but also collect items from our tamed monsters. No shears or milkers or whatnot eating up your inventory, just this thing.   I grab a decent number while I'm up here. They can survive endlessly in our pockets, so no need to worry about them or anything. Might destabilize this place a little bit, but that's whatever, it's not really my focus right now.  A few updates back I pointed out the cherries on the trees. With our hammer, we've now got what we need to collect them.   Every time you hit the tree with a hammer, 1 fruit falls. There can be up to 4 on a tree, I think, and some can be rather hidden, so you'll spend a lot of extra RP trying to get every last one of them.  The fruit type changes based on the time of year and there's a cookable jam type for each of them, but what we really care about is that 150g sell price. You get a lot of these things, and they can more than easily pay for your early expenses.   Lake Poli has the big stash of them.  All in total, I got 31 of them, which is a good boost to our already bolstered wallet. I'm aiming to sweep up all the crucial stuff from Lute this weekend so that I can really start in earnest.   Oh, hey. It's Mist.    MIST: I've been having dreams a lot lately. MIST: The other day, I was talking to a very large, fluffy chick. MIST: It seems even chicks have a lot of troubles of their own, especially with seniority and whatnot... This strengthens my theory that she's somehow managed to extract hallucinogens from turnips. Either that, or this is actually code for something, Mist's Cant for something regarding our performance  Better make sure we're in the clear.  CINNAMON: ...Nice weather. Also on our property is Cinnamon. She's got two places on our homestead she'll show up at occasionally.  BUSH: Well? Are the fish biting?  CINNAMON: ...Somewhat. It's probably because you're scaring them away, Bush. BUSH: Oh. CINNAMON: ...! BUSH: What's wrong?  CINNAMON: Do you want to fish, too, Bush? CINNAMON: I've had this for a long time. If you'd like, you can have it. You got Cheap Pole!  This is another tool to fill out our collection. In not too long, we'll have all of them at our disposal. Fishing's not bad in this game either- it's a decent way to pick up some money, and cooking only improves it. BUSH: Thank you. BUSH: How do you use this fishing pole?  CINNAMON: You have to first equip the fishing pole and stand in front of water, then press the A Button to fish. CINNAMON: When the fishing gauge is blue or green, press the A Button or pull the rod. It's pretty similar to the crafting minigame, but this one has a notable difference.  The bar doesn't merely go back and forth. Instead, it bounces around the left side very lightly until a fish bites. Once that happens, it starts surging right, deciding at different points to start heading left. The input has the same kind of delay the crafting has, so you basically have to predict when the fish's pull is going to be strong enough. This gif was the first attempt, and a fish bit immediately throwing me a bit off guard.   Got it on the next attempt though. As usual, hitting the green will give you a higher quality fish.   CINNAMON: ...Thank you. I like this. I bestow my first catch to Cinnamon, as shockingly, she likes fish as gifts. Rune Factory is a strictly pescatarian world, given the whole Retornen thing. Fish are eaten, unless they're a monster that just looks like a fish. This world is confusing, don't think about it too hard.  It might be hard to see in the gif, but Cinnamon is constantly having to keep herself awake as she fishes. She really doesn't sleep good, evidently.  MELODY: So you're going to the Green Ruins... MELODY: I don't think there are very good springs there. It's late enough to stop by the bath, so I do that. The springs there are good for me at least, they're close by.  In an odd twist of expectations, Melody only likes the more common herb colors (Red, Yellow, Orange, and Black) and doesn't have as good a reaction to the more rare ones.  NOLAN: Hello. NOLAN: The weather is very pleasant. A nice bath after working under the sun the whole day must feel very rewarding. Nolan's basically always here.  The cherries bring a nice profit- and that's only half of them!  ROSETTA: By the way, I heard that you went exploring on that flying island. ROSETTA: It's not bad to be a hard worker, but make sure you don't get yourself killed. I'll be trying not to.  Managing the farm takes me well into the night. This will stop becoming as much of a thing once I can just get even the watering can upgraded.  And to top off the update, here's what Bush is looking like right now. Our level only ever goes up from combat, but increases our four base stats. STR adds to melee damage via the ATK stat, VIT gives us more HP, INT affects spells via the MAG stat, and AGL gives us more DEF.  Profit wise, the turnips have been our biggest income. The next batch in the ground should serve to cover us for quite some time.  See you next time, where we meet yet another character! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Oct 29, 2021 15:42
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MarquiseMindfang posted:using a magic vacuum to enslave earthbound spirits to grow our crops better and make more profit.  MythosDragon posted:Nice, love this series. It's been a favorite of mine throughout the years, and it's been a lot of fun so far coming back to it after so much time away. Seven years away really gives you a fresh perspective on things. sandorius posted:I'm getting traumatic flashbacks to my first attempt at this game already. The Runeys may look amazing from an aesthetic viewpoint, but whoever designed their gameplay needs a swift kick in the butt. Yeah, I believe I touch on it a bit more in the next update, but this impending ecological disaster is real, and outside of a line in a book, the game never suggests this can really happen. You get a lot of vague information that you can make everything grow faster, but the slowdown is barely mentioned. And nothing tells you how the ecosystem is going to collapse eventually. Also, managing the Runeys eats up an unbelievable amount of time thanks to how slow the harvester animation is. I'm mostly going to try to stem the tide of destruction if I can, and hopefully end the game before it completely falls apart. If not, well, expect multiple updates of Bush: Trampolian Eco Warrior.
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Oct 30, 2021 06:06
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Update 09: QuestionableMusic: Spring Another new day in Trampoli.  Today's an important day, even if the calendar doesn't know. Other Rune Factory games usually have this thing already pre-filled with birthdays and festival dates, but Frontier gives you no such mercy.  Caught up to Anette very early today. Hey, this is a girl's handwriting... So it's from your mother. You're living apart from her?I think we've seen this already, but I included it again anyways.  Cinnamon remains brief no matter the medium.  Kanno's also sent us some advice about the Green Ruins. "Monsters that grew to towering heights?" Psh, there's no chance of that.   But I thought it still wasn't working?  Nothing really too new in the mail today. I was mostly following Anette to kill time until 9:00.  If you say so. I guess if you've got nothing else to do it might be.  Anyways, into the inn!  Music: Business District Buildings *Rapid footsteps*   Oh, hey. It's the character from Fantasy Japan. They're a staple for the Rune Factory series.     *Loud crash*   I'll be honest, I don't know if we somehow hit her while opening the door, or that we just decked her in the face. This cutscene goes by fast, and still doesn't make much sense when slowed down through screenshots.  At least we didn't get hurt this time, but it really does seem like everywhere Bush goes people are out unconsious or getting hurt somehow.   She's awake, so I guess this isn't another person that needs to be dragged off to the clinic. She is another girl that Bush is apologizing to.  Aaah! A monster?!   Milady... I said I am fine! Milady...Yes, he says this twice. This is 'milady' as in before fedora-tipping milady.  By the way, do you abide here? Yes, I do... A NEW QUEST IS AVAILABLE  ...She's leaving, so I guess QUEST ACCEPTED  Well, hell. Guess we gotta go find her- Bush didn't even get a chance to introduce himself and say that he moved here recently!  I've been trying to hand Eunice some random stuff because we really don't have anything she likes right now. One of the things she likes is sold in the bar, but I won't even remember to buy that an in-game week from now.   Yeah, I'm still on that quest, why do you ask?   This is all part of the search, I assure you. Trout's a good fish for early sashimi, if I remember right.   You could say that, I guess.      I need to read it from time to time not to forget... This whole looking at someone's bed thing is very weird.   Oh...   Music: Town Buildings I like you! You should become my student! What?! N-no thanks...Don't deny the pursuit of KNOWLEDGE, Bush.  What? Now I need you to run an errand for me. Find a "Cheap Cloth" for me to use in an experiment. Huh?! Why me? Selphy is looking to join Cinnamon in being sleepy all the time.   I go ahead and nab these two crafting books for this weekend. The cooking book will let us make sashimi a lot easier, which is a good way to quickly work our cooking skill up. The weaponry book won't be of too much help immediately, but it will come in handy later.  "On your field, tree branches and stumps may get in the way of tilling. If you see them, chop them with an axe to turn them into lumber. Just remember, you need a good axe to remove tree stumps." "If you do not till your farm, things such as weeds and rocks will appear. If you find getting rid of them to be a pain in the neck, till your entire farm." "Tilled land never reverts unless a storm blows by. There is not stopping nature, so if this happens to you, do not give up and till again." -------------------------------------------------------- Good info in this book, but part of me feels like it should've been called Happy Little Farm. Maybe I've watched too much Bob Ross.   Here's that second floor I said exists.  Rosetta was up here for some reason. I'm still looking for that other girl, don't worry.   You can go up into the stands of this amphitheatre place. Sometimes the kids are up here.  Of course, I'd beat them up right away if I saw them.Sure, kid, as long as you don't attack my tamed monsters. ...When I, uh, get some. I assure you we will, eventually.   This is the first time I saw so many Runeys. I don't know why... but... It feels... sad... Ah! Don't mind what I just said!Candy predicts my inevitable ruining of the ecosystem by trying to do this Runey thing.   Not every fish can be made into sashimi, but this Char can. They're not a common catch though, so I'll probably want to find a better location if I'm to grind cooking skill up.  If you enter early on some days, you'll find Melody cleaning the baths.  She tells us some of her dark, unclean past.  I-I like them.Good answer, Bush.  Baths are great. They can wash your soul! Take a bath once a day for happiness to come to you!♪ What's that? It's like a theme of mine. Haha.Melody hits us with a hot, new slogan that praises basic hygiene. Either that, or she's breaking the fourth wall and identifying her main character trait.  Sixty screenshots ago I said today was an important day, and this is why!  Then I proceed to smash my sword into the walls of her establishment for a few minutes. This is a minor exploit I only learned of late in my last time playing this game, and it is one thing I remembered clearly. The Weapons, Magic, Farming, Lumber, and Mining skills can all be raised by swinging their respective equipment at nothing, and using up excess RP and HP doing this can really build those skills up over time.  One bath later and it's all back. I've really not got all that much work to do today. ...What? No, I didn't forget about that person from this morning.   By the way... Nolan, I need this bathhouse, don't get me kicked out with alch-  Um.  Grass Juice. Sure. Thank you. Oh hey, another request today! What is it? Let's see... Now then, what do you do with your extra strawberries? That's, er, not much of a story, exactly. I'm not sure what that was, translators.  But we do have more multiple choice shenanigans! ------------------------------------------------ Put into the shipping box. I would put them into the shipping box. That's unexpected. Lute answered the same way. I see...------------------------------------------------ Give to a girl you like. I would give them to a girl that I like. That's a wonderful choice. That's just like you, Bush. I see...------------------------------------------------ Turn them into jam. I think I would turn them into jam before they spoiled. That's unexpected. Lara also chose the jam. I see...------------------------------------------------ Share them with the villagers. I think I would enjoy sharing them with the villagers. That's a wonderful choice. That's just like you, Bush. I see...------------------------------------------------ What answer is canon for Bush? He's pretty likely to any of these, so I think it's up to you to decide.  This seems like it was supposed to be some kind of hint conversation regarding who likes strawberries, as both Nolan and Lara both like them. In this case, Rosetta would make more sense in place of Lute given her profit-oriented nature. I guess I'm looking into this too deeply.  What was that...?When I think about it, those could be the same woolies that were following Anette around from the intro. I wonder what's up with them, myself. The game will likely never deliver on this, but one can hope. Back to wandering around I guess.  I can't help it. We're way in the countryside.Given that Rosetta was able to walk here and back regularly for a few days, It's probably not that far away. She was able to keep the store in Kardia well stocked, so I don't know what to tell you, Danny.  Regardless, I do end up buying a Pendant from him. I'll end up replacing it soon, but it's a notable boost to our DEF given we have none. This might seem like a waste, but it'll save our life in the coming updates.  Rosetta's also outside looking out at this rock spot now. She's in all sorts of weird places today. What is it? It's not something for me to worry about since I'm running the general store... But, I think you should at least save a little money. I'm going to be getting this from people for a while, and I don't know if it's the game actually reacting to how much gifting I'm doing or it just happens to be a well-fitting coincidence. Gonna assume the former. While she's not wrong, and I'm losing a decent bit of possible profit (about 1000g) each day, I've got enough on me right now that I'm good.  Besides, I'm trying quickly push as many of the bachelorettes' LP up as I can on purpose. I want the thread to see as much of each character as I can before I open up the votes for our eventual choice.  I never get tired of just looking at her.I'm thinking the first of those votes is gonna be somewhere a week or two into Summer, when we'll have finally seen all but one of the choices, and it'll be a sort of elimination round to lower the number of girls I have to put time towards buying the affections of with material possessions.  The idea of not gifting things to everyone in a casual playthrough will be a bit strange to me, because I usually just hand out stuff so I can see new dialogue. I don't really mind the glacial pace, but I'll see if it ends up being necessary. Anyways, enough about me rambling about LP stuff, back to the actual LP. These sparkly bamboo shoots are the ones spawned by Candy's free Miracle yesterday.  But without the librarian, you probably can't find any good books.The Selphy Decimal system isn't common use yet, apparently.  Char Sashimi has a Cooking Skill of 19, so the minigame is notably more... compact. We can still get away with this, but some things will be too far out of Bush's ability to even attempt. Previous games had all crafting set to a random chance based on skill instead of a minigame, so this is a much better deal in the end. I want this sashimi for a reason, you'll see why in a minute.  Empty out our bars before heading to bed, and...  Tomorrow it happens to be raining! This means I don't have to water my crops. This is great! It also means there's no music but ambient rain sounds almost everywhere. This is less than great. But people also stay in easy to find locations on rainy days, so all in all, this is still a plus.  As a solution to this, on rainy days, I will merely link some other songs. Music: AC- Rainy DayI was going to link the music from RF1's Town Square, but I couldn't find it by itself. Have this somewhat related track instead.  Too bad it's raining. I'm worried that the letters will get wet.Anette still delivers on rainy days. No rain, nor snow, nor storm, nor monsters will stop her delivery  But considering how much mail I have to carry, I can't trade for a smaller bag. BUt carrying a bag that's too big can be dangerous. I-I didn't...She's actually about as tall as we are, really. This dialogue happens to be well voiced... use of "midget" aside. Another occasion of this game showing it's age from time to time.  Cinnamon is also having to hold back falling asleep while looking at these books. Mornings are hard.  Yes... You can see many constellations when you look up at the night sky in this village... I recommend going to the observatory to do it. I guess so. I'll try it out later. Ah... but I don't know anything about constellations. Thank you very much. I can't wait.So this is a neat little side mechanic, and is pretty much the main reason the "look up at the sky" feature exists at all. Cinnamon will tell us when there is something to be seen and give a rough time estimate of when to do it. A number of them are related to other bachelorettes and provide a small, LP boosting scene and other rewards, while others just get us neat worldbuilding dialogue from Cinnamon. Seeing any of them is a small boost to her LP, so I'm going to go out of my way to try and see them all.  A turnip...? That's a strange constellation. ...I guess. If you want to see the Turnip Constellation, look up at the night sky while it's still early.She'll also give us a rough estimate of when to stay up to see things.  Music: Kross' Theme Yes. Do you know? You can make friends with monsters. Equip this "Pet Glove" and rub the monsters with it.You got Pet Glove! If you can communicate to them, they'll be your friends. Ahaha... That's amazing. So, yes, taming in Rune Factory is furiously petting wild creatures until they stop mauling you. Just like how managing the environment is about abducting the spirits of the earth with a futuristic vaccuum cleaner. Of course, there are monsters that will refuse to accept you no matter what. By the way, even if you manage to befriend a monster, it won't be your companion if it doesn't have a place to live. They greatly reduced the cost of them, which is nice. That, or maybe Kross is just that drat good he can do it with less for less.   I just wanted to talk...One does not get in the way of Selphy and her books.   Ahaha...  ~Cooking for Men:~ "You there! Do you think 'men and kitchens don't mix'? If so, then you are condemning yourself to a life of unpopularity! You, sir, must cook!" "To begin cooking, you must first enter a kitchen. ...Seriously. So many people do not realize this." "Now, just because you are in a kitchen does not make you a master chef. Let us first look at some tools. TO start, you need a frying pan, a pot, an oven, a steamer, and a blender. Use them accordingly." ------------------------------------------------ This book is something else. We'll get those tools later, but Bush is doing rather well with just a knife and cutting board for now. A hammer and tongs alongside a mortar and pestle are what we need first.  Did you get the right equipment? You'll be in a world of pain if you're not careful.She's not wrong, I meant it when I said Green Ruins was a bit above our punching weight right now. The enemies we saw aren't too bad, but believe me, they ramp up in difficulty fast.  People just naturally become closer the more I talk to them.Eunice proves that she understands the mechanics of the world that surround her. And yet, we're not very good friends still.  Hey! Stop looking through my books! S-sorry...Bush's pursuit for knowledge is hindered yet again.    I want to work hard at it, but I just can't continue long enough...I just find it unrewarding myself. Never been good with being consistent about exercise.  Not yet. Too busy selling it for cash.  Rita reveals she endures an unclean soul in the pursuit of capitalism. Melody would be shocked. Also, you don't do anything until 6 PM anyways, I'm sure you can find the time.  Oh no, she's evaluating our performance again-  GIFT GIFT GIFT Crisis averted, I think.  I obtain some strawberry seeds to set up my endless supply in Green Ruins.  I personally like Autumn more myself, but Spring is cool too. Also, Rosetta is just here in the rain. There's er, not really much of an overhang there.  I also gather some Runeys for a bit. This area's going to be useful for something I'm going to try to do with the environment later.  Music: Green Ruins (RF1 Carmite Remix)Dungeon music does play on rainy days, which is nice.  Bush prepares to head in deeper, but we'll have to save that for next time! ...What? I didn't forget anything. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Nov 2, 2021 17:44
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Dr Pepper posted:Ah yes Runeys. On later playthroughs I just cheated infinite amounts of them in my inventory. An interesting experiment to be sure but not something g so want to repeat If my attempts at Runey management fail, I've got some workarounds, but in my current playing ahead, I'm mostly managing it. It's definitely something I'll get to covering later, but I think the most egregious thing about Runeys is how tedious they are to manage. The harvester is very slow, and you have to hunt out individual runeys when it comes to trying to rebalance the ecosystem. If using the harvester just let you select how many of each you want to draw out of the area, it'd be a lot better. Still not perfect, but better. EDIT: Looks like Update 11 is going to be the big Runey update, and it's... a lot. There's a lot more than I even knew initially regarding all of it. I do have a plan for the future now though. AbstractBlacksmith posted:Oh my gosh I love this game. The RF series is one of my favorites, and I know I played the heck out of this one. I forgot how bouncy the main theme is. I know what you're referring to in regards to Eunice, but yeah, keep that under wraps for now. I've only made brief mentions of it, but I'm just playing this on emulator- they didn't port it to the Switch, alas. I just ripped the disc with my homebrewed Wii and I've been playing it in Dolphin. I have a capture card and I know how to properly deinterlace it, but I preferred the idea of having cleaner screenshots. It also helps to have savestates and the ability to dump textures at runtime (how I'm getting the sprites and portraits for this). (Of odd note on the technical side, a number of the character portraits are slightly squashed in the files and others aren't. I tried to remedy this in the little dialogue faces, but not all of them are perfect.) I don't have any strategy guides for the Rune Factory or Harvest Moon series despite my collection of them, but what I do have is Rune Factory Memoirs, which is an artbook they only released in Japan that covers RF1 to RF3, with Frontier included. I'll try to scan some of the pages later on, if I get a chance. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 01:56
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Update 10: Questionable, Part 2 Music: Green RuinsWe resume today's lesson in medias res!  To the right of the entrance is a series of shortcut staircases we can use once we unlock them. Given that it takes much longer to traverse dungeons in this game than it does in others, this will be much appreciated. My main goal for today is to unlock the first one.  One of the things I did not note last time we were here is this collection of rocks blocking this path. There's a secret area back here that can net us some better metals, but these rocks happen to be immune to our cheap hammer, (and also the iron hammer,) just like many of the rocks still on our farm.  Reaching the pathway to more farmland, we instead take a right for now and cut a vine to see more of this floor.  Hiding behind the gate it spawned from is a Spring. It's a very inventive name compared to the original name of Plant. They spit out balls of slow moving energy in a spread of three to five orbs each. These really don't hurt that much unless you get shotgunned by them, but their later palette swaps are immensely deadly.    Taking out those spawners for some experience, I then remember this path doesn't actually lead forward in the dungeon. Instead it's just this big stone plateau with some fancy engravings and such. I honestly forgot what this is for, maybe it's a teleporter to the bottom floor or something.  Heading up to the farmlands and taking a somewhat easy to miss southern passage, we're back on track.   This takes us out and around the plateau in the center to some more rooms on the side.  As well as even more farmland. You could very much make it by with just dungeon farming and ignoring the Homestead if you wanted to. It's not a good idea for a lot of reasons, the amount of time it consumes just coming down here for one, but you could do it. There's also a staircase to a deeper floor here.  Down here is... you guessed it, even more farmland. Bush stops to gather up the free herbs and move on.  The second floor is a lot like the first, navigating around this big, cylindrical pit. We head south first, as I'm making a beeline for the shortcut.  Down here are also Slimes. Not of the cutesy Dragon Quest style, more of a sentient pile of muck. These are also in Whale Island's cave, just a bit further down than we've gone so far, so they're not particularly dangerous. They can either try to slap us, or burrow under ground to spike out from underneath us. They'll sometimes drop scrap metal when defeated, a rather meh reward. The level up I net from fighting them is appreciated, as even though I wasn't very hurt, this next room is going to be... something.  There happens to be a giant feather on the ground over here near the other spawner, but we can't take it with us. Still highly unlikely that there's some giant creature in this ruin, I assure you. I press on in to the southward room.   Spawning in quickly and trying to conceal themselves are Big Mucks, which are more of mushrooms than anything else.  Don't let their goofy smile decieve you, they move very fast...  ...And they hit for way too much damage in a big AoE spore attack. Bush losing nearly a fifth of his HP from just one hit is very bad, and they're barely being hurt by our attacks, just to make it worse. That 5 damage is ours, it's dealing 18 to us. The fact that they can also inflict status effects hammers home that this place is out of our equipment level right now. The spores inflict Paralysis, which forces Bush to walk a slow pace instead of his normal jog.  In my desperate attempt to deal damage to them, one sneaks up behind me and hits me with a lick dealing over a quarter of Bush's max HP. It also inflicts Exhaustion, doubling RP use until it wears off.   Taking another hard hit to the back, Bush is on the verge of knockout and with me being unable to run away, I quickly bail out with the Return spell. I wasn't far from unlocking the shortcut, but attempting to fight these things cost me that opportunity. Had I not bought that Pendant last update, this might've KOed us.   Yeah, 7 HP out of 109 was cutting it too close.  Unfortunately, I'm stuck with these debuffs for quite a while.  It took me a whole in-game hour to walk to the infirmary at a painfully slow pace just to have it wear off at the doorway.  Well, at least I didn't have to pay anything.  With nothing much left to do with the day, I remember the bar exists, and that I haven't been there yet. I kill some time until 6:00 PM and finally head in. It's only been 8 updates of me saying I'd eventually remember.  Music: Snowstyle Tavern(Hey, we finally get to hear this track! It's very chill, and I'll be honest, it's one of the tracks I've heard the least of in this game. Only opening after six makes this place easy to overlook.)   Just one more...I guess it doesn't help profits much when you're drinking your own supply.  But I'm already here.   This is the first time we've seen any expression out of Rita that wasn't her usual smile. The bar's main function is as a store, and is honestly a better general store than Danny's offerings. Of main note is the basic cooking materials such as Rice, Flour, Chocolate, Eggs, and more. As we get into making more complicated gifts for the townsfolk, we'll have to remember to come here often.  Rice is awfully expensive at 260g each, but the only gift that Selphy likes that we can even make right now is the Rice Ball. Her favorite gift, like the favorite of most bachelorettes in this game, is a cooking recipe needing a highly upgraded kitchen and around 70+ skill.  Ganesha evidently comes here to get hammered before going back to hammering.  Melody informs us that we could drink the water from the hot springs. I don't think this is that good of an idea.  To contemplate this matter, I leave Bush standing in the rain for 2 hours.  Seriously.  I told you last update I didn't forget  To where did you go the other time? I had asked for your aid!  Bush isn't wrong though  You be quiet. I suppose I have not introduced myself as yet. This noisy little one is... Graaagh! Milady, I am... And now we've finally met this dynamic duo. Uzuki is odd in that as far as I know, this is the earliest you can properly meet her. Despite the game making it seem like you need to search for her, she's just not around. If there is a proper way to find her, I don't know it and I can't find any info on it. Give it two days and she just shows up normally in town, or you can meet her 1 day earlier by waiting until 8:00 and finding her at the bathhouse.  You shall refrain from having impure thoughts of any sort about her. As long as I am alive I... Old man... That is... I am only doing this for you, milady... I will be sure to give him a good scolding later so please forgive him. I don't mind.Being highly protective of Uzuki, and not liking Bush very much as result, is pretty much what Tsubute does.  You said you were looking for someone, correct? That is correct. Who are you looking for? I see... Well, if I find out anything, I'll be sure to tell you about it. You have my thanks. That is certainly an admirable offer! Haha...  Uzuki primarily likes sashimi. Because Fantasy Japan, I guess. It's usually an easy guess between the Rune Factory games which character likes sashimi, but it's usually not their favorite item. In our case, it's still a pretty easy gift to get in spite of not every fish having a sashimi recipe. After her initial introduction, Uzuki's just kind of around without much fanfare. She is the 8th in our ever growing list of bachelorettes. She does have a neat hat and a fancy naginata though.  Also Stella is just here in the corner. I almost couldn't tell she was there at first. I don't really think this is the place for a sermon. Though, Melody's always on about this cleaning our soul, so maybe...?  Anyways, time to grab a bath and swing my sword at the wall for a while before I hit the bed. Nothing out of the ordinary happens.   I said, nothing out of the ordinary happens! Being made in 2008, this game has bathhouse fanservice scenes it it. I don't really know why they thought this was necessary, but they're there. There's no nudity or anything at least, it's just overhearing their often barely risque conversation through the wall because   Music: ConfusionI wasn't really a fan of these 7-8 years ago and that hasn't really changed, so I'll just briefly summarize them if they happen unless the thread really wants me to post these in full. In the case of this one, it's probably the most tame. Uzuki just sings this little song, and then gets embarassed for some reason because Stella overheard her.  Music: Sadness/ResolveBush also passes out from this, from what I can only assume is overheating. That's what I'm going with.  And we exit the bath with a slight reduction to our RP. It's so minimal, I don't understand the point of it. I say this knowing I'd dislike these scenes more if the reduction was more severe,  Music: SummerChanging topics, you can look at the sky while it's raining. That water Runey sure is having fun. Enjoy it while it lasts, I'll be back to vaccuum you up eventually.  I also synthesize some Rice Balls. I still go for doing it with expertise because I may end up needing to eat one in a panic at some point, and I believe it's worth more cooking experience. It's not just because I like the "woaaah" sound bite. okay, it's mostly because i like the woaah  As I grind weapon skill across the house, I end up in this corner. The pharmacy and forge will end up here when I do get them.  And with that, it's time for a new day!  I entirely forgot Anette gets the weekends off.  Regardless, that gives me more time to collect all of these turnips. This will be a healthy profit.  Music: Trampoli Now that Uzuki has been introduced to Trampoli, we'll find her spending from 6 AM to noon practicing her naginata in the square. It makes it rather easy to get gifts to her. And yes, she is training with it for 6 hours straight.   How are you doing, Bush?A good thing too, as her dialogue runs into default lines extremely quickly with low FP/LP numbers.  You can tell me if you ever tear your clothes, Bush.As Bush's clothes are indestructible and we don't have anything else to wear, ever, I'll take your word for it.  I don't see anyone stopping you. Go for it.  It's the weekend and I don't see any customers and your husband said the same thing. I'm sure you two can figure something out.  Even Ganesha's not working today.  There is one person working today, and he's what we've been waiting for.   I nab the first tier forge and first tier pharmacy, though our current finances are just too low to afford the Seed Maker and it's price tag of 5000g. With all the turnips we'll have shipped out this afternoon, it won't be a problem to get it as well.  Selphy's also working today, just because. As I mentioned earlier in the update, this isn't actually her favorite gift, though it sure sounds like it.  Of note is this bookshelf, which is tricky to interact with given the proximity of the ladder.  ------------------------------------- ~Runes and Runeys~ "What do you know about the Runes that have become a part of our daily lives?" "Collectives of earth Spirits are also known as 'Crystallized Runes' or, Runes for short. These are seen mainly on farms and rich soil, and thanks to the power of the Spirits, touching one can restore your vigor." "Runeys are yet another form of collective Spirits. They only appear in certain places but bless the land around them more assertively." "However, Runeys and Runes cannot occupy the same space. Where Runeys are, Runes are not." "If you want to see Runes where Runeys can be found, try growing crops in dungeons." -------------------------------------- The things I transcribe in the search for KNOWLEDGE.  Also, I decided to read another book. Thanks, past me. ------------------------------------- ~Intro to Runey Research~ "It is well-known that in some parts of the world, Runes have altered in form and exist what are called 'Runeys'." "Runeys come in 4 types and they make up a food chain in this order: water > rock > tree > grass. In other words, more grass means more trees, which means more rocks, and so forth." "The more Runeys there are in an area, the faster the crops in that area will grow. Since Runeys are bound in a food cycle, it's considered ideal to have a stable balance of all 4 types." ------------------------------------- This isn't really accurate to mechanics, and calling it a "food cycle" is incorrect, as it's not. I'll go over the specifics more when I get around to trying my hand at managing them in the next update. I will note that this food chain is direly unstable. The game does nothing to tell us that the ecosystem will eventually collapse on its own without our intervention.  Stella said that she used to live there before the church was built.Mist once again shows her expertise at getting things for free.  There is a dungeon where it's always spring. Maybe I should move there...It's right outside your house. You know, where the jpeg grass you asked me to cut was?  I'd rather she not drag Bush to live down there as well, so we continue paying the turnip dues.  Lara's just over here cleaning this desk. It's rather squeaky.  I would say I used that mysterious thing called the Internet, but this is one of the few I can claim I know from experience. On RF1 I used to make most of my money through strawberries, so one day I just started handing out some low level ones to everybody in town. I usually just look these things up though. Grinding FP/LP to the point of them telling you their preferred gifts takes forever when you don't know what they are. Something I noticed while proofreading is that I keep screenshotting giving Lara something rather than any of her lines. I think it's that her conversations are just unfortunately not that interesting early on. Random chatter aside, it's time for something far more important.   It is time...!        Second tier tools! At last!  Never was there a more relieving sight!  Now when we approach our field, we get this zoomed out perspective. The tin can holds 3 more tiles of water, which seems a pittance, but therein lies it's true power:  We can now use a special attack with it and water 3 tiles simultaneously, for the price of 1 unit of water. That means we can water 5 full 3x3 groups before going back to get water, a fantastic increase up from our original 1 1/3 groups from before. It also saves time and RP overall, so it's an even better deal! If you've played the older Rune Factory games, you know just how big a quality of life improvement this is.  Kross also came to check out our farm. What a cool dude.  On Holidays and festivals he's got other stuff to do, asking for house improvements only nets us a response telling us he's busy.  Cinnamon's up on the mountain road on Holidays.  Crowns? Like the kind that kings wear on their heads? ...Yes. Oh. It must be a grand looking constellation then. You can only see the Crown Constellation after midnight. Try to stay up for it.This one's hard to do as it's late enough at night that we actually take penalties for being up that long. I'll still do it anyways.  Bathhouse Melody is also up here.  Yeah, I'm not really sure how the logistics on anything related to the bathhouse works. Does new hot water just rain down occasionally from Whale Island? Try not to think about it too hard. But I always come here. Ah, this got translated well. This was a separate dialogue that just consisted of these two lines.  A few more cherries are obtained, for some extra pocket change.  It's a nice day to go out on the lake as well.  Or just collect even more cherries.  No chance, kid, now that I've got these upgrades Well, given Bush only has about 15 HP right now after all that cherry gathering, he could probably take us out in one swing.  It's the first time I've ever seen an island floating in the sky.One would think you could see Whale Island from far away, given it's height, but that honestly depends on this planet's curvature. Although, in RF4 you can see it from a long distance through the telescopes, so it's really hard to say without an actual map of continent.   I tell you, Melody is a lifesaver for running this place on Holidays. And as long as I get here at 3:00 PM, there's not any going on. Except on Holidays, apparently. This one's between Eunice and her mother, Rita, and I guess actually leans on the more risque side somehow. At least it ends on the nice note of Rita telling Eunice to have more confidence in her looks.  It's not a very long conversation, none of these are, but this is likely the earliest way for you to find out that body image is a problem for her. (Outside of this, we don't really see hints of it until Summer, and it doesn't really show up until her first event happens.) So if you were wondering what Eunice's deal was outside of housework, here it is.   Unable to wash his soul thanks to the unbelievably thin walls and/or astounding acoustics of the bathhouse, Bush collects the last of the turnips and goes on a pickling spree.  He also eats for the first time since he got here, consuming the lower quality pickled turnips for the energy to keep making better pickled turnips. It's a loss of profits, but these profits will be big regardless and I'm just trying to grind the cooking skill up.  18 level 2 Pickled Turnips, 9 cherries, and 10 normal turnips all go in the box for a profit of 8526g. I've still got 34 turnips on hand and 2 lesser pickled ones for food later. I'll just not let Mist know that I'm carrying so many on me.  And now we prepare ourselves for a last minute sprint. I'm making this harder on myself by bothering to wait for Rosetta, as the money just enters your pockets immediately if you don't wait for this scene, but I'm also gonna take any free LP points I can get.  yeah sure, hand me the money  here's a gift  Lute!  Luuuuuuuuuuute!  Don't close up just yeeeeeeeee-   Cool, thanks. See ya, Thursday, mate.  So, the Seed Maker. It does what Lute says. We put crops in...  We get a seed back. Pretty simple stuff. Now, was this really all that important? Not at the moment, no. The main use for the Seed Maker is with crops that have been fertilized, an act which increases their resulting level by 1. You can only fertilize a plant once though, (and we presently lack the means to do it), so the idea is that you put that leveled up crop in here and get leveled up seeds in return. Repeat in a loop, and you'll eventually end up with level 10 crops. Or just level 9 crops, as you can get that level 10 through expert synthesizing. For the time being, it'll eventually pay for itself in the form of not needing to re-buy seeds from Erik. The very expensive stuff we can buy just one seed of and just make our own seeds from the produce. We'll also want this for a rare item we'll get months from now.   This however is a hilarious waste if they're not leveled up.  One turnip sells for 210g and a bag of seeds cost 10g. If you sold the turnip, you could buy 21 seed bags instead of just making one with a seed maker. I'll let you ponder that ridiculous economy for a bit.  Gonna go stare at the stars now.   runeys, please (also them crowding on you when looking up is no joke an intended mechanic) That...?  Music: Let the Games Begin!(This starts playing, though it's meant for festivals later. It also fades out about 7 seconds in.) Oh, no! Let's go take a look right now! Music: Trampoli Daily Life...Huh.  Mist... I'm fine. That's good. Still... It looks like the little chicks have been busy. but they forget about seniority. Huh? Don't misunderstand...  ... Good night...
Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Nov 6, 2021 15:47
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Update 11: The Runey Situation I think the official update schedule is now Wednesdays and Saturdays. If it seems like progress is slow, that's just Frontier. When we hit about Summer 10th then things will speed up dramatically after the first round of bachelorette voting.  Yeah, Mist just leaves after saying you share the same interests, A.K.A. turnips. Any mention of the whole fluffy chicks thing in that conversation was all me. What I didn't explain last time in favor of my joke is that certain constellations correspond to a girl in town and trigger a tiny, one-time event with them. This happens to raise their LP, as well as still raising Cinnamon's.  Before I call this night, I plant a bunch more turnips and get them watered. The goal is to stop using this out of whack field configuration by Summer. Now that I have better tools, I can start working towards that. I'll be using just the front half of the field, and letting the back half stay a lumberyard and herb garden.  UZUKI - Comes from a distant land of the East. Loves to learn about cultures. Here's Uzuki's profile. Her naginata will never not be cool.   Music: SpringIt's a new day! Unfortunately, I was too busy picking strawberries and missed Anette at our house.   ANETTE: Huh? It's for me? Thanks! So I just caught up to her outside of Mist's house instead.  ANETTE: The sun feels so nice. I'm sure it would be great to take a nap in this weather. I dunno, last few time Bush tried sleeping on the ground it didn't go so well.  ----------------------------------------------------- "I'm counting on you." - Uzuki Bush, I wonder if this letter will reach you. I would like to apologize for the other day. I have overstepped my bounds. I hear you are quite the adventurer. If you find anything, anything at all that could be related to my brother, please inform me promptly. ----------------------------------------------------- A large part of Uzuki's characterization is this search for her brother, and it'll be the focus of her events for the most part. She's also probably the most formal speaking character, outdated english included. "Do you abide here" is also just stuck in my brain for some reason.  Trout Sashimi Lv: 3 was synthesized with expertise! Gotta remember to slice specific fish into tiny raw cuts every morning. I'll still forget to from time to time, but hunting down sashimi fish is a lot harder than say, Cinnamon, who'll take anything.  Might as well go ahead and deliver it before I forget.    DANNY: Buy some vegetable seeds while you're here. Hey, what's up Dan-  what suddenly bright pink grocery store  ------------------------------------------------------ What pleasant weather we're having. It's perfect for going on a picnic with a nice boxed lunch. ------------------------------------------------------ You people and your boxed lunches. If I didn't know better, I'd say Turner wrote this sign.  [Materia] Business Hours: 9am to 6pm / Closed Holidays ------------------------------------------------------ Guess we'll just have to come back later. Might as well check in on the letters while I'm here. First up's the Bathhouse.  ANETTE: It's a letter from Sharron! ♪ Sharron hung around the entrance to the 6th dungeon in RF1, and was probably a ghost or something. Regardless, the only things she had any interest in was ruins, the dragon Grimoire, and Melody. She's a required part of marrying Melody in the first game, being the only way you can find out about her backstory.  ANETTE: "Trampoli Trade Association." We actually have one?  ANETTE: "Chairperson Rosetta"! What?! Rosetta is the chairperson? Wow... Yep, that'd explain it. Rosetta's urge to do capitalism strikes again.  TSUBUTE: Good morning, Anette. Please shoot that arrow with a letter attached to it at Bush. ANETTE: Tsubute, be sure to place the letters inside the mailbox. The game just automatically cuts to doing Uzuki's mail here. I think this was meant to be done at the Snowstyle's mailbox but it'll be like this from now on. I just managed to make it stranger by having Uzuki properly join the town and Rosetta build her shop all on the same day. And yes, Tsubute requests that we be shot every time.  ANETTE: Ganesha, you got an order from Kardia! There's our hometown. I wonder what's up with the farm there now that Mist isn't around to scam people into having to take care of it.  UZUKI: Bush, I heard you went to the Green Ruins. If you find anything about Brother, please tell me. BUSH: Yes, of course. UZUKI: Thank you.  ANETTE: It's a letter for Rita! It's a picture postcard. I wonder where it's from. Stop the presses, the Snowstyle got mail that was somewhat interesting!  ANETTE: I feel like some... "Chinese Bun" right now! There is also a Fantasy China in this world, courtesy of Xiao Pai and Lin Fa from Rune Factory 4. It is not called China, therefore I must wonder where they got this name from. Anyways, this means it's 9:00 AM now, so it's time to check out that new store.  Music: Business District BuildingsFancy place...   And a familiar face! ROSETTA: Welcome to Materia! This looks... a bit off. It's not just me, right? Although, I guess you can say that about a lot of the cutscenes.   BUSH: R-Rosetta?! ROSETTA: Haha... I knew you'd be surprised. ROSETTA: I moved over here. Starting today, this is my store and my castle.  ROSETTA: Come again. And then she says this like we're leaving.  ROSETTA: I'll still buy the things in the shipping box even if it's not crop-related. But don't put garbage in there. But where else do I put it? It's traditional Harvest Moon gameplay to treat the shipping bin like a trash can. I'm still not selling my collection of weeds, regardless. I was forced to make that mistake in the past, but never again!  Now that's a selection! If you were wondering all this time where the flower shop was, this is it. Erik only sells vegetables, and Danny only sells Turnip seeds. I have to wonder if this weird delay in getting access to these prompted them putting the flower shop so front and center with RF3. Still, it's a much better deal than what RF4 sticks us with, even if we're already halfway through Spring.  Most flowers take a while to grow, but they usually sell pretty well overall. Well, except for Moondrops. Outside of them being a flower, they're pretty much a worse turnip in terms of profit. They are good for gifts though.  Some flowers take a ridiculous amount of time to grow, like Lamp Grass at 90 days, which requires them to be grown inside of dungeons as otherwise the season changing kills them. I never bother with these, really. RF1 gave them the weird name of Phantom Crops, I guess because they shouldn't exist. How did we ever get seeds for these if they can't survive in the environment long enough to bloom on their own? I guess this what you get when you have a world where certain areas are permanently frozen into specific seasons.  Also, here's Mist's favorite gift- the Emery Flower. Wildly expensive solid gold flowers whose seeds cost a lot more than a house extension at the grand price of 26,000G. seems a bit too convenient if you ask me  BUSH: This couch looks like it'd be comfy to sleep on. bush, is this all you ever think about  Meanwhile, Danny has nothing to say about the shop that opened right next to his.   I did buy a Wappen (it's a little patch with a wooly on it) and Neck Towel from Rosetta, even though we could try to make them on our own. We had the money and I figured having them now would let us jump start being able to fight things. We're still low level. (Also I forgot that the accessory workbench comes with the forge until a bit after this.)  Music: Town Buildings SELPHY: I feel like something is missing since all I can do is read books. Heading to the other parts of town, we find that Selphy is having an existential crisis. SELPHY: I just came up with this, but why don't I start writing books? It's like thinking outside the box. Seems like a logical next step, if you ask me.  SELPHY: You know that giant bean stalk in front of the clock tower? SELPHY: That's connected to Whale Island isn't it? I wonder if you can reach Whale Island just by climbing it. SELPHY: It feels just like a storybook so it's exciting! I would normally consider the idea of climbing a beanstalk miles into the sky to reach a flying, sapient, whale shaped island to be a bit impossible, but we've already done it.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~Runey Research: Part 2~ "Now then, what can one do to increase the number of Runeys? Runeys are a type of Rune, which means, just as with runes, one must enrich the land. Till the land and grow crops." "Once the crops ripen, Runeys will be born. Catch the Runeys with a tool called a 'Harvester' and free them in a place you want to have them settle down in." "When you look up at the sky, Runeys gather around you for some reason. Use this habit to your advantage and catch them effectively." "Move the Runeys this way, and add more of them into an area while keeping a good balance of the 4 types. A Runey rich land is just around the corner!" --------------------------------------- Nothing this book says is explicitly wrong, but it's also not very helpful. Leaving large amounts of unharvested crops can produce small amounts of Runeys, but doing so is also missing out on profit and locks off a large part of your field. It also never tells you what this "good balance" is, and that's a recipe for disaster given how ravenous these things are. The value you're looking for when trying to get prosperity is 35/35/35/35, but given the mechanics you actually want 35/35/35/60. Or actually maybe 50/50/50/60. I'll explain why in just a bit, as I'm going to start working on the Runey situation today. This system is bonkers.  STELLA: Mist is so strange. I like girls like her. STELLA: She's honest with herself. Don't you find that adorable? the nun's in on it quick, retreat to allied headquarters  CINNAMON: Did you find the Turnip Constellation? BUSH: Yes. It looked really weird. CINNAMON: There is a legend where that turnip was eaten by a famous hero before he defeated a monster catfish underground.  BUSH: So he ate a turnip to fight a catfish? That sounds weird. CINNAMON: I guess. Cinnamon sometimes gives little origin stories on the constellations after we see them. This still raises LP even though Bush spent the whole time calling everything weird.  Back on the farm, I do farm things.  Our upgraded hammer also has a special attack on it, being this giant slam. Unfortunately, our hammer is still too weak to get rid of these larger rocks. We need silver tier to accomplish that. Earlier I said that I was planning on trying to use just the first half of the field once we hit Summer, but because of these annoying rocks that also means we need to get access to silver, expand our house for a larger forge, and buy the upgraded forge. We probably won't meet that dream until mid-way through summer at the earliest.  We can break these kinda half sized ones though.   Pale Carp (20cm) Lv:5 was caught perfectly! The fishing rod also has a special attack, though all it does is raise the quality of fish caught and make the bar move longer. In this case, it went long enough I got lucky and hit the green range. This catches a fish perfectly, which in my experience with real life fishing, isn't going to happen with a fishing rod given the nature of a hook.  At this point, I've been trying to stretch out what I can do by making and eating turnips. Power slamming that big rock a lot of times earlier did no favors for my RP bar. In my defense, it's not very apparent sometimes if your tool is effective against that big of a rock.  I'm mostly trying to get these Toyherbs that I bought from Rosetta planted. They have a grow period of 15 days, which pretty much means today and tomorrow are the last days we can plant them in our field this season. Toyherbs were always slow growing and kinda expensive until RF3. They grow in 2 days in Sharance. Better soil, I guess.  MIST: Should I make omelets with turnip rice or stir fried turnips tonight or for dinner? I can't decide. MIST: You know...  MIST: Bush, you never keep your earnings overnight, do you? BUSH: What do you mean? MIST: I mean that you're a very nice person. BUSH: Oh, really? Thanks.  MIST: But I still think you should keep some for yourself. This is Mist's version of the "hey you give a lot of gifts" dialogue. Also, I usually do keep my earnings overnight, thank you. I spend them the next morning  With the farm taken care of, I head to Mist's house to start on the Runey Situation. There's been a bit of discussion about it, and I've mentioned it a few times, but here I'm going to tackle it in full. Runeys. These little smiley faced goobers are all over the place.     Until they're not.  And they're probably the one thing about this game people hate the most. The game goes out of its way to vaguely explain a few things, but the fact people hate this mechanic so much should be indicative of those explanations being insufficient. A lot of the following information is derived from many guides, going with what seems to be the most consistent information on this subject. Get ready for a full-fledged infodump here, spaced by random screenshots from the rest of the day.  So, Runeys work in a food chain. Water eats Rock, Rock eats Tree, Tree eats Grass. Looking at it, you'll notice it's not a full cycle like a real ecosystem. Grass eats nothing and is merely preyed on, and Water is eaten by nothing. In practice, this means that water will slowly overtake every location. But wait! The overgrowth of water Runeys means they'll eat all the rock Runeys. Then Tree Runeys grow out of control as nothing is left to keep them in check, which means they'll eat all the Grass. This will continue to gradually spiral out of control until every area but your homestead dies out. The death comes slowly, but the decline can get very fast. Why do we care? Well, an area in prosperity has 35 or more of each type of runey. A dead area has no runeys left. The former boosts crop growth speed, and the latter slows crops down. Max dead areas makes a turnip take 16 days to grow rather than 4. Max prosperity areas can grow nearly anything in 5 days and keeps any regrowing crop ready to be harvested pretty much every day. So instead of saving Trampoli from just a giant whale island on track to Majora's moon the place, we've also got to help save the environment from collapsing in on itself. If you're thinking this sounds terrible and poorly thought out, well, um, it's possible it simply is that. I've seen off handed comments that suggest that this is only something that exists in non-JP versions of the game- the Japanese version has an actually functioning cycle where Grass eats Water. Thus, you can kinda just not touch it and nothing happens. (At times I wonder if this was meant to be an ecological allegory of some kind.) Attempting to research the truth of this statement got me nothing but the information that people are really thirsty for Rosetta and getting the main parts of this game's story spoiled for myself.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:41
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Update 11.5: The Runey Situation Part 2 Music: SpringMissed Anette at our mailbox again today, because internal autopilot memory of "6-9 AM is do all your farmwork time" makes me forget she comes by sometimes.   ANETTE: You're kidding, right? What is this thing doing inside the mailbox? ANETTE: Just because it happens often, don't think it's normal... Isn't that right, Anette? Anette has seen things in Mist's mailbox, and now she's talking to herself. It does make the "failed crafting an item" noise here on the second line, and it's perfect.  ----------------------------------------------------- "Nice weather, isn't it?" - Mist What lovely weather we're having today. Taking a nap outside is the best on days like this. Do you like taking naps outdoors? ----------------------------------------------------- Um, well...    At this point, I think the answer is clear.  ----------------------------------------------------- I enjoy napping outdoors, too. ----------------------------------------------------- Yep, that's about right.  ----------------------------------------------------- "Grand Opening!" - Rosetta Grocery Store Materia Grand Opening! "High quality for low price" is our motto! Come by the Business District to see for yourself! ----------------------------------------------------- Also Rosetta sent this really strangely formatted letter to us.  ----------------------------------------------------- "It's pleasant" - Uzuki Turner has remodeled my room specificall to suit my tastes. It was difficult adjusting to the life in a foreign land, but the familiarity of this room calms me. You should come by. You are welcome anytime. ----------------------------------------------------- So many letters today! Uzuki is being a lot more friendly than the other gals, in a way. This is in the past tense, so I guess she's already adjusted to Trampoli life. I'd say that was pretty fast, but honestly it's just that chill here. Not many people really even do anything most of the time. Off to follow Anette even more.  ANETTE: The early bird gets the worm, you know. But I never actually got any worms. Haha. You can interpret this a number of different ways.  You can also sometimes get in front of Anette and she'll push you with her superspeed. This was supposed to be a gif, but due to behind the scenes matters, I couldn't upload that.  ANETTE: This is from your father, Rosetta. After all is said and done, you're still keeping in touch. That's really nice. Despite running away from home, she's still sending letters back to Jean. It is nice to see, even if it is probably more business strategies than actual conversation.  UZUKI: The blacksmith, Ganesha, is very skilled. I can entrust her with my naginata. Uzuki recognizes an awesome blacksmith when she sees one.  ANETTE: I just love to have some "Steamed Tater" after a hard day's work! Isn't that about the same as a baked potato?  Realized I didn't have a sashimi made this morning and had to go fishing for a proper fish. Got lucky and got it on the first throw.  ROSETTA: Uzuki's clothes are really interesting. I think they look cute so I want to try wearing something like it one day. If I'm not mistaken, it's mostly kind of like a shrine maiden sort of look.  I find it a neat detail she leans on the counter occasionally. Given the majority of the series uses a more distant perspective and chibi-ish models, the games don't always get too much of these kinds of tiny details. When they did get them, they usually ended up just being a unique idle pose.  DANNY: I haven't gotten any customers since that other store opened up next door. DANNY: They just like new stuff. I know they'll be back. I know Danny has more stuff in his store judging by the details in the shop and we just mechanically can't buy any of it, but I can't help but imagine that Turnip Seeds, Cooking Oil, and cheap jewelry is all he sells. Gotta get them fried turnip bits.  SELPHY: It's such a great life to be surrounded by books! If there was an equivalent of the Library of Congress in Norad, then I don't think Selphy would ever leave it. She'd probably discovering some way to subsist entirely off of the aquisition of knowledge.  SELPHY: I stocked up on some new books! Read up! I mean, she's already psychic enough to tell when you're looking at a shelf. Seriously, she's all the way in her room and I'm far from being within sight or hearing distance. Well maybe just sight, Bush just jogs everywhere in his heavy boots. It makes a lot of noise.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~Runey Research: Part 3~ "So, with more Runeys, what will happen?" "First, Runeys positively affect farms. Crops grow better and thus more Runeys are born." "Next, people with a little talent may even learn to use powers called 'Rune Wonders'." "Rune Wonders, as the name suggests, are wondrous powers that utilize Runes (i.e. Runeys)." ------------------------------------------- Like usual, it only vaguely suggests how you can go about saving the environment. Nothing about the 7 days rule, Homestead rules, or the day 20 injections.  STELLA: You have to keep your promises. STELLA: Though it may be insignificant to you, it may be very important to the others. Stella imparts some wisdom to us before we go the wise old man.  BUSH: Is this some sort of blueprint? KANNO: I had the machine sent to research Runes, but there still are a lot of problems. Where to start, where to start... BUSH: Sounds like a lot of work. Either the machine isn't even made yet, or these are resulting blueprints from said Rune research machine.  I did set up Road to the Beach for a Runey farm, though without large numbers, it's not going to do much right now. I'll get on stocking it a bit better soon.  KROSS: This tastes good. I haven't forgotten about Kross- I'm still slipping him some of our turnip supply. He likes just about everything you can grow, though his favorite gift is a level 70+ accessory with 6 rare-ish items needed to make it. Most people's favorite gifts are like this and it's a bit ridiculous. Like, Kross isn't even a marriage candidate or anything, just a cool guy. Why make everyone's favorite gift so hard to get?  KROSS: This sunlight is so strong. It's so oblivious to the pain it causes us.   KROSS: You're gonna need 900 Lumber and 75000 gold. Are you all right with that? Already can't remember if I showed this, but this is the second floor expansion cost. We can't get a double bed, and thus, get married, without it. Still not as bad as RF2 or RF1, as we can access crafting before getting it!   KROSS: The Barn can get as tall as 3 floors, with 1, 3, and 7 rooms as you move up. KROSS: You're gonna need 10 lumber and 1000 gold. Are you all right with that? What we can afford is a barn!  KROSS: I'll start right away. So would you wait a little bit? Fade in and out of black...  KROSS: Sorry to have kept you waiting. Your barn's to the east of your house. This takes zero in-world time, so Kross just kinda farmer magicked it into existence.  After this I go fishing with Cinnamon on the Lake Poli bridge.  BUSH: Is fishing fun? CINNAMON: ...Quite. I caught a big fish the other day. But I let it go. BUSH: Huh?! Why? That's such a waste.  CINNAMON: Catch an release are the fundamentals of fishing. I won't eat it so it makes no sense to keep it. Bush has never heard of catch and release, which given his only current use for fish is to slice it into tiny pieces or gifting to others, I guess that makes sense. But if she doesn't eat the fish, what does she do with the fish we give her?  CINNAMON: Squid is good during spring. You can use it for all sorts of dishes, so be creative. This has been Seasonal Fishing Tips With Cinnamon. I've never had squid, actually. I kinda just don't like any fish.  CINNAMON: I like this place better than where I came from because it's quiet. BUSH: What was that place like? CINNAMON: A very large city. I was researching magic there. She is a wizard, it just doesn't come up very often.  MIST: When you give things that the villagers like, they will be thrilled. That is the quickest way to make friends with them. As we warp home, Mist explains to Bush that this world is materialistic, and that money gets you everywhere. MIST: By the way, I like Turnips and Emery Flowers.  MIST: Does it seem like I'm hinting too strongly for you to give me some? She's trying the direct approach now. That, or she's giving us a warning about our current turnip deliveries  You win this time, but Bush will see liberation from your operation soon enough!  Anyways, gotta get started on collecting more lumber. The axe's special attack does more damage to stumps, meaning it takes less hits and less time to break them. We also couldn't even touch them before we upgraded, so there's that too. No gif this time as it's pretty much the same, just without the jump.  Oh, and here's our barn. It looks small, but like most buildings in this game, is way bigger on the inside. The barn really defies that rule.  ----------------------------------------------------- Farm Work Schedule 7AM: Gather edible plants 11AM: Harvest crops 3PM: Water plants 7PM: Gather lumber 10PM: Clear out rocks 1AM: Mow grass ----------------------------------------------------- You can also train your monsters to do your farmwork for you. I've never gotten this to work effectively on any RF game, so maybe this LP will change that. I've always heard that you should water plants in the early morning or late afternoon, not when the sun's still on them. Something about the sun dehydrating the soil shocking them or something like that.  CANDY: I want to visit you at your house! Down by the shore, Candy just kinda likes seeing other people's houses. When she's over at Marco's you can see a little more of it.  Picked these Water Runeys up across town, but mostly from the beach itself.   There, now it's stocked. This'll let me build up a stockpile of grass for the future prospering regions.  53 Water and 15 Grass. That ought to be good enough. Now time to just kinda get lazy about collecting the Grass runeys.   MELODY: This village is so nice. This is the only place in the world where you can find a hot spring in the sky! still don't understand how it works, still not questioning it  NOLAN: In my country, the flowers bloom beautifully during this season.  NOLAN: I hope you can come view it when you get the chance, Bush. Knowing how Bush is, that would take Mist running off to there.  Where he is running off to now, is Whale Island! That'll have to wait until next time, thanks to the Runey Situation, but rest assured we get to some more new content up here. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Feb 11, 2023 |
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Nov 10, 2021 16:42
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SimplyUnknown1 posted:If this...bizarre Runey system really was an international release thing, is it possible that it came about due to a programming error? Because wow, I can understand the hate for the system. Runeys in other RF games I've played have mostly just...been there. This though...this is just awful! The descriptions and all the books are consistent with with this broken food chain design, so it would have to have been a programming error they decided to keep for some reason. I'm going to turbo through a file on a Japanese copy of the game and check the descriptions of the Runeys to see if it's true or not, because I just have to know. The Runes generated by plants in the other game are fine as they're completely beneficial things just there to give you nice RP refills. I don't even get those while working on the Homestead anymore in this game! It's worth noting that the majority of these old strategies involve getting used to spending 80% to 90% of an in-game day dealing with Runeys multiple times per month, and still spending half your time each normal day managing them. You're supposed to be okay with the idea of losing real life hours doing nothing but managing them, apparently. The harvester has a very small radius at which it draws in Runeys, and provided the right ones happen to be in the right place, you can collect maybe 3 or 4 with one use- usually you're just gonna get 1 and it's possibly not even the one you wanted. This animation is also 6 seconds long and the Runeys themselves will hide high above the camera, as well as fading in and out every few seconds- having to hunt them down individually is an immense pain and in-game time sink. And the thing is, the laziest strategy I could come up with, leaving everywhere on the verge of extinction every night, still requires you to vacuum every single Runey ahead of time. And all of this strategizing is based off of somewhat spotty, slightly conflicting, decade old information found on GameFAQs. :shepard: (The alternate thing to do is to ignore them and grow everything you think you could possibly want before the ecosystem slowly drains itself out. Then just ignore ever being able to reasonably grow plants again, but good luck making any money since they greatly nerfed the value of literally everything that's not a crop!) Also in other terms, clearcardinal on the Beach spotted that I had the music links for the Spring seasonal track wrong this entire time! Every link to it in every update should be fixed now, but here it is if you wanted to listen to it. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 19:31
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AltaBrown posted:I know there are still more Bachelorettes to come, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to vote for Mist. Cinnamon, Rosetta, and Sylphie are great, but I want to see The first bachelorette voting wave isn't too far off. The idea is that it'll be a sort of elimination round, and I'll stop bothering to raise LP with the ones that lose the vote, leaving me with only about 3-5 to focus on. After the game progresses a bit more and we see some of their events, then the final vote will happen. We're waiting on 3 more of them to show, and one of them will at least show herself by the next update; however, we won't properly meet her until, like, Update 16 or something. The other 2 gals we're waiting on join the fray simultaneously as Summer begins, and I've considered exempting them from the first voting round to be fair to their smaller amount of screentime. I'll see what we think about that when we get there. You may notice that this only adds up to 11, and that's because one of the bachelorettes is a post-main story one. There's a chance she might become relevant in time to be voted for, but it'll take a very specific set of conditions in the voting rounds. NullBlack posted:Turnips. Nothing but turnips. At least turnips are easy to get. Technically we've lost more money gifting Mist than anyone else in town, but still. I'll still never grow an Emery Flower, even if she gets picked.
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Nov 10, 2021 20:34
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AbstractBlacksmith posted:I played the hell out of this game and never figured out the Runeys. I think I just ignored them and spent most of my time in the dungeons. Good on you for trying to make it work! The sound bites from these games really do stick with you sometimes. I was surprised at how many of them I remembered, myself. I can always post my settings for Dolphin, if wanted. It ran pretty cleanly for me from the get-go, but I had to make some graphical enhancements to try and clean up the font and such for screenshots.
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Nov 12, 2021 02:17
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Update 12: Nowhere Near Fin-ished Music: Whale Island EntranceRepeating the theme of the last two updates, we begin again as we head into a dungeon!  Music: Whale Island Cave Heading to check the southern farm field by the entrance, I see a few colored grasses have grown. Purple grass doesn't belong to the Spring season, a benefit of Whale Island having all seasons. It's not very useful right now anyways, but it'll eventually get used. Maybe. I honestly forget which medicine recipes use it.  As I progress through the cave I'll be clearing out some monsters to grab a level or two, but fighting's not really my main focus here, progress is. Making progress here should be easier than Green Ruins, and now that I've got moondrop seeds available, there's something up here I need to do with them as quickly as possible.  North of the entrance is another small farm field, but it's not near any water source so it's hardly worth the time it takes to get to it.    A few more spawners banished, and I come across some mineral rocks.  The charge attack does way more damage than is necessary to these things and only serves to potentially increase the level of the resulting metals. I only get one iron from this, but it's not a complete waste of time. Scrap iron isn't as useless as it immediately seems, it's just that using it right now is beyond our ability. A majority of the weapons and some tools in the game have a recipe to mix it with scrap iron, resulting in the same item, but giving you a chance to boost the resulting item's level. Higher level means more damage and less RP used per swing, so it's a good deal, it just requires a larger forge than we have now.     Another field, spawner, and some more rocks later, I finally make it back to where we met Melody. It's only taken me over a week to come back here.  To the southwest from here is where we go to continue our adventure.  These giant puddles of purple goop are poisonous. So we don't step in them. They've appeared in previous games, but like in RF1, bothering to clean them up is pointless most of the time as they'll respawn later. Neutralizer, the agent used to do this isn't that expensive, but we need it for other stuff.  Found here swinging it's mace wildly is the pig-like Orc. In this game all they do is face you and then slowly move forward while flailing their weapon about until they get dizzy. They're hardly a threat, and the only thing worth noting is that, like other humanoid monsters, taming them feels a bit weird.  This one dropped a Mark of Warrior. They largely drop the same things as Goblins.  Not too far to the west of them is a spawner with Orc Archers. They're orcs, but with a bow. On some level, they're more advanced than the people of this world as they figured out the art of archery. Noradians just don't have ranged weapons. In-world, in what I guess is about 25 years later in Rune Factory 4, the Elven Harp ends up being a thing, even if calling it a ranged weapon is a bit strong.   As we run southwards past more orcs, we hit a cutscene.  In which a tiny, purple, grass-covered elephant approaches us. It also sounds kinda like a cat or something.  BUSH: Is this monster... lost? BUSH: It doesn't seem to be hostile...    It then walks a circle around us before wandering off.  BUSH: There it goes. I wonder what was with that monster.   After this, we regain control, but the nearby spawner puts out a small army of orcs, so I just move on past the waterfall. There's a very large field down there, yet as it takes so long to reach, it's hardly worth it.  Also there's this strange pedestal that Bush instinctively knows Rune Stones can be fit into. It opens up that nearby door, which I think just has a chest behind it with some slightly better than average loot. The 10 runeys it costs to open it probably isn't worth it, but I'll investigate it sometime when I remember to.  As we head south... there's light and grass?  Music: Whale Island Outside(Been a while, but it's finally a new track! I really quite like this one, it's got the right level of unusual to it for the kind of place we've found ourself in. It's ethereal, but with a bit of action to it.) Surrounded by walls absolutely covered in vines, broken marble pillars and overgrown tile, it's already apparent there's more to Whale Island than it's relatively boring cave would suggest. Welcome to the Whale Island Fin!  There's even some summer grass up here at this small field. Blue grass has it's uses, although I also forgot which recipes it's used in. At least there's still a good amount of grasses that Melody likes. Once Spring is over, finding those won't be as easy.  Just south from the field is a Wooly spawner! These bipedal, floppy eared sheep were first seen in Anette's introduction, but now we've finally met them in the wild. They have only one attack in this game, and that is to fall onto their back attempting a dropkick. It hurts when it connects, but it's range is so short it's easily avoided. They're useful for the fact they're the only monster to give you wool. At least one of these is a must, though we may end up wanting more. They also kinda sound weird, but that's just me.   Down the stairs some more, we encounter a Buffamoo, or Peekamoo as they've been called in some games. They're kinda like buffalo, but spotted like Jersey cows. Maybe kinda like an auroch? They predictably attack with a charge like a bull. Also predictably, they're the only source of milk.  There's a lot of them up here, in fact. This spawner puts out 3 well placed to charge you down.   As it's getting late, I ignore them and follow the stairs down even more and hit another cutscene.  We get a nice view of this intact tower and the rest of the zone. It also lets you see how this really is one of the fins of the whale.  *Watering can noises*  And only now does Bush notice this girl in bright white clothing watering some yellow flowers.  BUSH: ...Um.  However, she walks off before Bush can introduce himself or do something that would make him need to apologize.  Into the tower she vanishes.  There does seem to be a lot of light here for almost 9:00 at night, seems like the moonlight is really strong here. This little untouched 3x3 farm plot is important, and the reason why I needed those moondrop seeds. Unfortunately, I'll have to go buy some now as I planted them in my field last update.  We're also a good distance above the clouds- it's hard to really see from the island's entrance, but you can see it on the fin very well.  There's always a chest on this little bit of the fin, so I grab its contents and get ready to warp back.  But before I do, let's check out the last path available to us. Up here are spawners for Silver Wolves. The first monster we can ride, and the first monster that is insanely out of our depth. Their only attack is a lunging bite, but it comes out pretty fast and these doggies move real fast as well. The only saving grace here is that they get stuck on terrain easy, and they have to reposition before they can lunge again.  Our sword hits for 1 damage. 1 damage.  And they hit for 99 in return. If I wasn't wearing that stuff from Rosetta's shop, this would have been an instant KO. The Woolies and Buffamoos aren't that bad, they're fightable at this level. The wolves absolutely are not. I've got a solution to this, however; Bush won't be stonewalled by these wolves for too long. Music: Snowstyle Tavern Stella offers sermons everywhere.  STELLA: Uzuki made me a handmade charm the other day. STELLA: It seems weird to have a god of another country protect me, but I think it feels quite nice too.  Kanno's also here, also still asking for cheap cloth.  Luckily, I picked one up off the orcs inside Whale Island Cave.  KANNO: What is this? BUSH: What is it? You're the one that told me to get it... KANNO: *cough cough* My chronic illness... It's still unspecified whether or not Kanno's actually got something or he's just messing with us. It seems a lot like the latter, but you never know.  KANNO: Setting that aside, it seems that you have brought me the "Cheap Cloth." KANNO: I shall give you this as a reward. You got Fire Rod! BUSH: What is this?  KANNO: It's a magical staff. With this, even those who have no talent in the ways of magic can cast spells. KANNO: Of course, you will never compare to real wizards like myself and Cinnamon.  BUSH: Thank you very much. KANNO: No need to thank me. It is my utmost pleasure to watch my student grow and mature. Hohoho. This game tries to partially retcon magic from what I can tell, given that every other region in Norad just has magic books. Even Bush is able to learn spells from them in the first game, but given how bad they were, maybe he really does just lack talent. Regardless of talent or not, magic is rather overpowered in this game. The Fire Rod in particular is just kinda busted, but in my experience the other magic rods will not disappoint us either.  TURNER: How about a drink? A drink after a hard day's work is great! RITA: What are you talking about? You drink even when you don't work. Turner's thing is that he likes drinking, if you haven't noticed. That said, I wonder why we never see Nolan in here.  GANESHA: Oh, stop it.  Hahaha... That's great!These two are really smashed tonight. Turner's voice line says "Isn't that a hoot" instead, and I wish they would've went with that one.  Since I'm here, I go ahead and buy 4 more boxes of rice. These must be tiny boxes, or the rice balls Bush makes are huge.  And since it's so late already, I head up to the observatory and set the emulation speed to 200% for a while. By about 1:20 AM...  You found the Crown Constellation!  BUSH: It's a crown so there are lots of big stars included in it. ...And that's it. No crazy turnip meteor shows up or anything like last time- this constellation is just a normal one. It does correspond to Selphy though.   After warping back home, Bush prepares some more food for tomorrow and hits the hay. Well, the bed. I still don't have any hay growing presently.  Music: TrampoliNext morning opens with trying to clean my inventory up some. Your inventory is decently spacious, but without a fridge right now, I'm left to carry a lot of unnecessary stuff on me.   I forge a Spear at the forge using one of the Thin Sticks we've found alongside some iron.  In my opinion, Spears really aren't that good in this game as you can't use it's charge attack to clip through enemies like RF1, and there's no Rune Abilities like RF2. They're kinda slow as well, and the range isn't nearly as helpful as you'd think.  Day 16 is another day without Anette, as she doesn't seem to show up on days where you wake up at an unusual time. All the Anette fans have my apologies. Also, I forgot to mention that since we were awake up to 1 AM for the constellation, we woke up 2 hours later than usual, starting this day at 8:00 AM.  I get all the farming done in about 2 hours as well, so I head off to collect incidental dialogue like usual. Mist today only requests us to grow more turnips, which we're already doing.  Next on our daily trips is Cinnamon. CINNAMON: Did you find the Crown Constellation. BUSH: Yes, it was beautiful. CINNAMON: There is a legend about a king who set his crown in the heavens to honor his late queen. BUSH: Oh... That sounds like a beautiful story. CINNAMON: ...Yes.  CINNAMON: You can see the "Serpent Constellation" right now. BUSH: A serpent? That constellation sounds interesting. CINNAMON: ...Not exactly. In some regions serpents are said to control the weather. BUSH: Oh really? That's the first time I've heard of that.  CINNAMON: You can see the "Serpent Constellation" a bit late at night... Try to stay awake. Lots of constellation talk today. She might not think the Serpent constellation is interesting, but I'd say it is. You'll see what I mean when we do trigger it.  I check the Runeys while we're here, and it seems that Grass Farm I made last time is doing alright. I'll be honest and admit I won't be incredibly vigilant about properly pulling out Grass and restocking with Water, but I'm not going to entirely waste it.  STELLA: This church is getting really old. I suppose we should start restoring it soon. I can't see anything wrong with it myself, but honestly, just put Kross on the job. Knowing him, it'll take about 4 seconds.  LARA: Money is necessary to live, but obtaining more than necessary will only cloud your heart. Please don't be too attached to money, Bush. Lara's advice on my constant gifting is this, which boils down to "keep doing it" I guess. And believe me, I'm not attached to my money in this game, I've always got something to spend it on. Although we just went through a big moneymaking section with getting the crafting stations, there's always going to be something else we need to work towards. Right now, it's the house expansion for the Forge. The base level stations only allow us to work with 2 materials at a time, and that's going to be incredibly limiting as soon as we beat the Green Ruins.  In the library, we find that Selphy is trying to usurp Cinnamon's niche even more. SELPHY: I got a new book! It's called the "Book of Constellations." It's about myths and legends associated with the stars. SELPHY: I love myths so this is a must-read. I'll keep it on the shelf so read it whenever you want.  SELPHY: Summer is said to be the season for encounters. I wonder what kind of book I'll find this year. Um, Selphy, I hate to break it to you, but we're only halfway through Spring.  SELPHY: I have a ton of books I want and not enough bookshelves. I also need book covers... SELPHY: I just don't have enough money! SELPHY: That's why I need to sell some books. Please buy some! Part of Selphy's thing is that she's constantly broke despite her snazzy attire. The pursuit of KNOWLEDGE is a taxing one indeed.  BUSH: What do you like, Selphy?  SELPHY: Books! Don't ask me such a silly question. BUSH: I meant what kind of food do you like. SELPHY: Oh, then you should have mentioned that beforehand. You do have to specify these things, Bush.  SELPHY: I like... Hm, there's nothing in particular. There are times that I even forget to eat. SELPHY: Oh! I like sandwiches and rice balls. Things that I can eat with only one hand. No, it's not because she likes the taste, it's just because she can eat and read at the same time.   I opt to do her a favor and buy the books on medicine and accessories, completing our baseline collection for crafting.  ~Happy Farm: Part 2~ "As you probably know, different crops grow during different seasons. However, do you know what happens to crops grown in the wrong season?" "Simple. They wither. No matter how young the crop is, it will wither once the season changes, so be careful when you sow seeds. Also, you can't farm during winter." "Always remember to love your farm and thank the earth and Runes. As long as you do, your crops will respond to your heart! May your farm prosper!" ------------------------------------------- And now it's time to use our almighty tiller- Right, too much Bob Ross. Regardless, that was our book of the day.  ROSETTA: Oh, yeah! You know those Moondrop Flowers? I heard that they become very beautiful when they're grown in a place with a lot of moonlight. ROSETTA: Why don't your try growing some if you find a place like that? Of course, the seeds are available at theis very store. *She does a little excited motion. I don't really know what else to call it.*  BUSH: Ahaha. Rosetta, you're quite the sales person, as always. ROSETTA: But I wonder where that place is... Does it mean that it's a very high place since it's closer to the mooon? So, here's your hint on what to do with that farm plot outside the tower on Whale Island's Fin. They take some time to grow, so it'll be a bit before we actually get to see what it does. That last line is something I spliced in from her other dialogue on the matter that acts as an extra hint. Felt like the better way of handling it. It'll be even longer as another Holiday is coming up soon, so we'll miss out on a day of watering it.  ROSETTA: Decorating the store with a vase is probably overdoing it. We're a general store after all.  Unfortunately, my buying of those crafting books means I'm running a bit short for even the moondrop seeds. I'll see if I can do anything about it later today, but I think this means I've got to wait until tomorrow to get them.  UZUKI: Do not come close or you may get hurt, Bush! Outside, Uzuki is still practicing, as always.  BUSH: The weapon you have has a very strange shape, Uzuki. UZUKI: Yes. This is called a 'Naginata' and is a weapon from my country that even women can use deftly.  UZUKI: I used to be sickly when I was young, but after training with the naginata, I became better little by little. Well, there's a bit of early backstory for you.  RITA: This is a really scenic place. I was born in the city, but I like places like this because you can take it easy. You say this, Rita, but I've never seen you outside of a building.  KROSS: This is a peaceful day, very fitting for Spring. I want to just forget everything and sleep just for today... KROSS: When I see the flowers scatter, it reminds me of my old friends... I thought we would always be together. But now they're all gone... BUSH: Did everyone move to the big city when they grew up? KROSS: Heh... Something like that. Everyone became free. I think we've already seen the latter part there, but I included it anyways.  After that, I stop by Erik's and grab a bunch of fodder seeds. They'll be good to have, and I'll have more money come in through shipping out some more food tonight.   At this point, I went around pruning the Water Runey population a bit. Admittedly, the next few updates were done before I'd fully researched everything about how Runeys work, and was running with an out of date guide on the subject.  Back home, we get an eye-opening letter that I can't say wasn't entirely unexpected: ------------------------------- ~My shop is in serious trouble! - Danny~ "Man, I'm in a pickle. At this rate, my shop's gonna have to close down. You don't want that do you? Help me, please??" --------------------------------  Unfortunately, there are no options for telling him to get some new stock. Just telling him to reduce his prices or that we can't help. I opt for the former as it's at least trying to be helpful. Regardless, the vicious maw of Capitalism, brought about by Rosetta is doing him in, it seems.  On less economic topics, Mist got back to us regarding sleeping on the dirt. ------------------------------- ~I'm glad. - Mist~ "Bush, you must like napping, too. Who doesn't? I mean it's so nice, isn't it? The thing is, when Ms. Lara sees you doing that, she'll get mad. 'You'll' catch a cold!' I think is what she said." -------------------------------- Bush can confirm all of these statements. I do a bit more work on the farm, manage the Grass Farm a bit, until it hits bathhouse time.  BUSH: Melody, you run a bathhouse, but why do you dress like a wizard?  MELODY: Oh, this? Well, I actually wanted to become a wizard. I really like this outfit. I have a lot of them with the same design. Well, that answers a few questions.  At this point, Melody's also starting humming like Mist was. Looking at our relationship list, it seems like this triggers at 1 LP.   Although it doesn't really matter, our present relations for the bachelorettes is as follows, in order from highest to lowest: MIST: Almost 2 FP, 2 LP SELPHY: 1 FP, 1.5 LP MELODY: Almost 2 FP, 1 LP ROSETTA: 1.5 FP, Almost 1 LP CINNAMON: 1 FP, Almost 1 LP ANETTE: 0.75 FP, 0.6 LP LARA: 1 FP, 0.5 LP UZUKI: Almost 1 FP, 0.35 LP EUNICE: Almost 1 FP, 0.2 LP We've known Uzuki for 2 days, and she's already doing better than Eunice.  Nothing new is up with Nolan, so it's back to the farm to cut lumber.  I start working on planting some of that fodder, and then as it gets late, I head in for some crafting.  The accessory crafting table happens to be just to the south of the forge, it just kinda blends in with the environment.    I go ahead and make some Iron Bracelets, which are just pretty much metal plating on the outside of our gloves. It's a neat detail that all of Bush's equipment does show up on his model, but it does get kind of ridiculous sometimes.  The pharmacy on the other hand isn't hard to find, it's the materials that are hard to find. After how good the skill was in RF2, I think they went out of their way to nerf it pretty hard in this game. A basic recovery potion only restores 35 of our health, and requires us to make both an Antidote Herb and a Para-gone. This in total requires 1 Yellow Grass, 1 Orange Grass, 1 Blue Grass, 1 Purple Grass, and a Medicinal Herb. To get a better potion, you need 30 skill and two of the basic potions for a heal of 105 HP. The previous two games made getting those as easy as a few medicinal herbs that you could even buy from the clinic. This game's clinic barely offers any useful grass types, so for out of season grass, you'll have to scavenge dungeons. They did buff food by quite a lot though, so I guess I can't complain too much.  Since it's late enough, I stop by the bar and stock up on more rice so I can forget about it for a while...  Catch some more sashimi fish...   Found Serpent Constellation! And wait out the Serpent Constellation. It shows up at 9:00 PM.  BUSH: I see... It does look like a serpent.  And that's it! The constellation doesn't do something immediately, but we'll get it's effect tomorrow. Tomorrow will have to wait until next update! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2021 15:53
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Maguoob posted:This LP is making me want to play an old (i.e. not RF 4) Rune Factory, so I dug out my PS3 and dumped my copy of Tides of Destiny! Frontier can stay in the box of shame where it belongs. I'll vicariously enjoy it through you without having to deal with runeys myself. This act is fully approved. If this game didn't have the Runeys, it'd be such a fantastic chill game, but with them, it feels too much like work sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with it, but I can't deny I'd be having more fun if they weren't there. Barrel Cactaur posted:An incredible story about Lysenkoism, common ownership of land, price controls, and the collapse inevitably caused by mass agriculture. If only Bush understood what what he has walked into. Unfortunately yeah, a lot of the mechanics in these two farming sim series is about talking to other people, and not as much about farming. For me, when I was a socially anxious, depressed teenager, these games ended up being fantastic for me, but I get where that comes from. Sneak Peek Spoiler for the next update: we make hot dogs at sunset
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Nov 15, 2021 23:14
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Update 13: Hot Dogs Ah, another restful night of sleeping fully clothed and not using the covers at all!  Music: Rune Factory 1 - ParkIt's also raining again, so it's time for another alternate track! This is the track I meant to use last time. This link directly pulls from Zophar's Domain, an old hub for emulation stuff. I hope they don't mind. Music: Rune Factory 3 - SpringHere's also another track that I figured I'd fit in sometime. This one's incredibly nostalgic for me- pretty much everything about RF3's soundtrack hits me with that feeling.   Neutralizer Lv:1 was synthesized. Antidote Herb Lv: 1 was synthesized. Before I leave, I do a little bit of pharmacy work. Antidote Herbs used to just be called Antidotes before, but as the name implies, they cure poison. I reasoned it would be useful to have one around just in case.  With the Homestead taken care of for me by the rain, it's time for Bush to get some lumber work done this morning.  A bit of mining later and I'm making good progress on this side of the farm. I'd rather it be the other side, but those large boulders are going to be barricading us for a while. A Silver Hammer is definitely the next thing on the list to be made.  ANETTE: Morning! Let's make this a great day! ANETTE: Hey, there's a letter with your name on it, Bush.  ----------------------------------------------------- "Maybe you're right." - Danny. I guess I'll see you around. ----------------------------------------------------- Given the brevity, I almost would have guessed this was a letter from Cinnamon.  ANETTE: This is such a nice place. It's quiet and peaceful. Maybe I should move here. Haha, just kidding. If you're wondering why I transcribe all of this dialogue personally instead of say, using a screen to text program, it's because the slight transparency on dialogue boxes makes everything get cursed, and I've not got any easy way of fixing that. ANETTE: This i$ such a nice pーace. ーt′$ quiet and peacefuー. Maybe ー Sh0uーd m0VB he「e・ Haha, jUSt kiddーng.  And she leaves me in the dust, causing me to drop the strawberry on the ground. At least this is the first game in the series where things don't vanish from existence when they touch the ground. According to RF1 and RF2, that turnip that you pulled out of the dirt touching the ground again makes it too dirty to ever be usable in anything and promptly smites it from existence for you.  After catching up to her at Mist's mailbox and giving her that strawberry, I get back to planting more fodder on the farm. My intent with this stuff is to keep cutting it, rather than using it to produce Runeys. I want a lot of fodder for all the monsters we'll end up getting.    When it comes to the letters, it's most repeats today. Melody's got a letter from Camus, Danny a letter from his little sister, Anette's already forgotten about Chairperson Rosetta, etc.  ANETTE: Ganesha, you've got mail! Is it from your teacher? I don't remember if we've seen this one though.  And Anette's food choice of the day is Pumpkin Tart. I don't know if giving her the food of the day gives any more LP than it would otherwise, but I kinda doubt it.  At 9:00 AM, I run into Materia and buy another Moondrop seed. I'll remember to not plant this one on my farm.  ROSETTA: You came at the right time, Bush. BUSH: Is there something you want? ROSETTA: It's about this. I got it from a regular client because it's supposed to be rare, but it just looks so darn suspicious. BUSH: What is that?  ROSETTA: It's snake soup. It's supposed to be good for your health but...still... ROSETTA: This is where you come in. BUSH: What? Wait... Don't tell me you... ROSETTA: You got it. So... Want to give it a try?  ------------------------------------- 1. Well... you only live once. 2. No, thanks. ------------------------------------- I'd say it's time to chug! Ingesting strange drugs never did anyone any harm!  ROSETTA: Thanks, Bush! ROSETTA: Now, chug it! (*The sound used for drinking does play*) BUSH: Gulp...gulp... BUSH: ...? ROSETTA: How is it? BUSH: ...!!  BUSH: My mind... feels clear...  Bush's intelligence went up! ROSETTA: Huh?! I heard that it's supposed to make you healthy... ROSETTA: I guess I was right not to drink it. I'll be more careful about what that place recommends from now on.  ROSETTA: At least I got that out of this. Thanks, Bush. Sure, but can you refer us to this line of business? I want more of these.  But, yeah, this is the effect of the Serpent Constellation that we triggered last update. Our INT is now naturally 17, our highest of the 4 base stats. Good stuff.  If we talk to Danny, he says nothing about his situation. I don't know if he's trying to save face or what, but he won't really do anything to let us help.  And he doesn't actually lower his prices!  GANESHA: I heard you went to Whale Island. Can I ask a favor from you? BUSH: What is it? GANESHA: Marco keeps asking to tag along... BUSH: Don't worry. The monsters there are way too dangerous. I would never take Marco with me. GANESHA: Really? That's good to hear. Part of me would like to take Marco with us as it'd be a neat little side thing to do, but it's also probably not a good idea to take the 10 year old to fight sword wielding goblins.  Speaking of Marco, he's upstairs with Candy today.  Since the last time I checked my grass farm, we now have 28 Water and 28 Grass. I haven't been doing that good of a job at managing it each day.  The kids have nothing interesting to say, though I do learn that Public Square, the amphitheatre place with the singing rock, has a really high 36 Water Runeys.  I think past me got confused about which area was Public Square though as I started taking water from the main streets of Trampoli. There's still about another 5-6 days of me poorly managing the Runey Situation. This is what I get for playing so far ahead, I guess.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~Ask a Ninja: Part 2~ "Know yourself before your enemy. No enemy is greater than ignorance. Knowing the pros and cons of the weapon you hold is the first step to victory. This book will discuss weapons other than swords." "*Spear Spears have a long reach but a small attack range. Special attacks involve lunging forward, which also paralyzes the enemy." "*Hammer Hammers have tremendous raw power. However, the attack speed is very slow. Special attacks stun all enemies within a certain radius." "*Axe Axes have great power and a higher chance of critical attack. However, attack speed is slow and is very limited in range. Special attacks deal heavy damage to a single enemy." "To close, it is recommended that you read this book, not only when you acquire a weapon, but at all times. Never forget that unpreparedness is the most vicious enemy!!" ----------------------------------------------------- It only took us about seven updates, but we've finally read the sequel to our first book pamphlet thing. How about that? When it comes to weapon choice, I'll eventually be leaving that up to the thread's decision, but that'll have to wait until I get the upgraded forge. I'll still be using magic regardless, because I've seen a number of people say it sucks in this game, and it really doesn't.  Alas, Selphy has nothing new to say today.  She also doesn't react at all if we read the "shocking" book she has left open on the table next to her.  LARA: When I think about what if some unknown sickness made a lot of people sick at the same time, I get so scared... BUSH: It'll be fine. You're not alone, Lara. BUSH: If it comes to it, we'll all help out. Of course, I will, too.  LARA: I suppose. I really shouldn't be so weak-hearted since I'm the nurse. I'm sorry. That part about an unknown sickness infecting lots of people is kinda topical for the times sadly. I only bring it up because I hope it dates this LP and rightly shoves off soon.  Lara does sell the means by which I could grind making Neutralizers and then Antidote Herbs, so I might end up doing that some time have lots of money to spend.  STELLA: When I went to the bathhouse the other day, Melody kept lecturing me on how good baths are. STELLA: She really must love baths. I'd say that's an understatement! I'm guessing Stella does have one of these lines for all the bachelorettes in town from what I know. She only picks one per day, and I think it might be LP based as most days I get Mist here.  KROSS: It's raining today... It feels like it could wash my soul. I believe Kross shows up in the church on any rainy day. I could check a character schedule guide to be sure, but I don't feel like it.  CINNAMON: Did you find the Serpent Constellation? BUSH: Yes. CINNAMON: Aside from controlling the weather, serpents are also supposed to bring you a good harvest and health. It comes out in legends in all sorts of ways. CINNAMON: It's also not a bad animal so you should take care of it. They're not really, but that doesn't make me not mildly afraid of how ornery some of them are. Most of the snakes in my area are highly poisonous!  CINNAMON: You have a talent for magic. Use it. I will eventually. Believe me, I've got big plans for even just the Fire Staff we got.  KANNO: I was thinking of going out for some fieldwork today, but it's raining. How unfortunate. Oddly, while most of the people in the Rune Factory world are hindered by rain, just as in real life, it makes Bush's job a whole lot easier for the most part. The same thing goes for really any RF protagonist. Rain means no watering, and no watering means a bunch of time and RP saved.  Speaking of water, I add some more of those Runeys to the grass farm. I won't really be noting this very often, at least once my plan to manage the ecosystem goes into full swing.  My dungeon strawberries are getting closer to being ready at least. This patch alone will keep me sustained on all future gifting once we leave Spring behind.  UZUKI: I heard that you are adept with the sword, but I am underwhelmed. You need to train more. She gives us an open welcome to go visit her, and then she drops a harsh critique of our skills right out the gate. Since it's raining, Uzuki will just be found inside her inn room most of the time instead of training herself. It's fully styled out with what you'd expect, tatami mats, wall scrolls, the whole shebang. Now it's time for Bush to become properly informed on culture.  BUSH: I wonder if this picture drawn on the scroll is from Uzuki's home country. It's strange, but beautiful. UZUKI: That's called a "kakejiku." Back in my home country, we hang it on a wall to entertain guests. Make yourself at home. When I read "strange, but beautiful," I know it means Japan, but I for some reason thought of Mother 1's Magicant.  BUSH: This desk is very low, and the chair has no legs. UZUKI: Hm... We call that a "fumizukue." We sit directly on the floor back in my home country, so tables are made to stand very low.  BUSH: What about this ink and brush? Are you going to draw? UZUKI: We call the ink "sumi" and the brush "fude" in our country. I was just about to write a letter as I always do.  TSUBUTE: Now that you know, get going! Don't bother the little miss! Go, go! UZUKI: 'Tis all right, Tsubute... You are more bothersome than he is actually... Uzuki just throwing shade today.  BUSH: Uzuki, this is just a guess, but is this lamp used by the bed? UZUKI: Good guess. That's called an "andon." We lay our quilt, or "futon" as we call it, along the edes of this tatami mat.    UZUKI: H-how dare you! And for whatever reason, we can't escape Bush's unusual habit of wanting to sleep literally anywhere he thinks would be comfortable, thus getting the two briefly angry at us. Yet, this is the first time anyone's actually responded negatively to us about to take a nap in their bed, which happens to be weirder than anything else.  EUNICE: Is this... for me? Th-thank you! On the other hand, (or rather, other side of the inn,) Eunice still lacks anything interesting to say. The only accessible gifts for her right now are flowers, the thing we unlocked midway through Spring. I thought she liked chocolate, but no, it apparently has to be chocolate cake. The game really doesn't do her many favors in the competition between available choices.  Back at home, I spend a while making a bunch more food. Rice balls for Selphy, pickled turnips for cash, and the odd sashimi or two for Uzuki.  A while back I caught a Taimen in the Trampoli's main street waterways, but it's sashimi skill requirement is 48. We're presently half that. We need about 38 to even attempt it as right now the dish would instantly fail if we tried.  This requires more skill... Failed Dish made. Praise be to savestates. This fish is going to be sitting in my pockets for weeks.  Having drained my RP on making all that food and with nothing else to really do but cut more lumber, I opt to head up to Whale Island. I can pick up a level up while I'm up here to get refilled. Alternatively, it'll take me until almost 3:00 PM to reach the tower again, so either way it's pretty much the only course of action.  Music: Whale Island CaveFirst thing to do is to show off the Fire Rod.    Instead of the weak puffs of fire from the previous two games, the fireball launched by the rod is flashy, fast, and makes an almost comically large explosion.  You can also bonk enemies with the staff instead, which applies the Weapons skill instead of Magic skill. Since changing weapons does take in-world time, I can see why you might need to not switch in some high tension moments. The Fire Rod's bonk is pretty weak, but the other staves actually hit quite hard. Just the next staff up the list will hit Buffamoos for 30 and knock them back quite a bit.  But right now, we're focusing on that spellcasting. To a normal Orc, the fireball strikes for 50 damage with our Magic skill and INT. However, the catch is that the fireball has a habit of hitting multiple times. It's incredibly broken, in fact. I'll demonstrate why in just a bit.  I will say it's very easy to miss with said fireball though. The hitbox isn't that big, and the way Bush holds the staff to fire it can make it miss some short enemies.  Music: Whale Island Outside  Before I go plant those moondrops, I show off how Woolies get their wool burnt off if you hit them with a fire weapon. It's a small detail that I don't know why they included it, but it's there.  BUSH: So if I plant Moondrop Flowers here, they should grow really well. The game is very forceful about telling us what to do, but we have to do this to progress Whale Island's story, so I guess it's fair.  Takes me until about 5:00 PM to finally get them planted. I'd have had them done by 3:00, but my detour to get some levels with the fire staff took a bit longer than I'd thought.  Now, to demonstrate the true power of the Fire Staff, I head back up to those Silver Wolves. You know, the ones I could only hit for 1 damage a while back and almost instakilled Bush?    We makin' hot dogs now. If placed right, each shot of the fireball can easily double hit, if not triple hit. That's about 120 damage going out per shot there, meaning we can now 1-shot them. I've found a really good way to farm levels and Magic skill here, and I'll show it off in a few days from now. What only makes it better is that you can cast spells from HP in this game, not just RP like it's predecessors.    I drop a gift off for Melody and grab a bath even though I don't need it. The scene for Lara triggers this time.It's two lines long, and all that happens is that she's briefly surprised when a water droplet hits her on the back.    The rest of the day is just spent cutting up more logs and continuing to till out the front rows of the farm. One of my strawberry plant patches doesn't line up with it, but that won't be an issue come Summer.  And if you're wondering how Bush spends the last of his energy for that day, it's warming up his bed with fireballs.  Music: Trampoli Daily Life(I'm going to be popping in and out of buildings a lot like usual, so just keep listening to this. Or any of the other tracks I've already linked in this update, really. It's up to you.) Today is Spring 18th, a Friday, and the only exceptional thing is that it's not raining! It's really more of a busywork day.  First off, a status update on how Bush's stats are looking after all the fighting I did yesterday. Level: 5 - > 9 Max HP: 138 - > 151 STR: 12 -> 16 VIT: 13 -> 16 INT: 12 -> 17 -> 19 AGL: 13 -> 16 Weapons: 18.9 -> 18.99 Magic: 2 -> 10.5 Farming: 27 -> 27.5 Lumber: 15.5 -> 18 Hammer: 13.5 -> 13.9 Fish: 9 Cook: 22.8 -> 24 Lab: 4 Forging: 8 Crafts: 2 Stockpiled Wood: 132 -> 182 Phew. That's a lot.  I also have to spend time this morning depositing a bunch of materials.  ANETTE: You have to respond to it before they all start piling up. Anette, I don't have any letters to answer why  These star-shaped flowers are the Moondrops I planted. Had I planted them on the island earlier, I could have already had the story progress involving that tower done already.  One of the biggest time sinks after watering is actually harvesting crops. It's not a very fast process in this game, and it's why I'm hoping I can get some monsters to do it for me in time. All those turnips I planted a few updates back are ready now, and alongside the strawberries and moondrops being ready today, most of my day is going to be spent pulling these up. Before that is the usual daily talking to everyone. Compared to it's predecessors, this game has a decent amount of incidental daily dialogue. It's nowhere as much as RF3 has, but it's still a core part of it if you ask me.   EUNICE: Wow, thank you! I'll be sure to cherish this flower! After 17 days, I finally have a gift for Eunice that she likes.   UZUKI: Ha! Ha! UZUKI:I am in the middle of my training. Do not speak to me right now. UZUKI: Ha! Ha!  ROSETTA: When Mist moved here, I thought it was the end of our seemingly inseverable ties, but now I'm here...  ROSETTA: I still ask myself what kind of sick joke this is. Ah, I see you're finally awake. Walked right into that girl's web, same as us, and that nun over there. drat you turnips. Trampoli was fine until you came along- Oh, wait, wrong game.  BUSH: You don't like being with Mist, Rosetta? ROSETTA: Are you asking me if I hate Mist?  ROSETTA: When all is said and done, she's still the oldest friend I have. ROSETTA: What, were you worried for me? Thanks.  And after that normal conversation, I went to go fishing but accidentally equipped our spear instead as the icons look similar. Spearfishing is a thing, just not in this game.  BUSH: Oh... I haven't read this book yet. On our daily rounds to the library, Bush starts working on leftmost shelf, nestled behind the ladder.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~The Way of Magic~ "'I want to be a magic user but I have no talent!' For those of you that fit the description above, the heavens have provided you with the 'Cane'. This book will discuss the basics of using canes to do magic." "First, get yourself a cane. A magic cane can be easily created by any magic user, so try asking one you know to make one for you." "Just swinging around your magic cane like a regular stick won't do you any good. Use a special attack to first trigger magic. To perform a special attack, hold down the B Button and press the A Button." ----------------------------------------------------- The opening lines are kinda pretentious. Anyways, bonus day, since magic is kinda topical for this update.  ----------------------------------------------------- ~The Way of Magic: Part 2~ "In part 2 of 'The Way of Magic' series, we will cover magic use." "Magic has the following 4 elemental affinities: fire, water, earth, and wind. Most things in this world belong to one of these elements and are strong or weak against the others. Use this wisely in battle." "There are also weapons forged by master smiths with magic elements embedded in them. With such arms, you can strike at your enemies' elemental weaknesses simply by swinging your weapon!" "Topics covered up to this point are the basics of basics. Magic is very complex, and it is up to you to unlock all of its secrets." ----------------------------------------------------- Of note is that elemental weapons aren't nearly as hard to make as "master smiths" suggests, and that the weaknesses go Water > Fire Fire > Earth Earth > Wind Wind > Water Or something like that, I think. I might be wrong.  Oh, un-frabjous day! Selphy is not here in the library!  Well, she's not in the infirmary again. Lara has nothing interesting to say today, which is a shame because if she did, this update would have been called "The Lara Episode" from the simple but sad fact that she doesn't really feature in updates very often. I really am just getting repeats of the "don't get attached to money" and her default line.  CINNAMON: The other day, I saw a meteor shower in the southern sky. It was early morning so waking up for it was hard.  KANNO: This is a great place. Runeys grow only in a very specific environment. Yeah, and I'd still prefer Trampoli not being one of those environments.  KANNO: It is rare to find a place that can grow Runeys at such a stable rate. I cannot wait to research this. KANNO: Now then, what should I have you do next as my student? "stable rate"   MIST: I like seeing people who work by the sweat of their brow. Mist has been out of the picture for a while now. Really nothing interesting coming up with her since the turnip constellation.  Heading on off to Kross, I can't remember if I've showed off the upgraded forge area expansions. They are Cozy, Cool, and Creepy. I don't know what any of them look like presently, but when I can build this, I'll check them out with the power of savestates. Which one we go with will be up to the thread, as usual.  It'll cost us 20,000g and 240 lumber, of which we only have 1669g and 182 lumber. We're gettng there on the wood, but the gold is going to take some saving up.  ERIK: Spring is the best season to grow crops. ERIK: Young man, how is your field? Erik exists. I kinda just forget to talk to him because he's not always standing in an easily reached position. If the thread so desires me to talk to him more, I can start doing that.  Oh, hey, here's Selphy! She's at the mountain pass of all places, with a little parasol she's twirling around. It's the first time we've seen her outside of a building since we first met her collapsed outside our house.  SELPHY: These ruins are always so interesting. But, it's not that old, right?  BUSH: What kind of books do you like, Selphy? SELPHY: I like legends, stories, and plays. I'm not interested in cookbooks or blacksmith reipes so I hope you'll buy those. BUSH: But isn't that the property of the library? Are you even allowed to sell them? That's... a good point. Why can she do that?  SELPHY: It shouldn't be a problem if I sell them to villagers! Don't sweat the details! BUSH: ...Are you sure...? She's just been selling public property and keeping the profits I guess. It's a business model, just not a necessarily legal one. Then again, the closest this town has to a guard or police is like... Marco. The only authority in town is Stella, I guess? Welcome to Trampoli. It's like incredibly chill anarchy here.   After this, I kinda just go and manage the Runeys some more.    And then I launch the Homestead into prosperity with the stored up Runeys I have. This was all still being done before I knew exactly what I needed to be doing, so the setup is rather inefficient with way more Runeys than is necessary being released here. Ideally, in the future, I'm going to migrate all of these to some other easily managed zone to take advantage of that 10/10/10/-2 growth when stocked at 50/50/50/35+. The Homestead Rules prevent that gain in theory, so I'm not getting anything out of the Homestead being prosperous aside from not having to spend Grass Runeys on it. Alongside this I'm going to drain all the other zones as well, of course.   Harvesting all these crops takes me right up against 5:00 PM, but I've got enough time to slip into my house before Rosetta arrives. This way I can cook a large portion of these turnips in the span of 1 minute. Time not moving while inside houses is just one of those things you have to use to your advantage.  I'm not in major need of cash right now, so I only ship out the 9 pickled turnips I made and 1 Moondrop just for the sake of having it in the sale records screen. I'll keep working on squeezing every last gold piece I can from these turnips. After that it's off to take an obligatory bath.  NOLAN: This strawberry looks delicious. Neither Nolan nor Melody have anything interesting to say today, but I did want to point out that the little heart effects come from the cat and not Nolan. This would suggest it is alive in spite of it's incredibly chill nature and the unusual position at which it remains.  2 in-game hours later, and I've made it back to the tower on the Whale Island Fin. I have to water those seeds every day after all.  Also, the cutscene with the mysterious girl in white shows up every time we come here after 6:00 PM. And now...!  TIME FOR ULTIMATE TAMING BUSH... VERSUS... WHALE ISLAND WOOLY  Combatant Bush takes a light blow, but he holds in there! Look at that practiced brushing motion!  Oooooooh! A nasty combo attack! Can he do it?  BUSH: There, there. It's okay. He's done it, folks! What a show!  So yeah, as mentioned previously, taming monsters is all about getting punched in the gut until they decide that punching you in the gut is maybe kinda rude. I caught this Wooly for the specific reason that the younger me would always name one "Fluff" or "Fuff". This is for you, younger me. If the thread wants more Woolies, then that's fine by me.  That's all for this time! Join us next time as Bush begins his journey to become the Ferocious Frymaster! The Super Sizzler! The Savage Skilleteer! ...Um, he buys a frying pan. Some other stuff happens too. Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Nov 17, 2021 18:05
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Update 14: Inedible Set Dressing Today, or tonight rather, we're headed off to check out that fancy barn we had made. Well, we've checked it out once, but we never went inside. It has one of those!  Music: Town BuildingsBUSH: Whoa! BUSH: I remember seeing this monster on Whale Island. Did it come all the way here? BUSH: Jeez...  The little pink flower elephant made it's way down here... somehow. Despite it being here, it won't eat any of our food or do anything really! It'll just sit in that corner until a later event happens.  The main room of the barn is massive, especially compared to how it looks on the outside. Fluff is standing in that pile of hay in the back. In fact, all this hay is inedible set dressing. We still have 0 fodder.  BUSH: There, there. It's okay.  And then we brush Fluff. Every time Bush uses the brush, his voice line is a "heeey there!" It's dorky, but very Bush. Though, his normal angry grunts and call outs being used while brushing would be hilarious.  When you interact with monsters, you can opt to bring them with you to help fight, ride them if capable, or release them back to the First Forest. The last one's a bit dark, no matter the way you write it.  The little ledger in the entrance lets us move our monsters around or check their stats. With a level of 13, a max HP of 285, ATK of 52, DEF of 59, and MAG 46, our little wooly outmatches Bush. Terrifying. Despite how promising those stats may seem, woolies aren't great at fighting given their poor moveset.  I go outside to finish up the rest of the farming for the day, which takes me until about 9:00 PM.  Music: Green RuinsBefore Bush hits they hay, I send him into the Green Ruins to test something.  Yeah, just had to make sure. Those rocks blocking the path to better minerals in Green Ruins are gated behind having a Silver Hammer for sure. Just had to check again, because these really do look like the rocks in our field that we can break.     Broadsword Lv: 1 was synthesized. Two-handed Sword Lv: 1 was synthesized. A blade piece from a goblin and some iron lets me make another broadsword, and that plus some more iron can make a two handed sword.  Two-handed swords are big.  They also have a decently fast wide swing. In general, these are kinda the average weapons. Alright damage, alright attack speed, but they do have some good crowd control.   New day! Music: Spring And with it being the weekend, we need to look our finest. Thus, Bush sets about making himself a hat! A straw hat. From flour and glue.  Straw Hat Lv:1 was synthesized.  Ah, just like any good farmer ought to be opening the day; a straw hat and a giant sword.  Takes me until 8:32 to finish all the Homestead farmwork, so it's doing me good.   BUSH: I have to care for it a little longer before it will listen to me. Also gotta remember to brush Fluff every morning. Monsters in this game won't give you their harvestable until they have a decent bit of friendship with you. With that done, it's time to see what's up with the town.  MARCO: Did you know? There's supposedly a secret passage that leads to Mist's house from the back of the church. MARCO: It's one of my own hidden passages. I'll tell you in secret. Hate to break it to you, kid, but it's not that hidden. I used to use it more than the normal way to town!  CANDY: Whale Island is so mysterious... It's the first time I've ever seen an island floating in the sky. I find it funny that the least mysterious thing about the flying island is why it's floating in the first place. But you've got questions about how are these beanstalks so rigid, how does the hot spring reach the bathhouse, and how does a tiny pink elephant get down from there?   MIST: Recently, I hear a lot of rustling around my house. MIST: Maybe some monster I saved by the beach came back to repay my good deed?  MIST: But I've never saved any kind of monster at the beach before... it wasnt bush i swear  MIST: Bush, you were on Whale Island, weren't you? MIST: You must have come from a long family of adventurers. Something like that, yeah. It's easy to forget that Bush climbs by hand into the skies above the clouds on a regular basis.  LARA: I actually like sweets. Like chocolate cake and jam. LARA: I know it's bad for my health to eat too much of it, but I just can't help myself... Lara informs us that we're fueling her sweet tooth.  SELPHY: You know Anette? I get this feeling that she's similar to me. SELPHY: A book lover...? Hm... It's a bit different, I think... All I got is that she's blonde too. Given the previous updates, you've been more similar to Cinnamon than anyone else.  Make a Magic Cane: A guide to making staffs. You can make magic staffs, but you can't use magic to make them. 2000G out of our pocket, but hopefully last update proved the potential future value of this book.  Fly! Frying Pan! 1: Beginner's recipe book for dishes that can be made using only a fry pan. It's 500g and we'll be buying the pan today so why not, really?  ----------------------------------------------------- ~Up Your Quality~ "Not satisfied with merely growing crops and making items? Want to raise the quality of your crops and items to sell for more? Then you need the know-how to become a first-rate designer!" "The quality of an item is reflected by its 'Item Level'. As the level of an item rises, not only can you sell it for more, but the item's performance improves, too." "For example: Tools: RP consumption down." Accessories: Defense up. Foods: Effect duration up. Medicine: Recovery amount up. And, etc. ----------------------------------------------------- Better the item level, the better the items are overall. Even a pickled turnip is a spectacular item at level 10.  UZUKI: Recently, I started fishing because someone recommended it to me. However, it is more difficult than I thought. I'm guessing this was Cinnamon's doing.  EUNICE: Lalalala... ♪ Cleaning can feel so good. Why don't you give it a try, Bush? Sorry, Eunice, I already don't clean my field up enough.  EUNICE: I clean the bar in the morning. It's hard because sometimes I find broken dishes here and there. That's... pretty bad. Ganesha and Turner must be throwing some wild parties in there, but you'd think Rita would at least clean broken glass up. Is Eunice doing all the work here?  Elsewhere, Rosetta's still dropping hints on what to do with the Moondrops. Most of her dialogue will be eaten up by this until we pass this story flag, unfortunately.  LUTE: The Handy Frying Pan is used to cook stir-fried foods. And since it's the weekend, we visit our buddy Lute. He's also selling the oven and steamer today, but those require a larger kitchen. I believe next time around he'll be selling the mixer, which I think we do have space for. Anyways, it's off to find the rest of the townsfolk for the day.  CINNAMON: I'm sad I can't fish crabs here. BUSH: (You can fish crabs with a fishing pole...?) CINNAMON: Was there something......interesting......on Whale Island?  KANNO: The Runeys of these ruins and Whale Island... KANNO: Hm... The mysteries are increasing in number. I have no time to waste! Cinnamon and her grandfather are up at the ruins on the mountainside.  MELODY: I decided to make some bath salts and put them in the bath. I'm researching about what kind to make right now. MELODY: I love "Relax Tea." I drink it while I'm in the bath to relax even more. Melody's also up here. This place gets crowded on weekends. Relax Tea requires a skill level 88 cooking recipe consistent of a couple colored grasses, and that has to be used in a cooking pot for a 95 skill recipe. This might be the hardest favorite gift to make, and also just goes to kinda show how all the crafting recipes got sort of overtuned.  And then while I'm on the mountain, I collect some more cherries.  Back home, we've got our frying pan! The primary use for this will be using up the rest of the fish in our inventory. Every fish can be fried, but only some can be made into sashimi. Either way, wave hello to the cheapest source of RP in the game!  P. Carp Roast Lv:5 was synthesized. We can also make one of Anette's liked gifts but it's liked as much as strawberries, so we're really not going out of our way to make it instead.  MIST: Stella lent me this house. At first, the roof leaked to no end, but rainy days soon became fun on their own. I feel like we're missing part of this conversation somewhere. I imagine it's something like she entertains herself by plugging up the leaks, but who knows with Mist?  Then Grass Farm management happens...  BUSH: Oh? What's that, Candy? CANDY: Oh, this? This is a doll. CANDY: Sis made it for me for my birthday. This isn't a hint that it's her birthday, actually. It's about 8 days from now, on the 27th.  BUSH: It's cute... Actually it looks funny. A bit scary too, I might add. CANDY: Hahaha! Maybe! But I don't know what it's a doll of. CANDY: But it's still my treasure! Unfortunately, we never get to see what said doll looks like. Maybe it's for the best.   Music: Green RuinsWith that nice little conversation done, I decide to just finish up Green Ruins today. Well, almost finish. I'm not doing the boss just yet. I am going to blitz through and open up all the shortcuts though.  Last time I came here, I could have opened up the first shortcut, but I ran past it. My memory of this dungeon's layout isn't great, and I thought it was after the Big Mucks.  Said Big Mucks are merely optional, as the room behind them is just more farm fields.   Doesn't stop Bush from getting his revenge though. Being a good deal stronger now, they're not much of an issue. The fire staff would obliterate them, but I felt more like using the new giant sword we made. Magic does still use a lot of energy- it's better used to mostly handle hard encounters.  The path we need to follow is just to the entrance of this room.  It leads us around more circular pathways, but if we take the first left...  Then south through these two doors...  We find the entrance to floor 3.  Down the stairs is a number of winding corridors, and also a Little Mage! These are the first enemy we meet that uses magic against us, and it'll pack a bit of a punch. Among other materials that can be gotten elsewhere, they do have a very small chance to drop Fire Crystals, used in making fire-element weapons or staves. Fire as an element won't be particularly useful for a long time, alas.  Ah, more spiraling rooms-  BEEEEEEES  Hornets aren't nearly as dangerous as they used to be. They were horrifyingly strong in RF1, but now they've been thankfully nerfed. About the only interesting thing I can say about them is that they give honey when harvested and can sometimes drop the Toxin material.  We end up getting poisoned, but it doesn't hurt much, really.  Also on this floor are Pecks, or as previously known in the series, Cluckadoodles. I think the latter is a much better name. They look like roosters, and they lay eggs.  They also spit eggs to attack! I don't know how that works.   Some winding hallways later, there's also Buffamoo down here.    More winding paths later, and I've opened the shortcut for floor 3!   Although, just to the east from there is the staircase that leads to floor 4.    The final floor is just one sorta big room with some more farm fields in it. But with this door open, that's all of it!  BUSH: There's something up ahead... 1. I should turn back... 2. Let's go! Well, aside from this ominously large door. Nothing about these giant feathers laying around could suggest what's inside. Boss fights? Nah, that's ludicrous, why would this game have boss fights!? But before we do go in there, I've got to prepare some things first.  It's also 9:43 PM by the time we get home. Took me about 4 and a half hours to zoom through there, and I barely fought anything!  I am left with a good amount of RP after a level up, so I start by burning it away frying fish.  Pale Carp(24cm) Lv:6 was caught perfectly! Then I catch a bunch more fish. I get a few trout for sashimi and a number of other high level fish.  And with that, it's time to sleep! I'll cut the update here, making it a bit shorter than usual. I don't really think doing half of tomorrow and cutting it there would be any better. Next time: We prepare to make story progress and probably start voting on what to get for our barn! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2021 17:38
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Whoops, double post
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Nov 20, 2021 17:40
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cardinale posted:I feel a bit sorry for Eunice, her whole life is drudgery and she's not very exciting personally so I bet most people don't marry her. They shoulda made Lute a candidate instead; he's good looking and helpful at least. Yeah, Eunice gets the short straw when it comes to a lot of stuff in this game, even her character arc is... something else. If Lute was an option, it'd be fantastic. He's a charming guy, and honestly there's a bit of something between him and Bush if you ask me, but this series is only now just getting same-sex marriage in RF5 thanks to XSEED adding it in. Rune Factory's not had a good history with being very equal in representation. As for the Spring link, and simultaneously.I don't know what's up with that link, but it's all sorts of weird. It was actually working before! I think something about linking to the playlist is gonna be a bit screwy, so the only thing I can do now is go back and try to replace all of them with direct links. I'll get on that... Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 00:51
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Monster Intermission 1: Green Ruins, Whale Island Cave & Fin So, I'm doing a brief little intermission here instead of your normal update. Way back at the beginning of the LP I said the thread was going to get to vote on what monsters we tame, and now it's about time! The next update won't include any taming in it, as it's the last of my buffer updates- I haven't played the game in almost a month! Should I have maybe done this sooner? Yeah, but no time for regrets, we've got monsters to vote on! So, with Fluff in the barn, we've got 9 open slots right now. However, I'm reserving one slot for a particular monster coming up in the next dungeon. That makes 8 slots open for monsters! And you can vote to have more Woolies if you want, I don't mind having duplicates of monsters. It'll be a bit before I can even consider getting the Barn extension, so these are all the slots we have to work with for now. If there's nothing amazingly interesting here for you yet, feel free to wait until some new stuff comes along. Naming restrictions are identical to what they were before when it came to naming Bush, so 6 letters long basically. I'll be going through every monster we've seen so far. *Green Ruins*  Up first is a Chitter/Chipsqueak. Bush had one in the intro movie, I guess? UTILITY: They'll harvest wild plants for us!  And next we have an Ant. Truly inventive, this one. UTILITY: These hardworking buggers can harvest our crops for us.  This here is a Spring. It's in the dungeon with the season of Spring. They're also kinda springy I guess. UTILITY: These plant shotguns produce seeds! I'm guessing they're spring season seeds, but I've never had one so I'm just guessing.  There's also Slime! You can have your very own cave slime today! UTILITY: They can break rocks for us! I've no idea if they're stronger than our hammer at that, but still!  These goofy but deadly things are Big Mucks. UTILITY: When harvested they either produce a colored grass or a jewel!  Magic power?! It's a Little Mage! UTILITY: He'll cut lumber for us with the power of magic, I guess.  Here be bees! Or, uh, Hornets, I guess. UTILITY: Despite not being bees, they produce honey. How about that?  This right here be a mighty fine Clucky. I called it a Peck before, but that's apparently it's higher level version from a later dungeon. I still prefer Cluckadoodle myself. UTILITY: They lay eggs, surprising right? *Whale Island*  A Goblin appears! What shall you do? UTILITY: Goblin uses Harvest Crop! It hast struck a most excellent blow!  This right here, is a tired Orc. We'll just let this lazy peon rest. UTILITY: If we woke him up, he could harvest some crops for us.  This right here, is an Orc, but hear me out on this... it has a bow. That makes it an Orc Archer. UTILITY: They'll uh, also harvest crops.  Woolies! Series mascot! Fluffball! Makes weird sounds! UTILITY: Amazingly, you can shear these bipedal sheep for their wool. Pretty innovative gameplay right there.  Big ol' monster cows known as Buffamoo. I think they used to be called Peekamoo. UTILITY: In groundbreaking game design, these make milk!  And lastly, we've got ourselves Silver Wolves. Rather dangerous, these beasts, but I'm sure they're not all that bad. UTILITY: We can ride it around! Remember, you can choose to leave some slots open in your vote. Also, if you don't give me names, I'll just have to come up with some myself. So there's our options! Get to voting, and I'll be able to get started on the next updates! Left 4 Bread fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Nov 24, 2021 |
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Nov 24, 2021 17:15
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Alright, so far what we've got in terms of voting on both SA and the Beach: ------Item Production------ Wooly: 3 votes for 1 more (Suggested names: Micah) Clucky: 1 vote for 1 2 votes for 2 (Suggested names: Raven) Buffamoo: 2 votes for 1 2 votes for 2 (Suggested names: Daisy) -----Riding------ Silver Wolf: 3 votes for 1 more (Suggested names: Pony) -----Crop Collection------ Ant: 2 votes for 1 (Suggested names: none yet) Goblin: 2 votes for 1 (Suggested names: none yet) Orc: 1 vote for 1 (Suggested names: Two) Orc Archers: 1 vote for 1 (Suggested names: Brothers) I'll leave the voting open until late Friday. A bit of a short voting run, but I need to get my update buffer started up again.
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Nov 25, 2021 02:13
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Alright, looking at the votes now, it's pretty solid that we're going to have: 1 x Wooly named Micah 2 x Cluckys, one named Raven 2 x Buffamoo, one named Daisy 1 x Ant named Grant 1 x Silver Wolf named Pony These are locked in place, and I'll go ahead and start recording, however, we've got one slot left open: It's a tie, 2 for 2, between a Goblin or a Hornet named Barry. We also had votes for an Orc and an Orc Archer, 1 each, they could come from behind! First vote to break said tiebreaker wins it!
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Nov 26, 2021 21:55
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