Bohemia Bunny

Rune Factory FTW!

March 23rd, 2008 by lynnylchan under Leisure

2nd Nov:

I think it’s impossible to overstate how much I love Rune Factory. It’s a “fantasy Harvest Moon”, so in addition to playing farmer and livestock owner I also have to whack monsters and solve the mystery of said monsters’ appearance in my quiet little town. Oh, and I’m amnesic! Way to up the “unknown hero” factor.

Farming, I’ve done before. Keeping animals, no biggie. Whacking monsters - now that’s a new one. And I must say, I’m enjoying it tremendously. Leveling up is fun. Getting rare items is fun. Narrowly beating the level boss is fun. What’s not to like?

Probably it’s more fun now that I’m at a very high level for everything. I took on the 1st boss too early and died several times with nothing to show for my efforts. A bit of training on his minions, and soon I took him down easy. The 2nd one was a real challenge, I barely beat it with a sliver of HP to spare. I’m a non-strategic melee fighter - I just get in there and beat on the monster, hoping to kill him before he kills me. I was lucky that it worked, even though my audience of one didn’t think I could do it. Heck, I didn’t think I could either.

By this time, it was late Fall (the game is divided into 4 seasons of 30 days each) and the next day was the beginning of Winter. I triggered the plot event quite by accident, fulfilled the requirements for the next cave again by accident, and beat the boss so quickly I was left aghast. I whacked that stupid giant Rafflesia maybe 10 times with an entry-level weapon - and it died.

I decided to take my own sweet time before clearing out the 4th cave level, because the boss was reputedly very hard. Finally I reached level 60, after upgrading my weapon and shield several times, and brewing better potions (now I’m my own apothecary, whee!). Unable to stand the suspense, I went into the fight with only full HP and no RP. RP are needed to “power” your tools, so I was handicapping myself in this manner because I would be using HP to power my weapons instead. No matter, I still beat the boss. It was an easier battle than the one against the Chimera in the 2nd cave, but still harder than the farce that was the Rafflesia.

Unfortunately, my celebrations were halted when I realised the next cave was a Winter-only cave, and it was now early Spring. Whee. Well done me. No matter, that meant 3 seasons to improve my cooking, sewing, forging and pharmacy skills, not to mention 3 seasons in which to woo the ladies of the town. Oh, and to up my level to 99, of course. Some people think overleveling takes the fun out of the game, because the fights are too one-sided and end too early. Me, I just want to complete the storyline ASAP. At this rate, by the time I face the mermaidy Siren in Winter, she’ll be ass-whooped before she knows it. Ha ha!

I also nearly got married to one of the girls, quite by accident - I didn’t realise it was a proposal dialogue I was conducting with her. In a panic of cold feet, I rebooted. No way was I going to get married so early when there were other ladies to be hooked! The relationship management part of the game is just as challenging as the fighting. Some of them only want extremely rare items, others want you to propose with one-off items that require a side quest to obtain, and so on.

And that’s why Rune Factory has captured my attention in a way no other game has. It combines my favourite elements about farming with a progress-driven storyline, and lets me vent my frustrations on innocent monsters. I like to pretend that I’m a feudal lord come to collect tribute, and I will dispatch their people one by one until they meet my demands by dropping the item I want. Cruel? Talk to the sword, dude!

Update: 23rd February 2008

Hooray! I’ve completed the game (sort of). I loaded up on HP and RP, and went to the last cave. It was a doddle beating the monsters, then there was a long cutscene before the Grimoire dragon awoke and the fight began. I was using my new Ultimate Weapon, the Fourth Element, which has attack ratings for all 4 elements (very useful). One swing of this gets me 300-400 damage, compared to my Ol’ Faithful, Heaven Asunder, which got 100-200 damage.

Grimoire was a good challenge, I had to use 1 potion because it was causing me major damage and I was meleeing it so I couldn’t dodge. After I defeated it, the enemy faction reappeared, aghast at the failure of their grand plan. The commander, Lynette, was told to commit ritual suicide, but my character generously invited her to live in our little town, instead of going back in dishonour to her own country.

Then Lynette’s superior, Ethelberd (that’s a guy) dropped the metaphorical bomb: he had 100 tanks made with the most superior technology waiting to bring destruction to my village. After I went round the village informing everyone, Ivan the itinerant peddler and Lynette joined me in facing down the tanks.

Just as I was getting worried that there was a final “fight 100 tanks” marathon level, the shadow of a great horned dragon appeared over the tanks and breathed nature magic over them, causing weeds, vegetables and mushrooms to grow rapidly and block the tanks. The Grimoire had reached its final apotheosis and was now Terrable, one of the Dragon Gods of legend (who all have silly names, by the way).  Mired in the vegetation, the tanks had to be abandoned, and the Sechs Empire people walked back across the border to their own country.

If you’re wondering why they just couldn’t hack away at the vegetation or something like that, the storyline is that everyone must respect nature. Since the Sechs Empire did not do that, the power of nature came back to bite them in the rear.

Still, the story hadn’t ended. In another cutscene, Ivan was shown going back to a throne room somewhere unknown. He informed the king that he had just returned from “above”, and that a master swordsman had averted the crisis. Presumably this kingdom is underground, and my character was the swordsman alluded to. Ivan went on to say that he had miscalculated, upon which the king replied: “A master swordsman of royal birth?” thus implying that my character was a prince, and Ivan his brother (something I’d suspected all along). Ivan could have told my character everything and brought him back, but upon seeing how well-received I was by the villagers, he decided that I would have been much happier as a heroic farmer. *sniff*

Lynette moved into the village and wanders around, observing village life and trying to get to know everyone. I intend to marry her, because her birthday is apparently Fall 25 (also my in-game birthday) and her name is Lyn-ette. Of course I’m being egoistic. That’s what games are for.

I still haven’t completed my shipping list, so that’s next on the agenda, along with marrying Lynette and having a kid. Once all that’s done, I’ll have nothing left to play for and will probably start a new game to see if experience helps the second time around.