I've completely missed out on the Rune Factory phenomenon, I guess.
Am I missing out?
Yup. Skip RF1 but RF2, 3 and Rune Factory Frontier on the Wii are damn fun. RFF is the best looking Wii game I own.
I didn't really like RF2... they practically handed you everything during the first act (besides some wood for the school, I guess), and I could make every girl an eligible bride before the end of the first year...
I've completely missed out on the Rune Factory phenomenon, I guess.
Am I missing out?
Yup. Skip RF1 but RF2, 3 and Rune Factory Frontier on the Wii are damn fun. RFF is the best looking Wii game I own.
I didn't really like RF2... they practically handed you everything during the first act (besides some wood for the school, I guess), and I could make every girl an eligible bride before the end of the first year...
Yeah, act 1 is just a speed track to act 2 but it still doesn't go fast enough. Act 2 is where the real game is.
Got RF3 and it's really really good. Probably the best RF/HM yet. The simple addition of SEEING your love points for gifts as well as showing if you've talked to someone are just amazingly appreciated and a long time coming, even if they were in Sunshine Islands. I like the soil quality concerns now and the one plant a seed bag is great but not really needed in RF since you can move through crops. And I love the skills for Sleeping, Walking and Love.
Holy BALLS the days go by fast now. I really don't have time to do everything; that's a first in an RF game. And the villagers move around CONSTANTLY, it's like they acrtually have lives and don't stand in one spot waiting for me to gift 'em.
Those fuckers.
I hate all the girls tho; I really don't wanna marry any of these twits.
What's the Runey system in this one? I heard that it's completely different from Frontier, which is a great thing in my mind - as long as they didn't replace it with something worse.
What's the Runey system in this one? I heard that it's completely different from Frontier, which is a great thing in my mind - as long as they didn't replace it with something worse.
I'm really not sure. I pulled up a turnip and there was a runey uner it. I picked it up and it vanished. That's all I know.
It's definitely not the Runey system from RFF. You don't have to manage them at all.
edit: Here it is. It ROCKS.
When your crops are fully grown, sometimes when you take the crops, there is
a chance to find a Runey. By taking the Runey your status will increase
permanently. The three status are Strength, Vitality and Intelligence. Runey
are extremely important for making your protagonist stronger.
Okay, that's much better than Frontier. This is definitely on my holiday wishlist now.
I didn't have a problem with the concept of the Runey system from Frontier, but the execution was about as terrible as you could make it, aside from adding in hourly kicks-to-the-nuts.
Okay, that's much better than Frontier. This is definitely on my holiday wishlist now.
I didn't have a problem with the concept of the Runey system from Frontier, but the execution was about as terrible as you could make it, aside from adding in hourly kicks-to-the-nuts.
Could you please explain how it is flawed? I haven't played it yet and want to know what I'm getting into.
Essentially each area had groups of Runeys in them. They had a sort of food chain. If you began messing with it without care, it was quite possible to wipe out them in several areas.
And if that happened your crops growth speed dropped to almost nothing.
Here's a run down of the major changes:
Days go much much faster.
Vendor plants respawn CONSTANTLY, all day long. You can effectively NEVER clear out your fields.
Wood needs to be picked up and stored.
You can pick up up to 9 of the same thing. It makes a big hilarious stack.
You can throw gifts at people (or at monsters to tame them).
Standing still regenerates Rune Points.
Time goes by inside now otherwise you could abuse the above.
People show if you've talked to them previously.
People wander all over the place randomly unless they have a job.
There seem to be random, unimportant villagers a la SI. I'm not sure what they do but they don't have portraits when you talk to them.
Seed bags are one plant a bag now and that faster a crop grows, the more it depletes the soil.
Picking crops can randomly get you Runeys, rune points or a bag of seeds. If you cut down a crop with a sickle, you will ALWAYS get seeds, sometimes of a higher level, but the crop is destroyed.
Picking vendor plants can get you season appropriate seeds as well.
You learn recipies for food and tools by buying Recipie Breads. Eating one gets you a random recipie of your skill level of the appropriate style of bread you ate.
Fishing is bit harder. It's a lot like Animal Crossing fishing now and the press-button-window is a lot shorter.
Gifts and food show a little number above the head when you eat/give them so you know exactly how effective a gift or food type is.
Here's a list of easy gifts as well:
Some of these names may not be right for the US version
Shara: Flowers, Weeds
Chocolate: Curry recipies, Rice
Marion: Green vegetable recipies, green vegetables
Karin: Gemstones
Pia: Squid recipies, fish, fruit recipies
Sofia: Super fail dish, fail dish
Sakuya: Charms, Fish/ Enemy Drops
Ion: Seafood pizza, fish, grilled fish
Raven: Crystal, Simple Flowers and Pendants
Daria: Wood, Colour Grass, Jam
Kuruna: Flowers and sweet recipes
Wells: Flowers, Backscratcher, Dango
Monica: Flowers, Rings
Gaji: Gold, Platinum, Metals
Shino: Sashimi
Blaise: Sweets, Honey and Chocolate
Rusk: Sweets, Honey and Chocolate
Donchachos: Any recipie
Marjorie: Colored grass
Hazel: Diamond, vegan recipies
Evelyn: Woolly Furball , Sparkle String and Fish Recipes
Carlos: Fish
Ondourous: Juice, Staves
Zald: Udon
Okay, that's much better than Frontier. This is definitely on my holiday wishlist now.
I didn't have a problem with the concept of the Runey system from Frontier, but the execution was about as terrible as you could make it, aside from adding in hourly kicks-to-the-nuts.
Could you please explain how it is flawed? I haven't played it yet and want to know what I'm getting into.
The system is fine it just takes FOREVER to move Runeys around. It ends up being crazy annoying. And you have to monitor it constantly. The execution could have been a lot more user-friendly.
Okay, that's much better than Frontier. This is definitely on my holiday wishlist now.
I didn't have a problem with the concept of the Runey system from Frontier, but the execution was about as terrible as you could make it, aside from adding in hourly kicks-to-the-nuts.
Could you please explain how it is flawed? I haven't played it yet and want to know what I'm getting into.
The system is fine it just takes FOREVER to move Runeys around. It ends up being crazy annoying. And you have to monitor it constantly. The execution could have been a lot more user-friendly.
The game is still totally worth playing tho.
To expand on this and the other post a little further: the Runeys in a particular zone are pretty much evenly distributed throughout the zone. So if you want to capture a number of a particular type of Runey in that zone, you have to use the "vacuum" device (I can't remember what it's called) multiple times in that zone. And the animation for that takes 2-3 seconds each time. And you're basically at the mercy of the randomization of how the Runeys are distributed to determine how long it will take you to do what you need to do. And then you have to release the ones you didn't intend to suck up in the first place. So when you combine the animation time, the time to go throughout the zone to suck the thing up, calculating how many you sucked up from that zone, and how many you need to release of the various Runey types to balance it out, you're looking at around 5 minutes per zone. And there are 9 zones.
Also, you can only see the exact distribution of the Runeys in each zone at one particular place (I think it's a tower?). So you need to go to that place, write down the Runey distribution in the zones you're concerned about, write down how many Runeys you currently have in your inventory, go to that zone, suck up Runeys, figure out how many you sucked up of each variety, subtract that from how many were in that zone originally, then figure out how many you need to release of each variety to get it balanced.
The first change I would have made would have been simply displaying how many of each type of Runey were in the area when you pulled out the vacuum device instead of requiring you to go to the tower. And updating those numbers when you sucked up the Runeys. I think that one change would have kept me playing the game instead of giving up on it. Second change would have been to speed up the animation. Third would be to give the player the option a bit more flexibility in determining how many of each type of Runey they wanted to suck up. That last option might make it a bit too easy, especially if you combine it with the other two options, but if the other two weren't implemented, then this would have made it much easier.
And as Pata said, your crop growth was dependent on the Runeys. If your Runey distribution was great, your crops grew faster. If they died out, your crop growth slowed considerably. So you couldn't easily ignore them.
If you manage them from the beginning, you should be okay (there are guides online - I'd suggest finding one). If you don't do a good job of it, though, it ends up being very time-consuming to get it back to normal.
Interesting, thanks for the info. Do you have to constantly manage it, or can you reach a sort of equilibrium that will let you ignore them for a while?
Got RF3 today, but can't play it 'til after work. Managing this game AND Grand Bazaar is going to be semi-annoying... oh well, it'll mostly be a game to pass time, anyway.
Interesting, thanks for the info. Do you have to constantly manage it, or can you reach a sort of equilibrium that will let you ignore them for a while?
Interesting, thanks for the info. Do you have to constantly manage it, or can you reach a sort of equilibrium that will let you ignore them for a while?
If you attempt to manage it day one, you can have a somewhat-equilibrium attained by Summer. But you still will need a special zone made just to produce Grass runeys and run them over to any area that starts to get low in them.
It's one month of solid work tho; you'll be spending every third day doing nothing but Runeys.
Just had my first real dungeon run-through this noon and combat is just over the top crazy now. You start with one Seed, special monsters you can throw down that will become helpers. I have a Plant seed that helps you fight and you HAVE to have helpers now; fighting feels more like a Tales Of game then the old RFs. No more handling dungeons alone. Monsters knock you into the air now and then gang up on you as you recover on the ground.
You can't go a ways away to have monsters stop following you either and the gates all seem to pump out some really random monsters. I had one gate with two sword orcs and an archer orc and the next time I went back it had pumped out a sword orc, two woolies, a chitter and an orc riding an elephant.
Some monsters drop treasure chests as well which just explode into a bunch of great items; I got a seed bag for fall flowers, a diamond and a recipie bread from just one.
Just had my first real dungeon run-through this noon and combat is just over the top crazy now. You start with one Seed, special monsters you can throw down that will become helpers. I have a Plant seed that helps you fight and you HAVE to have helpers now; fighting feels more like a Tales Of game then the old RFs. No more handling dungeons alone. Monsters knock you into the air now and then gang up on you as you recover on the ground.
You can't go a ways away to have monsters stop following you either and the gates all seem to pump out some really random monsters. I had one gate with two sword orcs and an archer orc and the next time I went back it had pumped out a sword orc, two woolies, a chitter and an orc riding an elephant.
Some monsters drop treasure chests as well which just explode into a bunch of great items; I got a seed bag for fall flowers, a diamond and a recipie bread from just one.
I think I read that some of the villagers can act as party members. Is this true?
Just had my first real dungeon run-through this noon and combat is just over the top crazy now. You start with one Seed, special monsters you can throw down that will become helpers. I have a Plant seed that helps you fight and you HAVE to have helpers now; fighting feels more like a Tales Of game then the old RFs. No more handling dungeons alone. Monsters knock you into the air now and then gang up on you as you recover on the ground.
You can't go a ways away to have monsters stop following you either and the gates all seem to pump out some really random monsters. I had one gate with two sword orcs and an archer orc and the next time I went back it had pumped out a sword orc, two woolies, a chitter and an orc riding an elephant.
Some monsters drop treasure chests as well which just explode into a bunch of great items; I got a seed bag for fall flowers, a diamond and a recipie bread from just one.
I think I read that some of the villagers can act as party members. Is this true?
Yeah, when you get them to three hearts. A good 80% of the villagers will go with you.
Interesting, thanks for the info. Do you have to constantly manage it, or can you reach a sort of equilibrium that will let you ignore them for a while?
It's entirely possible to reach an equilibrium where you can leave them alone for a week or so.
The easiest way to do it is to set up an area as a "grass factory" usually Road to the Beach as it's the smallest area in the game.
The food chain goes like this: Water > Rock > Tree > Grass.
Unlike the other ones, Grass Runeys grow based off how many other Runey's die that day. So set up the factory with nothing but Water and Grass, and the Grass Runeys will grow by huge amounts. Use these grass Runeys to fuel the other areas. Fill each area with the minimum of Runeys to reach "prosperity" so your crops grow fast. Then fill the rest of it with grass. In prosperity mode, only the Grass Runeys will die, while the water ones will multiply. Just occasionally take the excess waters out, replace them with Grass, and use the Waters to help fuel the factory and volia, you've created an easy to handle system.
All the other RFs are great games. This one is just REALLY great.
The villagers don't have quite as muuch personality as RF2 and the ones that do have hokey, over the top, anime personalities: some talk only in opposites, some are disability-level stupid, the requisite crazy doctor chick, etc etc. The writing for them is good tho; RF conversations in general always make me crack up.
My two problems:
The pacing of the game is FRANTIC. I feel like I'm constantly running running running and mashing buttons even when not in combat. It's not very relaxing like the other RFs were.
The girls. They're all horribly unlikable idiots. I'm only going with Raven because, quite simply, she never talks. There's still one girl I haven't met but I YEARN to be able to marry Carlos.
A small third, the player-character moves sort of sloppily. That thing where when you stop moving he still takes a few steps? I don't like it in any game. You get used to it but I would prefer they just stop full like in RF2.
Woo, first boss down! Now I can turn into this ridiculous sheep thing. Better not let the other villagers see my adorable plushy-self; THEY'D BE TERRIFIED.
What a bunch of fish.
Magic Pink on
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
edited November 2010
As soon as I skilled up for walking, I knew that I would really enjoy this game.
MalReynolds on
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
Oh, there a RF3 out now? I must have somehow missed the second one. Is it worth tracking down the second one or should I just skip it?
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0
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
edited November 2010
I personally didn't enjoy the second RF game very much at all. The split generation thing kind of killed it for me; it felt like the game for the original protagonist was gimped to increase play time.
And I already love like a pro. It doesn't translate to my DS, though. Wish it could scan my thumb-print or something.
MalReynolds on
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
Oh, there a RF3 out now? I must have somehow missed the second one. Is it worth tracking down the second one or should I just skip it?
Second one is darn good once you get to chapter 2, chapter one is RF1 easy. Get it before RF3 otherwise you won't be able to go back. Storywise it doesn't matter.
Posts
Fuck.
I didn't really like RF2... they practically handed you everything during the first act (besides some wood for the school, I guess), and I could make every girl an eligible bride before the end of the first year...
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Yeah, act 1 is just a speed track to act 2 but it still doesn't go fast enough. Act 2 is where the real game is.
Also, Carlos is multra hot.
Those fuckers.
I hate all the girls tho; I really don't wanna marry any of these twits.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
I'm really not sure. I pulled up a turnip and there was a runey uner it. I picked it up and it vanished. That's all I know.
It's definitely not the Runey system from RFF. You don't have to manage them at all.
edit: Here it is. It ROCKS.
When your crops are fully grown, sometimes when you take the crops, there is
a chance to find a Runey. By taking the Runey your status will increase
permanently. The three status are Strength, Vitality and Intelligence. Runey
are extremely important for making your protagonist stronger.
I didn't have a problem with the concept of the Runey system from Frontier, but the execution was about as terrible as you could make it, aside from adding in hourly kicks-to-the-nuts.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
:winky:
Could you please explain how it is flawed? I haven't played it yet and want to know what I'm getting into.
And if that happened your crops growth speed dropped to almost nothing.
Days go much much faster.
Vendor plants respawn CONSTANTLY, all day long. You can effectively NEVER clear out your fields.
Wood needs to be picked up and stored.
You can pick up up to 9 of the same thing. It makes a big hilarious stack.
You can throw gifts at people (or at monsters to tame them).
Standing still regenerates Rune Points.
Time goes by inside now otherwise you could abuse the above.
People show if you've talked to them previously.
People wander all over the place randomly unless they have a job.
There seem to be random, unimportant villagers a la SI. I'm not sure what they do but they don't have portraits when you talk to them.
Seed bags are one plant a bag now and that faster a crop grows, the more it depletes the soil.
Picking crops can randomly get you Runeys, rune points or a bag of seeds. If you cut down a crop with a sickle, you will ALWAYS get seeds, sometimes of a higher level, but the crop is destroyed.
Picking vendor plants can get you season appropriate seeds as well.
You learn recipies for food and tools by buying Recipie Breads. Eating one gets you a random recipie of your skill level of the appropriate style of bread you ate.
Fishing is bit harder. It's a lot like Animal Crossing fishing now and the press-button-window is a lot shorter.
Gifts and food show a little number above the head when you eat/give them so you know exactly how effective a gift or food type is.
Here's a list of easy gifts as well:
Shara: Flowers, Weeds
Chocolate: Curry recipies, Rice
Marion: Green vegetable recipies, green vegetables
Karin: Gemstones
Pia: Squid recipies, fish, fruit recipies
Sofia: Super fail dish, fail dish
Sakuya: Charms, Fish/ Enemy Drops
Ion: Seafood pizza, fish, grilled fish
Raven: Crystal, Simple Flowers and Pendants
Daria: Wood, Colour Grass, Jam
Kuruna: Flowers and sweet recipes
Wells: Flowers, Backscratcher, Dango
Monica: Flowers, Rings
Gaji: Gold, Platinum, Metals
Shino: Sashimi
Blaise: Sweets, Honey and Chocolate
Rusk: Sweets, Honey and Chocolate
Donchachos: Any recipie
Marjorie: Colored grass
Hazel: Diamond, vegan recipies
Evelyn: Woolly Furball , Sparkle String and Fish Recipes
Carlos: Fish
Ondourous: Juice, Staves
Zald: Udon
The system is fine it just takes FOREVER to move Runeys around. It ends up being crazy annoying. And you have to monitor it constantly. The execution could have been a lot more user-friendly.
The game is still totally worth playing tho.
No idea yet. I guess it's how effective dates are? Or how easy it is to tame monsters with Petting?
YOU AREN'T HELPING.
Did I mention they added some weapon types? DUAL BLADES BITCHES
To expand on this and the other post a little further: the Runeys in a particular zone are pretty much evenly distributed throughout the zone. So if you want to capture a number of a particular type of Runey in that zone, you have to use the "vacuum" device (I can't remember what it's called) multiple times in that zone. And the animation for that takes 2-3 seconds each time. And you're basically at the mercy of the randomization of how the Runeys are distributed to determine how long it will take you to do what you need to do. And then you have to release the ones you didn't intend to suck up in the first place. So when you combine the animation time, the time to go throughout the zone to suck the thing up, calculating how many you sucked up from that zone, and how many you need to release of the various Runey types to balance it out, you're looking at around 5 minutes per zone. And there are 9 zones.
Also, you can only see the exact distribution of the Runeys in each zone at one particular place (I think it's a tower?). So you need to go to that place, write down the Runey distribution in the zones you're concerned about, write down how many Runeys you currently have in your inventory, go to that zone, suck up Runeys, figure out how many you sucked up of each variety, subtract that from how many were in that zone originally, then figure out how many you need to release of each variety to get it balanced.
The first change I would have made would have been simply displaying how many of each type of Runey were in the area when you pulled out the vacuum device instead of requiring you to go to the tower. And updating those numbers when you sucked up the Runeys. I think that one change would have kept me playing the game instead of giving up on it. Second change would have been to speed up the animation. Third would be to give the player the option a bit more flexibility in determining how many of each type of Runey they wanted to suck up. That last option might make it a bit too easy, especially if you combine it with the other two options, but if the other two weren't implemented, then this would have made it much easier.
And as Pata said, your crop growth was dependent on the Runeys. If your Runey distribution was great, your crops grew faster. If they died out, your crop growth slowed considerably. So you couldn't easily ignore them.
If you manage them from the beginning, you should be okay (there are guides online - I'd suggest finding one). If you don't do a good job of it, though, it ends up being very time-consuming to get it back to normal.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Beats me - I never got to that point. :P
I think you do reach an equilibrium after awhile.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
If you attempt to manage it day one, you can have a somewhat-equilibrium attained by Summer. But you still will need a special zone made just to produce Grass runeys and run them over to any area that starts to get low in them.
It's one month of solid work tho; you'll be spending every third day doing nothing but Runeys.
You can't go a ways away to have monsters stop following you either and the gates all seem to pump out some really random monsters. I had one gate with two sword orcs and an archer orc and the next time I went back it had pumped out a sword orc, two woolies, a chitter and an orc riding an elephant.
Some monsters drop treasure chests as well which just explode into a bunch of great items; I got a seed bag for fall flowers, a diamond and a recipie bread from just one.
I think I read that some of the villagers can act as party members. Is this true?
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
Yeah, when you get them to three hearts. A good 80% of the villagers will go with you.
It's entirely possible to reach an equilibrium where you can leave them alone for a week or so.
The easiest way to do it is to set up an area as a "grass factory" usually Road to the Beach as it's the smallest area in the game.
The food chain goes like this: Water > Rock > Tree > Grass.
Unlike the other ones, Grass Runeys grow based off how many other Runey's die that day. So set up the factory with nothing but Water and Grass, and the Grass Runeys will grow by huge amounts. Use these grass Runeys to fuel the other areas. Fill each area with the minimum of Runeys to reach "prosperity" so your crops grow fast. Then fill the rest of it with grass. In prosperity mode, only the Grass Runeys will die, while the water ones will multiply. Just occasionally take the excess waters out, replace them with Grass, and use the Waters to help fuel the factory and volia, you've created an easy to handle system.
Who thought it was a good game design?
I. am. in. love.
I KNOW! I JUST FOUND OUT! I love this game already...
XBL: GamingFreak5514
PSN: GamingFreak1234
...how's the villagers? Well written?
The villagers don't have quite as muuch personality as RF2 and the ones that do have hokey, over the top, anime personalities: some talk only in opposites, some are disability-level stupid, the requisite crazy doctor chick, etc etc. The writing for them is good tho; RF conversations in general always make me crack up.
My two problems:
The pacing of the game is FRANTIC. I feel like I'm constantly running running running and mashing buttons even when not in combat. It's not very relaxing like the other RFs were.
The girls. They're all horribly unlikable idiots. I'm only going with Raven because, quite simply, she never talks. There's still one girl I haven't met but I YEARN to be able to marry Carlos.
A small third, the player-character moves sort of sloppily. That thing where when you stop moving he still takes a few steps? I don't like it in any game. You get used to it but I would prefer they just stop full like in RF2.
What a bunch of fish.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I especially love the Sleep skill level ups. The lights dim, screen goes black and all of sudden you hear the main character yell "I DID IT".
And I already love like a pro. It doesn't translate to my DS, though. Wish it could scan my thumb-print or something.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
Second one is darn good once you get to chapter 2, chapter one is RF1 easy. Get it before RF3 otherwise you won't be able to go back. Storywise it doesn't matter.