Ethelberd, ruler of the Sechs Empire, is a deranged madman with a knack for treating even the slightest failure extremely poorly. In the first game, he wipes out the memories of a young Earthmate named Raguna as part of a complex plan to summon the Divine Earth Dragon Terrable. Foiled in this, Ethelberd returns in Rune Factory 4 where, blaming every single Earthmate for his current condition, he elects to annihilate them all. Ethelberd wipes out the vast majority of a village of dwarves while pinning the atrocity on the Wind Dragon Ventuswill. He manipulates the one survivor of his massacre, Doug, into serving him, eventually deciding to possess the Wind Dragon and destroy the town of Selphia out of raging spite. Bloodthirsty and power-hungry to the core, Ethelberd is a megalomaniacal dictator who will destroy anything or anyone who gets in his way to accomplish what he wants.
In an official Rune Factory 2 character popularity poll, Barrett ranked in first place, beating out Kyle (the main protagonist) by about 100 points. He makes a cameo in Rune Factory 4 where he can analyze which materials are used to enhance equipment.
From Rune Factory 3, Sofia, Pia, and Raven are the top 3 bachelorettes in terms of popularity.
Yue got a LOT more popularity than was expected. So much so that she makes a cameo in the third game selling her wares again.
Mei from the first game also got the chance to cameo in Rune Factory 3 after being left behind in Rune Factory Frontier.
To sum it up: if a character gets to cameo in the next game, chances are that they were either popular with the developers or the fans.
Fridge Horror: If Herman is his father... what's Max going to grow up to look like?
Made worse by the de Sainte-Coquille character from Rune Factory 4 who looks just as swollen as the rest of the adult family, but was apparently a looker in his youth. If you try and imagine him younger and thinner, you get something similar to Max.
Lampshaded by Barrett in Rune Factory 4, who wonders the same thing during one of his regular dialogues.
For Rune Factory, some of the female friendships seem romantic in nature. Also, if you marry Rosetta, Lukas will be jealous, but the way it's phrased makes it sound like he's jealous of Rosetta rather than the player (this is likely a result of Rune Factory 1's many, many script errors rather than anything intentional, though)
Lukas: [Player]!!! I was so determined not to let Rosetta get ahold of you!
In Rune Factory 2, there is a romantic sounding dialogue Max gives Kyle, comparing their relationship to a fine wine. Those are the most YMMV options.
Also in Rune Factory 2, you can court and "marry" a pair of twins, regardless of your gender. Together. However, in the English version, they act oblivious to marriage and talk about toast the whole time. However, it is kind of cute in context.
In Rune Factory 3, if you give Carlos his favorite dish, his dialogue, after a pause, ends with a blush and a "... Can I kiss you, bro?". (Micah responds with "N-No thanks!")
If you marry Lara in Frontier, Selphy says "I know she'll be the best wife because I actually really want to marry her!" Furthermore, if you take the flower bouquet and propose to anyone (including the guys), they all will get a blush and heart effect on them. (Not to mention some of their starting lines sure sound like they might accept.)
After completing Rune Factory 4, there is an extra option to change the MC into any other character, including those of the opposite sex.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: A rare in-game example, in Rune Factory 2, Yue the wandering salesgirl. Most of the marriage candidates, if you don't get married to them, will eventually wind up married to one of the other NPCs. If you marry one of those girls, Yue winds up married to whoever that girl would have eventually married in the first place; presumably this is to ensure that everyone who is supposed to be married as of the timeskip actually is, since many of the new post-timeskip NPCs are actually the children of the townsfolk from the start of the game.
Moral Event Horizon: It's debatable as to when Ethelberd crosses it, but two major candidates are his genocide of the dwarf village and possessing Ventuswill, using her powers to attack Selphia against her will, and forcing Lest/Frey to fight her.
In Frontier, activate the events involving the Big Bad, Gelwein, on the Pumpkin Festival. Now try to take the events seriously as he confronts you with a Halloween pumpkin mask on his head.
Alternatively, in Rune Factory 3,if you marry Raven, it is possible to trigger her birth cutscene when she is in phoenix form. Impossible not to laugh as she groans and Micah rushes her to the clinic.
The first game's ending involves a dragon that breathes plant life coming to save you all from the Sechs Empire's tanks in the nick of time. It's as silly as it sounds, and the fact that the game script shortly thereafter blatantly misspells "swordsman" as "sowrdsman" does little to help matters.
The elemental dragons having their names be puns. Special mention goes to the earth dragon, Terrable.
The Sechs Empire. Love or hate the replacement name Xseed gave them in Frontier, at least it doesn't look like a misspelling of the word sex.
Once Original, Now Common: Rune Factory used to be one of the few games, if not the first, that mixed both Farm Life Sim with fantasy elements, item crafting and monster taming/fighting. Nowadays there are plenty of games with about the same things, some done in a much larger scale, albeit usually having their own twists to stand out.
Jake, who replaced Nicholas from Rune Factory 1 as the love interest of Cecilia. Doesn't help that he's a complete asshole at first, and his Freudian Excuse is barely even alluded to (hell, isn't his mother a human?).
Inverted with Selphy from Frontier. She replaces Tori as the blonde librarian, but due to her breaking the mold of the traditional sweet, shy librarian, she has gained more of a fanbase.
The first three games all have canon love interests for the main characters (Mist in the first game, Mana in the second, and Shara in the third). While Shara is absent in the first opening of Rune Factory 3, and her relationship with Micah doesn't steal from the other girls, the second opening of the game is almost entirely dedicated to Micah and her being romantic, with all the other girls Demoted to Extra.
Actually averted with Mist in the end; Oceans/Tides of Destiny makes it pretty clear that the rank 10 event for Iris took place. This is the ONLY confirmed rank 10 event.
Rune Factory 4 defies this, since not only is there no "official" love interest, but it's entirely possible to complete the game's main story without getting married, something not possible in the numbered entries since the first game. In fact, if one wants to, you don't even have to consider getting married (although doing so prevents you from getting 100% Completion).
Nicholas and Cecilia in the first Rune Factory, Roy and Cammy in the second, and Marco and Candy in Frontier.
Vanilla Protagonist: Most protagonists tend to be rather easygoing and passive which makes the other villagers stand out a lot more. With that said they all have their Only Sane Man and Deadpan Snarker moments when dealing with some of the truly silly characters they may come across. Micah in particular stands out more than the rest since the entire Sharance is full of really weird people.
WTH, Costuming Department?: Frey, the female protagonist of Rune Factory 4, as part of her standard outfit, wears a cleavage-shaped chestpiece that appears to have tassels over her nipples, with what looks like a soda can tab over the left side. Some fans hate her outfit to the extent that they either never have her wear her standard outfit and/or immediately change Frey's character model to Lest as soon as possible.
Unfortunately for many fans, the DLC costume heavily based off Frey's outfit in Rune Factory 5 retains these tassels.
