Video Game / Rune Factory 3

An Adventure That Will Transform You

The third installment in the main Rune Factory series, this game was released by Natsume in North America on November 9th 2010. It also makes significant improvements to combat, stats, and farming systems, as well as expanding on the message board requests introduced in Rune Factory 2.

One night during a storm, a mysterious golden-fleeced wooly collapses in front of a young girl, Shara's, house; and yet, against her grandfather's wishes, she takes in the wooly for the night. However, when morning comes around, the wooly transforms into a young man, Micah. With no memory of who he is or what he's supposed to be doing here, he escapes Shara's house, only to run into her - and a silent young woman named Raven - again not long thereafter. At the pair's suggestion, Micah decides to stay at the local farm, which happens to be housed in an enchanted tree. From there on, the story's up to the player to discover.

During the September 13th, 2022 Nintendo Direct it was announced that an Updated Re-release, Rune Factory 3 Special, would be releasing on the Nintendo Switch. Special released on March 2nd, 2023 in Japan and worldwide on September 5th, 2023.

Has a character sheet that is in need of contributions. Please make sure to add any character related trope there.

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From this game, we get examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: 10,000. For comparison, most players will probably finish the main quest well before reaching triple digits, and the final Bonus Dungeon has a suggested level of 220. In addition, each individual skill has a visible cap of 999, but actually keeps increasing beyond that, up to a maximum of 65,536.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Your "Poison" skill goes up every time you get poisoned (or inflict poison on the enemy). Aside from the same stat-boosts most skills give, it makes it harder for you to get hit with poison. This also goes for sleeping, paralysis and sealing status effects. Shino apparently developed this as well, as she gladly accepts poisonous mushrooms as gifts.
• Action Mom: Shino, and Hazel to a certain degree. Also, your spouse.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Downplayed, but the Special remaster makes several of the characters Lighter and Softer than in the original.
  • Micah's insults towards the townspeople are massively scaled back, with him tending to express surprise at the wackiness or wondering if he's going crazy, rather than acting like a Jerkass right to their face.
  • Shara's random, unprovoked mocking/teasing of Micah that made her unpopular in the original version is removed in favor of her being more gentle and kind with him.
  • Kuruna's venting about humans is scaled back to focus more on her sheltered and weighty upbringing, and she no longer calls Micah a traitor for revealing his identity.
  • Sakuya is still obsessed with money, but she's more friendly and easygoing with Micah, and focuses more on her feelings for him instead of singlemindedly chasing her next big score.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: The Sol Terrano desert. It also has one with a big flower that Kuruna asks for and ends up attracting a Skelefang to the Desert Settlement.
• And Your Reward Is Parenthood: After getting married, you can have up to three children, the highest number in the franchise. They can have several varying personalities, but don't have the same Relationship Values as other townsfolk.
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can buy various decorations for your home from Evelyn. If you decide you don't want them, you get rid of them by whacking them with your weapon, which turns them into wood.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Transform, Teleport, and Cure Seal all work while you are sealed, so you can still avoid getting knocked out if things go sour and you get sealed. Poison also doesn't knock you completely out, so you can wait until you get some RP-recovering items (to cast a curing spell), an antidote herb or antidote, or until one of the two witches decide to work to take care of the poison. Just don't do something stupid like go exploring a dungeon...
• Antidote Effect: Healing Potion type items made with alchemy restore set amounts of HP, with the best ones going up to 2000 hit points' worth. However, most food restores via percentage of your maximum HP/RP, and considering your base HP cap is 65535...
• Apologetic Attacker: Raven and Shara routinely apologise to the monsters they're beating up. The former does it only in the Japanese version, though.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Quite well-done for a DS game. Villagers will go about their usual daily business according to who they are; it's not uncommon to find Carmen or Carlos fishing, for example, Raven writing in her diary, Rusk and Collette serving in the restaurant, or Marian at her cauldron. Other more generic actions include going for walks in the safe areas of the dungeons, having conversations with other villagers (although you fill in the blanks) and greeting you when you walk by.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: With some of the bonus bosses, sometimes the best strategy is to defeat them before they can use their best attacks, which are nigh-impossible to dodge.
• Attack Drone: Most of the active seeds are essentially this, only they're plants.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The Skelefang takes no damage from attacks until you completely destroy its body, exposing the core for a few moments while its body regenerates. (And making it perform its Limit Break)
• Awesome, but Impractical: The boss abilities of the last few bosses you can collect consume too much RP to be used often, although, to their credit, they can clear the screen of all non-boss enemies. And by the time you have enough RP to overcome usage issues, slow charge time becomes a bigger one (You're slowed to walking speed while charging, even while wearing Rocket Shoes, though you can still dash). Though the charge time issue can be mitigated with a Magic Ring (halves charge time).
• Big Eater: Sherman and Collette.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Pia and Sakuya have one to attract customers.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Cooking wise recipes like Apple Juice (for RP) and Onigiri/Rice Ball (for HP) are perfect for early to even late game due to requiring low Cooking skill to make without failing and having very easy to find/cheap renewable ingredients that allows you to keep working or fighting.
  • In terms of combat Power Wave is a Rune Ability that's available from start sold at Miyako Inn for a fair price. While not very flashy it doesn't consume a lot of RP and can be used to hit enemies from safe distances while magic can be costly early on.
  • Gust is another basic Rune Ability available from start. It makes Micah leap towards the direction he's facing and strike an enemy which doesn't sound like much, but it covers a rather large distance and can be used to either close in the distance against skittish enemies or leap away from danger when your dash won't do.
• Bonus Dungeon: The Sharance Maze under your home. As a bonus, levels will changes every time you enter.
• Boss Arena Urgency: If you don't defeat Death Wall fast enough, it will eventually crush you.
• Boss Rush: Entering the last two Bonus Dungeons while wearing the Holy Rosary accessory^note Normally, it just blocks the spawning of non-boss enemies in an area turns them into this, as the first room you enter will contain a boss and the warp to the next level.
• Bottomless Bladder: Partially averted. While you don't have to do these things, there are skills that reward you for making your character live a healthy life: eating well, getting lots of exercise, sleeping early, so on and so forth.
• But Thou Must!:
  • You can't refuse Shara when she wants to show you around your new home. Or explain the bulletin board.
  • One of Sofia's requests ends up with a decision where both options quite literally mean the same thing.
  • If you're going after Sakuya, you are going to get shaved for your golden wool, and no amount of arguing will deter her.
    Micah: It's gonna be a cold night tonight...
  • If you accept Daria's mission to find the Golden Wooly, you're given two choices: Trying to make a random distraction or revealing your secret. The first one never works, no matter how many times you try.
• Bragging Rights Reward: You can collect a number of trophies in the trophy room for completing certain achievements. Most are useless, but some serve as in-game options, such as to view the end credits again.
  • Hard Mode: The monsters are tougher, but you get the same rewards for defeating them (same XP, same monster drops)
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Daria seems quite fond of this, doing it on more than one occasion. In one of her conversations, she will exclaim "My art is calling me!", prompting two choices. Choosing the second will make her say something along the lines of, "Please choose the first one, next time..."
  • There's one conversation where Daria tells you her new name, which is so long that it goes off the edge of the text box. Micah's response? "It doesn't even fit..."
  • During the farming tutorial, Shara runs up to the upper-left corner and jumps to indicate where your HP and RP gauges are, to which Micah responds with "I can't see them." Shara's response to that? "You can't see them when you're talking to people."
  • Seriously, whenever someone tells you how to do something by pressing the buttons on your DS, they're pretty much demolishing the wall.
• Cast from Hit Points: As in earlier games, trying to do anything without RP drains your HP instead... unlike in earlier games, this HP drain is ridiculously fast, taking Micah from full health to KO in only three or four actions.
• Cast Full of Crazy: Rune Factory 3 is rather known for its colorful cast of quirky characters.
• Catchphrase:
  • Daria's RAINBOW!
  • Pia's "Hey-ho" and "La-la-la".
  • Collette's "Heya".
• Character Customization: Taken to obscene lengths. While the first two games had "fight monsters to gain EXP to raise stats," and skills weren't that important, what you do in this game will seriously impact how your character turns out. While skills only decreased RP consumption in the other games, in this one every skill is tied to at least one stat, and levelling has a limited ability to impact your stats. Oh, and did I mention there are an obscene number of skills, even one for walking and another that represents how well-fed you are? Add that to an enormous number of effects your equipment can have on you and your enemies, and you're set. Then there're your companions to consider...
• Charged Attack: More important for staves than other weapons, since that's how you use the spells you've imbued into it by way of monster drops.
• Child of Two Worlds: Micah is half-human/half-monster. Because of this, he is able to be accepted by the (mostly) humans of Sharance Village and the monsters of the Unvir settlement and help reunite them. Which was Aquaticus' plan all along.
• Collision Damage: Largely averted. Running into certain monsters that are obviously trying to stomp you still causes damage. However, using Gust skill to collide with Skelefang when he rushes at you reveals its core in one hit.

• Continuity Nod: Talk to the travelers passing through town, and they'll make references to the earlier games.
  • As a nod to the tradition of the first Harvest Moon game of peeking at girls' diaries to find out how they feel about you, Raven keeps a diary on her dresser that has its contents change as you up her Relationship Values. Attempting to read it while she's around makes her really, really mad. As a joke, Gaius has one too, but he never writes anything in it.
    • Karina also keeps a diary in her room, however due to her extreme laziness, she stops writing in it after the first paragraph.
    • Sherman has one, too, but you can't make any sense of the words in it. If he's in the room when you look at it he mentions being notes and plans on how to make more people visit Sharance.
  • Sofia mentions visiting Alvarna and how a building there has a golden turnip which befuddles Micah.
  • Yue from the previous game makes an appearance as well. She sells all sort of items in a randomized inventory, not limited just to monster drops like Sakuya's store.
  • Mei also randomly visits Miyako Inn. She's the way you can change your name and your farm's name. While she cannot be befriended she accept gifts and will gave a rather amusing response if you give her a Love/Throbby Snapper (which was the item you needed to propose to her in Rune Factory 1).
  • Carmen mentions a "whale-shaped island" in the sky. Daria also mentions Trampoli by name as well.
• Counter-Attack: One of the skill seals does this.
• Critical Existence Failure: Your character starts to pant and look tired when low on HP/RP, but this is only cosmetic.
• Critical Hit: There are some skills which guarantee this, and various ways to up your chances of getting one. Different weapon types have different base critical chances, and magic can now score these as well. You can also critically heal.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: You can't really woo Kuruna until after the Unity Festival (because most of her Heart Events won't occur until afterwards). To trigger the Unity Festival, you have to raise another girl's heart level to marriage level first. You have to play Casanova to marry Kuruna.
• Curtains Match the Window: Collette, Sofia, Monica, and Evelyn, if the official artwork has anything to say about it. Also, Pia sorta counts, too.
• Dating Sim: Although the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games have always included elements of this, now you can take your love interests on actual dates.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Compared to the previous games, which would net you a game over if you fainted in a dungeon, losing all your money seems a reasonable alternative.
• Deadpan Snarker: Micah. Then again, given that he's, arguably, one of the only sane individuals in the game, this is inevitable. And quite entertaining.
• Determinator: You cannot lose against Aquaticus' ultimate attack. Even at 0 HP, you simply shrug off his attacks until you hit him. Sadly, this does not happen against the rematch, for obvious reasons.
• Developers' Desired Date: This is averted in the first opening, but the second one focuses greatly on Shara, the young woman who finds Micah injured at the beginning of the game. Her everyday headgear, which is her most visible piece of clothing in most shots of her, is an item made out of flower ornaments and semi-transparent white fabric that wouldn't be out of place as part of a wedding outfit.
• Developer's Foresight: There are several requests, especially from bachelorettes, that has Micah doing a rather dramatic reveal of his half-monster heritage... And most of them change after the Unity Festival when Micah outs his identity to the entire populace of Sharance— for instance, one of Sakuya's request ends up with Micah unwittingly morphing into his Wooly form which would cause some trouble for him, but after the Unity Festival Sakuya only wonders why Micah changed into his monster form. The reactions of people during Micah's big reveal also varies whether they knew beforehand if Micah was the Golden Wooly or not.
• Die, Chair, Die!: You can chop up your furniture, signs, shipment boxes, save points, and even the orbs you acquire throughout the storyline. Oh, and if you so much as sneeze on a treasure chest, it and its contents are destroyed.Pretty annoying if you have a weapon with a large range or have a dumb AI companion...
• Disc-One Nuke: Some of the townsfolk hold strong weapons for early game and if you befriend them early on they can easily solo the first bosses with very little problem. Shino stands out; she starts at Level 25 with a very strong weapon for early game and she also has a very aggressive AI.
  • Fishing can give you a hefty boost in funds early on if your reactions are good enough. Even with low Fishing and a Cheap Pole you can fish a Love/Throbby Snapper at Miyako Inn's pond which sells for a pretty penny from early to mid-game. With a handful of these you can get your hands on some of Gaius' bargain items and get stronger equipment before unlocking the crafting stations.
  • The Bonus Dungeons in the Sharance Tree, available once you clear Privera Forest can give you a lot of goodies, especially if you get lucky with the rare chests.
• Double-Edged Buff: The Formulade restores 75% of your RP and boosts your strength, vitality and intelligence for 12 hours. It also reduces your HP by 90% for the duration.
• Dual Boss: The Twin lions Crimsone and Amaranthine (Hinoe and Kinoto). The former being more about physical power and the latter specializing in magic abilities.
• Dual Wielding: Introduced in this game. Effectiveness does remain in question, though. While dual swords are the fastest weapon, using them means you get no benefit from a shield, whereas using even a two-handed weapon only halves the stats you gain from a shield.
• Dub Name Change: There are quite a few, actually, but perhaps the most peculiar are Zeze's, Persia's, and Donchacos', who have become Zaid, Pia, and Sherman respectively. Other examples include Karin, who has become Karina, and Elisa, who has become Evelyn. Conversely, Rusk was left alone, despite his family's dessert naming trend being broken with Chocolat becoming Collette, and Gluten becoming Blaise.
  • Monster Village has also undergone a drastic name change, now becoming Univir instead. Additionally, Sialens has become Sharance.
• Dynamic Difficulty: The difficulty of the last area in the Sharance Maze scales with your level and stats.
• Easy Level Trick: Having a Rosary equipped before entering the Sharance Maze levels will cause it to only have rooms with mini-bosses and bosses which can be helpful to quickly farm their rare item drops.
• Edible Theme Naming: All in the same family, we have Chocolat (French for chocolate), Rusk (a dry, hard biscuit), and Gluten (a composite of two proteins found in grain, often used in breads and the like). Mais (which resembles "maize," or the term for corn in some countries, like Italy) can also count too. All of these were Lost in Translation except for Rusk; see Dub Name Change above.
• Elite Mook: The guardians at the end of every non-boss level of the Sharance Maze.
• Engagement Challenge: Akhnabet (Aquaticus from the US translations of the earlier games), Dragon God of Water, challenges you to a duel to prove your love for your fiancee.
• Even the Guys Want Him: The protagonist of the story, Micah (or whatever you name him) absolutely matches the trope. Just look at him!◊. If you give Carlos his favorite gift on his birthday, he asks if he can kiss you. Gaius also hints at this when you give him something he likes.
• Evolving Attack: Leveling your fighting skills increases the length of your weapon combo and can add associated effects.
• Express Delivery: It takes a matter of days from your wife discovering she's pregnant to the actual birth. And this happens THREE times, a year apart each occurrence. Ouch.
• Fantastic Racism: The main plotline is about trying to bring humans and the Univir together. To the storyline's credit, the Univir are just as bad as the humans themselves.
• Fanservice: Almost all the villagers have their own swimsuits. Even those who live in the desert. Seems Neverland and Marvelous didn't forget the ladies this time round. Carlos, anyone?
• Freaky Is Cool: Sofia is well-liked for her quirky way of speaking having the tendency to say the opposite of what she means.
• Forgets to Eat: Gaius sometimes spends days at the forge. It takes until he runs out of materials or get distracted by Raven for him to just pass out just so Raven can get him to sleep. To a lesser extent, one of Daria's requests has you get her food because she's so hungry from working on her art that she can't get any herself.
• Foregone Victory: Aquiticus' last attack seems like a Hopeless Boss Fight at first, until you realise you can't faint while you waddle up and smack him. If you rematch him, he can use this attack normally. Better have a water ring ready.
• Gambit Roulette: The entire plot of the game turns out to be an elaborate plot by the Dragon God Aquaticus to tear down the racial barriers between Humans and Monsters.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Villagers can faint, but leave the map you're on and they'll revive themselves with one HP. Healing them via magic also revives them. Sadly, this doesn't apply elsewhere—fainted monsters will be returned to your barn, and exhausted active seeds will revert to their seed form and have to be placed in your backpack overnight before they can be used again.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even after the Unity Festival, Kurana still refers to humans as the "vile hornless" in certain quests that were available from before the festival. Also, you can still "reveal" your Wooly form to some characters even after revealing it to the entire town.

• Giant Mook: Giant mushrooms. And ducks. And woolies. And trolls.
• Give Me Your Inventory Item: Most of the repeatable message board quests are this, along with 20 Bear Asses. Though to prove they're not so lazy, sometimes the villagers go out with you in search of what they want. And sometimes they want to give you their inventory items, so what goes around comes around.
• Glass Cannon: Some of the villager companions can be this. They are not so much fragile (since the bosses hit you just about as hard) but their AI is so much dumber than the player (hopefully) that they just stand there and get hit. Thanks to an accessory called the "Sun Pendant", though, some villagers can do insane damage (the pendent doubles their damage).
• Guest-Star Party Member: Almost every villager can be one, with a few exceptions.
• Guide Dang It!: Catch the Most Squid Contest. The inn's pond has a higher-than-average squid population and there's no way you'd know this unless you've been fishing a lot everywhere.
• Guilt-Based Gaming: The villagers will complain if you don't talk to them for a while, asking if you're busy, if you hate them, that you don't respect the elderly, etc, etc.
  • Some people were guilted into marrying Raven, because they were worried she would remain alone and miserable forever if you didn't. Marry someone else and take a peek at Raven's diary. Even Micah feels it.
• Half-Human Hybrid: You, Raven, Pia, and all the horned people in Univir Village.
• Harder Than Hard: Like in Rune Factory 4 Special, Hell difficulty was introduced in Rune Factory 3 Special making every enemy much tougher and hit harder.
• Healing Spring: As with the earlier games, the baths.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Some spells and skill seals. The last move of your basic weapon combos tend to be this.
• Hot-Blooded: Carlos can come across as this.
• Hover Board: The leaf slider active seed, used for getting across water. It also goes on land.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Daria's default weapon.
• I Call Her "Vera": Zaid calls his cutlass "Mr. Slice."
• Improbable Weapon User: Being a Rune Factory game you can still use your farm tools are a weapon. This time they're fast enough that they don't feels like something you'd use as an improvised or emergency weapons.
  • Pia and Collette's default weapons are a giant fish and lollipop respectively.
  • There are joke weapons of every type, the giant fish is a greatsword and the lollipop is an axe. Gift them a different weapon of their chosen type and they will use it.
  • Shara and Carmen use a watering can and fishing rod as well.
  • Some of the player's options for weapons include a spoon, backscratchers, a carrot, a daikon radish, and a baseball bat. Not to mention the Twin Leeks.

• Indestructible Edible: You can find food items in treasure chests, throw them on the ground, leave them there for days (even having a child afterwards), and they don't go bad. Fish found in treasure chests are still alive and skipping, as though freshly caught.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Made worse by the fact that they randomly appear, and vanish without a trace if you leave the map they're on.
• In-Universe Game Clock: This time it runs somewhat faster than the previous games.
• Invulnerable Attack: Some of the ultimate attack from weapons (Short Swords, Greatswords) make you invincible for the duration. You're still vulnerable once it ends, though.
  • The dual-sword, short sword, and wooly kung-fu are fast enough to make button smashing viable. Wooly throws do make you invincible during their animation but the recover time on some throws are so long that you are almost guaranteed to get hit if you are surrounded.
  • The spear makes you invincible during the combo, when you spin the spear to shortly after the attack finishes.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: A humorous example happens if you help Sakuya (during a request she specifically said she didn't want Micah's help) and then continues her requests after the Unity Festival. Sakuya will mentions having seeing a Wooly helping her get something, but Micah will let slip asking why would a ''golden'' wooly do that... but Sakuya never mentioned it was a golden wooly and she quickly confirms it was Micah who helped her. And as punishment she asks Micah to give her some golden wolly fleece (like it would happen normally) much to Micah's chagrin.
• Item Crafting: Greatly improved from the previous games. In addition, upgrading equipment with various items can improve stats, change elemental affinities and confer special abilities.
• Jerk Ass God: Aquaticus, the Dragon God of Water. He forces Micah to be the driving force of his Gambit Roulette and Micah's reward for seeing it through is either to leave his past unremembered for good or to leave his new life, and bride, behind for good. Jerk.
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: That levelizer you want to sell? 1,000G. The levelizer you want to buy? 150,000G.
• Lampshade Hanging: Particularly, concerning how many characters can fit in a dialogue box:
  Daria: Did you know, [Micah], the longer an artist's name is, the better they are?
  Micah: Is that true?
  Daria: That's why I'm changing my name. Announcing: [Daria] Gorgeous Turnip Rainbow Nice Ambiti
  Micah: It doesn't even fit...
  • One of Pia's requests requires you to obtain a strong string and give it to her. The quest reward? The exact same strong string you just gave to her. This does not go without comment.
  • One NPC lampshades how nearly every Rune Factory game has an amnesiac protagonist stating that "amnesiacs are a dime a dozen around these parts".
• Last Chance Hit Point: As with Acquired Poison Immunity, you can build up a resistance to being KO'ed or getting downed by One-Hit KO blows. Can save your bacon when fighting the higher level Bonus Dungeon bosses.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Micah thinks that Karina and Hazel are a lot alike, the two of them both immediately yell at him that they aren't. Keep in mind Micah doesn't actually say this. Then again Hazel leans on the wall on multiple occasions and Karina has a second sentence (in a thought bubble) after every sentence or two.
• Level Grinding: Largely averted, as levels have a reduced impact on your stats this time round. You can raise your stats and skills by collecting rune spirits and rune orbs that appear when you harvest crops. However, you must have gained a skill through actually performing the associated action (eg. swinging a hoe for farming) to be able to raise it through rune orbs.
  • Levels are still (somewhat) important for party members as levels are the most reasonable way to build up their HP so they can keep up with you without dying in one or two hits.
• Level-Up at Intimacy 5: Not directly, but the better your Relationship Values with the villagers, the longer you can ask them to go adventuring with you.
• Like Brother and Sister: Gaius and Raven's relationship is something between this and father/daughter.
• Limited Wardrobe: Largely averted. You can buy a large number of different outfits from Evelyn, and the other villagers change into their swimsuits when they go to the beach during summer. The minor characters, though, still suffer from this.
• Luring in Prey: You have to use a fried/grilled char to lure out the bosses of Oddward Valley, Crimsone and Amaranthine, in to fight. It happens to be their favorite food, so much so that they've been attacking the villagers to get at it.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The happy song Pia hums all day? It's titled "death to all squids".
• Mad Scientist: Marian appears to be this when it comes to medicines, having no ethical qualms about using you and Collette as test subjects. Evelyn seems to be similarly obsessed with her fashion designing.
  • Marian will give you "tea" in some of her requests that will turn you into her suddenly-effeminate willing servant. Things you'll then say will usually end with a star or a music note. Her madness goes up when you continue this quest and learn that she wants you to hold down villagers while she tests her newly-made medicine on them. There's also the time she tries to force-feed Micah an experimental potion to change his gender...
• Magikarp Power: Villagers are initially not very powerful and can go down quickly compared to you, but get them good equipment and Micah a Sun Pendant and they'll slaughter anything with about the same efficiency any player would.
• Man-Eating Plant: One of the active seeds grows into this sort of plant. Thankfully, it eats enemy monsters.
  • There are many of these in harder areas of the Sol Terrano desert that do damage the player and any partner upon contact.
• Marathon Level: The last area of the Sharance Maze, with twenty levels and ten bosses.
• Marshmallow Hell: Pia gives you one. And yet, afterwards you're the one who gets pictured as a pervert.
• Mascot Mook: The woolies.
• May Fly December Romance: If you marry Kuruna, who is hundreds of years old.
  • Daria also frets over her marriage to Micah, as she's already presumably much older than him and might outlive him.
• Meaningful Name: Sialens, the original Japanese name for the town in which the game takes place, is the Welsh word for "challenge."
• Mercy Invincibility: Taken out for both you and your enemies. The only time you're invincible to enemy attacks as a result of being hit is when you've been knocked down and are recovering. Makes Spam Attack particularly dangerous.
• Mega Manning: Upgrading staves with monster drops can allow you to use monster abilities. This works even for bosses, although boss abilities tend to cost large amounts of RP.
• Mermaid Problem: Pia gets around this by [[Our Mermaids Are Different only gaining her fish tail when she comes into contact with water, though she notes that she has to be careful washing the baths because of this.
• Money for Nothing: Averted in this one. Yue can sell levelizers, which are a massive money sink. Considering that the level cap for both you and every villager is 10,000...
• Monster Allies: A staple of the series, only this time you befriend them by bribing them with food.
• Monster Town: Monster Village. Attempting to enter while in human form (before the Unity Festival) gets you evicted in short order.
• Mook Maker: The monster portals. Depending on their colors they can drop specific elemental crystals and are cannot be damaged by their corresponding elements.
• Nerf Arm: Some weapons you can craft include backscratchers, vegetables and pitchforks. The game readily acknowledges this by having these weapons produce little turnips and a "pop" sound upon hitting an enemy, despite them being just as effective as other weapons.
• Non-Idle Rich: The De Sainte-Coquille family all have occupations in Sharance. Sherman is involved in getting what is needed for certain town events. Evelyn is a clothier. Sofia helps her father ship the local produce (including yours) out of town, and can be seen at the blacksmith's and general store while having good knowledge about shopkeeping.
• Noodle Incident: Just what exactly happened when Blaise got drunk? What happened to Sofia while she was being treated by Marian?
• Not a Morning Person: Karina. Side effect of her also being The Slacker.
• Older Than They Look: The Univir, just like the elves, are long-lived races with lifespan that far surpasses humans.
• Only Sane Man: As a larger and larger percentage of the cast gets quirky with each game in the series, your character is probably going to end up being this.
  • Karina is this as well. Unlike Micah she seems to enjoy watching everyone else's quirks, rather than wonder at them.
• Opposite Day: Sofia and her father are perpetually in this and pepper their speech with red text that means the opposite of what it says. It gets very confusing since they don't reverse everything they say, just enough to screw with your mind. For added confusion, Sofia is the only person who loves (really!) to eat Failure Dishes and Super Failure Dishes.
• Optional Boss: All the bosses in the Bonus Dungeon which includes many bosses from the previous games, including Terrable and Fiersome, the final bosses of Rune Factory 1 and 2 respectively, and some of them were given a more aggressive moveset to match the faster paced combat compared to their games of origin.
• Our Dwarves Are Different: Gaius is supposedly a dwarf, but he looks more like the traditional western elf.... He fits the crafter archetype to a degree, but is incredibly laid-back and friendly.
  • Then there's Zaid, a belligerent warrior dwarf — looking similar to Gaius — who complains that the "short, bearded man" bit is a racist stereotype.
• Parental Abandonment: No one has both of their parents. In fact, most of the characters have no parents, with no explanation. Raven at least acknowledges the fact that she never had parents, and Micah gets a flashback involving his parents having one line of dialogue each, but that's it.
• Patchwork Map: When a half-frozen river is just a short walk away from a scorching desert, it certainly seems this way.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: You can access the island on the right side of Privera as soon as you can afford to buy the Lily Pad. The bosses that spawn there can be pretty tough, but not only they can be easily beat with some preparations, but their loot can be used to beef up equipment for at least a couple levels.
• Permanently Missable Content: Averted. Plot Coupon items will appear by your bed if you manage to lose them one way or another (i.e: giving, dropping them in water). You still can craft yourself supposedly special equipment that happens to be quest rewards.
• Player Nudge: Some villagers can give you some hints about unusual tactics, like Carlos who mentions you can throw food that would normally cause you a debuff or status condition against enemies. While most foodstuff will heal them, as long as the enemy isn't immune to said condition, it will also cause a debilitating Status Effect as well.
  • If you pay attention to what the villagers are sometimes carrying around it's usually a hint of their gift preferences.
• Player Party: You can have up to one villager, one monster companion, and one active seed on your side at any one time. However, you can't have a monster and a villager with you at the same time; if you try to add a monster while you're with a villager, the villager will leave, and if you try to add a villager with a monster the villager will say that you already have a member in your party.
• Playing with Syringes: You've visited Marian? She'll be wanting to give you a shot. You pass by? She'll want to give you a shot. You leave the game while she's your companion and return? She'll want to give you a shot so you won't forget. You do other girl's requests while you're married to her? A shot is in order. Take note: that ridiculously large thing that looks like a musical instrument in her hand— THAT is her syringe.
• Pointy Ears: Raven, Kuruna, Daria, Ondorus, Zaid, and Gaius all have these.
• Poison Mushroom:
  • Some food items such as wine, oil and failed dishes can decrease your HP/RP and cause status effects. Since you can throw food to monsters in this game, it's clear they were meant to be used as attack items.
  • There are literal mushrooms that will restore HP and RP, but may have side effects, including poisoning.
• The Power of Friendship: In order for the Sharance Tree to bloom, humans and monsters must stop their Fantastic Racism and become friends. This ends up being a far more serious issue since Aquaticus mentions that were the conflict not be solved the land around the Sharance Tree would wither away.
• Power-Up Food: The main purpose of cooking. While HP/RP restoration via Hyperactive Metabolism is nice, the stat buffs that come along with it are the kicker, not to mention eating once a day ups your "well-fed" skill, which in turn permanently increases a number of your stats.
• Power-Up Mount: You can now ride a large variety of monsters, all with their own attacks. Humanoid monsters like orcs and goblins may do the same.
• Pregnant Badass: You can take your pregnant wife adventuring with you, and she still kicks as much ass.
• Quirky Town: Sharance stands out even among other Rune Factory games by having a lot of really colorful people full of quirks and oddities living in it, which considering the other games, is really saying something.
• Rainbow Speak: A godsend for the players who don't speak Japanese, as key items and requests are highlighted in blue. Sofia's opposite-meaning words are highlighted in red, too.
• Randomly Drops: Still around, although much, much better than the last two games.
• Rare Candy: Various alchemy products serve this purpose, as well as strike:runeys rune spirits and rune orbs. This is also how you learn new item crafting abilities: eating recipe bread.
• Recurring Boss Template: While most of the bonus bosses recycled from earlier games still have all their signature moves, they're a lot tougher this time around.
• Recycled Soundtrack: Sharance Maze's bosses reuses music from previous games.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shara and Raven have this dynamic. Shara is very friendly and receptive while Raven keeps to herself and is aloof towards strangers.
• Reduced Mana Cost: The handknit scarf has this ability, but it works only for certain actions, though.
• Required Party Member: Some message board requests involve this.
• Runaway Fiancé: Your chosen wife becomes this for a while just before the end of the game.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: When you first enter Sol Terrano Desert, there's a little sequence with a sign kindly informing you that it's called Sol Terrano Dessert. Unfortunately, it was dry and sandy tasting.
• Sand Is Water: In one section of the Sol Terrano Desert, you can catch fish that swim through the sand below your feet.
• Scratch Damage: Weak attacks will never do zero damage even if you do only single digits to enemies.
• Shout-Out:
  • The twin leeks weapon is a direct reference to Vocaloid's Hatsune Miku.
  • Evelyn makes a vague reference to Raguna and Kyle (protagonists of the first two installments) in the English version of the game: "Yeah, and I guess amnesiacs are a dime a dozen around these parts. You're not the first!"
  • Whenever Rusk comments on his dislike of vegetables, Micah responds with a random fact that gives Rusk second thoughts. When Rusk says he hates eggplants for being soft, Micah claims that there are wizards made of eggplants in far-off kingdoms.
  • After completing Gaius' first quest to get the hammer and having him fall asleep, attempting to talk to him will yield the line "Iron, iron, everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
  • Every so often when spoken to, Sherman will sing a short ditty along the lines of "Food, ODIOUS food, CLAMMY sausage and custard!"
  • During a conversation with Collette, she talks about a popular play from the city when she was a kid, about a disembodied head that recruited five teenagers "with attitudes" to fight monsters with oils and spices. The theme song of this show? "Go, go Radish Rangers!"
  • The Safety Lance◊.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Collette and Rusk. Collette eats all the time and just about anything, but especially rice and vegetables. Rusk, on the other hand, is an incredibly picky eater, only liking certain sweets. The only thing they have in common is that they use the same hiding spot ( That tree in the plaza. Collette hides in it during one of Marian's requests, and Rusk hides in it during one of Collette's requests.)
• Simple, yet Awesome: Two of the most effective recovery items in the game are Medium Cheese (75% RP) and Toasted Rice Balls (75% HP) - both easily and cheaply made.
• Spell My Name with an S: In the original Japanese, Mais (Micah) has been variously Anglicized as Maisu, Mice, and, well, Mais. Sia (Shara) is occasionally referred to as Shia. Toona (Raven) is occasionally referred to as Touna, and Cururufa (Kuruna) is occasionally referred to as Klurufa, Kururufa, or Clurufa. Then there's Gadzhi (Gaius), who is at times referred to as Gaji. Finally, there's Elisa (Evelyn), who is often referred to as Eliza.
• Sprint Shoes: Ghost Boots will increase your walking speed. Rocket Wings are in upgraded version and will double your speed.
• Stationary Boss: Terror Tree, until it Turns Red.
• Super Mode: One of the dual swords skill seals makes your basic attacks much, much faster.
• Sweet Tooth: Kuruna, Blaise and Rusk are also openly fans of all things sweet, especially Cake and Chocolate.
• Take Your Time: The game never imposes a time limit despite some situations, like monsters pesking or outright threatening certain people, happening in Sharance. Even when Micah's fianceé goes missing.
• Talk to Everyone: Your very first message board request is for you to introduce yourself to everyone in town and then ship one item.
  • You're told to do this with Kuruna in the Unity Festival, although it doesn't matter if you do or not and you don't get anything for it.
  • The game also implies this is necessary when your fianceé goes missing. Though you only need to talk to Carmen (or Carlos if you chose to marry Carmen), Marjorie and Ondorus, in that order, to go forward.
• Teaser Equipment: Some of Gaius' "Bargain" items, randomized weapons and accessories for sale, can be very powerful equipment, like the Elemental Shield, which you won't have anywhere close to the money you need to buy it unless you spend quite some time farming.
• That Came Out Wrong: After Pia learns about your little secret, she tries to keep it a secret by referring to your transformed state as your "thing." So when she blurts out that your "thing was cute" around her mother figure after being asked how your date went, Shino not so subtly begins to threaten you while Pia remains oblivious.
• There Are No Tents: Due to massive underusage in the earlier two games, the camping skill was taken out, along with sleeping bags.
• Thriving Ghost Town:
  • Justified in Sharance; plenty of faceless NPCs pass through and can be seen patronising the shops in town, and Hazel presumably sells your shipped items to other places through the DSC family.
  • Played straight with Univir Village. Ondorus mentions that traveling merchants do stop by Univir Village, but you never see them. There is a merchant that sells you Cooking Bread that occasionally shows up in the desert, but he doesn't ever pass the entrance...
• Tough Room: Pia and Sakuya's Boke and Tsukkomi Routine is quite a bit funnier than you and Shino make it out to be.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Most of the villagers have one; giving them food they like while they're in your party often buffs their stats beyond what it says on the label, or ignores negative effects the food would ordinarily have.
• Transformation Trinket: Your transformation belt. Although you have it at the beginning of the game, your character doesn't remember how to use it until you beat Tanuki.
• Turns Red: Or, more correctly, turns black. Every boss has a "rage mode" they get once you wound them enough.
• Universal Poison: Apparently, poisonous mushrooms and rainbow trout sashimi are equally poisonous.
• Unpredictable Results: Eating a wild mushroom can restore up to all of your HP/RP, cause or cure status effects, or just damage you. Thankfully, there are none that are instantly fatal. Apparently, there's five distinct shippable types of mushrooms, but you won't know which one is which until you eat or ship it.
• Useless Useful Spell: Most status afflictions such as sleep, paralyse, and the like don't work on bosses, and by the time you've managed to inflict them on normal enemies, they're mostly dead already. Although it must be said that some, like lifestealing, can be useful; and that while bosses are mostly immune to negative food effects, it is still possible to lower their elemental resistances through food buffs.
• Unusual Ears: Pia, a mermaid, has rather peculiar fin and external gill-like extensions in place of where "normal" ears might otherwise be.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Dragon Cave right by the Dragon Lake in Sharance.
• Visible Silence: You get a lot of this from Raven. Micah has plenty of times where he responds this way too, especially when talking to Pia.
• Voice Grunting: Unfortunately, this appears to be the case. The number of incomplete responses and mismatched VA is staggering, possibly because the game was so large the cartridge was strapped for space.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Micah can transform into his Wooly form at will, though some requests have him involuntarily forced into it. Raven can also voluntarily shift into her Phoenix form.
• Wallet of Holding: Your money cap is 9,999,999 G. It's been upped to 99,999,999G in the US release.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Skelefang is a big step up in difficulty for bosses. You have to wear it down before attacking its core and it also has hard to dodge attacks, dangerous projectile spamming and a nasty attack before it reforms that can easily stunlock you from full health to zero. If anything it's how the game sends you the message that its done playing nice.
• Warm-Up Boss: Raccoon from Privera Forest. All of its attacks hit pretty hard, but are telegraphed and you can easily beat it with very little preparation if you're good at dodging.
• Warp Whistle: Teleport, by now a staple of the series. It can't be used in the Sharance Maze or certain scripted sequences, though.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Fainting, even when all your party members are fine, sends you back to the hospital sans your cash.
• Welcome to Corneria: It's less noticeable than before, most characters have a lot more unique day-to-day dialogue compared to previous games.
• What the Hell, Player?: After you marry, you can still do requests for the other bachelorettes. However, after a while your wife will complain that you've been "spending a lot of time with someone else."
• Wrestler in All of Us: Micah's Wooley form can pick up enemies who he's just smacked and perform a number of body slams on them. Who knew Woolies were so into wrestling?
• The Yoshi: Compared to the first games, pretty much any monster bigger than yourself can be ridden on. From a goofy Buffamoo, to the Humongous Mecha Little Golem, to the fire-breathing Claw Dragon.

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