Harvest Moon/ Rune Factory

Here's the redesigns for Mary, Elli, Gray and the Doctor for the FoM remake.

Rune Factory 4 Special coming February 28th according to eShop listing; includes Swimsuit Day preorder bonus.

Two things: First, RF 4 Special is now out in NA, or it will be in about an hour (haven't checked the eShop, as my copy of the Archival Edition came in late yesterday. Yay for XSEED's preorder shipping policies!).

Second... I forgot how slow things are at the start of the game. Both because you lack space, utilities, and supplies, and because your RP is pitiful low.

Also, the Swimsuit Day order is available as soon as you can use the order board, and it's 0PP (same with the End Swimsuit Day order).

According to the internet, it has not been modified to allow same-gender relationships. (Properly, I mean.)

Fair warning, everyone: There is another game mode outside of Story mode and Newlywed mode. It's Another Episode, and... it's paid DLC.

But, at least in the US, and likely in the rest of NA, it's free until the 14th of March. Assuming whoever is releasing it outside of NA follows suit, the DLC should be free there as well, likely until... the 17th? Yeah, that sounds about right, given the delayed release compared to NA.

Anyways, if you're at all interested in getting RF 4 Special but haven't yet, get the DLC while it's still free. And no, you don't need to have the game to get the DLC; the Switch (and Wii U) are nice like that.

Thanks for the tip! This will be my first foray into the Rune Factory world, and I'm looking forward to it (as soon as my copy arrives).

Quick correction to : The Another Episode Pack DLC is free until the 24th, not the 14th, for a month total. Likewise, I expect non-NA regions to have until the 27th.

Knew something seemed off about those dates before...

Anyways, now that I'm actually looking at the DLC page on the eShop... looks like this is simply a set of pseudo-manga style stories with voice acting (in both ENG and JPN, naturally).

I started playing Rune Factory 4: Special yesterday, and I'm already feeling nostalgic talking to Ventuswill and seeing her hilarious reactions to the protagonist's antics.

Though I'm dreading the RNG for when I start trying to recruit boss monsters. I still shudder when I recall all the resets I had to do in the 3DS version...

FoMT remake coming to Europe and Australia on July 10th, includes English, French, German, and Spanish text localizations.

Also, the trailer shows that same-sex marriages are in the game, specifically showing the male player marrying Gray.

Edited by tclittle on Mar 17th 2020 at 9:38:49 AM

Excellent. Maybe I'll actually be finished with Rune Factory by then, especially if my workplace shuts down.

Stupid Turnip's Miracles.

Playing Rune Factory 4 for the first time. Quite enjoyable, since I haven't played the series since a bit of the first. Planning on marrying Clorica. Hit part 2 in the middle of summer, which feels a bit fast, but I don't know the average pace for this game. Got hit by my first typhoon, but I don't think my farm suffered too badly.

Rune Factory 4 isn't really designed with any sort of pacing in mind so hitting Part 2 in Summer is about average for people who aren't intentionally holding back from doing the story.

Not sure about other regions, but in NA, it's your last chance to get the Another Episode DLC for free. I suspect that the deal ends at noon EDT tomorrow (the 24th).

Finished part 2 at the end of summer. Figuring out the crafting system helps a lot. Next goals, marry Clorica, fully expand my farm (the real time waster honestly is harvesting everything)\ and get to part 3. Seems like that will take awhile, so I can probably slow down a little.

So I finished Act 3, something I never got to accomplish when I played the 3DS version. I was originally going to take my time, but then I got the weird medicine event, and I really wanted to see the scene where Ventuswill goes into human form.

Hilariously enough, Raven started stocking Legendary Scales after I finished Rune Prana...and at that point, the stuff I'm trying to forge doesn't require them.

Now to prepare to take on Sharance Labyrinth. The final boss of Rune Prana can still kick my ass seven ways to Sunday, so I'm not sure how badly I'm going to get stomped if I try to take on Sharance. I'm forging stronger stuff just to be safe.

Managed to beat Act 3 before the end of my first winter, so that was neat. The power scaling really ramped up in Rune Prana, though thankfully the kill stuff to get loot to forge better stuff to kill stuff easier was fun. Sharance was a pain until I was lucky enough to get a weapon bread+. Some resetting to get a good short sword and luckily getting the Earth Ring, and now I can clear the first area with ease.

Finally managed to start dating Clorica, so that was nice. And then since she's my third party member I confessed to Margaret just for funsies. And then she accepted. So I guess I'm openly double-dating. Not sure if that's awkward between the two of them.

Apparently if you run by one girl/boyfriend with another in your party, the left-out one will comment on it. I love all the little details like that they've included.

Copying a post from the other Harvest Moon thread:

FOMT has surpassed 200k copies sold in Japan. It's selling better than the original. According to the Famitsu sales data of the original, the original FOMT sold 161k. However, if you factor in lifetime sales of MFOMT, both games together sold 270k copies.

Apologies for the thread necro, but today's Nintendo Partner Showcase released a gameplay trailer for Rune Factory 5:

One thing I'm wondering: the localization of the Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town allowed your character to romance any bachelor or bachelorette regardless of your sex, so I wonder if Rune Factory 5 will do something similar?

Here's hoping.

The FoMT localization didn't add that in; it took what in Japan was very thinly veiled as "Best Friends" and removed the veil. If the option doesn't exist in some form in the original game, it's not gonna be in the English one.

Edited by Perseus on Sep 18th 2020 at 5:11:58 AM

Yeah, I worded that badly. I meant that the localization allowed you to explicitly romance same-sex characters without using any "Best Friends" stuff involved.

So it's just a question of whether the Japanese version does that whole dance again. If it does, I'm sure the localization team will handle it the same way.

Edited by Perseus on Sep 18th 2020 at 5:14:59 AM

Well, I really enjoyed Rune Factory 4, and this looks like more of the same, so I'm in. Though the cartoonishly large breasts on the waitress at 0:38 are a bit odd.

I wouldn't be surprised if same sex relations ships are in Rune Factory 5. One of the things that they mentioned was being able to have dual techs and in a game with relationship values you can bet your ass that there will be a mega dual tech for each of the love interest and we have already seen. And considering that we already can see that the female character can perform a dual tech with another female character it seems quite likely that we will be able to have same sex relationships. Also something that I remembered was that you could change the model of the main character from the male model to the female model and could marry any of the bachelorettes as the female main character or vice versa for the male bachelors. So I get the feeling that they were already experimenting with same sex relationships in a way and that same sex relationships will be in the game.