Part 47: Epilogue

Epilogue

Last time the game ended, but there’s a little more I want to touch on before I put Rune Factory to bed.




After the credits roll, you just get dumped back in your house, and the game continues as normal.




The villagers have some new things to say, but they’re pretty much all just like this, or talking about how peaceful things are.




Here’s one of two actual new pieces of proper “postgame” content only available after Grimoire’s defeat.




Jean will sell all kinds of new, rare flowers. Some of these make good gifts,or are just for selling/ bragging rights. What they all have in common is that they take way too long to cultivate. This Emery Flower is the most drastic example at AN ENTIRE YEAR. Mist likes them, though there are easier ways to raise her LP.

You also can’t marry Mist until after the ending, for some reason.




They aren’t all 120 days...but even 60’s totally ridiculous. You’d need some serious dedication for very minimal gain.




They’re available for all seasons, in case you want to torment yourself in non-Spring caves too.




Nothing too interesting in the accessories, but the idea of Donnel wearing these shades and never taking them off entertains me.




The other piece of postgame content is a new villager, Lynette!




Lynette’s hard to find, she changes locations each day of the week. Her “home” is Mist’s house, though.




Also, she is the spoiler Marriage candidate. To marry Lynette, you need to have everyone in the village at 8 FP or higher, which is literally the only use of FP on some characters.

Her food gift is Apple Pie, and Lotus was nice enough to include a Lynette marriage portrait!



She had two eyes the whole time!

Also, thanks to AbstractBlacksmith, we have Lynette's nickname selection: "She will call you Raguna, Dear, or Raguna Baby. She also offers Honeybuns but won't do it."




Otherwise, the game continues as normal, just no more caves to unlock. So you can continue to the highest tiers of Forging and stuff if you’d like.




Jasper will say this for eternity now.




Speaking of Food, I’m upset we never got Donnel’s Cooking skill up, so I’m doing this.







And so Donnel made like 17 loaves of bread.




vindicated
(somehow despite me having an 82% success chance on this Butter, it took me 4 attempts. Don’t play with RNG, kids.)




Thankfully Milk is easy to come by if you just buy some from Camus.




Also worth mentioning, since I forgot to during the main LP, Apples, Oranges, and Grapes can only be bought from Neumann.




Finally, my gambit pays off.

BUT CAN I GO FURTHER?




The coveted Choco. Cookie is mine.




Oh, here’s a fun bug with Lynette, she hangs out at the beach on fridays, but she has the dialogue for “Beaches Open Day” every time she’s here. Maybe she’s just very uninformed.




Also, it’s a rainy holiday, so I’m kicking myself for not initiating this sidequest. There was one we missed, and it’s Wesley’s.

If you talk to him at Melody’s bathhouse on a Holiday, he’ll tell you Nicholas has stolen his Holy Book. Hunt down Nicholas, and he’ll tell you he’s hidden the Holy Book in the women’s side of the bathhouse. You’ve then got to ask Melody about it, and for some reason she won’t just go get it for you, but demand you come back on a rainy holiday, when she doesn’t have customers, to go and fetch the book

Once you’ve done all that, Wesley will reward you with the Rosary, which is a decent accessory that boosts your crit rate.




Oh, also on rainy holidays, Lynette hangs out in Sabrina’s house. Even when Sabrina...isn’t around. That’s a little creepy, Lynette.

Time for a highly condensed look at the festivals I missed.







Finally, I can give cookies to people. Look at how much Donnel’s grown.





look sharron doesn’t have to know about this




Let’s win us an Egg Show. The Large Egg gives you the best chance (note that I said “chance”) of winning.




Donnel has the best legs in town.




Here’s how you get the fourth bottle.


: An empty bottle?


: Don’t just think this is an ordinary empty bottle! It’s a very useful item!


: Oh really?


: Hey, I can’t wait for next year!

...I think we’re disposing of evidence for Jasper. I don’t know evidence of WHAT, but...anyway.




I couldn’t do the Cook-Off because he asked for ingredients I don’t have!




Lynette doesn’t have any dialogue for the festivals, she hides in Mist’s house and says this. I think Lynette is anti-social . Or she’s terrified of the villagers enacting their revenge.




Time to get revenge for Camus beating us last year.




WHAT?

Even if you submit the best quality item possible, you still have a chance to lose. So, we’ll take this like adults, because I got sick of reloading.




After this, Donnel began a long period of hibernation...he slept for many weeks.




And on this day, 150 days on the dot since his wedding...he stopped chain sleeping by pressing left on the d-pad and the A button, over and over and over…










So five months after you get married, your wife will have a child. She carries this baby around forever and it doesn’t ever actually do anything. But, I mean, it’s there!


: So cute! I’m gonna work hard for all of us now!

Netflix was my savior here.


: Donnel, we’re married and have a beautiful baby. I’m so happy, are you?


: Yes, of course I’m happy!


: Great! I hope we can always be this happy!




He really was Ivan’s brother all along.


: Thanks, Donnel! I’m...so happy I met you!




And so marks the end of Rune Factory, for real this time. I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone who posted in the thread, contributed monster names, voted in the marriage poll, and everything else. This one took some stamina to get through, and seeing the thread active always makes that easier. Y’all propelled me through this.

Super special thanks to Lotus for contributing the portraits you saw throughout this whole LP (except the bad ones, those were mine), and Wayne for providing the banner picture for the Marriage Poll post.

EDIT: Also want to provide shout outs to AbstractBlacksmith for giving me info on the different nicknames the different wives can give you (R.I.P. Honeybuns), and the Fogu Rune Factory site, just like, in general. Seriously, there's not a better place for information on this game.




In the end, if you’ll permit me to nerd out just a little longer, I’ll talk about the game a bit here. Rune Factory was my first game like this, and I have a lot of fond memories of it from when I was younger. Going back?

This does not hold up. The combat feels old and clunky, the farming is far too tedious to feel fun or rewarding, the characters are bland, the story is basically nonexistent until the last two caves barf it up at you, and there are so many bizarre design decisions. (Crafting recipes that require a higher level to make the prerequisites than to make the item they compose, the tedious pain of the Wood Grind, every fuckin’ thing about Misty Bloom Cave.)

But it still feels like a framework or a proof of concept for a cool idea. And, from what I’ve heard, and now played a little bit of, they really did improve on this game. Rune Factory 3 and 4 are apparently some great games, and they wouldn’t have existed if this game wasn’t out. Plus, I can’t hate it. There’s still some charming and fun moments, and I have too many good memories to toss it out entirely.




So, with this last shot of Donnel’s final skill levels, I hope you’ve all enjoyed the LP. While I can’t go nuts recommending this one like I did with the last LP I did, I can certainly recommend checking out the sequels, or Stardew Valley.

Thanks for reading.