Part 44: Getting Greedy

Update 44: Getting Greedy




Hey there. You might notice Donnel appears to be horrifyingly melting into Shaun. Don’t worry about it.

So this is the endgame, but there’s something Donnel has not yet conquered.




And it’s going to require copious amount of Milk. Good think our fridge is full of it.



The Baked Potato actually gives a pretty damn high amount of RP back (21!), so I want to make those. I’ve got the potatoes...but Butter is an issue.




Time to rule the kitchen. Put Milk in the Blender, and…




It didn’t work because Donnel’s Cooking Skill is awful. I might try and grind out a bit more of that before the end, but I may not need it. Anyway, this has been the cold open, let’s actually do the dang dungeon.




I’m bringing my horrifying monstrosity TypeO.




Seriously he’s ridiculously close up.




To reach Greed Cave, just head to where Danaan was, and...turn right.




Huh. Kinda underwhelming.




I wonder if they ran out of map space.




Anyway, Greed Cave has sort of a crystalline theme. Getting Final Fantasy IV in this shit. Or Final Fantasy V. Or...pretty much any Final Fantasy, really.




There’s a field right in this opening room. Still, I feel like we’re missing something.




Oh yeah, Mist.








: This...is the last one?


: I think so...


: Mr. Donnel... Please don’t get yourself killed…

Since when was he Mr. Donnel? What’s with everyone giving us titles all of a sudden?


: I won’t.

Don’t put me on the spot like that.


: I’ll head back now…


: Right. I think that’s safest.


: Be careful…


: I will.




Greed Cave is a pretty simple final dungeon. There’s no ridiculous gimmicks, no locked doors, only one real little “trick” that’ll stop me from exploiting something I have been all game. But we’ll get to that by the end of the cave.

What Greed does have is a variety of monsters who are more than willing to wreak havoc on your HP bar. Let’s meet some of those.




Going left at the entrance fork leads to the Faust. It’s just a reskin of the Necro we saw last cave, but to put in perspective how much Greed steps up the game on enemies, Necros had an attack value of 101. Faust has 172. Welcome to the endgame.




Here’s why the Heaven Asunder was something I wanted, by the way. This was like, two swings. The number one rule of Greed Cave? Kill it before it kills you.




He’s guarding a pool of water, easy access, no trick poison tiles or anything.




Going east reveals some fields and the final recolor of the very first enemy we met, the Orc Lord. Two spawn at once and they can paralyze you. Otherwise there’s not much to note.




TypeO gave his life to hold them off while I took out the spawner. Goodnight, sweet abomination.




A save point already? They aren’t fucking around.




Befitting of the name, Greed Cave has some riches.




Like this Level 10 Diamond. That’s some good shit.




But what’s this, hiding in the plume of fire?




Knock knock, meet the final member of the egam Crew as he drains the life out of me. This is the… Lil’ Emperor. That’s not a magic thing! Regardless, he’s nothing to sneeze at. Inferno is every bit the pain in the ass it was back in Clemens Cave, and his Life Absorber actually does damage, unlike yours.




Basically these guys suck.




Needing a heal, Donnel chugs the Hot Milk.




Only for me to realize this is yet another food item that restores 0 RP. Fuck.




And now there are arrows flying at me.




Goblin Snipers only spawn here, and they are extremely rude. They just do a lot of damage. That’s about it, but it’s enough. They also have a chance to drop Gunpowder for some reason.




I tried to be sneaky and Sword Beam the spawner from out of their range. Not quite. Maybe if I get a bit closer…




Two things to note here. One is that the Heaven Asunder charged beams are insane, that’s over 400 damage to both of the goblins. The other is that only one of the arrows has technically hit me.




The other was a crit.




What a way to go.




Luckily that was canonically a dream sequence.




I’m actually just gonna pass out at home.




I fear that, due to the dangers of Greed Cave, I’ll be wanting lots of RP. Cooking is tough to get going, so I may have to resort to truly desperate measures.




I’m gonna do the mechanics voluntarily.




Accompanying me is drazi, because I like the way he hops around on the top screen there.




The Pink Cat flowers are the fastest growing Summer crops, beating out Onions by a day. Thus that’s what I’m going with for Greed Cave.




Caster monsters can cast as long as you have RP, since they have none of their own. If you run out, though, they default to a single spell, in this guy's case, he loses Cure and just uses Water Laser.




Also the Necro has a high water resistance so this didn’t really mean shit.




More handily, drazi knows Cure!




Some intense particle effects going on here.




All four batches of Pink Cat are planted, and drazi is poisoned.




I’m sure he can sleep it off.




Maybe not. At this point drazi got stuck in a loop of trying to cast Cure every time he lost HP from the poison, losing more HP from the poison, then casting Cure again. I just let it happen because it was funny.




This pool of water by the Faust spawner is really handy.




And so, Donnel spent many days sleeping, then watering, then sleeping again, becoming ever more skilled at sleeping on his quest.




Also I finally Medicated drazi because I felt bad for him. And it’s the 30th of Winter.




Which means I’ll have to leave Greed Cave for now. I’ll be back to finish the watering...and the cave...but there’s one final holiday to celebrate.




There’s also this really Rune Factory thing I just found where if you cast Teleport, it puts you directly on the spot where the game requires you return the monster to its hut, meaning you get prompted with this every single time.

Not only is it a festival in Kardia, it’s a festival because we’re almost done with this dang LP.




And now, astride D-Dog…

~A Rune Factory Retrospective~




Carmite Cave was the start of the adventure, and it took me the longest to clear, I think. With sheer number of updates, I think Toros and Clemens had more, but this had three all to itself with very little sidequesting/crafting/monster recruiting. Carmite’s hard just because the RP mechanic is so restrictive at that point.



Greater Daemon feels like an oddly tightly tuned first boss, he punishes mistakes hard just because of how few options you have at that point. No cure spells, probably no food, little HP.




Toros Cave is probably the one I’ve spent the most time in during this LP, just for the crops inside and the amount of Wood that spawns in there. Toros feels a lot more dangerous than Clemens, but the game starts to open up a bit more around this point, so I think it’s easier to deal with.



Chimera made for a wonderful introduction to the ubiquitous Rune Factory boss mechanic of “HIT IT WHILE IT SHOOTS THE LASER”.




Clemens was mazey and had some obnoxious enemies, like the Queen Hornets and Ignis, but...my god...the cash from this place. I still think it’s the best grinding spot for money, even at the end of the game.



Mandragora was a boss who would probably be really hard if Medicate wasn’t as ridiculously good as it is. Because it was, this was the easiest boss in the game.




Mt. Gigant is my favorite cave in the game, and also where I think I started to get into the flow of things. This one went down in two updates. There’s just something nice about the almost entirely outdoor dungeon, I like the music, and this is where ⅔ of the produce animals are for some reason. Good memories.



The Boss Formerly Known As Grimoire was a pain because you really have to respect all of his abilities to get openings on him. Ironically, his simple tail swipe was probably the most annoying thing in his arsenal. Or the Swordstorms. It just wasn’t the fire, the thing you’d think the dragon would be known for.




Fuck








Kasimir is weirdly short and easy. I don’t have a ton to say about the ruins other than...it had weird “puzzles”? I think this is the only cave that required you to leave and talk to someone to progress.



Golem was really cool, though. It’s tricky, but not unfair, and he just feels pretty fun to fight.




Danaan Cave is...uh...the one before the last one? This is another cave that I just didn’t really have any opinions on. At this point pretty much every enemy you encounter is a recolor, and you can sorta see the game beginning to lose some steam.



Battle Tank is probably my second favorite boss, though. It’s just silly enough to work. Also it had a laser that exploded into a bigger laser.




But there’s one dungeon we haven’t delved inside…




Mist’s House. What secrets could be within?







Oh okay.

There’s supposed to be a way to trigger a conversation where Mist tells you about this, but I’ll be honest, I totally forgot how to do it. Thankfully, you can just...come in and take it. I was holding off in case I remembered how to trigger the event, but since we’re in the home stretch, I’m just going to steal it.


Now then, the actual festival is New Year’s Eve. This one doesn’t really do anything, it just means all the shops are closed, the villagers are outside, and they have special dialogue. Let’s check some of that out.




I wanted to buy things from you.




Cecilia’s going to grow up to be one of those people who tells you they haven’t seen you in a YEAR on New Year’s Day and post incessantly about it on Facebook.




Russell, I’m not sure if you’re aware of the Dragon God. Or the Tank. Are the years here usually more dangerous than that?




One more desperate attempt




I imagine Edward giving Donnel the world’s biggest eyebrow raise as he thinks about how many times I’ve passed out in the street, next to a cave, or in his bedroom.




I hope the answer is “stop bothering me in caves”. It was way better when Melody did it.




Sorry, but the key to her heart is inside of a large man’s stomach now. We may have doomed Rosetta to a lifetime of being single, but at least we managed to spite Lukas. Greater good.




There are only four months in Rune Factory land, Felicity. She knows too much.




You know, what does Jasper even do? How did he make his fortune?




I don’t even care.




That’s all for the final festival.




Next time, a new year, and probably the end of Greed Cave.