Part 3: In Which The First Day Is Ended
Update 03: In Which The First Day Is Ended
Music: Business District Buildings(I forgot to comment on this track last time because I linked the track for the inn's nighttime theme. This one's nice, though it's very prone to you hearing just the opening bit as it plays in every building in this area.)
Right, last time we spent 100g on a inn stay we didn't need. Prepare the time paradox.
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No, I didn't come here for that.
BUSH: No, I didn't come here to stay over.
BUSH: I'm Bush. I just moved in next to Mist, so I came to say hi.
That's not why we're here, but okay, sure. It's a better introduction than "I need to give a bamboo shoot to your dad".
EUNICE: Oh, really? I'm sorry I babbled on and on without knowing that.
EUNICE: I'm Eunice. My family runs the inn... But, I guess you can tell just by looking. Nice to meet you.
EUNICE: At night, the bar next to the inn will be open so please come whenever you feel like it.
That's about all she's got to say for now.
BUSH: It's a fireplace. The fire's dying down though.
You can also inspect some things in people's houses. Not that many things, but still. I'll show these off when I can find them.
Eunice- The innkeeper's daughter. Loves housework but suffers from her father's genes.
Here is Eunice's profile- she's one of our potential marriage candidates for the distant future. Every character has Friendship Points (FP) and Love Points (LP) designated by the smiley and the heart respectively. These numbers max out at 10, and the bar is the progress to the next point. You may notice that Mist is slightly starting to like us, presumably from the farm work we're doing.
Characters who you can't romance will never gain LP, but for whatever reason the profiles still show the bar. It should be mostly obvious who we can and cannot marry, but I'll point it out anyways. I'll get deeper into explaining the mechanics somewhere later, when we have time to focus on LP. Right now, we've got bamboo to deliver.
Up the stairs we go. There's a variety of rooms in here, though nobody's in them.
Going back downstairs, Turner is suddenly at the reception desk. He's a man of stealth.
TURNER: Hey. You must be bush. How do you do?
TURNER: Sorry if my Eunice caused you any trouble.
BUSH: Haha...
TURNER: I'm Turner, the owner of this inn.
BUSH: Hello.
BUSH: (Ah! Didn't Stella tell me to give Turner a Bamboo Shoot?)
Yeah, we should do that.
This is just a short bit to teach you that you can give people stuff. In the realms of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, the best way to obtain friendship is bribery.
TURNER: It's from Stella, right? Thanks.
TURNER: Since it's on the way, can you call Ganesha the blacksmith for me? The forge is north of the inn.
The fetch quest continues. Before we go on with that, let's see what other stuff Turner has to say.
TURNER: Hi, Bush.
TURNER: Welcome. Does I look like I just stand around all day?
TURNER: I'm actually really busy. I organize the payment slips and listen to customer requests among other things.
...I don't see any customers, though.
Up the stairs again, we find this lady, already identified as Rita.
RITA: Are you new here?
BUSH: Nice to meet you. My name is Bush. I just moved here.
RITA: Oh, welcome then. I'm Rita. I'm hostess of this bar, "Snowstyle".
RITA: It's a bar but we also sell food. Come by if you feel like eating anything. The bar will be open at night.
RITA: But, you probably shouldn't drink Bush.
We can, in fact, purchase very expensive wine and drink it to no ill effects.
Rita can be found here on most days until the bar is open. She's Eunice's mother, though it leads one to wonder: which side gave her the green hair and purple eyes?
Anime genetics are complicated.
Eunice is usually found doing some sort of cleaning work around the inn. Today's laundry day, apparently.
Through the other door outside (or the other set of stairs on the second floor) is the tavern proper, but it doesn't open until late in the day. I'll remember to stop by here eventually, but it won't be for a few updates.
With that... fetch quest, away!
Nice place.
GANESHA: Are you new?
BUSH: Yes. I just moved here and my name is Bush.
Get used to Bush introducing himself for quite a while.
GANESHA: I'm Ganesha. As you can see, I'm a blacksmith.
So the RF series has elves, because fantasy! Every game in the series has had at least one, but they're not the only ones around with pointy ears. Ganesha's probably got the biggest ears in the series.
GANESHA: Ahahaha. What? You never saw an elven blacksmith before?
She is in fact, the only fully elven blacksmith I know of. Elves usually work in housekeeping industries in this series for some reason.
BUSH: Um, no. I guess..
GANESHA: You're an honest one. I like you.
GANESHA: Elven blacksmiths are rare, but I can recommend with confidence anything I sell!
GANESHA: I'm especially proud of the relief on the edge of this Shield...
BUSH: N-no, I'm not here to shop. I came here because Turner...
GANESHA: Turner? Oh, he must have chipped the blade on the kitchen knife again. I'll go later. He's so hopeless...
GANESHA: Bush, was it? Thanks for telling me. Just come to my store at any time.
GANESHA: Oh, can I ask you for something else?
The fetch quest continues.
BUSH: What is it?
GANESHA: Can you give Danny of the General Store the payment for my tab? The general store is right next to my place.
BUSH: All right.
GANESHA: Thanks.
Said tab is 100g, apparently. Ganesha's cool though, so I'm not going to run off with the money.
The fetch quest can wait, Ganesha's too awesome for that.
It's worth noting that her default expression is actually the wink, and every time you start a conversation with her, she changes back to neutral.
GANESHA: I might not compare to dwarven blacksmiths in strength, but I can say with confidence that my detailed work is unequaled!
GANESHA: The selling points of my equipment are that they have both form and function.
GANESHA: That engraving on the edge of the blade is something that not all blacksmiths can do.
Ganesha sells basic weapons and element crystals. Her stock gets better later, but we'll definitely rely on those basic weapons if we ever want to be a blacksmith ourselves.
Here's a better look at her giant fuck-off hammer that she swings pretty easily. So, about that "dwarven strength"...
Anyways, she also has a son, Marco, but he's hard to find so it takes me a bit to meet him.
Alas, we now resume the fetch quest.
Grocery shopping, away!
DANNY: A customer? You're not? What do you want? Who are you?
whoa slow down there
BUSH: H-hello. My name is Bush and I just moved here.
DANNY: Oh, so you're just making your rounds? I'm the owner of the general store and the name's Danny! Nice to meet you!
Given the poses of the characters, I always found it a bit odd that Danny just stares straight at us instead of having that sorta-3/4ths pose everyone else has.
BUSH: Nice to meet you, too. Mr. Danny.
DANNY: You don't need to call me that. Just "Danny" is fine.
DANNY: I'm the only general store in the village so even if you don't like it, don't complain!
I don't think that's how it works, Danny.
BUSH: Oh...
DANNY: What did you come to buy? Seeds? Accessories?
BUSH: No, I didn't come here to buy anything...
DANNY: You're not a customer? Then get out. I don't have time for window shoppers.
Not even giving us a chance to talk. Funnily enough, this is the most talkative he'll be all game- this isn't his quirk or anything. He usually has very little to say.
BUSH: No, I brought some money from Ganesha...
DANNY: Oh.
DANNY: One, two... Yup. All there.
BUSH: I'll be going now.
Bush is outta here. Let's go before he asks us to-
DANNY: Wait.
Damn.
BUSH: Yes?
DANNY: You're going around greeting everyone, right?
Oh, here we go again
DANNY: Then can you go to Erik and do something for me?
BUSH: Again?
"Listen, mate, I didn't sign up for any of this nonsense"
DANNY: Again?
BUSH: Never mind. So, someone named Erik?
DANNY: Yeah. Erik lives in the house with a field straight south of here.
BUSH: All right.
DANNY: Thanks. Oh, and buy something next time.
But, uh, what are we supposed to do about Erik, Danny?
DANNY: I got some seeds in stock so buy some.
Danny, you're not helping
DANNY: It's spring but it's still really cold.
wow, i didnt notice maybe you should close your pec window or whatever, now what am i supposed to do about erik
DANNY: This is so far into the countryside.
Also, I have no idea what Ganesha bought here for 100g. The cooking oil is 260g, and the accessories are over 500g.
Did she buy 10 turnip seeds?
Also, yeah, turnip seeds cost 10g in this game. The market on those things just died apparently, as they were worth 200g or more in previous games. 10g is as much as a weed sells for.
Really.
Anyways, let's go see what Erik has to say.
Music: SpringThis is just to the left of our farm. In fact, just a little south from here is the only entrance to Trampoli...
So in the intro, Bush went past these two houses, the empty homestead house, and then arbitrarily took a turn towards the church. Had he continued forward he would have found Mist's house.
Had he taken that turn left earlier, he would've ended up at the Snowstyle Inn or he could have asked the residents of these two houses about her.
seriously, Bush, how did you end up in front of the church of all things
Oh, hey, are you Erik?
Music: Kross' Theme(This is a really nice theme, and plays basically any time you talk to this guy. I'm sure this has nothing to do with plot relevance! I like just humming along to this.)
SOFT SPOKEN GUY: Heh...
SOFT SPOKEN GUY: ...Are you new here?
BUSH: Nice to meet you. I just moved here and my name is Bush. And you are...?
SOFT SPOKEN GUY: You... don't need to know what my name is. The villagers always forget it anyway.
BUSH: Um... Are you Kross? Hello.
KROSS: ...?! How do you know my name?!
BUSH: Huh? It's written on your mailbox.
BUSH: You really write your name with really cute letters, Kross.
KROSS: That isn't my writing. I'm sure the mailman just wrote it herself out of consideration.
KROSS: You should take a look inside your mailbox some time. It should be in front of your house.
KROSS: Heh... Now then, I should get back to work.
I should note that these are sighs rather than laughs. "Heh..." is just how they chose to represent it.
KROSS: Your name was Bush, was it? When you need some help, don't hesitate to ask. Just come to me when you want extensions.
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1. I just came to chat.
2. I'd like to expand my house.
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Kross is indeed our resident carpenter. He will be quite instrumental to our run-down farm fixer-upper operation. There's another guy we'll meet in a few days who will be the other major help.
KROSS: Hi. Oh, it's you.
KROSS: Answer me, tree stump. What is a house and what are extensions...
KROSS: Even if you break the stumps, a despairing tomorrow awaits you because you don't know when it can come back.
KROSS: Why, oh why, do I swing the axe...?
BUSH: That's a sad song...
KROSS: Heh... Yes. When I was young, a man I knew very well the man who wrote that song...
And anyone who has played RF1 or 2 knows the pain it speaks of.
KROSS: Did you know? No one wants to grow dead grass...
KROSS: Heh...
KROSS: But it always ends up like that. Nothing more, nothing less.
He has a number of these songs. Hell, a good portion of his dialogue are simply these. To avoid any more depression, let's see what it takes to upgrade our house some.
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1. I want to build a kitchen.
2. I want to build a laboratory.
3. I want to build a forge.
4. I want a bedroom.
5. Never mind.
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Sure, uh, kitchen. Why not?
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1. I'd like a Bulging Kitchen Area.
2. I'd like a Ba-Bump Kitchen Area.
3. I'd like a Pointy Kitchen Area.
4. Back.
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"Uh, what?" is probably the reaction most players have to this.
So, the extensions you add to your house are visible from the outside, and you can pick the style.
KROSS: The only difference between this kitchen area and others is the look, not function. So choose whichever you like.
KROSS: Let's see...
KROSS: You're gonna need 120 lumber and 10,000 gold. Are you all right with that?
Kross's costs are pretty cheap on the whole, which is a great relief coming from the terrifying grinds of RF1 and RF2. Still, ten grand is far out of our price range right now- we have only 500g.
KROSS: You don't have enough lumber. Don't worry. I'm sure you'll have enough soon.
Oh, that too. We, uh, won't have enough soon. We don't even have an axe.
Well, let's go to the other house and hopefully be done with this fetch quest business.
Music: Town Buildings(This theme plays only in Erik's house, Mist's house, and the Rune Archives, a.k.a. the library I've skipped over for the moment. As result, you really don't hear much of it.)
That's a lot of vegetables.
ERIK: Hello, young man!
ERIK: I'm Erik and I run this farm. Nice to meet you!
BUSH: Nice to meet you. I'm Bush. I just moved in next door.
ERIK: Oh, in that house with the large field? If you need any advice about your field, you can ask me any time.
Yeah, Erik is the designated farming tutorial dispenser. I know how to play this game and I can explain it pretty simply, so we won't need his-
ERIK: W-what? Do I have a girlfriend?
ERIK: I can't tell you! Hahaha!
I... didn't ask.
BUSH: ...
BUSH: I didn't ask...
Hey, I already said that.
ERIK: Then why are you here?
BUSH: I have something from Danny... ...?
BUSH: ...Uh... I don't know what I'm supposed to ask you for...
This is true.
ERIK: You're quite young and immature for running off without hearing what to do, young man!
Hey, he wouldn't tell us!
ERIK: But I know the situation. The seed that he wanted has just arrived. Thank you for relaying the message.
What seed? More turnip seeds?
ERIK: Oh, right. I can share the crops I grow at my farm with you. Just ask.
Erik also sells stuff, primarily the seeds for vegetables other than turnips, although he sells those too. He sells some produce as well, just in case you're not feeling it when it comes to growing it yourself.
ERIK: If you want to know anything about farming, just ask me.
ERIK: W-what? Do I have a girlfriend?
Not this again...
BUSH: Give that a rest...
Even Bush is on my side with this one. Anyways, that's Erik's quirk. He's basically the same age as us, but thinks he's older than he is and is, uh... vocally insecure about not having a girlfriend.
ERIK: When the weather is good, the crops grow really well! The crops are so full of energy today!
Actually, outside of tornadoes messing up your field and rain watering your crops for free, the weather has no effect on crop growth. There's something else that does, but it's not weather.
Evidently, Erik doesn't know the mechanics of farming as well I do
ERIK: Young man! Crops in the field will wither at the end of a season! You must be careful!
ERIK: Then will crops not wither if they're grown where the season doesn't change? Where in the world would that be, then?!
Really not as far away as you think, actually. Crops withering at the end of the season is a classic farming sim mechanic that was only done away with in this series with the release of RF4, in which crops could care less if there's a blizzard as long as you've got enough compost.
This bit of dialogue is a reference to farming inside dungeons. It'll be another few updates before we get there, but be assured it's something we can do. It's a staple of the series to treat dungeons like greenhouses.
ERIK: There is an old legend that says turnips that go through another season become monsters and start trashing your field.
Unless said turnip monsters grow up into a girl named Mist who regularly gives us trashed fields, I don't believe it.
ERIK: But when morning comes, those monster turnips run out of strength and dry up.
ERIK: B-b-but I'm not scared of it at all.
Yeah sure, whatever. Erik might be slightly patronizing, but let's check out his stock.
Yeah, now this is the good stuff. Danny's store is even redundant because Erik sells turnip seeds here as well.
Although, it's worth noting that Erik doesn't spend all his time at the counter, so buying from him takes somewhat more precise timing over, say, Danny, but as this is the only means of getting these other seeds we just have to put up with it.
What I want to know is why there's no farmer's catalogue or something we can order our own seeds from instead of having to deal with the middleman here.
Also this place is bloody expensive, or rather, everything but turnips and fodder is expensive. Fodder seeds are the next cheapest at 30g a bag, with the next cheapest being strawberries at 200g.
Everything here pays for itself pretty well once it grows, and the plants that can be harvested multiple times can make us lots of money. If you put them where the season doesn't change, well, it's infinite money as long as you put up with watering them.
For now, I buy 3 more turnip seeds and 2 strawberry seeds. Strawberries will be useful in the coming days, and the turnips will make us a surprising amount of early cash.
With that, we're free from the introductory quest and have met everyone living in town
...Nah, let's go explore a bit.
Nothing here looks out of the ordinary at all.
A branching path lets us head a little bit further up the mountain.
The path up the mountain branches again and leaves us a side area that has two trees and this empty flat area. These have uses, but it'll be a bit before either becomes relevant.
We can also hit 1 on the wiimote to look at the sky.
...That's it.
Back down a bit and following the initial path to the right brings us to Lake Poli. It's bigger than the business district, though it's not that big a lake.
There's also a free gondola here. We're not gonna mess around with it today, but it's how we get to those other bits of land. Anyways, let's go home and do that farming thing we're supposed to be doing or something.
Here's the Return spell in action- just compressing out of the universe must hurt a bit.
Back on the farm, there is much weeding to be done. Interestingly, you can make a surprising bit of early profit from just selling weeds. Actually growing something is far more profitable, but every gold piece matters right now.
Oh, and Mist has nothing to do for a good portion of her day so she comes and watches you work pretty regularly. She did this in RF1 as well.
If you like seeing us work so much, why don't you help? Or are you just here to oversee my contribution to your underground turnip operation?
Here, look what I found.
MIST: Thank you, but don't give me your trash.
It's worth 10g! You can buy a whole bag of turnip seeds with that!
Unfortunately, if you give someone something that's not plot important, they will keep it even if they hate it.
Well, whatever. It's worth noting that my hoe can't even break these branches- they fully obstruct me from using this space for gardening right now. The same goes for those groups of little rocks that you see scattered about. The handheld releases just let you pick these up.
In practice it means our field will look terrible and completely unorganized in the early days.
I plant wherever I can for now.
To the left is our giant shipping box. You can either pull something out and put it in manually...
Or you can just move stuff straight from your inventory to and from it. The shipping box is not an all consuming beast in this game and will let you freely remove and add items to it.
Pretty convenient, really. It even tells you how much you'll make!
As I head back out to the field it hits 5:00.
Uh, why are we fading to white?
1. I was right next to the shipping bin, why are you suddenly coming from this direction, Bush?
2. Who is stealing my herbs and weeds I was shipping out?
BLONDE GIRL: I'm getting what's in the shipping box right now. Just a second.
Oh, neat, she's not stealing our weeds. If you were wondering who actually takes the stuff I'm selling, the game is ready to answer that and the answer isn't Danny.
Jokes aside, this event will trigger in the early game as long as you're near your shipping bin at around 5PM- it can even be triggered on the first day, as I've done here.
BLONDE GIRL: I can't sell your harvested crops unless I do this. I better come to collect it everyday.
With this, she closes the lid and turns around to face us.
BLONDE GIRL: Huh...?
ROSETTA: Oh! It's you, Bush! It's me, Rosetta, from the general store in the town you came from.
Returning characters, ahoy!
I don't think it's been specified how long Bush traveled to get here, but given that Rosetta can get here in one day and back, I don't think it's actually that far.
Which also means we've been gone from the town for like, two days at the most. Apparently Bush must have been quite reclusive to need an introduction like this.
That, or she thinks we have amnesia again. (It could also just be that I'm not supposed to trigger this event this early, but
)
ROSETTA: I was wondering where you disappeared off to. What are you doing here?
BUSH: I live here.
ROSETTA: Oh, really? I came to collect the items in the shipping box because I heard someone new had moved here.
ROSETTA: So it was you, Bush. You should have told me...
ROSETTA: So, what are you doing here?
You already asked that.
BUSH: Mist said she needed to do something here. She lives right next door.
ROSETTA: So you tagged along and now you're living together?!
ROSETTA: What is she doing here?
We're playing 20 questions at this point, aren't we?
BUSH: I don't know...
ROSETTA: *sigh...* I never know what she's thinking.
ROSETTA: You have to be more independent... *sigh* Forget about it.
ROSETTA: You have to "ship" your harvest crops to make money. Just put your crops in this "Shipping Box" and consider it shipped.
ROSETTA: I'll be here everyday at 5 in the afternoon to collect what's in the shipping box. So be sure to put it in here by then.
ROSETTA: Vegetables, minerals, dishes, fish, grass and even trees, can be shipped off.
BUSH: Thank you.
ROSETTA: Well, I hope we'll get along.
The cutscene is over, but we can still chat her up as she figures out what to do with the weeds I put in the box.
BUSH: By the way, Rosetta.
ROSETTA: Yes?
BUSH: This village already has a general store. Do you have the time to be collecting the things in the shipping boxes?
ROSETTA: It's okay. You snooze, you lose, you know?
ROSETTA: You have to keep expanding your market.
This is Rosetta's main thing, she's basically entrepreneur extraordinaire. She's good at business, she knows marketing, and she knows capitalism. If there's money to be made, she'll make it. If there's a profitable opportunity, she'll take it.
ROSETTA: Does Mist come here every day?
Basically, yeah. She's still over there.
ROSETTA: Well, it's not like I care or anything.
You sure about that?
ROSETTA: Go a bunch of crops and then ship it all out! I'll be waiting!
As in, waiting here? It's gonna take about 6 days for those turnips to grow or something like that.
I guess that's as good a cue as ever to get back to the farming. I prioritize getting the strawberries in the ground first so I can get maximum profit from them.
When you run out of RP, all of your actions start using your HP instead. Rune Factory games after this one apply a very high multipler, but they also had scaling RP and better ways to restore it so it not as bad as it sounds. In Frontier, we can just treat our HP like a reserve RP bar, but it's dangerous to forget that it's 1/5th the size presently. 15 RP isn't much, but 15 HP is a lot.
The only way to increase HP is by leveling up in combat and increasing our Vitality stat, and it's not a fast growth on either.
With poor Bush about to keel over from exhaustion for the second day in a row, I decide it's about time we hit the bed.
Music: Trampoli Daily Life(I suppose a more appropriate title is Daily Life - Trampoli. This is a remix of the RF1 house theme named Daily Life.
It's a nice tune nonetheless, though you'll hear a lot of it during lengthy crafting sessions.)
It's only been about 200 screenshots since we recieved it, but we finally enter our house. It's pretty cozy in here and nowhere near as run-down as our field is.
We'll check out the house some other time- Bush needs his sleep.
See you next time, where we're finally not on the first day of the game. In fact, we get through 2 days!
Look forward to it!