Part 15: At Least I've Got Chicken
Update 15: At Least I've Got Chicken
We resume Bush's adventures on the next morning... which is raining again.
Well, aside from the more Water Runeys, this just means more time to do stuff other than farming.
Given the lack of music on days like these, have this water related theme:
Music: Alliance Alive - Rainy Realm
First on the list is crafting a battle axe! One Iron and a Sharp Talon can make one, somehow.
Battle Axe Lv: 5 was synthesized with expertise!
I had a level 4 Iron and a level 5 Talon, so that lets me make at worst a level 4 axe, but with expertise I can push it to 5.
It's not really that special, only having a little more damage and a little less RP use.
Does look pretty cool though.
Outside, my fodder's ready to harvest, though it's a little hard to see the difference.
You've gotta be really careful about using the sickle and make sure you don't cut the fodder any more than this. Otherwise, you'll just delete it.
ANETTE: Morning! Let's make this a great day!
ANETTE: *sigh*... I wish I was like that...
BUSH: What's wrong, Anette?
ANETTE: I saw a dancer when I was at another town.
ANETTE: She was beautiful, tall, and wore gorgeous clothes... I just really admired her.
BUSH: But I respect you more because you stay so cheerful as you deliver mail every day.
Well, uh... that came out of nowhere, Bush.
ANETTE: R-really?! Thanks. It feels nice even if you're just saying that.
Worth noting that Anette's not even got a full point of LP yet.
Let's just go check our mail.
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~"Man..." - Selphy~
I'm... so... hungry...
3 days... I haven't... eaten...
Can't... go... on...
Bamboo Rice...must...have...
Please...
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1. I give you food basically every day
2. Was it really necessary to write all the ellipsis?
3. Alright, sure, I'll send one tomorrow
Bamboo Rice takes Rice and a Bamboo Shoot to make. I don't have the rice on me right now, so I'll have to drop by the Snowstyle tonight.
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~"I'm training!" - Marco~
Hey! I heard you're pretty strong!
I'm actually practicing sword fighting, too.
My mom doesn't know, of course.
I'll be stronger than you someday!
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My dude, I'm pretty sure she's well aware of it by this point.
ERIK: Come again!
I stop by Erik's and buy a bag of cucumber seeds, as I can start growing those next to my dungeon strawberries. There's a few recipes I'll want them for eventually, so I might as well get started on them now.
There's nothing new that was said in the inn today, so I just go do my gifts and head off to the rest of town.
I stop by Ganesha's to check the prices on elemental crystals again. Grinding them out of certain monsters isn't impossible, but it may help us to obtain some Earth typed weapons soon.
ROSETTA: The weather is terrible. I get depressed when the weather is this bad.
ROSETTA: One of the things I like is "Roasted Yam." I love how sweet it is.
ROSETTA: I also like strawberries and Hot Milk. I guess I really like sweets.
ROSETTA: You're a regular at my store now. Please keep shipping out and buying things at my store.
Her voice acting says "baked sweet potato" but it's the basically the same thing.
Both of these things will probably continue to happen regardless, so no need to worry there. I have zero way of making money without shipping anyhow.
DANNY: Oh. So you've been to Whale Island?
Everything is uneventful as always in Dannyville.
In the library, Bush prepares to finish another bookshelf.
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~Up Your Quality: Part 2~
"To raise the level of your items, you can use the 'Greenifier' for crops, for example, but basically what you need is to make them with higher level ingredients."
"This is because the level of the final product will be the same as the lowest-level ingredient. Of course, there are exceptions."
"If you manage to get a 'perfect' while cooking, forging, crafting, or mixing, you can get items with levels higher than their ingredients. In the end, it is all about skill."
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I've already explained this stuff, but here's a refresher. Also the description of Greenifier says it speeds up crop growth, but it actually raises the level of the grown crops instead as this book says.
SELPHY: I keep finding all sorts of books in this library. I wonder if the previous manager had a hobby of collecting all of them.
Despite the letter we got this morning, Selphy seems to be doing fine.
SELPHY: Do you remember how I said I'd start writing books?
BUSH: Yes, I remember.
SELPHY: I finally finished the other day! I'm having Lara read it since she passed by.
SELPHY: I can't wait to hear what she thinks of it.
Well, that was fast. It must not be very long, but then again, perhaps that's for the best when starting out.
LARA: When you get knocked out by monsters or collapse from overworking, you will be brought into the infirmary.
LARA: But please try to be careful so that it doesn't have to come to that.
Bush is well acquainted with the art of being teleported to the infirmary. It's been a long time since it last happened, but believe me, we'll probably see it some more in the dungeon following Green Ruins.
STELLA: I built this village from the ground up. It's like my very own hometown.
I think we've already seen this line, but I think it's worth mentioning that if I'm remembering right, this is very literal. She built a lot of these buildings.
And Kross is also here, as is usual for rainy days.
KANNO: I am out of experiment materials. Find them for me.
BUSH: Again?
KANNO: Shut up and go! A student always listens to his master!
KANNO: First, find me a 'Sharp Talon'.
I happen to already be carrying one. so...
KANNO: This is a 'Sharp Talon.' Good job.
KANNO: Next, find a 'Hard Horn.'
Woohoo, more fetch questing.
At least maybe we'll get a reward out of this?
CINNAMON: I feel like staying indoors to read when it rains.
It seems as if the Mountain Road decided to begin it's journey to collapsing. There's 8 water, 5 rock, 2 grass, and 44 Tree Runeys. I guess it got the Day 20 boost.
How nice.
(It'll still probably hold out on it's own for a while.)
Music: Whale Island Outside
After this, I spend two in-game hours running all the way up to the Moondrops on Whale Island. Dungeons don't get watered by rain, and I guess the explanation here is that we're presently above said rain clouds right now.
I went to go grind some more experience off of silver wolves when I discovered something quite nice:
If you stand just a bit in front of and to the right of the spawner, lining your staff up with the center of the staircase, you can time shots to just one-shot wolves with a triple hit.
This works incredibly well, as it so happens.
I do this for about an in-game hour and a half, gaining two levels in the process.
Also, loads of talons and fangs, plus a few hides.
In order to get that Hard Horn our unofficial teacher wants, I go and explode some Buffamoos for a while.
Takes a while, but it eventually drops.
KANNO: This is, in fact a 'Hard Horn.' Now I can move on with my experiment.
KANNO: What are you doing? You can go now.
Not even a reward!?
Bah, at least I got some levels for my trouble.
Back at the house, Mist is here.
MIST: I don't have much to do when it rains so I came to visit. Was I being a bother?
She'd do this in RF1 as well.
While she stands there staring at Bush's empty fireplace, he makes a bunch of Battle Axes with all the wolf talons.
I mostly did it to grind some more smithing skill, but they'll possibly come in handy as materials later.
MELODY: Hi, Bush! ♪
MELODY: Say, Bush! I heard!
MELODY: Cinnamon at the clock tower is a wizard?
BUSH: Seems like it. I heard that she was at the Imperial Magic something or other studying some kind of magic.
MELODY: Wow, that sounds nice! ♪
MELODY: I just look like one, but I wish she would teach me how to use magic! You think she will?
BUSH: Haha... I don't know about that.
MELODY: I've decided! I'm going to see Cinnamon and get her to teach me some magic!
This is the start of Melody's character arc, in which she attempts to become a real magic-user, not just look like one.
Hit Selphy's scene this time, which does actually happen to be more fanservice-y than the others.
Put short, she's outgrowing her suit jacket as she takes after her mother in "certain characteristics."
I don't intentionally have Bush stare into the rain after those, it just happens because the look up button is 1, and the menu to warp away is on 2. I still mix them up occasionally.
Such is what I get for playing this on keyboard, I guess.
Back at the farm, I sell off 20 cherries, 40 strawberries, 8 bamboo shoots, 4 pickled turnips, and a low level Battle Axe for a grand total of 9108g.
The reason why I have so many strawberies is because of the Runey Prosperity the Shrub Farm's been put into. The growth shortening is causing me to get strawberries every single day, so I'm raking in about 27 each day now.
And here is a Rune. Not a Runey, but a Rune. It's here because the dungeon strawberries are finally harvestable.
Just a big ball of light floating above a plant. It restores a hefty chunk of RP when grabbed and doesn't involve any kind of crazy harvester shenanigans.
This also means my dungeon strawberries will be making that daily output be 36 strawberries a day now. If these fields weren't such a hassle to get to, I'd plant some more down here to keep that income rolling in.
Cave cucumbers planted.
I return to Ganesha's now that I've got my profits from my shipment, and buy two Earth Crystals. This is 5000g out of my pocket and in hindsight perhaps isn't the best buy, but I can make this back fast.
I then commit arson practicing staff usage while waiting for the bar to open.
BUSH: Ganesha, have you been this village's blacksmith for a long time?
GANESHA: Not really. I think I came here about... 2 years ago? I was training under my Dwarven master, close to setting up shop, when I met Stella completely by accident.
GANESHA: I think this is fate.
After that little tidbit of backstory, I buy 9 more Rice from the bar and head on back to the house.
First on our list of things to make is an Earth Shade, an upgrade for the base two-handed sword made by slapping an Earth Crystal into it.
I don't have any chance with my current forge skill to make it with expertise, so level 1 it is.
Quite different from the basic looking two-hander we started with, the Earth Shade has this double pointed end like a snake's tongue, and a fancy golden guard.
Being upgraded, it also finally has access to a charge attack. It's nothing special, just a full 360 degree swing, but it's range is great and can hit twice if placed well.
If anything, it'll be useful if I need to grind materials out of Green Ruins.
Following this is an Earth Wand, made just from the crystal and a stick.
It has a base power of 30, which is higher than anything else we've got, and its Magic boost is an equally crazy +55. It doesn't hit as much on normal enemies as the fireball can, but this thing will do some real damage.
Later on, I discover that it can do loads of damage to enemies with larger hitboxes.
I unfortunately missed the expertise craft on this one as well, though it was possible to get it in this case. A real shame, as the RP cost down would help our staves quite a lot.
I also make that Bamboo Rice for Selphy. It's actually some pretty good stuff, giving a temporary +50 max HP buff and doing something with adding Paralysis to our attacks, I think.
It's also an HP gain of 60, which is almost double what we can get from the weak healing potions that are available.
After all this, Bush is bushed, so I have to send him off to bed before I can show off the Earth Wand.
And would you believe it's raining again?
I didn't ask Candy to do this or anything. It's just pouring every day for some reason.
So, here's our guest track this time:
Music: Atelier Iris - Lakeside
And here's proof of the Runey Prosperity working here. I picked these strawberries yesterday and cut that fodder, and it's back immediately.
As long as you keep just one region in prosperity it can still be pretty busted in the rate at which you grow things.
However, this comes at the cost of having to pick these all every day. It's not fast in the slightest. Getting a monster to do harvesting work for us would be nice.
Anette is too fast for Bush's strawberry gifting abilities
ANETTE: You want this Bamboo Rice delivered, right? Leave it to me.
I have been brushing Fluff every day, but don't expect this happines meter to go up very fast. Like many things with Frontier, it's in no hurry.
Although, I only need 1 happiness to start shearing him, so it's really not that bad. It's in place to prevent you from mass catching monsters that produce items, immediately harvesting them, and booting them to the First Forest afterwards.
Tragedy strikes as I step just too short when cutting the fodder and I accidentally wipe 3 tiles of it.
Welp.
Old man's not got any new stuff for us to do today, so I suppose Bush will have to continue his self-guided acquisition of KNOWLEDGE
BUSH: It's sad because there aren't any stars in the sky during the day.
CINNAMON: Stars are there even during the day. They're just look invisible to you because the sun is so bright.
BUSH: Oh, really? I didn't know that.
It's like they couldn't decide between three different ways to set up the sentence there. Regardless, Cinnamon is here to toss us more astronomy facts.
Music: Kross' Theme
KROSS: Do you like the rain? I love it.
KROSS: The rain can wash the dirty earth. As it flows, it creates a river and heads toward the sea...heh...
KROSS: ...It is only on days like this that I can sleep well.
It used to be that way for me, but ever since a series of leaks in my roof and the subsequent replacing of said roof, rain just makes me anxious.
STELLA: They say that he who believes shall be saved. But I don't think that's enough.
STELLA: You have to believe and do good deeds before being saved.
Stella for once sounding like a nun.
In the library, we go to finish up another shelf.
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~Cooking for Men: Part 2~
"Do you have a kitchen fully equipped with the utensils from volume 1? Yes? Then let us move on to actual cooking."
"The key to cooking is practice! Get your timing down and stop the gaugue in the center to cook a delicious meal!"
"Oh, and one more thing. The most important ingredient of all is 'love.' Think about the person you are cooking for and your dish will turn out great! Good luck, gentlemen!"
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In order to cook, take the same steps that you would if you were forging. Or crafting a ring. Or mixing drugs.
It'll also be a while before we get a full kitchen. That house expansion may not be as bad as previous games, but it still isn't cheap.
SELPHY: Are you reading any books? I prefer a smarter Bush than a stupid one that can only farm.
Yowza.
And besides, you know the moment that we look at a shelf. What else do you think we're doing with the books?
SELPHY: *yawn*...
BUSH: You haven't been sleeping?
SELPHY: I'm fine. I switch off on my own when I go to sleep.
I guess she's just cranky from sleep deprivation.
A while later, I'm finally back up to Whale Island, ready to show off the Earth Wand.
Enemies right up against the wand will take physical damage and get booted backwards a good distance, and anything in front of you for a good distance will take some hefty earth damage, courtesy of the spikes of rock you just summoned.
This spell used to be known as Earth Spike in the handheld games. Usually it's kinda garbage as it only shot one heat-seeking spike, but here it's decently usable.
Almost done with these darn flowers.
It's not like I'll have to stop making the two hour run up here though. It's even required that I'll have to do it at least a good number of times for quite a while before I can unlock the shortcut to get here faster!
Whale Island needs better shortcuts. Direly.
Following this, I grind some more wolves for a while. It's only 1PM, so I might as well.
UZUKI: The season for flower viewing is coming soon.
UZUKI: It was very uncomfortable to not be able to take off my shoes inside the room.
BUSH: Oh? You take off your shoes when you're indoors?
UZUKI: Yes. Is it normal for people keep them on here?
More Fantasy Japan things.
EUNICE: What do you think of this village?
EUNICE: I love how quiet this village is. Bush, I hope you will like it, too.
Eunice doesn't even take breaks on rainy days, she's just inside the bar sweeping as usual. It's... kinda depressing honestly.
At least we've got a gift she likes now. So that's something.
Back home, I mix up some more Neutralizers and their corresponding Antidotes. I'll have to keep working on this for a while before making decent potions is even a reasonable task.
I'm also getting better at catching fish perfectly, if this level 6 Pale Carp is anything to go by. The input delay on emulator is a little bit better than it is with the remote.
MELODY: Sitting here all day is actually pretty tiring.
MELODY: Wizard... I love the way that sounds! ♪
Melody acknowledges the fact she sits in this chair for 6 hours doing basically nothing while waiting for customers.
CANDY: I like your house, Marco, because there's so much mysterious stuff there.
MARCO: Really?!
CANDY: Yup. Why are you red? Are you sick?
Ah yes, what young love starts over: having a cool house.
Checking the Runeys again, it seems like Mountain Road is stabilizing itself slightly as at least there's still some rock runeys alive to eat the trees.
The Business District is also being overrun with trees though. I don't know how that happened.
Also, I'd like to point out that the background of this map menu is literally illustrations of Runeys dying or viciously eating their fellow spirits. It's like the game knows what's going to happen.
Pale Carp Roast Lv.7 was synthesized with expertise!
This is all still before I knew what I was doing regarding the Runeys, so I just went back home and cooked up some high level fish.
Taimen Sashimi Lv.3 was synthesized.
Our cooking skill is at 33 now, so I was able to finally do the Taimen Sashimi. The blue range for normal success makes up only a tiny spot in the center of the bar, so it's not easy.
For shipping, I throw in 42 strawberries and a couple of meh fish dishes. This nets me 5244g.
I collect some Runeys until the bar opens and head off there.
GANESHA: Rita! Give me another!
RITA: Gotcha! But be careful you don't drink so much that Marco will start yelling at you again.
GANESHA: What are you saying? Why do I have to be scared of my own kid?!
I know this is supposed to be comedic, but part of it is kinda depressing.
Everything about the Snowstyle is turning out depressing lately.
None of this stops Bush from indulging in wine himself. I buy 3 bottles of it for 6000g.
It's odd, where other games in the series apply negative effects for drinking, the only downside in this game is the hefty price tag of 2000g a bottle. It restores 150 RP and for a minute and a half it protects you from a single lethal blow. It's a pretty rare buff, only present on some endgame weapons.
Bush is not going to be drinking these though. Well, he sort of is, but it's complicated.
...You'll see what I mean.
An hour later, 3 bottles of wine in hand, Bush is collecting useful stuff on the lowest floor of the Green Ruins.
Music: Green Ruins
In order to fill my HP and RP back up, I go up a floor and level up off some Cluckadoodles and Hornets.
Level cannons are great. The only problem with them is that they're limited as I'll only be able to get these free refills so often.
With that done, I head back down to the mysterious door and set those wine bottles to the hotkey bar as an example. This lets you set consumables to quick access by hitting the d-pad on the wiimote, instantly pulling them out and eating them.
It's not as easy to hit given my emulation setup, but it's there. I'm sure I'll need these during the fight.
BUSH: There's something up ahead...
Time to go in.
Oh my God, Odd, a boss!
Music: ChickogriffA boss?!
But yeah, there are boss fights in this game. They hint at it pretty well what with Kanno's warning and the weird giant feathers everywhere. The track for this one is a remix of the boss fight theme from RF1, which is pretty appropriate.
Chickogriff, as he's called, is a giant rooster with a lion's backside.
I made the Earth Shade and Earth Wand for this fight, as Chickogriff here is a Wind type enemy and is weak to Earth damage.
I end up pulling out the Fire Rod anyways. The Earth Wand absolutely destroys this boss if you're having trouble with it, though.
It's still doing about 100 - 150 damage a shot here, so, uh...
Fire Rod is busted folks, I don'w know what else to tell ya.
Audio-wise, imagine a bunch of chicken noises and Bush constantly yelling "take that!"
Combat-wise, this boss hits pretty hard but is also very slow about doing it. It's attacks consist of turning around slowly and slamming the ground...
A short ranged tackle that makes it collapse on it's side...
And a long range charging attack. Between all the gear and levels Bush has gained, this boss is hitting us for about 20-40 damage each hit, so it'll KO us in about 4-9 hits depending on what we get hit by.
I've got some extra Bamboo Rice if necessary, but with the magic boost from some Grilled Chub, I should be able to finish this off before I get that in danger.
When the boss gets low, he rears up and starts flashing bright yellow. This is him entering a rage state, which is supposed to make the fight harder by making the boss hit harder and move faster.
In practice, it gives me a couple extra shots on the boss where I don't have to reposition or anything.
The boss is really low on health and heads back to the center for a final charging attack, and I find myself in front of the locked door of the room. It's a straight shot to it, so I let loose one last fireball in it's direction...
...It's all or nothing...!
oh whoops, accidentally hit my hotbar
oh damn i left the wine on the hotbar
there goes 2000g of wine down the drain
Bush stands, staring distantly at the alcohol in his hands as the boss lets out a final cry.
RIP this giant bird lion thing. It doesn't pop away like the other monsters so I can only assume I killed it for real.
Oh, hey, I guess the cutscene stopped me from drinking that bottle of wine. I guess we didn't lose it!
Let's just take that out of our hands for safekeeping. That should take it off the shortcut-
Huh.
Okay, enough badly faking it for the sake of comedy, this game has a duplication glitch in it. Almost every Rune Factory game has some broken way to make piles of money in unintended ways, and this is RFF's version.
By using a projectile or having a pet monster attack the boss, you can make just enough time for yourself to start eating something off your hotbar. When the boss dies, a cutscene triggers that interrupts this action, but doesn't remove the stack of items from your hand or inventory.
So now I've got 6 bottles of wine. This obviously multiplies. I beat the boss again and do it, and I can have 12 bottles of wine.
I chose Wine for this specifically as it's the priciest edible item available. That's the only catch to this glitch: whatever you are duping must be consumable. Weeds, high class foods, rare flowers, cooking oil; if you can eat it, you can dupe it.
I didn't actually make any money here as Wine only sells for half of what I bought it for, but I did dupe them.
The boss also drops items himself, but the only things of note are his special item, the Giant Cockscomb...
...And a Sapphire, a rare gem.
He also dropped a normal box of rice for some reason.
And when we return to the entrance, there's now a teleporter right to his room, should we so need it.
This, of course, facilitates easy duping.
What doesn't facilitate easy duping is that the boss's stats and moveset get boosted by a lot after you beat him the first time. If I wanted to do any more of this, I'd have to figure out a way to survive this much higher level encounter against him in which it seems like my attacks do about 1/100 of his healthbar.
I suppose I could always make a giant pile of fish and fight this guy for 5 in-game hours straight and I'd eventually win.
I am, for now, going to be making money legitimately though, unless the thread really just wants me to snap the economy in half with alcohol.
In the future, I've found a way to manage it, but it's far from easy.
Back at home, I can now take the Giant Cockscomb and one of Bush's many Battle Axes and create the Tomahawk. Notable in how it has 63 ATK, and uses 25 RP per swing. This thing is an absolute beast for this point in the game.
It's suitably crazy fantasy looking and has a special attack, though it's no different than what our lumber axe does.
Given that our Fire Rod will fall off hard in the next dungeon, (as it's fire themed,) this will probably be a decently useful weapon for a while.
That all being said, it's about time for Bush to get some shut-eye, and it's also the last of my pre-recorded stuff. That means we'll start seeing those monster requests get fulfilled.
But as well, we've got something else to vote on now that we're surpassing the early tier weapons. The next set of crafting books are very expensive, so...
What weapons will Bush be focusing on?
One handed swords?
Two handed swords?
Spears?
Axes?
Hammers?
Magic?
Some mix of the above?
This vote won't come into play until I get an upgraded forge, but it'll help me to know so I don't have to stop when I do manage to get it.