Part 17: Jammin'
Update 17: Jammin'
Music: Spring
Rice Ball Lv:2 was synthesized with expertise!
Salutations! We begin this Friday with some cooking.
And brushing our animals, as usual.
BUSH: Okay, Pony! Let's go!
I decide to take our most-definitely-a-horse with us.
Pony moves somewhere just under double our normal run speed, so she really helps to get places faster.
She does have a slower turn than Bush's full control on foot, but it's not much of a hassle.
What is a bit more of a hassle is that I can't pause or really do anything but move and attack while riding.
ANETTE: Here you go!
We also grab our mail from Annette today.
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~"Any medicinal herbs?" - Melody~
My hobby is concocting various medicine among other things. The thing is, I'm short on a few crucial ingredient right now. If you have any Green Grass, would you be willing to share some with me? Please? ♪
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Asking for this random herb in the mail makes a lot more sense than it would seem at first. Green grass is kinda rare and doesn't grow in this season.
We luckily happen to have two on hand, so we can spare one for Melody. At least she's probably not creating as questionable potions as Marian does in RF3.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch up to Annette in the Business District, so this'll have to wait until tomorrow.
We are able to catch Danny outside his store.
DANNY: Oh, it's you. You haven't come to my store in a while either.
BUSH: Um... is something wrong?
DANNY: Ever since that Rosetta girl opened up shop, I've lost all of my customers.
DANNY: Hey, Bush... Why am I not getting any customers?
BUSH: Uh...
It's because you sell nothing but turnip seeds, cooking oil, and cheap accessories. I can get anything you're selling from other places, my dude.
DANNY: Hey! You just looked away!
BUSH: I didn't...
DANNY: Just you watch! I'll show you!
ROSETTA: The fish are on sale today!
BUSH: Rosetta, aren't you going to put the seeds on sale?
ROSETTA: Sorry, I work on a really low margin with the seeds so I can't sell them any cheaper. I get a lot so you can grow lots of vegetables.
I feel like at some point, they forgot that Rosetta only sells flower seeds in this game. Either that, or the devs forgot that Erik existed.
One can only wonder if these little oddities and it's unclear story as a sequel can speak to this game originally being much different in early production.
No way to know, really.
BUSH: Oh... Thank you for that.
ROSETTA: It's all right. We're like a team.
Flowers do make good money, I can't lie. That and she's the only person I can sell stuff to. I don't know who buys all the strawberries and cooked fish I ship, but she seems to make a profit off it.
UZUKI: The weather is so nice. Respecting the sun is common among all cultures.
UZUKI: They say, "Spring is the daybreak of the year." This season is compared to the beauty of the sunrise.
It feels like a lot of characters say that first sentence- it's even a voiced line for most of them!
TSUBUTE: Are you ready, milady?
TSUBUTE: Though we are living in foreign lands, we cannot forget traditions and etiquette. Rather it is because we are living in foreign lands that we must cherish the traditions of olden days.
UZUKI: I know, I know. Do I seem that remiss to you?
TSUBUTE: N-no, not at all...
UZUKI: Then shut your mouth.
Uzuki doesn't put up with Tsubute's nagging.
UZUKI: I ate quite a lot of fish back in my country. That's why when I eat fish dishes here, it reminds me of my home.
UZUKI: But Tsubute often scolds me to stop eating so much fish and to eat some vegetables, too.
Fish is about 95% of Bush's diet at this point. It's a good thing I don't have to worry about the population levels of the fish.
BUSH: Eunice, have you been in this village since you were born?
EUNICE: No, I used to live in a much larger town. Dad used to work at an inn there, and Mom happened to be staying there one night.
BUSH: So Rita was a guest.
EUNICE: Yes. Mom wasn't born in Norad.
EUNICE: She just came to the Kingdom of Norad while on vacation. She stopped at the inn but lost her wallet somewhere...
EUNICE: She supposedly worked at the bar next door to pay off her inn bill.
BUSH: That's a really strange turn of fate.
EUNICE: I know! I really wish I could have that sort of fateful encounter, too...
EUNICE: I mean, um... How embarassing...
So, Rita's either from the Empire, the Kingdom of Roland, the Republic of Eucraft, or whatever place Lute is from that I forget the name of.
There's a lot of strands of worldbuilding just laying about Rune Factory, but they've never gone as far as to properly define any of it.
EUNICE: Taking a nap in the sky...
EUNICE: I'm a bit envious of the whale.
BUSH: Oh... I haven't read this book yet.
Down at the library, Selphy's not around, being a Friday and all.
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~Boating 101~
"You can find boats in many lakes. Stand by the boat and press the A Button to get on."
"Once on the boat, press the B Button to move forward and press the A Button at a dock to get off the boat."
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There is only 1 lake with a boat in this game, and in order to go really fast, you have to time your B Button presses. There's also a festival regarding boats later on in the game.
That's all there really is to be said about boats.
This book was kinda short and Bush's quest for KNOWLEDGE knows no bounds, so I go ahead and read the last book on this shelf.
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~Jane and I~
"My partner Jane is a Chitter. She lives in a monster pen in my yard."
"I met Jane on a glorious day in spring. The moment I laid eyes on her, I just knew I had to have her. I took my Pet Glove and brushed her as if my life depended on it, and she understood."
"Thus began our life together. I fed her and brushed her everyday with my Pet Glove, and we became closer day by day."
"Soon, Jane began helping me with my work. She was always with me, even during my travels. Jane and I are as close as can be."
"So today, I have decided to give Jane this 'Rune Stone.' For the sake of a new life with her..."
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Just some person and their incredibly normal relationship with their fox-squirrel. Yep. Yeeeeep.
This is a more creative and interesting way to create a tutorial book, but it does always come at the cost of not being explicitly clear on what to do.
As for the Rune Stone thing, I don't actually know what giving it to a monster does. I'll have to try it sometime.
Nobody has anything else interesting to say today, but I can say that the Church District's Runey Situation is doing real nice.
So with this, I can confirm that stacking a non-Homestead area to 50,50,50,35+ will net you a result of 60,60,60,35+ -2.
This is going to be a nice income of Runeys, and it should make reaching prosperity in other zones pretty easy.
For the sake of your sanity, I'd suggest moving one of each Runey in your inventory up to the top somewhere while sticking the rest in your box. Makes it faster to check the numbers as well as for releasing them.
I'd also just do this with your gifts, saves you time on moving them to the held item slot.
(Oh, how I wish this game had the shortcut context menus for consumable items like the handheld games do.)
Something that surprised me, and proves to make Runey management not as painful as it sounds on paper is how they clump together at high numbers.
They didn't seem to do this on the Homestead, but here they seem to be bunching together in groups of 7-15. Aside from not rendering the entire map a strobe light blanket of the 200+ Runeys, it also means...
You can suck up a lot of them at once.
This is a goddamn breeze compared to the cherry picking I have to do on the Grass Runey Farm. Suck up a couple piles, and provided you were only carrying 1 of each to start with, throw all but 11 of each non-Grass back, as well as all but 1 Grass Runey.
Bam, no checking of the distribution map required. At the end of each day, just throw the 30 generated runeys into the box. I didn't even think about it before, but you can easily maintain stasis in every other region with just this surplus.
It's... really not that bad. Yet.
Would be a right darn shame if the game didn't tell you about any of this and made everything incredibly frustrating for everyone who ever played it, instead opting to tell you to "just experiment".
Just imagine if they did that
SELPHY: You know what? I really hate jewels.
BUSH: What?! That's really rare. I thought most women like jewels.
SELPHY: Probably. But just don't ask me why, okay? It's elementary, my dear Watson!
BUSH: (Who's Watson?)
there are no words
SELPHY: There are some people who get dizzy when they read. I just don't get them
SELPHY: The book isn't a monster.
I'm pretty sure that's not why they get dizzy.
I don't have anything else to say here aside from that she occasionally does a little twirl.
BUSH: I've seen this hole before... I think it was inside Whale Island...
BUSH: Hm... I can't get it out anymore.
I don't think I ever really pointed it out, but ever since the beginning of the game a little sapling has been growing here. If I had some reason for not mentioning it, I forgot what it was. Don't get mad at me, forgetting stuff is in character for Rune Factory games.
Said sapling has since grown into a tree that we can put a Tree Rune Stone into. We'll see what this gets us tomorrow.
Then I spend the rest of the day up until the bathhouse opens collecting cherries and doing the rest of the farmwork I hadn't finished.
MIST: When I see you work in the fields, it makes me want to try it myself.
MIST: But I don't have a field of my own.
This is just directly trolling anyone who played the first game. The game where she foists an entire farm onto you, including a massive field she never touched. She kinda gave us this field too, so all I've got at this point is these two combined:
There's really nothing else of note the dialogue for the rest of the day, so up to the Tower of Rest it is.
Really should have remembered to bring Pony for this. Cuts about 45 minutes off the trip.
IRIS: The weather is so nice today.
I swear, so many people say this line.
BUSH: Do you draw, Iris?
IRIS: Yes. I draw with ink and charcoal. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at it.
IRIS: I hope you'll come see this drawing after I finish it!
Can't draw: Relatable
Wants to show bad drawings: Not Relatable
Result: Please Try Again Later
IRIS: Bush, are you still exploring the ruins?
IRIS: Pardon me for saying so, but you just don't look very strong. Please be careful.
Bush doesn't need arm strength, he's got MAGIC!
CINNAMON: I feel I catch more fish when I sing.
CINNAMON: It's a mystery because you're supposed to catch less when you make sounds.
Cinnamon may be a Disney Princess in the making.
Music: ChickogriffSUDDENLY BOSS FIGHT TIME
I spend the rest of the night attempting Chickogriff again. This here is one of it's new attacks, a five projectile fan of deadly feathers. These hurt a lot.
Our sword does not hurt the boss very much.
The Earth Wand however does very impressive damage. I theorize that if I'd used this on the lower level version of the boss, I would have deleted it almost instantly.
As Chickogriff is such a large lad, he ends up getting hit by our magic anywhere from 2 to 6 times per cast. Each hit is still doing around 30 to 45 damage with it's greatly increased defense, so you'd be surprised to see how little of a dent we still put in it's health bar.
On the other hand, his charge is much less clumsy now and also hits for 88. There's no stumbling onto it's side after, and it comes out much faster, so get ready to have your ass kicked.
The other two new attacks are a combo together. He flies up around the arena, dropping eggs that turn into hostile Cluckys...
And then tries to supersonic divebomb us.
This hits for about 140 if you're wondering. Bush barely survives it at full health.
A few attempts later and I finally manage to get the boss to rage mode level HP. It is absolutely terrifying how fast it moves now.
The trick to keeping this boss under control is staying somewhat close to it, and staying on guard for this attack. He'll rear up, do a loud call with a spark appearing in front of his mouth, then charge at your position.
As soon as his feet touch the ground, the position he charges at is locked, so that's your opportunity to get out of the way.
Cast the Earth Wand once while he's still briefly recovering from the charge, and then do it again from a distance as he turns around to face you.
He'll try doing the big charge not long after this, so just keep this on repeat and you can kinda manipulate his AI to remove a lot of the danger.
Just be sure make that distance between you and him. He slams the ground every time he turns around, and that'll hit Bush for around 130 HP.
And with that, more Wine has been duped. I don't really have much of a reason to dupe it outside of cash, but it's there if I ever need money and don't feel like getting it legitimately. In the future, I may consider duping favorite bachelorette gifts if possible, as some of them just take too many materials on the regular.
Our Wine stack is now up to 12, worth 12,000G, so now it's finally a profit over the 6000G I paid for it.
Among random feathers, rice, and eggs, the boss drops a Lv.10 Giant Cockscomb, the highest it can be, and a free Wind Crystal for us. There's also a decent bit of Copper, a rather useful secondary metal that normally shows up more in later dungeons.
There was also a Boiled Egg dish around here somewhere for some reason. It may have spawned after on one of the Clucky eggs got broken mid-combat.
Before tomorrow, Bush uses the last of his energy to make a Cheap Band, then use that to make a Copper Bracelet.
Cu Bracelet Lv:1 was synthesized.
It wasn't really possible to synthesize it with expertise, unfortunately. Aside from a small attack boost, it'll give us +10 magic at the cost of lesser defense compared to our old iron bracelets.
Music: TrampoliWith that, we start the next day! 25th of Spring, a Holiday. Lute's got something we're gonna want today, and it marks us as having only 5 days to make almost 40,000G.
I really want to get our house's forge and kitchen expanded before Summer starts. Better tools and better food will really help us in the future.
Nobody really needs medicine in this game when a salad heals 203 HP. Heck, Toast heals 50 and you only need flour to make it.
Our monsters also like us enough now that we can finally get their harvestables. Wooly makes wool, Clucky makes eggs, and Buffamoo make milk.
Also, the Toyherbs are almost done. These will be a big jump in money gained.
EUNICE: What do you think of this village?
EUNICE: I love how quiet this village is. Bush, I hope you will like it too.
I mean, overall, it's pretty chill here.
UZUKI: Training every single morning is crucial. You must swing the naginata at least 300 times or else your skills will wane.
UZUKI: They say that if you miss even one day of training, you will need 10 days to make up for that lost time
That's some hardcore training. I don't want to actually count it all, but I do wonder if Uzuki actually does 300 swings per day. She spends about 6 hours doing it every day, so... probably?
ROSETTA: When I go out of the village to stock up on supplies, I end up buying food on the way. Why is street stall food so good?
It is a mystery to us all, but can we really complain about good food?
LUTE: I feel the happiest when I'm painting.
I missed the chance to talk to Lute on our last Thursday, so here he is. Given you meet him so rarely, it's hard to raise his FP with just talking. His favorite gift is chocolate, so I'll try to grab some of that next time I'm at the bar.
While I'm here, I net the Handy Pot and the Yarn Maker. The pot is the last utensil we can get for our tiny kitchen and will make us a bit more money in the coming days, while the maker is for making use of our wool.
SELPHY: The book I wrote the other day actually got pretty popular. I'm thinking of the next one! This is getting exciting!
But we never got to read it...
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~Intro to Runey Research~
"A certain Rune Wonder can create stones called 'Rune Stones'."
"Rune Stones are simply a hardened cluster of Runes. It has been rumored that the kingdom of Norad has been researching ways to move objects with these stones."
"There are even doors that use Rune Stones as keys, so it is truly a curious object."
"If you come across a door that just won't open, give a Rune Stone a try."
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At some point I'll remember to try opening that one on Whale Island.
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~Family Medicine~
"This book wi1l discuss the symptoms of various diseases so that the reader may accurately treat any condition at home."
"Poison: HP decreases by 1/16 of the total every 5 seconds.
Poison cannot bring HP down to 0.
Note purple bubbles by the head. Heals over time."
"Paralysis: Unable to run. Movement speed halves for monsters.
Note electric bolt by the head.
Heals over time."
"Seal: Unable to use special attacks. Limits monsters to one type of attack.
Note the X mark by the head.
Heals over time."
"Stun: Unable to move for a time.
Note stars by the head.
Heals over time."
"Exhaustion: RP decreases at 2x the rate. Damage dealt halves for monsters.
Note blue haze by the head.
Heals over time."
"Cold: RP decreases at 3x normal rate. Can be caught wen working late at night or fainting form overwork.
Does not heal over time."
"If you catch any of the above illnesses, take medicine or go to a nearby nurse."
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"Take medicine". What astounding advice.
That's a list of all the status effects in the game, outside of the little red apple that shows you have a food buff active.
Also Selphy is firmly in the lead in regards to LP. She's already at about 3.3 LP, and nobody else has even passed 2.
LARA: This season is very pleasant. I just love spring.
Thank you for not saying the weather is so nice, Lara.
LARA: The Energy Drink, as the name suggests, is a medicine that recovers your life. Be sure to take some with you.
Toast heals more than the low level energy drink, and it boosts max HP by a decent amount. Also, given the energy drink is blue and called an "energy drink" you'd think it'd restore RP not HP.
I miss the good old Recovery Potions from 1 and 2.
CINNAMON: Last year, I went flower viewing with Candy. It was fun. I...might want to do it again this year.
Here's the first mention of our first festival! It's only been almost a whole season, about time we had one.
BUSH: Whoa! Was this tree this big?
BUSH: Wow... I think I can go inside from here...
The Lava Ruins are now open!
Our second seasonal dungeon is unlocked! All it requires is a Tree Rune stone and beating the Green Ruins, I believe.
We'll be taking a peek in there today, mostly to quickly unlock the shortcut to the second floor. We can finally obtain Silver in here, so we can net the resources we'll need to start upgrading our tools again.
MELODY: So you're going to the Lava Ruins...
MELODY: That place is hot, so taking a bath after you break a good sweat can feel wonderful.
Gonna need that bath afterwards as this dungeon is going to leave Bush very beat up. The power level jump here is major.
Music: Lava Ruins(New music! If this is a remix of a previous track, I can't really put my finger on it's origin, so I'm assuming it's entirely new. This track is really chill for how hectic this dungeon is, but I think it's fantastic nonetheless.)
Lava Ruins, B1F
First thing we find is a new enemy! These black ants are Killer Ants and are pretty much just boosted versions of the normal Ants.
Yay, palette swaps!
The shortcut door is just over to the right and down the stairs, although we have to properly unlock them.
These here are Ghosts. These can mow grass for you when tamed, thanks to already having a scythe.
Their big thing is that they can warp around a bit and they can deal nasty crits. Luckily, I'm just going to breeze past these spooks and get on with it.
This dungeon is layers upon layers of broken rooms and staircases, so I'm not expecting to really give you a coherent mental map of how it's laid out.
Behind this wall is a timed explosive barrel thing. You hit them to clear out these piles of rubble spread about, and they can be useful for cheesing some enemies.
Up a staircase and we find another new enemy! These are Elefun, the second ridable monster, and the first one capable of watering crops.
Their two attacks are a long range water spray and a clumsy charge attack. Despite this, they do a lot of damage, are weirdly strong overall, and I'm most definitely taming one.
I end up trapping one in this side room so I don't have to deal with both of them trying to kill Bush.
Takes a good many brushings, but I finally tame one and name it Phanty, which is just the default name with a y on the end. Being capable of dealing high water damage and tanking a lot in return, they'll be useful for fighting through a lot of this dungeon.
Lava Ruins B2F
After a decent amount of flailing about on the first floor, I finally remember how to get to the staircase downwards.
I only made it as far as unlocking the third floor shortcut in here on my original playthrough, but I do remember how to get through this floor somewhat.
I won't deny that my Elefun carried me through a decent bit of it, a number of guides recommend having upwards of 70 Weapons skill by this point which is just plain ridiculous.
For reference, Bush's weapon and magic skills are only about 25 each.
These blue colored Chitters are called Furpys.
They're just stronger recolors, and that's all. I can be thankful that they're not Furbies.
This here is the creatively named Duck. They spit water balls.
However, they also will just start dancing to some funky disco-ish music, spotlight and all. They do this occasionally.
Then they scream loudly and fucking EXPLODE
...It doesn't harm them at all.
Over here, we've got Mini Golems. This was a miniboss in the first Rune Factory game, and the real boss wasn't much different.
They hit like trains, are very bulky, and can easily KO you or your pet monsters. These rock jerks hit almost as hard as the buffed Chickogriff does.
Not only can they fire volleys of fireballs or shoot you with rocket fists, as shown here, they also have a spinning punch with a wide range.
The area right next to this is a big region for farm fields, with the northern-most section blocked off by rocks we need a silver hammer for.
The rocks here drop copper on occasion, which is nice.
To the east then north past some more golems, we finally find our first rocks that can drop the ever precious Silver.
If you head south and a bit east from the big room with farm fields, you'll find the shortcut back to this floor.
With that, I'm out of there.
To start Bush's moneymaking operations I stick a strawberry into the pot we we just bought. I don't have any recipe books for it, but I already know this exists.
Berry Jam Lv:1 was synthesized.
Turning strawberries into jam not only makes a nice magic boosting food, it raises it's value by 30%!
That only comes out to a total value of 130g, but still. If I start converting my mass amount of strawberries this way, I'll make an extra 1000g for every 33 strawberries. Not bad given I get 32 free to sell per day.
Since I don't own the recipe book for it, making it is rather difficult and getting expertise synthesis on this is pretty much frame perfect. It'll also never get easier until I get the book.
Unfortunately, our storage box is getting full thanks to how I can't stack junk metal of different qualities.
They'll come in handy as soon as I can get the upgraded forge.
In other random tidbits before I end the update, Selphy's just in the clock tower for some reason.
I then do some math and put the Beach into prosperity. I'll be coming here a lot during Summer, and it's also a big area so the clumps of Runeys should be easy to manage.
Before hitting the hay, Bush has a full RP bar ready to be spent on making preserves.
Now that's some Jammin'. I only got through half my stack of 45, but it's profit!
Join us next time, where we enter the last week of Spring and go full in on money production!