I had played almost 14 hours of RF4 last time, now I’m around the 23 hour mark – or more like 30 hours if you take lost progress due to freezes into account. Rune Factory 4 is a slow-moving game so I won’t probably be doing too many updates on it. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m playing it and having a fairly good time. Some quick notes:
- I figured out why the townspeople are so boring: it’s because I turned their portraits and voices off. It’s hard to get a hold of someone’s personality when you can’t see or hear them. They might as well be NPCs. At the same time, turning portraits and voices back on would greatly increase the number of freezes I incur so… uh… dunno, maybe I’ll risk it once I’m done with the story… only I’ll probably quit the game at that point… uh… yeah.
Rescued Dolce and Pico, now I’m doing the Rune Sphere quests. I already got the ones in Yokmir Forest and the Water Ruins and just entered the Autumn cave for the first time. According to the placard I should be level 30 and I’m actually level 40 so it’s fine. I just happen to have an Aqua Sword too. This should be a breeze.- I’ve been using mainly Short Swords, but I tried a spear recently and really liked it. The nice thing about spears is they keep the enemy away so you don’t take as much damage. I still pull out my sword for boss battles and new areas, but I’m going to try to forge more powerful spears and use them instead. I’ve sworded my way through most RF games anyway, it’s time I tried something new.
- Summer time! Beach time! But there’s no beach so we go to the lake instead. IT’S JUST NOT THE SAME!! Plus I have portaits off, so I can’t see anyone in their swimwear anyway. I haven’t caught any new fish in a while either. My life is so… empty…
- I’m not sure I like what they did with seasonal crops this time. It’s nice that you can grow things like sweet potatoes and spinach outside the usual fall season, but this makes new seasons far less exciting. Normally after a full season of growing turnips I’d be seriously looking forward to harvesting new crops in summer, but it’s just the same old things I’ve been growing since day one. It’s closer to real life, I’ll give them that, but from a gameplay perspective, farming is a drag. I can’t wait until my pets like me enough to take over the farm completely.
That’s about all I have to report for now. Unless anything super-exciting happens I’ll hold off on any further reports until I’m done with Rune Factory 4. This will take a while so don’t wait up for me.
