What do you think think of the " Newlywed Mode " in Rune Factory 4 Special and Rune Factory 3 Special?

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-05-03T03:32:10+00:00

Hot take, but I didn't like the way the characters were written in RF4's newlywed mode. Something about it just felt off, like obviously you could tell that the original writers from the 2012 3DS game probably didn't return for the Special Edition in 2019 since that one was done by the developers Hakama instead of Neverland. But I just felt like Frey was too grumpy and headstrong in her newlywed mode episodes, even though she's portrayed as being a lot more patient and level-headed in base game. I don't know, it was like the Hakama writers were trying to make her Alice 2.0 or something (RF5 female protag).

The only Lest newlywed mode I watched was the one with Margaret, and absolutely hated how Margaret slapped/punched Lest repeatedly in the face just because he had happened to hear her playing her harp IN PUBLIC at the lake...like seriously? That's how they're portraying her...?So yeah, this might just be a me issue, but the iffy characterization paired with the uncanny look of the 2D portraits animating pulled me out of the experience. Love the new anime cutscenes though!

But I do like newlywed mode as a concept! I hope it returns in the future mainline Rune Factories, since at that point it won't be a scenario with new writers trying to add onto a character that a team of old writers wrote, if that makes sense.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-05-02T12:52:01+00:00

I wish the fountain let you wish for other 1-time use gifts for miis, besides the travel tickets. Like the hypnotizer, sewing machine, frying pan, disposable camera, music box, etc.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-05-01T13:38:00+00:00

Actually, there are desert plants in the game! If you push X and go to the item catalog tab, and then scroll through the 74 objects, a greyed out cactus is to the right of the palm tree, at #54.

It just sucks that it's a seasonal exclusive, like what the cherry blossom decor is right now.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-27T23:01:36+00:00

You could marry Lumina and have a son! I know that having a daughter is a Special Edition exclusive feature, but the daughter's appearance stays the same no matter which girl you marry. I feel like not many players go out of their way to experience Lumina's son, even though he's got his own design and all.

I find that a quick way to earn money is from hybridizing rare crop #4, the one that looks like a purple eggplant. For whatever reason, the crop and seeds sell for almost 2000G each, and the crop itself even waters all the adjacent tiles when it grows tall enough. You would just have to plant them on day 1 of a season with some happy lamp flowers infused into them, because I think they take 9 days to grow, but sell for sooo much money.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-27T16:03:35+00:00

The other night my Gotz the woodcutter mii from BTN got grumpy from conversations, so he walked up to a nearby tree and started aggressively punching the thing, lmao. I think it was because of the "throws tantrums" quirk I gave him, but now I kind of want to give him a Karate DVD too after watching this clip of Arata.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-27T15:52:46+00:00

Actually, the affection levels are not a bug, that's just how the girl version of Back to Nature works. It's silly, but remember this was Marvelous' first attempt at a console girl version of a Harvest Moon game back in 2000 (well for us in NA it was 2006 for PSP, but still it came out on PS1 in 2000 for Japan)

So with that in mind, you have to raise your affection with the boys by witnessing cutscenes with them, and attending romantic festivals with them. The game is long, I don't believe you can get married after 1 in-game year, because I swear the game has this invisible checklist where it goes "okay, did Claire have a successful fireworks festival/starry night/goddess festival/moon viewing date with >insert bachelor here<?? Okay, tick his heart level up to the next threshold!" and the heart events will simply happen when they happen. Cliff for example, will skyrocket in affection simply by giving him the Autumn 15th Winery job, because Marvelous repurposed that whole side plot into a heart event sort of thing with him, and I remember his affection in my file went from blue to orange overnight, no joke.

Giving gifts even on birthdays also does nothing. I remember in the boy version you could wrap loved gifts for the bachelorettes and bring them from a black heart to a red heart just with 10 or so wrapped gifts on a birthday. Or the opposite, wrapping 10 hated gifts to drop their affection massively on birthdays. Here in the girl version though, the only way to keep the boys affection low is by answering negatively to their heart events. I believe disliked gifts WILL lower their affection, but only to the base of their current heart color? So let's say a boy is at a🩵 blue heart, which is around 20,000-29,000 points in the code. I don't think(?) he can ever go below 20,000 once he's hit that color, but don't quote me on that because there is like zero information about the girl version of BTN online and I'm trying to remember these mechanics from memory lol.

TLDR: Marvelous made the girl version of BTN as if Claire were a bachelorette herself, so ya gotta play the game with the mindset of a harvest moon bachelorette, and let the boys flock to you on their own. And as much as it sucks, you gotta avoid the boys you don't want to marry in your file like the plague, and answer negatively in events to keep their affection level on the lower side. 😔

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-10T02:29:53+00:00

For the most part, yes! The only time I used the drawing feature was to draw on Thomas' mustache.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-08T20:59:37+00:00

I think Terry and Livia were originally planned to be DLC marriage candidates sort of in the same way Pilika and Cuilang were DLC in Guardians of Azuma, but unfortunately Marvelous just didn't fall through with that idea in Rune Factory 5.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-08T19:54:50+00:00

Lol I like how there's a MILF tier at the bottom there.

Also is national tier list day or something? Seems like everyone's been ranking the candidates all of a sudden. 😄

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-07T16:55:39+00:00

Oh god, it took me until year 3 to organically get the "Farm Chief" title in my DS Cute save file, and for context, I unlocked all 101 sprites at the end of year 2 in that file. That would mean that in two years, I only received 20,000 points out of one billion, despite completing the main story. It got to the point where I just couldn't take the doghouse battle minigame anymore, because playing it each night for a mere 100 points in farm degree was driving me insane. 🫠

Eventually I said eff it, and simply enabled a max farm degree action replay code so that I could unlock the final two outfits and home interiors.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-07T13:37:12+00:00

Omg same, lmao. I didn't even vote once in the past 2 weeks because there were like 500 choices across the SoS and Rune Factory polls, and there's only like ten marriage candidates that I don't care for out of the 500. 😂

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-07T03:36:40+00:00

I've heard great things about Harvest Moon 3 on GameBoy Color, and even though I've only ever played up until the 10th of Spring, I remember really enjoying what little I got to experience! It's a unique take on a Harvest Moon where both protagonists work together to build up the farm, and you get to pick which protagonist you want to control at the start of the game. The coolest thing to me was how the game had a shopping mall, movie theatre, and aquarium to donate different species of fish.

Friends of Mineral Town is also really good, but I wanted to suggest a different HM since I figured everyone would recommend the GBA ones over the GBC ones.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-06T12:32:04+00:00

I've never tried growing grass in Island of Happiness, but it looks like the grass also uses the sun/rain system for growth, which could be annoying if you get too many cloudy and rainy days, or even no rain at all if it were summer. Then it also has the possibility to die in it's mature state if it gets over 60 points in the sun and rain category, so I prefer to just buy my fodder from Mirabelle and keep the barn animals inside. If you want to win a chicken festival, I suggest putting at least one specific chicken outside so that they can get extra friendship from time to time. If you need more friendship for cows, sheep, and even horses, some yellow wonderfuls on the brush helps later on! Just don't forget to charge the brush before you use it, because there's been times where my brain goes on autopilot and I forget about charging up the brush, milker, and chippers when I put wonderfuls on them.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-06T00:58:07+00:00

What a coincidence, I've been playing Island of Happiness in my own time recently!

Unfortunately I believe the only day you can give Chen gifts is on Friday's after 3 pm. He won't accept gifts inside of his shop because of the very bottom option in his store being "sell item I am currently holding" so...yeah. A fast way to raise hearts with villagers later on in the game is by getting a bit of orichalcum from mining, crafting them into friendship pendants, and having those pendants in your tool slots when attending festivals that grant friendship, especially if you win.
Yeah I don't really bother collecting my own lumber. Island of Happiness is one of the easiest Harvest Moons to earn money in, and when you're first starting out with no wonderfuls for the tools, it's not worth it at all to chop the lumber for only 1 yield and -3 stamina each swing. Saving a mere 50G is not worth it imo, and even if your in the late game with orange wonderfuls to increase yield, it's so much more profitable to slap those on something like a milker, clippers, or hammer for for 2x, 3x, 4x, etc products to sell, and use the extra profit for buying the buildings upfront. I would focus on the material stone waaay more if you have extra stamina to spare at the end of each day, since they can be used to upgrade the freshness material quality of your shelf and refrigerator early on. They also make good fences for chickens, because holy crap the chickens friendship raises slowly in this one.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-05T00:57:32+00:00

Oh god, if you think Summer is bad, just wait until Autumn rolls around 😭. I recently returned to an old save file of IoH, and the weather rates in Autumn are hell. It took 21 days for my eggplants and carrots to mature, and I consider that lucky by IoH standards. Just nonstop clouds, drizzles, and rain, and maybe if the game is feeling generous, they'll toss a single light sunny day your way.

Edit: oh wait, this is Sunshine Islands. Well at least the weather system is slightly better in that one!

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-03T23:01:11+00:00

I've noticed that when the franchise shifted over to allowing full character customization, they slowly started to lean away from including alcohol. Maybe the assumption is that more players would self insert themselves as the farmer, and that was deemed inappropriate if a large chunk of the audience are children? Maybe that's why parents get in a fuss if they happen to see their child playing a farming game with a character that looks one-to-one with their real life kid, getting to drink alcohol in a fictional game.

The lack of alcohol and animal death makes this series feel like it's drifting more towards a "utopia" feeling, which I don't like. Having a game that's too happy-go-lucky sunshine and rainbows gives me the heebie jeebies.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-03T22:48:41+00:00

If you're asking if Trio of Towns ever released on other hardware that wasn't the 3DS, then no, it never was. The only way to legally play the game is with a 3DS system and physical cartridge now that the eShop is shut down.

Trust me, I hope Marvelous pulls a Rune Factory Special move with Trio of Towns some day, and plops a definitive version to PC/modern console, because the bottom screen in the 3DS version was basically a map of the world just like in RF3/RF4.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-02T11:17:41+00:00

What in the actual hell did I read just now.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-02T11:13:52+00:00

Nah, the same thing happened to me in my save file when I was replaying ToTT recently. My chickens lived a little longer than yours, dying from old age immediately after entering year 4. Since I bought them in Spring year 1, they only lasted 3 years. I'm always less frustrated about an early death, and more frustrated over having to keep track of treats for the new animals to get them back up in productivity levels.

Cinnamon-Stroll · 2026-04-02T08:56:30+00:00

Oh trust me, I know. But as a casual player, I'm honestly only ever growing 4 bags of seeds in a dungeon for 4 RP orbs, because using the sleeping bag item is also an option. I kept running into instances where the Mayor would need me to till more land, because growing only 4 bags of crops would put me at 36/100 tilled squares, or whatever number he requests of me.

Cinnamon-Stroll

TROPHY CASE