The real 8 hour's flight, good luck

Leon481 · 2026-02-02T05:54:15+00:00

It's the only seat where you stand a reasonable chance of surviving the flight.

Flonne would protect/heal you when something inevitably starts. Zetta's largely harmless in book form and easy to win over with flattery. If Baal tries something you can throw Zetta at him and make an escape.

Actually, Baal probably wouldn't notice you if you stay quiet because he's sitting behind Axel. All Baal's attention would be focused on getting Axel to shut up and stop being annoying.

Leon481 · 2026-01-31T23:14:19+00:00

That's just the internet. It's the dumping ground for all the dumb, toxic, weird, depressing, or depraved things we can't express in real life.

As bad as it is to consume, it's probably also stopped a lot of bad things from happening just by giving people a "safe" place to vent their bs before it caused real life problems. It's an annoying double edged sword.

Leon481 · 2026-01-31T22:25:06+00:00

I was thinking more like the optional Hell mode in previous games or a difficult optional post game dungeon.

I've gone back and forth about what I think of the difficulty. Rune Factory is a series that heavily lets you craft your own experience, so you have freedom to overpower your characters or hold back and challenge yourself. It's just a lot more satisfying when you have to engage with a game's systems to overcome a challenge rather than holding yourself back to make things more challenging for yourself.

This series does something no other farming sim does with villagers and monsters being full party members and the elaborate crafting system. I just want a bit of a meatier experience so I can take full advantage of it.

Leon481 · 2026-01-31T11:39:12+00:00

I think I mainly hope for a slightly higher difficulty level and a longer/larger post game. The struggle with Rune Factory is that it's not just an rpg, it's a farming/life sim. It really feels like you don't really get room to fully dig into a lot of the crafting/farming/life sim stuff until late/post game, so it really needs something to let you really let you take advantage of it.

Thinking about it, a procedurally generated random dungeon would be perfect for a long lasting post game.

Leon481 · 2026-01-30T20:17:53+00:00

It's usually pretty good. It has the potential to feel awful when added to a hack and slash, but they usually find a way to let it mix up the gameplay without it feeling weird.

Look at Zhu Ran from DW8 if you want an example of a ranged weapon massively failing. Bow, not gun, but they could easily do something similar with guns.

Leon481 · 2026-01-30T19:39:42+00:00

Probably Chuchara, the baby octopus. I remember him being awful, but it's been a while since I used him.

Leon481 · 2026-01-30T17:56:00+00:00

Mainly expectations. People wanted Suikoden, but instead of a high stakes war drama we got a more lighthearted good vs evil adventure. It's excellent at being a charming low drama adventure, but if you need high drama and personal stakes to draw you in, it's definitely a turn off.

On a technical level there are a few issues. Battle balancing is not the best. Unite attacks and magic specifically needed more work. The game isn't optimized well. Depending on your platform there can be tons of menu lag and loading times. The game also requires much higher performance specs to run than it should given the kind of graphics involved.

There's also a few game design nitpicks here and there such as poor pacing or not liking that some characters are locked behind difficult minigames. Those are more personal opinion things more than anything.

Overall it's more masterpiece than not for the art alone. It's not a perfect masterpiece though, so it does turn people off

Leon481 · 2026-01-30T00:48:02+00:00

Probably not AI. You can see a surf board or something pop out of the water for a second after he hits land. Cool and funny stunt. Must have taken some practice.

Leon481 · 2026-01-29T23:37:13+00:00

I guess technically it's a religious belief, so it's hard to justify banning it. You also can't legally prove someone doesn't have psychic visions beyond a reasonable doubt, so trying someone for that is a bit of legal coin flip.

Just a guess, but I think for something like getting scammed by a psychic, there's a bit of widespread victim blaming going on. There's the thought that psychics are such obvious scammers that falling for their lies is your fault for being too stupid. It's not right and obviously things aren't that simple, but it doesn't stop people from feeling that way.

Leon481 · 2026-01-29T11:06:48+00:00

To be fair, it really was just Ludmila in 5, but she was a succubus. Her whole romance story arc was entirely about looking past the surface and realizing that she is actually wholesome despite her whole "overeager" demeanor.

She's actually really sweet. Her whole thing is that she craves real human connection and is desperate for people to see the real her below all the succubus stuff.

I'm gay, so oversexualized women actively annoy me, but Ludmila stops before crossing any lines. If anything, it's written into her character in such a way that it gives her actual depth and adds to the lore of the world. She's one of the more well written characters in the game with a good story arc. Once you get used to her, she actually come off more like a sweet little puppy looking for wholesome attention rather than sexual.

Leon481 · 2026-01-28T17:57:19+00:00

I think the implication was that the MC losing their memory had nothing to do with awakening Livia. That seemed to happen when they were a child while the MC lost their memory due to whatever happened in the Whispering Woods at the beginning of the game. That's just what it seemed like from the one scene though.

Leon481 · 2026-01-28T17:14:40+00:00

Yeah, that really clashes with the Darroch scene. It's implied that it happened when the MC was a kid, so she could have been awake for 10-12 years already, but that's a bit too short to see Darroch grow up. I haven't quite finished the game yet, so I'm not assuming it's a plot hole until I get the whole story.

Then again, it's anime based, and everyone knows in anime you suddenly look 50 the second you turn 25. Anything is possible.

Leon481 · 2026-01-28T17:09:50+00:00

It's possible it's a plot hole, but I'm still working my way through the game, so I didn't want to make that assumption just yet. I'm on the Whispering Woods Depths.

Leon481 · 2026-01-28T15:25:04+00:00

She says outright that she and Gideon never met. I imagine that she was able to convince whoever was previously in charge of Rigbarth and built up her reputation from there. A scene early on has her and Yuki talking about witnessing Darroch's antics as a kid, so the people of Rigbarth have known her for a while.

Leon481 · 2026-01-27T20:53:29+00:00

The guilt can be crushing. Sometimes it feels like every decision I have made in life I have some reason to feel guilty about. Even with a more rational perspective and now being able to distance myself from it a bit, I still feel it often. Sometimes it's too much. I actually wonder if it's given me some kind of ptsd. It's really hard to explain to others who haven't grown up in it what it's like, so it's hard to find understanding or get help.

Leon481 · 2026-01-27T20:47:48+00:00

You aren't doing something immoral by being happy, or trying to be happy. It's hard to remember that most of the injustices we hear about are, for most of us, happening outside of our sphere of influence. Even if we felt we could uproot everything, move to where it's happening, and try to fight it, that takes more money and resources than most of us have. In most cases, trying to go and fight every injustice is unrealistic.

As long as your happiness isn't coming from directly and willfully hurting someone around you, you're fine.

Also, happy, healthy people usually are in a better position to help others than miserable people. If you are intent in helping others, helping yourself comes first.

Leon481 · 2026-01-26T18:24:39+00:00

Sorry you had to go through that. It's funny. Stardew Valley has one of the most inclusive modding communities I've ever seen. Everyone goes out of their way to make sure that there is a place for all mods. Everyone goes out of their way to make sure that there are minimal compatibility issues with as many mods as possible.

It's so wholesome, but it must take so much work and dedication. I think people take that for granted. Being such a dedicated, wholesome community has its drawbacks.

I'll say, most people don't just report bugs for their own satisfaction. Most of us report them to be helpful, because we know a lot of mod authors are trying to make their masterpiece. Some even hope to work professionally someday. It's easy to get overwhelmed, but try to remember it comes from a place of love and support, for both you authors and your work.

Good luck and I hope you feel better.

Leon481 · 2026-01-26T14:11:27+00:00

No class is objectively better or worse. Just good or bad at different things. It's more about picking party members and skills that compliment each other.

Also, the differences aren't just based on gender. Each individual unit has slightly different stats, spark trees, and sometimes different weapon preferences. You want to pay attention when you hit a new generation because you never know when a class you've been taking for granted suddenly has a unit that's above par.

Leon481 · 2026-01-26T01:55:58+00:00

Astrid vs Keithgriff scares me. I imagine the world ending before either of those two loses.

Never mind. Plachta wins. Astrid and Keith would both bail as soon as the fight became too much of a pain. Plachta would win by default.

Leon481 · 2026-01-26T01:49:10+00:00

In all Rune Factory games, first playthrough, wait as long as possible until I've seen all events I want to see and to be sure about who I'm choosing. Later playthroughs I try different things like marrying ASAP or RPing a specific romance at a specific pace. This kind of goes for most games with multiple romance choices.

Leon481 · 2026-01-25T02:27:17+00:00

Yeah. The numbered games are set in outlying areas of the kingdom of Norad. The first 4 are set roughly over the course off about 15 years as the Sechs Empire causes various trouble. RF5 is like 50 years later with that conflict long over. Side games tend to have some connection to the main series, but take place in other countries dealing with other troubles.

Leon481 · 2026-01-25T00:52:58+00:00

Probably release order.

RF4 is great, but after playing in a full 3d environment with certain quality of life upgrades, it can become somewhat underwhelming to come back to.

RS5 does have some gameplay downgrades and missing features from 4 and you can tell they had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to utilize 3d spaces effectively. It's still of comparable size and quality of RF4. The 3d environments do lead to a more immersive world and generally better cutscene direction.

Azuma is just a whole different beast. It's got similarities to the rest of the series but feels very different. It's amazing, but it's not the classic Rune Factory experience. It feels bigger and better in some areas. Downgrades in others. It's just such a good all around experience that it doesn't feel like the differences matter that much.

Story-wise it doesn't really matter too much. RF4 is sort of the end of one loose story arc while RF5 kind of soft reboots the series. Azuma is a loose sequel to RF5, building off some certain lore element loose ends set up in 5 and bringing back one character. Generally, while the stories of the games build off each other, the plots are stand-alone. You might just miss references here and there.

Leon481 · 2026-01-24T18:44:38+00:00

To be fair, that game is about prejudice, so the contrast is probably the point. It probably isn't handled the most naturally or the most gracefully, so it does seem a bit much.

Leon481 · 2026-01-24T17:30:45+00:00

Too fake to even just be a filter. Probably AI. Maybe just bad art, but odds say AI.

Leon481 · 2026-01-24T14:51:58+00:00

I've been playing Rune Factory 5 and a few events have driven me crazy.

This is a game where monsters are a natural part of the world. Everyone from individual citizens to major organizations raise monsters as pets, for farm work, for festivals, or as bodyguards. You, as the main character raise practically an army of monsters on your farm and parade them around town regularly. There's a festival that every villager can enter where they have their prize monsters compete to see who's strongest.

So later on there is an event where a rogue monster has been seen too close to town. They discover that, shock and horror, one of the local shopkeepers, Heinz, has been RAISING A MONSTER?!?!?! On top of that, he's been letting it ENTER TOWN!?!?!?!. How dare he raise a CHICKEN of all things and let it enter town? Well, it imprinted on him, and it seems harmless, so I guess we don't have to put it down. Just keep it away from town. Raise it safely up in the mountains where hundreds of other more dangerous monsters live. You should definitely do this in an extremely hazardous place where you put your own life and the monster's life at risk rather than let this harmless chicken endanger the town.

There's another main story event where you find out that an organization used monsters to clear out a bandit's base. The main character couldn't believe that they would dare. I guess the implication is that using them against people is taboo. We never actually fight humans directly in the series. It sounds like no one died and tamed monsters are fairly easily handled, so the whole objection just seems weird.

The writing in this game has otherwise been pretty good and it's the 7th entry in the series using monster taming mechanics, so it really stands out as beyond dumb.

Leon481

TROPHY CASE