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Official Rune Factory Frontier Thread

With what controller do you guys play this game with?

I bought the game last night but haven't played it yet because I hate the Wiimote. Should I go buy a classic controller or start playing with the Wiimote and nunchuck? I've never played an actual game on the Wii, just Wii fit, sports and Animal Crossing with the Wiimote but I'm looking for a better option.
 
VelvetMouth said:
With what controller do you guys play this game with?

I bought the game last night but haven't played it yet because I hate the Wiimote. Should I go buy a classic controller or start playing with the Wiimote and nunchuck? I've never played an actual game on the Wii, just Wii fit, sports and Animal Crossing with the Wiimote but I'm looking for a better option.

Well, I think if you use the Classic Controller, you can't knock on people's doors. Not what effect that has in game, I'm not sure.

However I have a question, and no offense is meant, but why are you keeping your Wii if you really don't have intention of playing games on it (due to you hate the Wii Remote)?
 
I'm using a CC (since the last HM game I spent any serious time on was the SNES version :lol ), my wife uses the mote/chuck method and prefers that. I haven't really seen much difference in the two control styles. I'd go with whichever you felt more comfortable with, but I don't recall there being any frequent use of motion or pointer controls (if there are any at all) during my wife playing, so using the mote/chuck shouldn't pose any difficulties in that way, so you should at least give it a try yourself first and see.
 
there's no motion control except for the simple use of the weapons and tools, but the main button for that action is the A button
infact you can set off the motion movement use in the option menu

i use wiimote+nunchunk and i find it great, really relaxing
 
Hobbun said:
Well, I think if you use the Classic Controller, you can't knock on people's doors. Not what effect that has in game, I'm not sure.

However I have a question, and no offense is meant, but why are you keeping your Wii if you really don't have intention of playing games on it (due to you hate the Wii Remote)?

This will be my first 'real' game that I play with it. With Wii Sports and Animal Crossing the Wiimote is great but I wasn't sure how well it would work with Rune Factory since it's a more involved game. This is my first Rune Factory game, I've only played Harvest Moon on the Cube, Gameboy and DS.

I'm going to pick up classic controller and try both out.
 
Question for you guys... Has anyone tried upgrading your sword or weapon of choice with the item + 2 scrap iron trick? Some of the items for the two-handed swords (and I imagine the rest of the weapons) are boss-drops and I don't know if I want to farm the lava ruins boss to get a high level
red core
for one of the swords.

The game is a lot of fun. Greenifier is looking much cheaper after a season of growing an entire field full of crops. So that means that at least the flowers I use for crafting will be of a higher level.

Valtor - I think this game actually works better as a console (Wii) game than a DS game, just because it's not the sort of game I pick up and play in 15 minute increments. That said, RF2 is a great game and I'm enjoying it as well. Each iteration of the series has improved on aspects of the previous game. RF1 I found somewhat tedious in that you had to farm to unlock doors in the dungeons. The developers seem to have realized that and ditched it in favor of better mechanics in RF2/RFF (well, I assume they didn't keep that in RF2, I haven't actually gotten to the real dungeon crawling yet in it).
 
A few things my wife recently discovered in regards to Monster Pets:

-Walk Your Dinosaur: If you take them out for a walk you can get a bonus to your friendship with them similar to petting them if you take them to the Beach, Mountain Road, Town Square, Whale Island, or a dungeon (you need only walk through the entrance to get the bonus). It'll say "{MONSTER NAME} seems Happy" when it works. You can do this with all your monsters once a day with only the first such area you take them to counting. Green Ruins is a good place to exploit this trick if you have a lot of monsters.

-When you've been told about the Wooly Constellation whichever monster you take with you to see it will get a Friendship bonus with you.

Oh, has anyone received a letter like this? My wife just got it:

Stars

Oh, stars in the heavens,
I wish to become a snack shop owner,
so that I may eat snacks all day!

$@%&

That bottom bit is in the spot where the senders name usually goes, and it's sorted under a "?" stamp on the table. First we've ever seen that type of mail come in.
 
I started playing with the Wiimote and nunchuck and I don't know what I was pissing about because it works great :lol

Where do I find iron though? I really need to upgrade my watering can because I'm watering myself to death and so far I've only found scrap iron.
 
VelvetMouth said:
Where do I find iron though? I really need to upgrade my watering can because I'm watering myself to death and so far I've only found scrap iron.
I find Iron in the Green ruins, its just not as common as Scrap Iron.

I keep screwing up and wasting time. I first tried to buy the forge upgrade from kross. I tried my hardest and came up to 10 wood short on Friday. There were stumps to cut all around but I was out of RP and almost dead. I hated watching the rest of the day tick by knowing if I could only get it built I could upgrade the next day from the town square peddler.

So no biggie, I upgraded it that Monday and waited the whole week. Stupid me, I kept thinking the Forge upgrade was 6000 gold and so I spent my money throughout the week and just made sure to save that much. Next Holiday comes, its 8000 gold >:( As far as I know there is no way to instantly make money throughout the day. So now I have to wait an additional week.
 
RuneFactoryFanboy said:
I find Iron in the Green ruins, its just not as common as Scrap Iron.

I keep screwing up and wasting time. I first tried to buy the forge upgrade from kross. I tried my hardest and came up to 10 wood short on Friday. There were stumps to cut all around but I was out of RP and almost dead. I hated watching the rest of the day tick by knowing if I could only get it built I could upgrade the next day from the town square peddler.

So no biggie, I upgraded it that Monday and waited the whole week. Stupid me, I kept thinking the Forge upgrade was 6000 gold and so I spent my money throughout the week and just made sure to save that much. Next Holiday comes, its 8000 gold >:( As far as I know there is no way to instantly make money throughout the day. So now I have to wait an additional week.

I might not be going far enough into the Green ruins. Do you get iron and metals from breaking rocks like in HM or just killing monsters? My RP runs out so fast when I'm doing work. Maybe I should cut down on farming until I have my tools upgraded.
 
Lonewolf_92 said:
A few things my wife recently discovered in regards to Monster Pets:

-Walk Your Dinosaur: If you take them out for a walk you can get a bonus to your friendship with them similar to petting them if you take them to the Beach, Mountain Road, Town Square, Whale Island, or a dungeon (you need only walk through the entrance to get the bonus). It'll say "{MONSTER NAME} seems Happy" when it works. You can do this with all your monsters once a day with only the first such area you take them to counting. Green Ruins is a good place to exploit this trick if you have a lot of monsters.

-When you've been told about the Wooly Constellation whichever monster you take with you to see it will get a Friendship bonus with you.

Oh, has anyone received a letter like this? My wife just got it:

Stars

Oh, stars in the heavens,
I wish to become a snack shop owner,
so that I may eat snacks all day!

$@%&

That bottom bit is in the spot where the senders name usually goes, and it's sorted under a "?" stamp on the table. First we've ever seen that type of mail come in.



That bit about the letter. It's a subevent relating to the constellations. In fact, all the constellations have subevents linked to them.
 
Just started playing this tonight after having it from GameFly for the past month or so. Having a lot of fun thus far although for the life of me I can't find the hammer or axe so half my field is a mess and I can't seem to beat the Green Dungeon. I'm sure it'll work out in the end.

I've cultivated a handful of turnip crops..strawberries should be done in a day or two. Looking forward to it. How long do the seasons last? 14 days (just a guess)?
 
Meier: Befriend the villagers. They will eventually give it to you

So a sad funny note. I finally started it up again after a little hiatus. It's summer, and the next day it's rainy. Awesome! I spent all day exploring the Lava ruins. Next day, it's a fucking storm ;_;
 
How long do the seasons last?
30 days. There's a calendar next to your diary.

So a sad funny note. I finally started it up again after a little hiatus. It's summer, and the next day it's rainy. Awesome! I spent all day exploring the Lava ruins. Next day, it's a fucking storm ;_;
That's why I don't plant anything in my field in summer anymore. You're guaranteed to have at least one storm. Summer means dungeon farming for me.

Anyway, I'm about 130 hours into the game. Haven't gotten married yet, but I beat teh main storyline. Still have 2 dungeons to finish too. Right now focusing on Crop levels, flowers, heart levels and constelations. I'm going to start trying to make greenifier soon as it's expensive as hell to buy.
 
Scrubking said:
30 days. There's a calendar next to your diary.
Yeah I ended up finally noticing the calendar and seeing that when playing some more yesterday. I made it fairly far in the Green Ruins but these bees absolutely WRECKED me and I died of poison. I was like 2-3 kills from leveling up and re-filling my HP too. :(

It seems like you must need to be an insanely high level to progress far on Whale Island... the bulls are absurd! I finally got a barn so I am looking forward to having some animals to help out around the place. I have all of my tools now but they're naturally still cheap so I can't do a ton with them yet.
 
Progressing in dungeons and overcoming monsters is more about your equipment than your level. Don't ignore the forge and the craft table.
 
Meier said:
Yeah I ended up finally noticing the calendar and seeing that when playing some more yesterday. I made it fairly far in the Green Ruins but these bees absolutely WRECKED me and I died of poison. I was like 2-3 kills from leveling up and re-filling my HP too. :(

It seems like you must need to be an insanely high level to progress far on Whale Island... the bulls are absurd! I finally got a barn so I am looking forward to having some animals to help out around the place. I have all of my tools now but they're naturally still cheap so I can't do a ton with them yet.

The buffamoos (bulls) are nothiing. What you want to be careful for in that fin area are the wolves. Thosew things will tear you apart. One big thing I suggest to new rff players, since you missed the calendar, read the manual inside out. It gives you a decent foundation to work with on the game.
 
Life is so good on the farming side! Up to the 3rd week of Fall now, and my runeys are basically in prosperity. (With a grass factory) It's just so insane, I get crops and grass every single day! I can barely focus on the dungeon crawling :lol But it's helping me get my upgrades quick. Speaking of upgrades, or at least recipes books... I got a swimsuit book! YES, I can gift swimsuits to the ladies. The customization/accessorizing in this game is so AWESOME.
 
Okay triple post, but whatever. I just love this game! I'm like 55 hours in now. I think I realized why I really love this game so much, or maybe I mentioned it earlier. They really paid a lot of attention to every little detail when it came to interactions and events. IE: It 's raining today and Mist being the giant weirdo she is, decides to visit. So whatever, it's Mist being Mist. I go on with my business of making some seeds to start up another batch of Spinach and then afterwards she makes commentary about it. Then I realized I should try interacting with the other makers in my house. Low and behold, she commented on all of them, and more so if you're trying to something turnip related. So fricken awesome. Of course, she also made a lot of silly turnip commentary like how you can't make a turnip yogurt with it's maker or something.

Aside from that, has anyone tried pissing off Melody at the bathouse? Try walking into the Women's side a lot and see what happens :D I didn't realize you could also listen in on her babbling while she's bathing too if your FP is high enough. Man, just so many little details like this really fascinate me. It really keeps the experience fresh.
 
Mist continues to be as hilariously weird as she was in RF1.

In fact no Mist (Mana is a poor man's Mist at best) is why I like RFF and RF1 more than RF2.

Another great interaction involves shipping turnips and listening to Rosetta's little shipping box speech. Mist done got told!

I'm really enjoying this game. They fixed the economy issues from one, made the dungeons a nice length, added in quite a bit more day to day dialog and made it just a bit harder to woo everyone so I won't have the game beat by the first winter ala RF1.

The new girls are fairly quirky as well, which is always a good sign.
 
The attention to detail in this game is really good and considering how deep the game is it's really amazing. I really hope there is a sequel.
 
I'm in the beginning of my first summer (schools been tough lately and I can't play as much)

The Runey thing is driving me nuts. I'm not sure exactly how to manage it. I try to spread them around but it wastes a lot of day time running around sucking them all up and then trekking over to another corner of the map to release. Then withing 2 or so days I need to do it again.
 
RuneFactoryFanboy said:
I'm in the beginning of my first summer (schools been tough lately and I can't play as much)

The Runey thing is driving me nuts. I'm not sure exactly how to manage it. I try to spread them around but it wastes a lot of day time running around sucking them all up and then trekking over to another corner of the map to release. Then withing 2 or so days I need to do it again.


Grow grass. Lots and lots of grass. Then use the grass to increase the other two.

There are good ratios somewhere on Gamefaqs.
 
RuneFactoryFanboy said:
I'm in the beginning of my first summer (schools been tough lately and I can't play as much)

The Runey thing is driving me nuts. I'm not sure exactly how to manage it. I try to spread them around but it wastes a lot of day time running around sucking them all up and then trekking over to another corner of the map to release. Then withing 2 or so days I need to do it again.

If you're going for full prosperity, at some point. You're going to want to make a grass factory. Which is setting aside an area (South District or Mist's farm since those are the best places to amass grass runeys) to farm grass runeys. The trick here is to have 60 water and 10 grass. Next day, you'll have 45 grass and like 28-29 grass. Farm the grass until there's only 10 again and replenish the water. From there you just rinse and repeat daily. You don't have to keep doing it daily. In the long run, when you manage enough grass on the side, it becomes like a twice a month routine.

Now aside from the Grass, here's another thing about prosperity itself. When an area is in prosperity, all runeys except for grass go up each day and never eat each other unlike a normal area. Grass tho, will deplete two a day, so that's where the grass factory comes into play.

But anyway, what you should do first is get your Homestead into prosperity, as that's also the only other place that doesn't follow the runey food chain. Once you got that going, you can start up your grass factory. Now with grass and homestead in toll, you can start siphoning little by little from your homestead to replenish your factory. But also, if you have other areas in prosperity, you can use those areas to refill it as well, or use it to refill other areas. It's a slow and steady process though, don't try to tackle it all at once. I just lucked out on this since I was just balancing them daily, then suddenly my homestead reached prosperity by itself. From there it was smooth cruising and insane income. Really though, once areas in prosperity, you only have to worry about the grass instead of the others, since they keep amassing by themselves. Which makes the workload on runeys a ton easier, but also more rewarding.

And finally just a reminder, prosperity is when an area has 35 of each runey. So there you go!
 
Wow thanks for the help. So you really have to balance them daily for a while?

My Earth Runeys keep getting eaten up and I am in short supply. What makes the different types generate? I'm low on Earth Runeys across the board.
 
RuneFactoryFanboy said:
Wow thanks for the help. So you really have to balance them daily for a while?

My Earth Runeys keep getting eaten up and I am in short supply. What makes the different types generate? I'm low on Earth Runeys across the board.

Earth? You mean wood? Generally runeys die off if their food supply gets cut off. So heres a reminder on their feeding habits. Water eats rock. Rock eats wood and wood eats grass. Nothing eats water and grass doesn't eat anything. The thing to watch out for are the bonus areas and the weather. Like when it rains. Water definitely cultivates better. So it usually throws off the balance.

Another thing. Runeys on the homestead only grows runeys if you have fullgrown crops and grass. One thing people do is leave them unharvested for the runeys. But. If you have prosperity going where crops regrow the next day. You can harvest them and still get the runey bonus since it regrows next day. Anyway, knnowing this, you won't have the good prosperity on homestead during winter. So that's why folks go for prosperity over the yeaar to make winter easier. But don't let that get you down. Runeys still prosper normally during winter in other areas.
 
Ah I've finally made some real progress in the Lava ruins. :D 68 hours in now, and unlocked up to floor 5. It's the 30th of Autumn now, and actually it's already snowing. How fricken cool is that?! I know the day before some of the villagers started to comment about preparing for winter as well. I love making my way to winter, it usually has my most favorite seasonal theme. Magical Melody was the only one that shocked me a bit, it was a bit too festival/seasonal for my taste. Man, the snowflakes are pretty neat too. If they're close enough to the screen they actually resemble a 6pointed snowflake.
 
Now it's the first day of winter, and I wake up to hear the fireplace crackling. The lamps are also bright as can be. Trampoli itself is quite a sight to behold. I don't know if it gets bright yet, I just had to stop and go post more. But it's pretty atmospheric with how winter should be. I really love how much attention to detail these guys put into it. It just cannot be said enough.
 
alright, i bought this game months ago, but since the Wii was shipped out for repairs i couldn't play it til i got home. something like 30 hours or so in and the first week of fall is closing, and ONLY NOW do i understand how runeys work. MOTHERFUCKER. my land has been relatively balanced all along, but i'm going to have to completely restructure the rest of Trampoli. i set a few grass runeys out where there aren't any at all, and i'm going to start redistributing them everywhere, but damn this is going to take forever. good thing harvesting doesnt take any RP...

been going after Anette pretty much to the exclusion of all others (energetic petite blonde who isn't full of herself? YES PLEASE) and being able to clear my field totally. i only started mining silver not too long ago and am currently attempting for self sufficiency on the farm. i'll need a bigger barn for that so i can hold 5 of each product giving livestock. everyone else is help so that the only thing i have to do is help after there's a rainstorm, mine, kill shit, and make shit. i should be set with that by winter if not within the next two weeks.

but the whole runey shit is REALLY annoying, and i didn't quite understand what it was about. now i do, to my significant displeasure...
 
kiryogi said:
Now it's the first day of winter, and I wake up to hear the fireplace crackling. The lamps are also bright as can be. Trampoli itself is quite a sight to behold. I don't know if it gets bright yet, I just had to stop and go post more. But it's pretty atmospheric with how winter should be. I really love how much attention to detail these guys put into it. It just cannot be said enough.
That sounds great. I'm actually halfway through summer myself, haven't found the time to really dump into this like I want to.

I feel kinda stuck. Once I get to level 4/5 with the ogres they beat the snot out of me. I want to make some new accessories/weapons to compete down there but Selphy charges my first born for any of her advanced books. So, I go day by day waiting for my tomato crops to come in and a hurricane comes through. There goes 1/3 of my tomatoes. I’m hoping they still give me some substantial cash when they come in, I planted some Cucumbers in the green cave to have some increased year-round revenue.

The whole Runey thing is still a headache to me. It would be leagues better if I could just check the Runey levels at any time. As it stands now there are like 8 some locations I have to keep track of and can only check it on that machine in the clock tower or if I find Candy (who is not reliable). Which means I’m constantly walking all the way to the CT, writing the entire thing out on paper since there is no way I can remember what’s what, and going about distributing. It takes up pretty much an entire day to do that.

Is livestock a good source of income? I’ve been saving up feed and now have about 150 pieces.
 
Is livestock a good source of income?

Nope. They are terrible for income. Their products have very low value and it takes forever to raise their friend levels. I 've got over 170 hours into the game and my cow is only at level 5 (I brush it every day).

If you want fast income make a good fishing rod and fish in the last level of any of the dungeons. If you have high cooking skill you can cook the fish for even more money.
 
Fishing on the last level eh? I'll have to try it, will Green Ruins or Whale Island be better?

I figured out to plant moon flowers by the little girls house on the Whale Island Fin to get her to appear. Do I have to keep watering those flowers now? Also, she said that gate behind her house will sometimes open but after checking it everyday it hasn't yet. Anyone know what triggers it?
 
RuneFactoryFanboy said:
Fishing on the last level eh? I'll have to try it, will Green Ruins or Whale Island be better?

I figured out to plant moon flowers by the little girls house on the Whale Island Fin to get her to appear. Do I have to keep watering those flowers now? Also, she said that gate behind her house will sometimes open but after checking it everyday it hasn't yet. Anyone know what triggers it?

I've never fished on Whale island so I don't know. The last level of grass, fire and ice dungeons offer the best fish for the respective seasons.

If you already are able to talk to iris you don't have to keep watering the flowers (though you will need to keep that patch of ground in mind in the future). If you want to get through the gate you have to become better friends with Iris.
 
Holy shit, my farm just got ROCKED! Literally! There are rocks and stumps everywhere now... was this their equivalent of a hurricane? No one has said a single thing about it!
 
Just played this for a few hours, now on my fourth spring day. Kinda overwhelmed by the lack of direction or tutorial right after the first few errands, but that's fine. Loving it so far.
 
The boat race is pretty tough. I am on my first year so I'm not sure if you're expected to win, but I lost 209 to 197 and then reloaded and got 218 but Annette ended up with 320 (!!). Oh well, mask it is..
 
I've put about 25 hours or so into the game so far. Beat the Green Ruins. Started the Lava Ruins, but haven't explored hardly any of that area unlocked by Iris' friend on Whale Island.

Right now, I am just trying to get more gold and all while trying to forge new items.

I have a question: I didn't buy all of the books from Selphy before completing the Green Ruins and she went ahead and upgraded. When I buy the upgraded books, do I automatically get those previous recipes or what?

LOVING the game so far. It's so, so awesome and there is always something to do. I need to spend a few days clearing out my field, though. A hurricane hit and dropped White and Black Grass, withered weeds, stumps, boulders, and twigs and now I gotta get all of that lumber up so I can upgrade my kitchen

:D
 
Figure to post my impressions-been playing this game for a while in winter-the best rf game yet. Blizzard decimate my tree runneys:( Spent next day rebalancing the runneys. Anyone know if the different rune stones you can put in to open door in whale island cave affects whats in the treasure chest? Enjoying all the va and small events with villagers. Right now in snow ruins lvl 60-whats the best weapon/accs to beat snow ruins-i've only visited the first few floors. Can beat enemies fairly easy with shine blade/dew pendant/fluffy hat/poison-paralysis-aqua rings I change them base on enemy I'm fighting. X-seed did an escellent job on this game, hope they do RF3 too.
 
I just played the game last week, and I am 22 hours in, 25 summer.

If it wasn't for the posts above about the Runeys I think i would have NEVER figured it out at all:lol man are these things tough to handle >:(

Oh and don't make the mistake i made, appearntly you can only trigger the Iris even't if you plant a Moon? flower at spring, and i didn't find out about that until 28 spring :lol
so i tried to plant some of the summer flowers, they bloomed alright but the Iris event didn't trigger :( I don't know if this affect my progress but now i am busy with my crops and Lava ruins. screw these Runeys I'll take care of these guys at the autumn.
 
just recently got the game

and im hooked

its so beautiful and calm.. like all the harvest moon games i adored

yet its not boring because of the dungeon crawling... and monster collecting..
 
I'm a huge Harvest Moon fan, but my only Rune Factory experience has been with the first DS title. I liked it, but not nearly as much as Magical Melody or even the DS Island of Happiness. Is this one improved enough to where I should check it out, or is sort of more of the same? Also, does anybody know if its had a permanent price drop anywhere yet?

EDIT: I forgot to ask, how's the social element in the game? That's one thing I loved about A Wonderful Life (which was my very first HM game). I would just chill at the bar and night and interact with the townsfolk, and it was a blast. I've found subsequent releases though to not be as strong in that area, and particularly the first Rune Factory game if I'm remembering correctly.
 
EzLink said:
I'm a huge Harvest Moon fan, but my only Rune Factory experience has been with the first DS title. I liked it, but not nearly as much as Magical Melody or even the DS Island of Happiness. Is this one improved enough to where I should check it out, or is sort of more of the same? Also, does anybody know if its had a permanent price drop anywhere yet?

EDIT: I forgot to ask, how's the social element in the game? That's one thing I loved about A Wonderful Life (which was my very first HM game). I would just chill at the bar and night and interact with the townsfolk, and it was a blast. I've found subsequent releases though to not be as strong in that area, and particularly the first Rune Factory game if I'm remembering correctly.

No drop yet in Canada from what I've seen... if that's of any help. :P

I've only played A Wonderful Life and Frontier, so I can't really compare Frontier to most other games and such. :P

But it's fun and looks great! It's said to be FAR easier to do farming because it's now 3D, I heard it was a pain in the DS games because of the grid-based movement.

Helpful advice for whenever you're interested in a game; watch videos, read reviews, only you can decide truly if you want it or not!
 
Okay, after browsing gamefaqs and finding out that you can fucking breed Unicorns in this game, I've decided that after I finish Little King's Story I'll be picking this up
 
Hero of Legend said:
But it's fun and looks great! It's said to be FAR easier to do farming because it's now 3D, I heard it was a pain in the DS games because of the grid-based movement.

Ehhh. Both 2-D games worked just fine for me. This one, I was very grateful to get the tool upgrades in, because trying to target individual squares was unreliable at best.

Very good game, though.
 
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