Cozytober - Day 13 - Apple Pie

How... How does that even work? Don't question it.

Part 11 of my RF4 child redesigning project: Xiao Pai!

Sorry for taking a while to get this one out!

For Xiao we have Bao and Emery!

Xiao Pai and Lin Fa’s names seem to be a mix of two names, but for Bao I only went for one (and went for a Chinese name, for obvious reasons). With Emery I decided to go for something that was specific to Xiao Pai’s character, which is that she loves flowers, specifically emery and crystal flowers.

I like to think that Bao would be similar to his grandmother, in that he messes up but it somehow always works out for him. He’s aloof, but definitely not stupid. Bao has amazing focus and tends to not pay attention to anything other than the task at hand. He’s sweet and kind and spends most of his time helping his grandmother and mother at the Bell Hotel. Whenever he isn’t helping out he likes to read at Dragon Lake, or cook.

Emery is also a sweetheart, but since she’s younger than Bao she doesn’t get many chores. Her older brother also has a tendency to take her chores and finish them for her. She doesn’t mind since it gives her more time to go around and socialize. She loves talking to the travelers that come through Selphia and asks them about their stories all the time. Emery would love to travel with her family someday. She’s also precocious and nosy.

I definitely wanted to go for the Chinese-inspired outfits that Xiao and her mother wear. I also considered “referencing” Xiao’s father when making these but didn’t since he doesn’t have a unique appearance (rip). Also, I didn’t intend for Bao to be doing the “gotta be one of my favorite genders” pose and I didn’t realize that was what it was until after I sketched him lmao. So shout out to Bao, gotta be one of my favorite genders.

And finally, next will be Amber!

this game is gayer than I initially thought

lest wearing a wedding dress my beloved

in case ur having trouble figuring out why using a news article of a singular person who happens to be a minority who did something really bad isnt good proof that the entire minority is evil. allow me to explain by way of this xkcd comic

There are a lot of interesting characters in this game...

(^_^)

blorbos (orb variety)

Arthur wouldn’t have to work the fields if he arrived as normal, but a guy can dream

Actually, the whole "Arthur and Raguna are distantly related" thing is pretty interesting from a lore standpoint because at some point during Act 1 (I can't remember if the conversation happens after Amber or Dylas's rescue), Ventuswill explains that the reason she thought Frey/Lest was a member of the royal family was because of their Earthmate status.

Like even though it doesn't make sense in regards to getting the protagonist mixed up with Arthur specifically (since he is all but stated not to be an Earthmate), thinking Frey/Lest is royalty because of that does make sense because not only is it confirmed that there are Earthmates in the royal family, but one of those Earthmates was the protagonist of the first game in the series as well as one of the spin-offs.

There's also the fact that Frey/Lest ultimately ends up fighting Ethelberd, who is so bitter about his defeat at Raguna's hands that he is attempting a total genocide of all Earthmates while simultaneously trying to obtain their power, and if Frey ends up marrying Arthur, she does become a princess proper. So yeah, it's interesting to make comparisons between Raguna and Frey/Lest just because of how much their stories relate to one another without actually intersecting.

I’ll bury this post eventually but likeee so crazy being trans and always being encouraged not to identify as that but as an ‘actual’ gender and then the people pertaining to any genders don’t claim you and always make backhanded comments at you to make sure you know you don’t belong and like it makes up 90% of my dysphoria to know I can’t talk about past or current biological experiences anymore nor any future ones because it won’t be ‘the same’ as my cis comrades’ soooo where do i belong then

look what charms got here hehehe!!!! <333

Spooktober - Day 12 - Runes

Runes will gather like dew when the crop's ready to harvest. Sometimes, it's nice to leave the everything alone, and admire the glittering view.

Part 10 of my RF4 child redesigning project: Dolce!

For Dolce we have Enoch, Minerva (Minnie), and Dahlia!

Basically, all names that I would give to goth children.

Enoch is a grumpy older brother. He is much like his mother, closed off and quiet with little patience for more outgoing people (Pico). Dolce enjoys making clothes (especially knitting), and Enoch took on this skill at a young age. He and Dolce will literally sit together for hours, barely talking, while they work on their projects. Enoch would like to have his own clothing store when he’s older, preferably one in the Capital (even if he doesn’t like people very much). He finds his younger sister Minerva to be a little annoying and avoids her like the plague.

Minerva is an excitable, charismatic girl. She easily makes friends with everyone around her. She takes an interest in nearly everything, and has a variety of skills and hobbies to keep her busy. One day it might be making medicine with Grandma Nancy, and the next it might be music lessons from Margaret. Either way, she fills up her days with lots of activities and friends. Minerva adores her family, and especially likes when Pico is around.

Dahlia is the youngest, and tends to keep to herself. However, she will light up whenever you ask her about her favorite subject: spiders. She loves them with all her little heart and spends a lot of her time studying them. Dahlia likes to walk around town with her pet spider, Bernard, and show him things (”here’s the restaurant, here’s the observatory...”). She tends to spend most of her time looking around for more spiders.

For all of Dolce’s children I wanted to go with looks similar to hers. Dolce is stated to make clothes for Pico, so I like to think she would make her children clothes, too. I also enjoy Dolce’s aesthetic a lot, so I wanted to lean into it.

Next will be Xiao Pai!

a gift for you

Micah looks so weird with his big puffy trousers, it makes his waist look so thin, I wonder what he would look like without them. Would he have unrealistic proportions?

Apparently no, he looks fine, it's just that his trousers are too poofy that they dont show his legs and it looks weird.

Contemplating more Rune Factory “Special” changes/updates I’d like. In this case, things I’d like to see changed/added in a hypothetical, absolutely NEVER going to happen Rune Factory 4 Special+ (or Super Special, or Special 2, etc.)

Obviously since this game already has an updated rerelease, this isn’t happening. But there are still a few ways I think it could be brought even closer to perfection.

- So most of my wants for a theoretical “5 Special” came from 4 Special. Similarly there WERE actually several upgrades or quality-of-life changes made in 5 I’d love to see come back to 4 (or more realistically, maybe they’ll show up in 3 Special!).

- PLEASE let me just examine the stone/lumber box and add in all the materials I have instead of manually taking out stacks and putting them in. You can also do this for fodder bins and the fertilizer, which is nice, but the stone/lumber is the BIG one.

- Automatically picking up items as you run over them is great! I’d love to see that in other titles.

- Tabbing between storage options or categories when cooking/forging/crafting is super convenient. Hopefully that comes back, because after getting used to it in 5 I keenly feel its absence and get a smidge annoyed in 4 when I have to make something and then back out entirely to choose to make something else.

- Make Illuminata a romance option! It’s not clear if she was ever intended to be one and then scrapped, but personally I think she was. She is the only character outside the marriage candidates to have a swimsuit model & sprite, and she has several town events where she is a primary focus, similar to the events that are prerequisites for other bachelor/ettes. Plus she has lots of dialogue explicitly pointing out that she’s single and WANTS to find love. There’s really no reason NOT to make her a love interest other than her taking care of Amber, but if Amber is old enough to be romanced/married, then she’s old enough to live alone too. And Illuminata could continue to run her store after marrying the same way that every other love interest continues to do their job.

- I actually prefer the dragons in 5, but I know A LOT of people would love to see Venti as a love interest, and I’m not opposed to that. She’d be locked to a post-game romance, but she does have a human appearance and she seems to be into Lest/Frey (given her conversation where she blushes and starts to ask “If I were a human...”). Narratively she IS the person Lest/Frey cares about most so she’s got the role of a love interest already, kind of. It would be difficult to do since they’d need to add/change the story to allow her to change to her human form, and probably add a few town events for her, but it would be great if it happened. And perhaps including this would help the... abrupt ending to Act 3.

- Make it a little less ridiculous to romance Doug. I understand narratively why his friendship is INITIALLY gated at 3, but I think it’s ridiculous that it stays there until you’ve beaten Act 2 (which is basically the end of the story proper...). I think it would make sense to unlock the initial gate near the end of or after Act 1. After Doug comes around and basically decides to trust you and help Venti, or right after you beat Act 1 (saving Leon), I think you should be able to progress his friendship further. That said, it makes sense to keep his romance gated, so maybe until you’ve beaten Act 2, he stops progressing at LV 6. This way he won’t be SO far behind everyone else and if you want to romance him you’ll be able to do so almost immediately after he becomes available instead of taking several weeks just to get him from 3 to 7. As someone who dated multiple people in a run, Doug is at a HUGE disadvantage due to his late availability combo-ed with his affection almost surely being worse than everyone else. You either have to wait to date ANYONE to try and snag him first at LV 7 or basically give up in favor of dating others because it will only get harder to date him with every subsequent boyfriend and he will probably always lag behind in terms of affection, making any other guy easier to add to the harem by comparison. Literally all of this is mitigated by just raising his gated affection from 3 to 6 partway through the story. Depending on how long it takes you to complete Act 2 and whether you’re plying him with gifts, you might not even HIT the new limit, but even if you do, if you want to romance Doug it would be much quicker and easier now.

- Give players the ability to manipulate town events, at least a little. Technically players can already manipulate town events by determining when one happens and then just save scumming until they get what they want, but I want an in-game method that’s intended to help get the events you want. That said this IS an RNG system and I kind of like that. I wouldn’t want it to give you complete control. But I think something like adding “Orders” to the game at some point that allow you to, say, spawn “only town events involving [name]” would be GREAT. I won’t get into the particulars of how early the feature should be allowed (personally I think end of Act 1, but it could also be after Act 2 or an “Extra Order” reward for beating Act 3 and available from the beginning in any new game) or how much each Order would cost. I just think being able to force the game to only pick from town events involving a specific person (and including any mini-events) would be nice. Once you’ve seen all town events involving that person (excluding the marriage event, which has priority anyway) the order is automatically canceled. You could also cancel it yourself at any time. With this feature it would be MUCH easier to get the prerequisites for your intended spouse, but there is still some element of RNG considering everyone has at least a few events they’re involved in that AREN’T their needed events. This would also be great for trying to get mini events for characters you haven’t seen before.

- Some kind of weather forecast would be nice. With the exception of typhoons, people in town only comment on the weather that is currently happening. And you can still get taken by surprise if no one happens to mention the incoming typhoon or if you don’t talk to everyone. I believe weather is probably RNG as well, but if it was randomized and set like a week in advance, it would be nice if there was a way to check the weather for the next few days. Obviously this is most useful for making sure you KNOW a typhoon or snowstorm is coming and could wreck your farm. It also has other small uses - if you know a thunderstorm is happening you can remind yourself to go to the area that requires that to unlock. You can plan outdoor dates knowing the weather in advance. I don’t know about the airship or observatory but I KNOW there are variations of the lake date depending on the weather, so if you want to see them all you need the weather to comply. This way you’d know ahead of time and be able to plan for it.

- Lastly, either the game needs to be smarter about characters equipping everything they’re “given” or it needs to give players a way to directly, manually change other’s equipment from all the items they have. This is MOSTLY a problem with Kiel specifically since he has a reoccurring quest where he asks you to give him a weak shield and then he equips it EVEN IF IT’S SUBSTANTIALLY WORSE than whatever he had previously (and thus the better shield just DISAPPEARS), but in general I wish characters wouldn’t just automatically equip whatever you give them. If the system checked to be sure it was better than what they already had, that would be ideal. Of course, then you’d have to define what makes it better - which stats matter most, or is it the difficulty level of crafting/forging the item, etc. Alternatively, characters could have a stash of every equipment item you’ve ever given them and you can manually go in and decide what they actually equip (similar to the original .hack games, if anyone’s played those. In that game, characters did automatically equip “stronger” weapons/armor but you could manually change them to whatever you wanted that they had).

Overall I think 4 Special is an AMAZING game and I love it a lot. Most of my complaints are quality-of-life changes, compared to my more substantial issues with 5 (which is still like, but not as much. I like these games mostly for the social/romance aspect and that’s where 4 blows 5 out of the water even despite the RNG of town events making it way harder to actually marry who you want). In both games I long for more love interests, but that can’t be helped. Partly I just crave the extra content that would bring, though I do genuinely like and would want to marry some of those people if I could.