#and hoooooly fuck that really sells the point that i very likely have it

[anagram-for-mongo]

My roommate really doesn't seem to understand what it's like being working class and growing up that way, looking at the middle class like they've got it made (mainly because his parents are)

[midnakoopa]

In Which I Rant About Rune Factory 4

Anyone who takes even a cursory glance at my blog over the past few months could tell that Rune Factory 4 has quickly become my new favorite game.

That being said, there are a few things that really bother me. A few things that I’d like to talk about.

SO FUCKLE THE BUCK UP IF YOU’RE GONNA READ THIS, ‘cause I’m gonna discuss, at length:

Spoilers for pretty much the whole game’s plot

Spoilers for Xiao Pai and Amber’s marriage events

Why I fucking hate Kiel

Also for the sake of not driving myself fucking insane I’m just gonna use Lest to refer to the main character.

HERE WE GO

Let’s start with the plot. Which I’ve discussed before, but fuck it, let’s do it again.

So. The plot itself, the reasons for doing whatever, I don’t have much of a problem with from a general standpoint. But holy shit, everyone in this game who plays any part in the plot is fucking worthless, including Lest.

Starting at the beginning, you’re on a ship to deliver the rune spheres, you fight some Sechs goons, whatever. After beating them, Lest turns his back on them, goes over to the edge of the ship, and holds up the rune sphere. It is at this point that one of the Sechs soldiers, in full view of the other two people on the ship who just stand there like fucking cabbages, comes over and, with a single blow to the head, somehow knocks Lest out and breaks his fucking mind in half, because of fucking course our main character has to lose their fucking memory. And I don’t have a huge problem with amnesia subplots if they’re done right. But this wasn’t? It was basically just an excuse to hide the plot from the player? But back on the subject I was on about... This is the first of many, MANY problems in this game that could’ve been avoided if literally anyone did literally anything.

Moving along, let’s talk a little bit about Doug. Doug has it out for Ventuswill, guardian dragon of Selphia, because the Sechs Empire, who have a history of being fuckers, told him she destroyed his village. I’m just gonna leave that there and move on to the rune spheres.

So... I don’t get it. From where I’m standing, the rune spheres are giant crystals that let off massive amounts of light and, presumably, power. Is that just to let the player know how important they are? Because from the way Lest treats them, you’d think they looked wholly fucking unimpressive. You can find the one in Water Ruins early, but you can’t do anything with it because ????. Like. Here’s a glowing sphere in a ruin, well that doesn’t look like something I want or am even going to acknowledge at all. And when you find the one in Yokmir Cave. Lest does this fucking do-si-do all around it with a Chipsqueek, and again, doesn’t even acknowledge it until the Chipsqueek leaves and he’s basically like “Huh, that thing sure was interested in this super uninteresting stone.”

And then there’s when the spheres were stolen. At one point, a Sechs soldier comes into town with a rune sphere and Etherlinks with a dragon. After beating this dragon back into a man, no one thinks to, oh, I don’t know, immediately apprehend him? No, instead they just stand there and let him run off. Fast-forward to Sechs Territory, we fight 3 Etherlinked Sechs soldiers. And once you beat the one with the sphere, he just lies there, sphere in his hand, out in the open. To Lest’s credit, as soon as the battle actually ends, he makes a move for it before Ethelberd comes in, but it’s kind of frustrating that you can beat the guy with the sphere first and you just have to let it lie there until the battle’s over.

Speaking of Ethelberd, there’s my next issue. An issue I like to call: FUCKING. KILL. HIM. HOOOOOLY SHIT, who fucking cares about his fucking monologues or motivations? With Ethelberd, we run into so many problems that could’ve been solved by not listening to him talk about how fucking great he is, and instead slitting his fucking throat. Like when he’s making Aquameleon. Or after said battle. Speaking of which, Doug, holy shit, maybe don’t fucking loudly announce your presence to an enemy with his back turned to you? And at the end of the second arc. After Lest and Ventuswill beat him. They just fucking stand there while Ethelberd, with the rune spheres still in hand, walks away from them while talking about how fucking great he is. Like. He’s clearly fucking trying to do something? Maybe, just maybe, while he’s weak, run him through, take the spheres, and hurl him off the fucking empire? Fucking hell.

And there’s enough about the main plot. Now I’d like to talk about those marriage events. Let’s start with Amber’s. Now. I like Amber a lot, I really do. And this whole event was sad and made me feel really bad for her. But at the same time. It’s... kind of entirely her fault? Okay, so. We learn that Ambrosia’s sharing Amber’s body, and that if Ambrosia doesn’t disappear, Amber will. Where we run into a problem here. Is that no one, literally no one involved wants Amber to disappear. The townsfolk wouldn’t want that, Lest especially in this case wouldn’t want that. Ambrosia herself says that she wants Amber to erase her, and we learn later that she, and I might be paraphrasing here, wanted to live in the world with Amber, not as her or instead of her. Amber herself says in her anime-style cutscene that she doesn’t want to vanish. And so we are left with Amber, who has full and final control over which of them vanishes, making the decision that satisfies literally no one, and in fact is saddening to all of them. So, you know. I feel like that could’ve been done better.

Moving on to Xiao Pai, by which I mean moving on to Yang Fan. Before going over the marriage event, I’d just like to talk about the other event he’s in. In which we hear about ants outside town, and go and find the ants around him. Later on, the ants get into town and chew holes in these buckets at the inn. And Yang Fan, who sells buckets, is conveniently in town for this to happen. Nothing overt, but I’m more than a little suspicious, especially after learning what a fucking asshole this guy is.

So, during Xiao Pai’s marriage event, we learn that Yang Fan, her father, started a false rumor that Lest is really going after Lin Fa, her mother. And yes, Yang Fan does say the rumor spread more quickly than he anticipated and kind of got out of hand. My takeaway from this is that the sole person he told this rumor to was Kiel. Which is supported by the fact that Kiel is the one both Lest and Xiao Pai hear this rumor from. More on that later, believe me. But back to Yang Fan, he tells Lest that he started the rumor. And he goes on to say that if he says anything to Xiao Pai about that, he’ll take her and Lin Fa and just leave?

First of all, no. For as serious as he tries to sound, this threat cannot be anything other than completely fucking empty. Because let’s assume Lest does tell Xiao Pai what her father said. The logical next step is that he is confronted on this. And then what? He just decides, yeah, no, you’re both coming with me, c’mon, we’re leaving forever. First of all, you really think Xiao Pai, who’s finally found love, and Lin Fa, who’s found happiness and livelihood in Selphia, are just gonna fucking leave with you, no questions asked? Second, you especially think that’s gonna go through after you get called out for doing something real fucking shady? No. Go fuck yourself.

Anyways. We learn that Yang Fan apparently doesn’t approve of this relationship for question mark reason. And along this event we learn even more about dad of the fucking year. Such as him traveling a lot, and taking Xiao Pai with him, leaving her away from home a lot. Which must’ve been hard on her, because we find out she would often venture out to this bridge alone and cry. Another point to add, traveling with her father, she grew up to pick up his way of speaking, something she seems a bit self-conscious about, and is often teased about, even by her father in one scene.

And at the end of it all? After everything he pulled, Yang Fan just admits it was him. Which, fine, whatever. You could make the argument that he had Xiao Pai’s interests in mind. And I would make the argument that he’s a huge prick. Because at one point Lest says something along the lines of “You knew this would work out all along, didn’t you?”, to which Yang Fan basically replies “Absolutely fucking not.”. Which implies to me that, since he didn’t know whether it would end badly or not, he had considered and was completely fucking okay with the fact that he may very well have ruined at least two people’s lives, including his own fucking daughter’s. His daughter who had quite frankly already been through way too fucking much because of him, and he comes along with this fucked up scheme that may very well have destroyed the love and happiness she finally found.

I said in a post before that at the end of it all, I didn’t despise Yang Fan like I did during the event. Looking back, I think that’s because I was in a good mood after the event ended, and his attempt at making himself look okay again kinda worked on me at the time. But since then, after looking back and thinking real hard on everything. I can safely say that I do in fact fucking hate Yang Fan. In fact, I can confidently say that I hate Yang Fan more than I hate Aura Blackquill.

AND NOW, to move onto my final point: Kiel. I fucking hate Kiel. Owing in decently large part to the fact that Xiao Pai is my favorite girl in the game, and the first I went for. Because there are at least three events, including the aforementioned marriage event, in which Kiel being a fuckwit causes her distress. And yes. To be fair. I get that Kiel is naïve. I get that he’s young. I get that he doesn’t mean any harm. And that... kind of makes it worse? Because he just never seems to fucking get it?

I said above I’d come back to this: The rumor spread in Xiao Pai’s marriage event. What has to be going on in your fucking head that you hear a rumor that might put someone’s relationship in jeopardy, and instead of, oh, I don’t know, going directly to the party being talked about to do any fact-checking, you just decide to tell literally everyone you come across? And again, he just never fucking gets it. He never gets that spreading these rumors without checking if there’s any credibility to them, surprise, surprise, might just cause people distress. Or that there are some things people just don’t want him fucking talking about.

Again, I get it. Kiel’s young, and pretty fucking stupid for someone so smart. He wants to help a lot of the time, and sometimes he even succeeds. Sometimes I want to like him. But he’s just so fucking clueless in ways that are damaging to characters I like so much better than him. Which makes me like him less.

AND THERE GOES THE BATTLE. That’s all I’ve gotta say, and I honestly feel a lot better after saying it. Those are pretty much all my biggest complaints about Rune Factory 4 out there now. It continues to be one of my favorite games, maybe even my very favorite game at the time I’m typing this. And not even my own complaints are gonna change that. Take easy, all.

Koopa, out.