Hi! I post about my adventures in videogames here.
(Originally posted in 2022 in my tumblr)
This is coming from someone who has made it a tradition to marry every single candidate in every game since RF2. Discovering new dialogue and new sides to each character is extremely fun and rewarding to me, so when I began playing RF5, I was excited for more of the excellent experience RF4 had to give when it came to romancing.
But... I'm so disappointed with what I've experienced , after 150 hours, that I can't be bothered to keep the tradition I've had for over a decade going.
I've played these games since I learned how to read. My playtime through the entire series is likely over a couple thousand hours. I grew up loving every single one of these games.
That's why, to me, waiting 10 years for what ultimately ended up being a a buggy, unfinished-seeming game in my favorite series ever is something unbeliveable.
I will start off with the marriage aspect as it was by far the biggest disappointment for me. The dialogue itself is broken.
MARRIAGE:
Right off the bat: I've married 10 out of the 12 marriage candidates, seen all their events, and completed the story.
The married life aspect itself is glitchy.
By that, I mean that Scarlett keeps spouting off romantic-only lines after I'm married to soneone else, the MC keeps asking when Murakumo's birthday is when we're married, Priscilla talks multiple times about how she wants to live with me and blushes about marriage when we're married... Scarlett talks about children as if they've been born even though they haven't, and somehow the MC insists on asking Cecil what he likes to eat when they've been married for over 6 years.
Couple that with the fact that daily lines are no longer completely unique like in RF4 (where you could go over a year with no repeat lines from your spouse), and it becomes difficult to get the married lines to trigger. Murakumo refused to do so for TWO WEEKS, only going on and on about his birthday and Misa being scary over and over again. Over the three months of daily talks with him after marriage, I saw maybe less than 6 marriage-only lines.
On the other hand, Cecil took a while to go back to his pre-marriage lines, almost as if he was coded to prioritize his married ones - or it was my luck, which brings up a whole other issue of the fact that the dialogue being randomized AND that low friendship lines are allowed to be triggered is not a very cool feature to have, especially when the RNG pulls a Murakumo on you, as described above.
Rune Factory 3 for the Nintendo DS had daily unique lines for spouses, and that came out over a decade ago! Heck, Rune Factory *2* had that feature! Either something very wrong happened with the progamming of how and when lines are triggered, or this was a very weird purposeful decision by the developers.
As for a minor complaints:
- Spouses get changed into their normal clothing straight after waking up, meaning you don't get to wake up with them in their pajamas. That was something I enjoyed in RF4 - it gave off a sense of intimacy IMO.
- You never move on from living at the SEED silo. You, your partner and your three kids live there forever, with Scarlett and Livia right under you, and there's not even a door to your room!
- Some characters don't show up at all during the congrulating part of the wedding day - I noticed Beatrice and Reinhard rarely appeared.
ROMANCE/DATING:
Few of the dates and 'proposal' events were as good or as emotional as RF4's. Some felt very short and others were long, but something that I felt in almost all of them was that everything gets solved way too fast and conveniently.
Like... there's no other choice but to do X! ...Actually, there is Y, it was just never referred to or foreshadowed before, happy end! Felt like there were tons of asspulls (not that there weren't any in RF4 - but it happened more often this time around). It was weird.
It was also weird how the protagonist seemed to have the answer to everything straight away. It made it felt like the issues and challenges presented in these events weren't as important as they should be. I would have liked it more if the MC had more doubts and conflicting emotions, and had to get advice from the other villagers/ go through a revelant experience/ learn more about the candidates' side of the story and past to come to these 'ideal' conclusions.
Also, also! The bachelorettes' dates and marriage events were SO much better than the bachelors'! I felt like I learned much more about Ludmila in her event than I did during Lucas', and Beatrice's was much longer and more emotional than Reinhard's. Priscilla's was the best by FAR.
What happened here......
The non-special dates were also disappointing, no more restaurant dates or buying gifts at the flower shop or general store :( - you go on a list of 4 locations and that's it, each one has your date say like 3 lines, and it's over...
One other thing that felt off: marriage events can unlock straight away with no cooldown. So you go on 3 dates and suddenly they want to get married..... I know the random event unlocking thing from RF4 was disliked, but it made it the progressing of the relationship much more organic. This time, even if you don't want to see the event, tough luck - X's event starts as soon as you step a foot in the inn.... a week into your relationship.
Now for the slight spoiler zone, my thoughts on every single one of the marriage events that I've seen, and some examples of the things I described above:
Reinhard:
I enjoyed the town's involvement, but it was anticlimatic and too short. MC just comes up with a solution right on the spot and that's it - there was SO much potential for a deeper look into Rein's past and his relationship with MC from that point on, but it was all kind of glossed over. It was nice, but the feeling that there was supposed to be more to it persisted.
Cecil:
This event was so damn weird and unsatisfying and just... Cecil ends up the exact same way he started. The unnamed NPC gets more development than him!!
Murakumo:
It was fine, but again, everything gets solved quickly and MC has a solution straight away. The town coming together to help was very cute and one of the few moments that made Rigbarth feel a bit like a community rather than a bunch of houses thrown around a landscape IMO. It was okay.
Ryker:
It was weird. At least the conflict didn't only require a simple pep talk this time around. I don't know what else to say other than I was hoping for more.
Lucas:
So disappointing. I was expecting much more angst and difficult decisions and stakes, what with the taboo of a God and a human being in a relationship, immortality, etc etc. I wanted to know more about Lucas being a God (what is a God in the RF universe anyway?), more involvement from his friends and loved ones, and so on.
It all gets solved conveniently and it's anticlimatic, esp. how Livia goes 'you should get married btw' at the end. I was so disappointed the entire time and it was almost painful how much potential was wasted.
Priscilla:
The best one, by a long mile. Be it her dates or her marriage event, it was clear that much more thought and time was put into Priscilla's character and her romance than any of the bachelors'. I wish every one of the events were as good as hers, truly. It made me want to hurry and marry her!
Scarlett:
It was good! Touched right into many aspects of her character, had a nice resolution, the townspeople played a huge part in it, and overall it developed not only Scarlett but the people around her as well. One of my favorites for sure, close in quality to RF4's.
Ludmila:
It was cute, but could have been better - better pacing, better look into Ludmila's past and her race, etc etc. More involvement from the town and Ludmila's friends would have been nice as well.
Beatrice:
It was cheesy and a bit clichéd, yet much better than some of the bachelors'. In this event, MC has no trouble at all coming to terms with the fact that Beatrice has to leave - the potential for more emotional moments was right there... Finally, there were so many asspulls in this one that I started to find it all funny instead of dramatic lol
I don't think I'm going to do Lucy's and Martin's. I haven't enjoyed most of these events, and I doubt theirs will be any different.
CONCLUSION:
Lag and subpar graphics I can deal with - but the romance aspect itself being broken in this way is just sad.
As for the rest of the game, I'm done with the plot and I cleared all the dungeons. With the absence of the Sharance Maze or even Dungeon Seeds, there's little reason for me to keep grinding for better equipment, and with no New Game+, I find little motivation in finishing the request board.
I'm giving up on RF5 until either those issues are patched or new content is added (EDITOR'S NOTE: It wasn't.), both which I doubt will happen considering none of it has been fixed in any of the patches for the Japanese version.
Yeah.
RIP.
