Welcome to my Rune Factory 3 Site

Although HarvestMoonForever remains my primary site, you will find all my posts and Guides for Rune Factory 3 on this site. I created a site for Grand Bazaar in this manner and it has proven quite useful. The actual Guides as always will be published by IGN as well.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Little Quests of the Flea Market

RPGs have a tradition of incorporating chains of minor quests that require the acquisition of a special item to give to a specific individual, thus obtaining another item that is desired by another individual.

In Animal Crossing, the Flea Market was an occasion whereby one might be able to acquire a special item of furniture in an Animal Neighbour's house that one had coveted for a long time.

In Rune Factory 3, the Flea Market combines chains of minor quests with the opportunity to obtain rare Seeds and Items.

You have to pay attention if you wish to maximise your Flea Market experience either in terms of profit or in terms of obtaining the best Items. In the first year, Seeds that otherwise are not sold anywhere are sold at extremely low prices at the
Flea Market. In some ways, it is similar to the special Festivals in ToT and Animal Parade. In Rune Factory 3, however, you can interact with Characters anywhere on the Map to obtain the option to buy or trade Items. Monica and Daria offer games of chance. The Rock-Paper-Scissors Game that Monica plays is a bit like the games that the Harvest Goddess plays in many Harvest Moon games.

If you wish to obtain a Golden Turnip, Ultimate Curry or Invinciroid, the Flea Market Festival represents a golden opportunity to do so. It is a fairly early opportunity to obtain more than one piece of Platinum as well as Emery Flower Seed and other rare Seeds.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Interior Design in Rune Factory 3




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Rune Factory 3 has some entertaining new options such as the ability to purchase Toys to display in your home. When the twin Lions appear in Oddward Valley, Evelyn's Menu should expand to include Toys.

Freyr was delighted to discover that he could purchase a stuffed version of his beloved Silver Wolf.

Note that there are two different types of 'Toys' in Rune Factory 3. Those sold by Evelyn are strictly decorative pieces that can be placed anywhere in your house. Those that can be made at the Workbench, such as the 'Monkey Toy' fall into the category of Shields to be used in battle.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Status of RF3 Guides

There is an incredible amount of data that has to be included in the Rune Factory 3 Guides and I sometimes despair that I am not making progress quickly enough. Nonetheless, I am making progress! You will find that I have added Walkthrough sections to the General Guide and the Bestiary and Dungeons Guide. At least they will get you to the point where you can purchase Furniture from the General Store, including the ever-desired Big Bed or Double Bed. You will find all Guides organised as 'Pages' on the top of this page above this Post and any Post.

Please do visit my Harvest Moon fan fiction page, 'We Love Harvest Moon' for a delightful tale of some adventures in Rune Factory 3 written by my RF/HM/Animal Crossing comrade and friend, Mars Frog.

Monday, November 29, 2010

The Option to 'Invite' a Companion

In Rune Factory 3, there is a new option to invite a villager to join you. When you see the option to 'Invite', using either the L or the R Button above the dialogue box, you can invite one individual to join you. Pressing the L or R Button while engaged in dialogue with a Character will initiate an invitation to 'go somewhere with me'. You can invite either a Male or a Female Character and each has his/her own unique style of combat. For example, Shara uses her trusty Watering Pot. Gaius, rather surprisingly uses a longsword instead of a Hammer, although his acceptance of your invitation will be couched in the following terms:

Gaius: Okay. Well, where should we dig for Iron?

As with any Monster companion who joins you in combat, your human companion will have an Energy bar over his/her head that will display current health. Some companions, like Shara, have Magical powers that allow them to heal themselves. For others, you can restore health by giving your Companion an edible Item that will restore HP. You can do this where any tame Monster is concerned as well.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Forging Upgrades in Rune Factory 3


Forging in Rune Factory 3


Forging is a process that will be familiar to players of prior games in the series, but Rune Factory 3 is unique in many ways. First of all, you will learn Recipes by means of the Weapons Bread that you can purchase and consume. Second of all, although the creation of a new Weapon requires set Ingredients delineated in the Recipe, the Upgrade of Weapons and Equipment can be done with any number of Items.

In Rune Factory 3, War Trophies have specific Stats that will affect any Item to which they are added in order to upgrade it.

The Menu at your Forge will be divided into two Options:

Make Item
Upgrade Item

If you choose the Option to Make an Item, you will be able to make it by using the required Ingredients, and the Recipes that you have learned will be displayed.

If you choose to Upgrade an Item, you will see two slots to the right:

Material
Item

Below them:

Will Make:

The percentage that represents your chance of success then will be given.

For example, one can add a Plant Stem to an Aquasword.

The Aquasword has the following Stats:

Aquasword: 4700G (Lv. 1)
A sword imbued with the power of water magic. Its blade is constantly wet.
Sell: 590G
Stats: ATK +41, MGC ATK +24

If you wish to raise the Magic Attack as well as Magic Defence of the Aquasword, you can add a Plant Stem.

In RF3, a Plant Stem has the following Stats:

Plant Stem: 300G
The hardy, thick stem of a plant. Has a variety of uses.
Sell: 150G
Stats: MGC ATK +4, MGC DEF +1

There will be a difficulty rating for each upgrade Item as well. For the Plant Stem, the Difficulty rating is 19.

With a successful upgrade that adds the potency of the Plant Stem to an ordinary Aquasword, you will have the following:

Aquasword: 4888G (Lv. 2)
Sell: 613G
ATK +41, M. ATK +28, M. DEF +1

As you can see, the Magic Attack and Magic Defence possessed by the Plant Stem were incorporated into the upgraded Aquasword.

With the addition of a Hard Horn, Freyr further augmented the power of his Weapon:

Hard Horn: 380G
A jagged, saw-like horn. Upgrades increase chances of knockouts.
Sell: 220G
ATK +2, DEF +4

With this Item added, the Aquasword became:

Aquasword: 4982G (Lv. 3)
Sell: 625G
ATK +43, DEF +4, MGC ATK +28, MGC DEF +1

Each Upgrade raises the Level of the Weapon. Do not forget that forging like cooking requires Energy. You must pay attention to your Energy Gauges if you do not wish to find yourself at the Apothecary!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Cheating on Request Items

I was not certain if this were specific to one Request or not, but having tried it now successfully with a couple of Request Items, it evidently should work any time you wish to steal an Item that is not a 'Present'. In other words, if the Item can be shipped, the 'cheat' will work. If the Item cannot be shipped (like the Strange Pendant and the Dragon Bones), it will not work.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Accept a Request to deliver an Item. An example of this is Hazel's Town Helper 1 Request, asking you to deliver Relax Tealeaves to Marjorie. Speak to the person who is making the Request and collect the Item, then ship it.

2. Now, go to the location where the Request was posted and cancel the Request. You will not be able to accept the Request again until the next day, but it should be posted at the same location the next morning.

3. Accept the Request and speak to the person who wishes for the delivery to be made. He/she should give the Item(s) to you again as though you never had received it/them before!

This worked with Sakuya and her Request to deliver a Tomato and Heavy Spice to Marjorie and Blaise respectively and the Relax Tealeaves Request.

Why did I bother to steal the items? Mainly because I was logging them for my Guides and it is easier when the data is displayed in the Shipping Container, but... it can be useful if the Item is rare or valuable!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Easy Dishes for a Beginner

This information is included in my Guides but I felt it might be useful for a player who is beginning RF3:


Cooking in Rune Factory 3


As in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game, Cooked Dishes have a variety of uses and any player who mistakenly believes that he/she cn neglect culinary skills in favour of combat soon will discover that the two go hand-in-hand. For a start, creating Weapons, Accessories and Medicines are based on the same principles as Cooking in the Kitchen. Furthermore, Cooked Dishes have Energy values that are superior to those of raw Items.

Your home in the Sharance Tree will not include any area for cooking initially, but when you first speak to Blaise and choose the 'Cookiing Appliances' option in his Menu, he will give you a Kitchen Counter. Basic Cookware then will appear in the Menu under that heading.

With the Kitchen Counter alone, you will be able to create 'No Utensil' or 'Hand' Dishes. Learning an actual Recipe will increase your chances of success with any specific Cooked Dish but is not a requirement. You can use the old 'trial-and'error' method or use this Guide to create new Dishes. Whenever a new Dish is created successfully, the Recipe will be added to your Cookbook. The difference between this method and the purchase and consumption of Recipe Bread is that eating Recipe Bread will add the Recipe to your Cookbook whether or not you have or can make the Dish successfully.

In Rune Factory 3, Skill Levels in Cooking determine your success rate where any specific Cooked Dish is concerned. You will not be able to make a Dish at all if you do not have the right Cookware or Utensil but even if you have both the correct Cookware AND the Recipe for a Dish, you may be unable to make it successfully if your Cooking Skill Level is too low.

If, therefore, you are using the 'trial-and-error' method to experiment in your Kitchen, you must not suppose that a failure signifies a lack of required ingredients. It may mean solely that you do not have sufficient Skill to prepare the Dish.

In Rune Factory 3, you will not have a Pet Glove to tame Monsters. If you wish to tame any Monster, you must give it Food. Cooked Dishes again have far more value than raw Items in terms of persuading Monsters to surrender and accompany you back to the Monster Barn. In like fashion, a favourite Cooked Dish often will raise the Friendship Levels of human Characters faster than any raw Items.

When the actual Cooked Dish has been obtained but the Recipe has not been acquired, the entry will not display the ingredients. Those will be added as soon as they are confirmed. Item information for any Cooked Dish when accessed in-game does not include Skill Level requirements or the list of Ingredients.

Tip: When you wish to discover the actual Energy and Status Effects of any food Item, press L and a detailed description of the Item with all Energy and Stat Effects will be displayed.


Cooking Appliances from Blaise


In order to be able to begin to cook, you will need a Kitchen Counter. You can obtain this (as well as Cookware later) from Blaise when he is behind his counter. Simply choose his Cookware option from the Menu and he will give you a Kitchen Counter.

Kitchen items from Blaise are delivered instantly to your House and installed in your Kitchen.

As soon as you have the Kitchen Counter, the three basic Cookware items will be available from Blaise. These are as follows:

My choices:
I've come to talk.
Buy Recipe Bread.
Cooking appliances.
Expand refrigerator.
Never mind.

Choose: Cooking appliances.

Blaise: You wanna cook? Then lemme give ya this Kitchen Counter!

After that, if I choose Cooking Appliances:

Blaise: Let me show you some basic cooking appliances, which one would you like?
Knife: 1200G
Frying Pan: 2600G
Mixer: 500G

When you have purchased all three Basic Appliances, he will declare:

Blaise: You already have all the basic appliances. Let me show you the advanced ones.

Oven: 10000G
Steamer: 5600G
Pot: 8800G

Ovens are a necessity in the kitchen if you're going to do any baking. That'll be 10000G gold.

The steamer is a cooking appliance you should definiately have in your kitchen. That'll be 5600 gold.

You can cook a lot of interesting dishes with a pot. That'll be 8800 gold.

A new aspect of Cooking in Rune Factory 3 is the concept of Recipe Breads instead of Cookbooks. Recipe Breads made by Blaise, when consumed, will teach you a single Recipe in a specific category. Breads are manufactured and sold in the following categories:

Medicine Bread: 160G
Cooking Bread: 200G
Weapon Bread: 350G
Accessory Bread: 300G
Farming Bread: 450G

You can buy 5 loaves of Bread per day from Blaise. The actual Recipe that is contained in the Recipe Bread will be random. If, therefore, you are given a Recipe that is fairly useless, you can reload and try again.

Note, however, that you will be unable to access the Recipe you have 'consumed' and learned unless you have the appropriate workspace or Cooking Appliance. In other words, you can purchase and 'learn' Forge Recipes by consuming Weapon Bread, but you will not be able to access these Recipes until you have a Forge of your own.

From time to time, Blaise will announce that the Recipe Bread you have purchased is particularly delicious. These superior Bread loaves will contain two Recipes instead of one.

There is a nameless 'Traveler' who appears in the village and wanders from shop to shop who will offer to sell you Recipe Breads for 800G each. You cannot choose a Category of Bread when buying from the Traveler. It is quite random and very overpriced, similar to Won's visits to your Farmhouse when he offers his special Apples for exorbitant prices.

You actually can make Cooked Dishes without having the Recipe for them, but if you have been 'taught' the Recipe, your chances of success will be greater. As in other Rune Factory games, you must Cook frequently and make the same simple Dishes again and again in order to raise your Skill Level in Cooking to allow you to make more complex Dishes.

Fortunately, Pink Turnips, a Spring Crop, can be made into Pickled Turnips with nothing more than the Kitchen Counter given to you by Blaise. Your chance of success will not be guaranteed initially but Pickled Turnips may be the easiest of all Cooked Dishes to make.

Another simple Dish that requires no Utensils is Rice Ball, made with the Cooked Rice that you can purchase at the General Store.


Blaise's Cafe


To purchase any items from Blaise, you need to visit the Cafe before 6.00 p.m. in order to find him behind the counter. Your options, when you speak to him there will be:

I've come to talk.
Buy Recipe Bread.
Cooking appliances.
Expand refrigerator.
Never mind.

Choose: Cooking appliances.

Blaise: You wanna cook? Then lemme give ya this Kitchen Counter!

As with any items purchased from Blaise, the Kitchen Counter will be installed immediately in your Kitchen.

After you have been given the Counter, when you choose Cooking Appliances:

Blaise: Let me show you some basic cooking appliances, which one would you like?

Knife: 1200G
Frying Pan: 2600G
Mixer: 500G

When you have purchased all three basic cooking appliances, the 'advanced' appliances will be added to the menu:

Blaise: You already have all the basic appliances. Let me show you the advanced ones:

Oven: 10000G
Steamer: 5600G
Pot: 8800G

If you wish to learn Recipes, you need to purchase and consume 'Recipe Bread': You can make Cooked Dishes, however, using the old 'trial-and-error' method. Although having the Recipe will increase your success rate in preparing any new Dish, it can be managed without a Recipe if you know the proper Ingredients.

Buy Recipe Bread

Blaise: When you eat recipe bread, you'll learn a recipe depending on what kind of recipe bread you ate. I can bake 5 more for you today.

Medicine Bread: 160G
Cooking Bread: 200G
Weapon Bread: 350G
Accessory Bread: 300G
Farming Bread: 450G

When you eat Medicine Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your pharmacy. That'll be 160 Gold. Is that okay?

Cooking Bread: When you eat Cooking Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your kitchen. That'll be 200 gold. Is that okay?

Farming Bread: When you eat Farming Bread, you'll learn recipes you can make farm tools with at your forge. That'll be 450G

Weapons Bread: When you eat Weapons Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use at your forge. That'll be 350G

Accessory Bread: When you eat Accessory Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your workshop. That'll be 300 gold.


Easy Dishes for an Aspiring Chef


With a Kitchen Counter and no Cookware, you will be able to make a few Cooked Dishes almost immediately. You will not have 100% success rate initially, but you will gain sufficient Cooking Skill to guarantee success after you have made the Dish a few times.

Having the required Ingredients as well as Cooking Skill Levels will determine the Cooked Dishes that can be made in the beginning of Spring.

Cooked Rice is one of the Items that can be purchased at the General Store. With this, you can make a Rice Ball.

Rice Ball: 300G
Rice pressed into a triangle shape. Often packed as lunches, as they're good on the go
Ingredients: Rice.
Sell: 150G
HP Rec +50%
Effect: 6 Hours
Skill Level 6

Flour is another Item that can be purchased at the General Store and Bread can be made without any Cookware. It does require a little more Skill than a Rice Ball or Pickled Turnips, however.

Bread: 660G
A staple of cooking. Can be toasted or filled and used in a variety of dishes.
Ingredients: Flour
Sell: 330G
HP Rec +50%, RP Rec +20%, HP Max +10
Skill Level 9

You should be able to harvest your first Pink Turnips within a couple of days and you then can make:

Pickled Turnip: 960G (Lv. 1)
Picked turnip. Its refreshing taste is great for cleaning the palate.
Ingredients; Pink Turnip
Sell: 480G
HP Rec +40, RP Rec +35%, STR -3, INT +3
Skill Level 2

Pickled Turnips are one of the easiest Dishes to make. Making Pickled Turnips from the Pink Turnips that you harvest is advantageous for a number of reasons. Level 1 Pickled Turnips ship for 480G while a raw Pink Turnip ships only for 200G. You therefore can double your income by cooking and increase your Skill Level at the same time.

Once you have raised your Skill Level in the Kitchen, you should be able to make:

Bamboo Rice: 400G (Lv. 1)
Rice mixed with bamboo shoots. A delciious spring dish.
Ingredients: Rice, Bamboo
Sell: 200G
HP Rec +40%, RP Rec +50%, RP Max +10%, STR +2, VIT +2
Skll Level 10

Bamboo Shoots are plentiful in Spring in your own Fields. You can use any sharp Tool to harvest them but if you use your Hoe, you will till a square of land at the same time, allowing you to plant Seeds afterwards.

Another Ingredient that is plentiful once you have entered Privera Forest is the Apple. Apples are War Trophies dropped by the Pomme Pomme Monsters as well as fruit that grows on Trees in more than one area of the Forest.

To prepare the Apples, you will need a Mixer, but the Mixer is the least expensive of the Basic Cooking Appliances sold by Blaise. With a Mixer, you can make:

Apple Juice: 166G
Fresh apple juice. Allows the natural taste, colour and flavour of apples to be completely enjoyed.
Sell: 84G (Lv. 2)
Skill Level 8
HP Rec + 20%, RP Rec +30%, STR + 1, INT +4

Sashimi is another class of Dishes that requires a Basic Cooking Appliance in the form of a Knife. The Skill Level requirements for Sashimi depend on the type of Fish that is used, so there are Sashimi Dishes that can be made only by an Expert Chef. Others, like Squid Sashimi, can be made by a beginner. You can find a raw Squid in a tub in Pia's room in the Inn.

Squid Sashimi: 260G
Slices of raw squid served up for consumption. Generally eaten with soy sauce.
Ingredients: Squid
Sell: 130G
HP Rec +20%, RP Rec +30%, STR +1, VIT +4
Skill Level 9

In Harvest Moon, unless you have a Greenhouse, you are fairly limited in the Ingredients you can obtain in any given Season, especially at the start of any game. In Rune Factory, this is not the case, as there are Dungeons that are ruled by each of the four Seasons. You are limited only by your skill in exploration and combat. If you can run fast, you can find Items in Dungeons at the start of the game in Rune Factory 3 even if you would be defeated instantly if you were to be forced to fight any of the Monsters there.

N.B. To access my RF3 Recipes Cookbook Guide, simply click the Recipe Cookbook Tab at the top of this page.

Order of first Requests

Having started four different files now, and having experienced the appearance of the first Requests from other Characters in the same order each time, it appears to me that these first Requests may appear in a set order, irrespective of your Character's social interactions with other individuals. After all, the first Request requires no particular Friendship Level. It is only subsequent Requests that would have Friendship Level requirements.

I am posting this to 'request' feedback from other players and confirmation of the order of the 1st Requests that appear on the Bulletin Board and at the Postbox.

Without even consulting my game journals, I recall that:

Bulletin Board:

Shara's Request
Well's Request
Sherman's Request
Gaius' Request

One of the reasons I became aware of the possible set order of these Requests was because I wanted to try to obtain a Fishing Rod earlier in a new file. Yet, even when I pursued Carmen relentlessly in the first two days of the game, her Request did not appear on the Bulletin Board. The only Requests that appeared by 3 Spring were the ones listed above.

This actually makes sense as your Character will receive a Sickle from Wells' Request, an Axe from Sherman's Request and a Hammer from Gaius' Request. These are basic Farm Tools that you must have in order to be able to accomplish your ordinary Farming Tasks in Rune Factory.

NO Requests appeared at the Postbox on 3 Spring, incidentally.

On a completely different topic, I have noticed that Recipe Breads purchased from Blaise, although randomly chosen, tend to be for the same group of Recipes. For example, Recipes that appear in file after file in the first few days of Spring include: Medium Mayonnaise, Pineapple Juice, Char Sashimi, Ice Cream, Dumplings, Boiled Egg, Hot Milk... There are others as well but I shall have to refer to my game journals for them. These are not the ONLY Recipes I obtained but they all are Recipes that appeared in more than one game file in the first Spring, when buying Recipe Breads or receiving them at Festivals. In other words, most of the Recipes you buy or obtain from Recipe Bread are simple ones that you could make without a Recipe using common sense.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tip: Raven's Treasure Trove

Early Requests can be amusing, dramatic, give you vital Tools or can result in considerable financial gains. In the case of Raven's 2nd Bulletin Board Request, the Rewards are random but can be spectacular.

The first Request on the Bulletin Board by Raven is:

Raven: Bring me...
Bring iron by 7.00 p.m.
Reward: None
Details: You must work in her shop, remembering prices to sell three items

The second Request that appears on the Board is:

Raven's 2nd Request
Simple Request
Raven: Any one
Take this with you.
Reward: 6 Random Weapons, Items, Seeds or...
Details: Simply enter her Smithy and exit again with the Weapons and/or Items*

*The 6 Items are loaded randomly when you accept the Request. If you want a specific Weapon, reload until you obtain it. The Weapons can include types that would appear only as Special Deals. Items can be as valueless as Weeds or as valuable as Sour Drop.

Reloading a few times in order to see how varied the items could be, I found items as valueless as Weeds and Weapons as valuable as Frost Edge or Backscratcher. As this Request should appear fairly early in Spring, you can obtain some very decent Weapons and Equipment by accepting this Request, reloading if the six Items displayed on the carpet are not to your liking.

How to use my RF3 Guides

My Rune Factory 3 Guides are published as stand-alone Pages at the top of this page. They are published on IGN as well, but I sometimes am able to update further after the file is sent to IGN, so you should be able to find the latest versions of my Guides here at present. All of them are 'works in progress' obviously. The General Guide/Walkthrough should contain information about all aspects of the game, apart from the personal data about the various Characters and Events. You will find those in the Characters Guide. The Characters Guide includes text of the Request Events, but I created a Requests Guide as a separate Quick Reference Guide, so that, when it is completed, a player can go through all the Requests to see which ones offer Rewards that he/she needs most and then accept those first. The Recipes Cookbook Guide will be the Guide with the latest updates in terms of Recipes and the Bestiary and Dungeons Guide will have the latest Monster and Dungeon data. Finally, the Items Guide will have the latest information in terms of Items.

Ultimately, my Guides overlap considerably and it is difficult to update all Guides constantly which is why you will find more up-to-date information usually in the Guide that is specific to one area of the game. When the Guides are fairly complete, I hope ALL will be updated equally!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Rune Factory 3 Guides

As you can see, the links to my Rune Factory 3 Guides are 'Pages' at the top of this 'Home' Page. I created a preliminary Characters and Requests Guide as well as Walkthrough/General Guide, Items Guide and Cookbook Recipes Guide so far. I believe I will create a separate Requests Guide that simply gives the gist of each Request, where it appears, what it entails and the Reward that is given when completed.

The actual text of the Requests may remain in the Characters Guide as 'Requests' in Rune Factory tend to encompass all the Friendship and Romantic Events in the series. I do think that a basic Requests Guide will be helpful, however, as it will allow players to decide which Request to accept first. Some Requests actually have NO Reward whatsoever. Others have very important Rewards, including Tools.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Early 'Cheats' in Rune Factory 3

This information is included in the General Guide/Walkthrough, but I am posting it here for quick reference.


Shara's Farming Tutorial


After you save your game for the first time during the tour of your home, Shara will take you to your Fields. You have two Fields at the foot of the Sharance Tree. Both will be filled with coloured Grasses, Medicinal Herb, Antidotal Herb, Branches, Weeds, Rocks, Stumps and Boulders.

During her Tutorial, you will be required to defeat a Monster who appears with your Hoe. After this, two more Monsters will appear and you will be offered a Weapon of your choice by Gaius from the Weapons Shop. After the two Monsters are defeated, Shara will remark that the monsters 'looked pretty strong'.

You now will have a choice of responses:

Yes, they were strong!
They were pretty weak, actually...

If you agree that they were strong, Shara will move forward to give you a farming tutorial. If, however, you declare that the Monsters were weak, your arrogance will cause three more Monsters to appear. These Monsters will be more powerful than the first three and you may use most of your RP and HP before you are able to defeat them. When defeated, a prompt will appear to the effect that the game difficulty level now has been set to 'Hard'.

This is another aspect of Rune Factory 3 that is new to the series. You can set the difficulty of combat in your Trophy Room. It is only if you brag about the weakness of the Monsters that the game automatically will be set to 'Hard' but if you wish for the most challenging combat, you can set it to 'Hard' yourself at any point.

Once the Monster situation has been resolved, whether by the defeat of the two Monsters or the defeat of three additional Monsters, Shara will offer to give you a Farming Tutorial. It is your choice whether to accept or not. If you accept, you will gain a number of advantages, even if you know how to farm!

When you accept the offer, she will place 9 Weeds on the Field in a single plot and tell you to clear the plot. This is an opportunity to clear both Fields entirely. Note that you cannot harvest any Bamboo Shoots at this point, however, as Shara will tell you to 'stop fooling around' if you attempt to equip any Tool or Weapon! You can harvest all Wild Grasses as well as Medicinal Herbs, Antidotal Herbs and, if you wish, all Branches and Stones. If you wish to clear both Fields, you should not collect the Weeds she placed until all other Items have been collected as, when the ninth Weed has been collected, she will tell you to equip your Hoe.

You now will be told to till 9 squares in the plot where the Weeds had been placed. When this has been done, Shara will give you 9 Toyherb Seeds to sow. After the Seeds have been sown, Shara will place six Withered Grass and three Toyherbs on the Field to the right in another square. You will be told to harvest both the Flowers and the Withered Grass. This will give you three Toyherb and six Withered Grass to use or ship.

Shara finally will give you three Toyherb Seeds and take her leave.

If you refuse her offer of a Tutorial, you will receive only three Toyherb Seeds and the clock will begin to run when she takes her leave afterwards.


Early Exploitations


On your very first day in Sharance, you can collect many of the 'free' Items stashed throughout the village. Their locations are given in another section of this Guide. Make certain that you ship them before 5.00 p.m. if you wish to have more income than the initial 500G that you have in your inventory.

Go into Privera Forest even if your Level is low, saving your game before you enter the Dungeon. There often is a Chest on the first screen that can contain two to four random Items, including Crops, Cooked Dishes, Ingredients or Accessories. Exit and re-enter the Forest again and again to find these Chests. Ship the Items that you find for early profits in order to be able to purchase basic defensive equipment, Cooking Utensils and Ingredients from the General Store.

Incidentally, your Character actually can find basic Tools in Chests in the Dungeons and Tools as well as Weapons and Accessories may be dropped as War Trophies by Monsters. For example, the Wooly in Privera Forest may drop a pair of Clippers!

Another exploitation that is not restricted to the first few days exists with respect to the Special Deals Menu at the Blacksmith. The Items in this Menu will be loaded at the time of your first visit to the Blacksmith on any given day. Some special Weapons and Accessories that are far superior to those found in the regular categories are offered as Special Deals.

Save your game BEFORE you go to the Smithy for the first time. Go to the Smithy and ask about the Special Deals for the day. If the Item or Items you seek are not included in the day's Menu, reload your game and try again.

Quick Farming Tips

Although this information is included in the General Guide/Walkthrough, it may be useful to post some quick tips here where farming is concerned.

1. Do not be too quick to buy Seeds. You can find bags of seeds randomly whenever you harvest any Crop or any wild Item from any Field.

2. To harvest Bamboo Shoots, use any sharp Tool or Weapon. You can use your Hoe or a Sword to sever the root from the ground, then simply press A to harvest the Bamboo Shoot.

3. Crops may turn brown even after watering, but they are not dead. Simply water the Crop and it will be restored to health and if ready to be harvested at the point when it turned brown, you will be able to harvest it instantly. If you harvest any Crop while it is in its brown, withered state, it will become Withered Grass. Withered Grass can be used as fertiliser by throwing it onto a square and tilling the Withered Grass into the soil.

4. Land that has produced Crops will deteriorate in quality unless it is given a chance to rest or is fertilised with Withered Grass or one of the Formulae A, B or C. It is best to till new squares when planting a new Crop, allowing soil where Crops have been harvested to rest. If you replant in tilled soil where you have harvested, the Crops will take longer to mature and be inferior in quality.

5. Weather in Rune Factory 3 may change during the course of the day. A day that begins sunny can deliver rain in the afternoon. You therefore may wish to wait until the afternoon before you water your Crops. Watering is effective only once per day.

To access the General Guide/Walkthrough, press the Walkthrough/General Guide tab at the top of this page.

New Format for Rune Factory 3 Guides on this Site

There is a new option to add stand-alone 'Pages' to any site rather than publishing posts. I therefore have used this option to create a Page for each of my Rune Factory 3 Guides. If you look at the top of the page, you should see 'Tabs' for each of the preliminary RF3 Guides. As any site can have a total of 10 separate Pages, I intend to create a Page for each of my Rune Factory 3 Guides. If any one has trouble accessing these Pages, please let me know and I will publish the Guides as posts instead.

Posts about the game will appear on this Page, which is the 'Home' Tab.

Note: If this system proves to be practical, I shall publish my Grand Bazaar Guides in similar fashion as Pages on my Grand Bazaar site.