Farming
Unlike previous Rune Factory games, you do not buy and plant seed, or even water the crops. It is all done by the monsters you tame while adventuring, on four different islands - one for each season.
Once you found an island, you will need Rune Spirits which can be collected on many of the other islands. In order to bring the island to full fertility, you will need to release enough Rune Spirits to bring it back to 100%. The higher the percent, the more planting points the island will have. Each spirit is good for a 1%, but the correct type will increase it by 2%.
Spring Island | > | Yellow Spirit |
Summer Island | > | Red Spirit |
Fall Island | > | Green Spirit |
Winter Island | > | Blue Spirit |
With your spirit wand equipped, planting points will be highlighted. If the wand is used in the correct area, a sprout will appear, which can be changed to any type of crop your tamed creature can grow. The more advanced the wand, the wider your planting radius will be. Planting points that do not have a plant growing in it, will produce items, like mushrooms and bamboo shoots, at random.
After taming a producing creature with your brush, and having a enough Monster Cookies in stock, you can send them to an island where they will plant crops based on their friendship level. Unfortunately, It is not possible to tell them which crop to plant, so if a creature has four crop abilities, and their friendship is high enough to plant all four, one of the four types will be randomly grown. Thankfully, crops do not take long to grow, and will often be finished in a day or two, which can be sped up further by having more monsters working that produce the same crop. Once the crop or ore has started growing, the producing monster does not need to remain on that island as the others will care for it, although at a slower rate.
Some Islands are better suited to certain crops, and will produce those crops faster and has a better chance to grow giant versions of those crops, but otherwise they will grow on Spring, Summer and Fall Islands. Many monsters will produce crops that range through all the seasons, so finding the perfect balance for the crops may be difficult to perfect. For Flowers, there are one creature of each island which will always grow the best flowers (Spring Flower, Summer Flower, Fall Flower).
Spring Crops | Summer Crops | Fall Crops |
---|---|---|
Cabbage Cucumber Emery Flower Moondrop Potato Spring Flower Strawberry |
4-Leaf Clover Charm Blue Corn Fireflower Onion Pineapple Spinach Tomato Toyherb |
Carrot Daikon Eggplant Fall Flower Green Pepper Lamp Flower Noel Flower Pink Cat Pom-Pom Flower Pumpkin Soybean Turnip |
Ores will grow on Winter Island and can be harvested by bashing the stone formations with a hammer once they are mature. They will start shimmering when you stand by them. Breaking the rocks before they are done will cause you to lose the harvest for that crop. The amount of ore each formation has will vary depending on the creature's friendship level.
Sickles have almost no use whatsoever in this game, unless you want to micromanage every island, which can make it very hard to progress the main story. Like in the past Rune Factory games, this tool can cut down any crop, and it can be used to kill off something that you don't want to grow. Once your monsters are high enough level, most things, grow in one or two days, so the use becomes less and less popular as the game progresses.
There are also are 2 types of trees, which can be grown on any of the crop producing islands. They will grow in the planting points outside of the normal planting zones. Only dedicate one creature for each island, and be patient, since they take around a month to grow. On top of wood, which you will get from chopping them down with an axe, they may also produce a Rune Crystal randomly. These are very rare, so be sure to pick them up whenever you see them. The amount of wood they produce will vary depending on the creature's friendship level. Lastly, be aware that monsters that Harvest do not cut down trees, so be sure to return to harvest them on your own.
The monster's jobs can be broken up into 5 types, and will be listed in each section the fall into: