Rune Factory 5 Spoilers

Covering Innocent Life (PsP/Ps2), Rune Factory 1 (DS), Rune Factory 2 (DS), Rune Factory 3 (DS/Switch), Rune Factory Frontier (Wii), Rune Factory Tides of Destiny (Wii/Ps3), Rune Factory 4 (3DS/Switch/Steam), and Rune Factory 5 (Switch/Steam).
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PaleSunflower
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Warning! This thread contains spoilers! Read at your own risk!
Now that's out of way, I have been seeking spoilers for Rune Factory 5. I am apparently one of the few people who love spoilers. I am aware that things can change during localization, but I want to know anyway. I have seen enough to know that I will get the game regardless, and I intend to pre-order RF5 as soon as I can off X-Seed's site.

I have combing through the Internet in order to learn about the story or characters, but it seems no one is willing to go into detail or, alternatively, everything is in Japanese, which I can't read. I found some things, but I want to know more. Ask me questions, if you want, but I don't know all the answers.

What I do know (Beware! There are spoilers for everything in here!):
Spoiler:
- The protagonist and Lucas have amnesia.
- The protagonist lives in an attic for most of the game, while Lucas lives a large but empty house. You can buy a house after completing the first 2 arcs.
- The presence of a 3rd arc is unclear, but I am assuming the Rigbarth Labyrinth is the 3rd arc, like Rune Prana was for RF4. Many people think the game has only 2 arcs.

- Lucas appears to regain some of his memories throughout the main storyline, but the protagonist does not from what I can tell.
- Lucas has supernatural abilities (teleportation being the main one) and thinks he might be a « Harvest Goddess ». One guy on the fan-made Japanese wiki asked whether Lucas was "« Harvest Goddess » of gods," but got no response.
- Lucas plays a big role in the story, as he can set up gates between areas.
- Without Lucas, the protagonist would not have been able to reach Gideon's flying, anti-magic, armed-to-the-teeth (meaning that any dragons or airships flying too close would be shot down) fortress. Lucas sets up a gate between the town and the surprizingly solid clouds around the fortress, which goes undetected because Lucas' powers are a "divine miracle," not magic.
- Both the clouds and fortress are dungeons. There is also a Thief King's Hideout (or what's left of it) and an ice cave. The after-main plot dungeon is the Rigbarth Labyrinth. I suspect there is also a cave, a forest, and a volcanic area.

- Livia is actually a dragon and can change between human and dragon forms.
- Livia also has an older-looking sister, Laedia, whose also a shape-shifting dragon.
- Laedia will visit the town after the 3rd arc.
- Their appearances suggest that Livia is a yellow/light dragon and her sister is a dark dragon.
- Laedia apparently died at some point and was revived from a skull by both Oswald and the protagonist, somehow.
- The big bad's grand plan involves a giant cosmic clock in the void somehow. I guess he's trying to eradicate injustice from all time? Go back in time to eradicate injustice? The dragon-ladies don't like it, whatever it is, and are trying to stop him.

- Also, Gideon is the big bad at the end. Apparently, he got possessed by a weird fish thing from the darkness. What exactly the fish did to him is a mystery to me, but I guess it made him evil in the well-intentioned way.
- (The evil fish from darkness looks really cool and I want to keep one as a pet. I don't think I can, however.)
- Gideon wants justice at all costs and will use immoral means to achieve it. At one point, he sets vicious monsters on the thieves living in the Thief's King's Hideout, which shocks the protagonists.
- Gideon dies at the end of the 2nd arc. He sacrifices himself to stop the evil fish, but it doesn't work and the fish survives.
- Afterward, Laedia gets possessed by the fish, too, starting arc 3. The fish is the final boss of the 3rd arc.
- After defeating the fish at end of the 3rd arc, it possesses the protagonist. This possession doesn't last long, as Lucas sets up a gate to have the townspeople send good vibes to the protagonist. Then Livia, in dragon form and after some encouragement from her sister (I think), attacks the protagonist, causing the evil energy from the fish to become a lotus (?????????) and disappear. Apparently, lotus are associated with rebirth, which somehow makes these events make sense. :?

- Main enemy of the first arc is Oswald. He leaves the plot after sending Ludmila to live in the town during the second arc and revealing that Gideon was the Big Bad all along (which I think is the end of the 1st arc). He apparently runs the thieves mentioned earlier.
About the love interests (more spoilers!):
Spoiler:
I can barely find anything on them outside of their general personalities, which can be found on several sites. Most of what I can find features Beatrice, Ryker, and Lucas (as Lucas pertains to the story, not his personal events). Please note, however, some of the love interest can only be wed or dated after the main story is complete. The exact ones are unknown, but, if you can't marry someone, then progressing the storyline may help.

- One guy on reddit went on and on about Beatrice's marriage events. Apparently, she's the second princess of Norad and came to Rigbarth in order to collect stars or star fragments. If she collects 5 of them, then she unlocks the crown of Norad and becomes the rightful ruler. Until then, her Evil Uncle, who also wants to marry her (because why not), is currently ruling Norad and doing an awful job of it. Everyone hates him and is miserable, and Beatrice at one point even convinces one of the assassins the Evil Uncle paid to kill Beatrice to turn on him. If you complete her events, she gets the star/star fragments via pouring her mana into them (a very tiring task, apparently) and realizing another reason why she wants the crown, to protect her people and the protagonist.
- The Evil Uncle even tries to arrange a marriage with Beatrice, which she only considers because, as queen, she might be able to help her people better. She finds a way out of it.

- Priscilla has something happen to her that causes her to let her hair down and take off her jacket. I don't know whether this thing is story-locked or happens as part of a personal event.

- Scarlett is apparently good at puzzles. One of Scarlett's events involves a puzzle, but the one shown in-game and your character's responses don't match at all.
- Scarlett also likes to read in her free time.

- Lucy declares herself your character's rival. This is all I know about her, beyond her basic personality.

- Fuuka is cursed. She touched an artifact that causes a black fog and monster to follow her. They seek to eat her happiness and everything around her. They must be dealt with somehow in order to marry her.
- Fuuka is bad at speaking the main language of Rigbarth, but speaks her native tongue (which apparently involves a lot of body language) well.
- She is really good at detecting lies.
- Because of how familiar she is to hiding from the black fog and the monster within, she is also really good at hide-and-seek.
- Her breasts seem to disappear completely when she wears her pajamas. I don't know why they drew her like that.

- Ludmila is in love with love itself.
- She is also obsessed with the main character regardless of « Chicken Hugging ». Some people find her antics creepy or stalker-ish.
- She also enjoys pain and will cause trouble for the sake of being scolded.

- Ryker has a flair for the dramatic and pretentious and thinks he has special powers that no one else has. Naturally, he's a bit arrogant. The term "chuunibyou" keeps being thrown at him.
- Ryker strikes a different pose then usual at night and his attitude changes.
- If you date Ryker, he gets a bit tsundere and insecure as well.
- His usual carefree attitude allows him to get along with children. Again, his attitude changes at night, but I don't know the specifics.
- One of his events involves him picking a lock to check on the person inside.

- Lucas keeps a journal that he frequently updates in case he loses his memories again.
- He thinks he's a « Harvest Goddess ».
- He is good at appraising ores.
- He works at the magic shop with Heinz.
- Many people compare him to Arthur of RF4.

- Reinhard gets obsessed with Beatrice for part of the story. There's a reason for it, but I don't know why. I think angst is involved.
- He is popular with women.
- He's apparently a big eater.

- Martin is a tsundere of the reserved type. He can express his emotions, but usually chooses not to.
- He also has been described as the aloof type.
- He names his tools.
- He tries hard to be a good brother to Cecile

- Many people compare Cecile to Illuminata from RF4. They both like detective work and their deductions can cause misunderstandings or draw unneeded attention to minor things.
- Cecile wants to be an ideal man, but his short statue and lack of strength gets in the way of that.
- At one point, Palmo gets a heavy log on him. Cecile gets upset when he's asked not to lift the log when other, bulkier people are present.

- Murakumo runs the inn/bath, but he's not very good at it.
- He has a reputation of constantly leaving his post, leaving the baths inaccessible for most of the time. Adding him to your party and forcing him into his workplace will still leave the baths unuseable, unlike how the inn/bath worked in RF4.
- Some of his events focus preventing the inn/bath from going bankrupt. Murakumo loves to give out freebies to the people who use his business, which is putting him in the red.
- Over all, he's a really generous guy. People take advantage of his kindness, however.
- He is also seen as a reasonable figure of authority and is sometimes called to decide things.
Last edited by PaleSunflower on Aug 05, 2021 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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JayDucky03
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Post  Posted:

Very thorough, good job!
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LeBurns
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Post  Posted:

I admit I'm a spoiler hunter. Mainly because I just hate missing things in games. I know that sometimes if the game doesn't have a lot of replay value I'll be playing a game once, and in those situations I want to experience as much of the game in one go as possible.

Now games like this, even though it has replay value, are generally so long (cause I like to do everything) that I'll play them once, and then sit them down for a year before picking it up again. So spoilers are helpful.

Nice list in the OP. A lot of stuff I didn't know.
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PaleSunflower
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Post  Posted:

I'm glad you both like it. :)

I might as well mention some new things about the story that I've gathered (spoilers).
Spoiler:
- Livia and Laedia are actually ancient dragons, which might explain the shape-shifting thing.
- Gideon kidnaps Laedia at the end of the Flying Fortress. He is able to knock her out with one strike.
- The main character is also struck, but is able to remain conscious because the main character is an earthmate. Apparently, either earthmates are sturdier than ancient dragons or Gideon's attack is just super effective against Laedia.
- Gideon wants to summon the fish-thing from the darkness. I have no clue whether he's possessed or not by this point.
- By the time the protagonist reaches the end of the Flying Fortress, Gideon seems to be using the fish's power somehow.
- After the fish physically appears, Gideon apologizes. He then tanks an attack from the fish meant for the protagonist and Livia.

- The fish is actually called something along of the lines of the "Thing from the Darkness" or the "One from the Darkness." I fully expect this name to change during localization to something else, as the darkness element and the darkness mentioned here appear to be separate things.
- The fish comes from outside of the Rune Factory world. The "Darkness" here is the space between worlds, which does not seem to be the same darkness as what the player can cast. In other words, the fish is an alien or an eldritch being. I'm still calling it a fish for convenience.
- Either the darkness between worlds or just the fish itself was sealed away by ancient earthmates. The final fight with Gideon is in front of this seal.
About the love interests... (more spoilers)
Spoiler:
You can see all of the romantic events in this playlist on Youtube. They are also completely in Japanese.

- Priscilla's change in appearance is absolutely tied to one of her events and is not connected to story progression.

- Ryker's proposal event involves him taking a hit from a monster in the Bandit King's (Former?) Hideout for the the protagonist. Doing so apparently goes against a some tradition in his family, which Ryker decides is less important than the protagonist.
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Post  Posted:

This is amazing. Very detailed, thank you for sharing!
I don’t mind spoilers personally cuz I forget half of them and for me personally, seeing them actually happen is different than just reading about it.
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Embry
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Thank you earnestly for digging all this up and posting it so it would be easy to find and read through, as I had a specific question about the game I really needed answered, and I believe this has answered it.
Spoiler:
I'd lost a lot of my enthusiasm for this release when it was revealed that gay marriage would not be an option, and I'd pretty much decided that the way Ludmila was handled would determine whether I even considered getting the game, because her teaser profile was giving me some suspicions that sadly seem to have been borne out. Previously the Rune Factory team has expressed that they might consider including a gay option in future games but it would be hard because they think they need to specifically create a LGB character to fill that role, which honestly I feel is really wrong-headed to begin with because I much prefer the recent SoS approach of just not gender-locking anything and slightly tweaking the romance dialogue depending on the PC's gender, but to make that excuse and then go and write a bachelorette who is basically canon bi, portray her as creepy and unhinged, and then gender-lock whether or not the PC is allowed to respond to her advances... Yeah, no, I'm not doing that. Not paying money for that in 2022. If the Rune Factory team doesn't want gay people playing their games, I'll take the hint and not play them. Thankfully, the rest of the world has progressed enough that I have alternatives now.
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PaleSunflower
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Post  Posted:

You're welcome. :) I think it's best to know what you're potentially getting into before possibly buying a game. If you find a good alternative to Rune Factory, please leave a post about it in the Masterpost of Farming Simulation Games that aren't HM/SoS/RF (https://www.fogu.com/hmforum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=174277) thread if it's not already there. I've been trying to find something to fill the gap until RF5 is localized, but I haven't found anything that catches my eye yet that has actually been released.
Spoiler:
Ludmila herself is said to be mostly in love with love itself. At best, Ludmila more player-sexual than anything else, where she's gay if the MC is female and straight if the MC is male. Ludmila isn't portrayed as creepy nor unhinged (from what I can tell), but weird, with the whole "weird" thing being mostly focused on her masochism rather than her obsession with the protagonist. I think the developers wanted to show just how much of an outsider Ludmila is (she moves into town part-way through the story), but making her a masochist whose attempts at getting pleasure via other people makes other people uncomfortable is not the approach that I would have taken.
Anyway, the Rune Factory team is doing a poll right now for Rune Factory's 15th year anniversary. It's in Japanese, but the link to it and a translation of the questions (in the comment section) can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/runefactory/co ... _take_the/ . One of the options for features wanted in future titles is for same-« Chicken Hugging » romance. From what people have said online, the last time Hashimoto (the head developer) did something like this, a bunch of changes to SoS:ToT were made that made a lot of people happy. It's not a promise that things will change, but it's something at least.
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Embry wrote:Thank you earnestly for digging all this up and posting it so it would be easy to find and read through, as I had a specific question about the game I really needed answered, and I believe this has answered it.
Spoiler:
I'd lost a lot of my enthusiasm for this release when it was revealed that gay marriage would not be an option, and I'd pretty much decided that the way Ludmila was handled would determine whether I even considered getting the game, because her teaser profile was giving me some suspicions that sadly seem to have been borne out. Previously the Rune Factory team has expressed that they might consider including a gay option in future games but it would be hard because they think they need to specifically create a LGB character to fill that role, which honestly I feel is really wrong-headed to begin with because I much prefer the recent SoS approach of just not gender-locking anything and slightly tweaking the romance dialogue depending on the PC's gender, but to make that excuse and then go and write a bachelorette who is basically canon bi, portray her as creepy and unhinged, and then gender-lock whether or not the PC is allowed to respond to her advances... Yeah, no, I'm not doing that. Not paying money for that in 2022. If the Rune Factory team doesn't want gay people playing their games, I'll take the hint and not play them. Thankfully, the rest of the world has progressed enough that I have alternatives now.
Don't know if you're still checking this, and apologies if you're already aware, but good news! This has been addressed, and SS relationships will be included in the base game in English and other localized versions and patched into the Japanese game.
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Sanne
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Post  Posted:

Thank you so much for posting this! I love reading up on spoilers beforehand and feel even more hyped about the world now.
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