I am getting too old for the franchise it seems.

[Leo D. Marstone]

I randomly reminisced the last few days over the Rune Factory Games and remembered that I enjoyed these games on the handheld so I thought why not check out RF5 as well. Since I am also a huge romance/marriage fan in my farm sims I thought I check out the bachelorettes beforehand.

I gotta say it's a good thing I did because I am pretty dissapointed. All the bachelorettes are these cute girly types and at first glance there was no one that catched my interest.

However on the non dateable side we have Elsje, Misasagi or heck even Simone. Let me be so honest and I wanted to have someone more mature and with more curves.

However on the bachelor site you have more variation.

Checking back on older games and it's all the same with Alicia from RF2 being the sole exception.
Rune Factory is clearly aimed for a younger audience and without my nostalgia glasses I don't see the appeal for the bachelorettes anymore thus I believe I am too old. -_-

Am I the only one thinking like this because I haven't found a thread yet that discussed this.

I guess I glance over to the new entrys of Rune Factorys that will come out in the future but I fear it will be the same.

[Lanosa]

Looks like you accomplished what you wanted, you already got a jester award :)

But if your question was genuine (or someone else have this feeling), let me tell you something: you are only too old for anything if you really believe it. No one is too old nor too young to do anything they desire to do. If you want play Rune Factory franchise, hey, you can! Romancing is not the only thing you can do.

[Leo D. Marstone]

Nah, that was genuine. As for the jester award...it is what it is.

Normally I enjoy marriage and romance mechanics and it is too much intertwined for me in rune factory to outright ignore it.

But checking out the bachelorettes in RF5 was the first time that I was looking at them and was like....huh. Thats it?

The girls are cute...I guess but in their design boring and there is like only one age range.

Over on the bachelor side there is more variety. From young to adult. I mean look at Lucas and Murakumo.

I referred to age not because of gameplay or story but because the bachelorettes don't appeal to me at all. As I said Elsje is way more interesting with her sleepy laid back attitude than her sister Pamela but every "older" female character is not romanceable in RF5.

Anyway I am bad in explaining things.

Bottom line is that I think the bachelorettes in RF5 were dissapointing and thats all but it seems I am alone with this opinion and thats fine.

[Mamma Chaxea]

Don't worry, you aren't the only one who is disappointed with the RF5 bachelorettes, and I can relate to you, actually!

I was a bit disappointed too when I saw them. I mean they sure are cute but... That's it.
The only thing that really distinguish them are the "races" such as, fuuka has animal ears, Scarlett is an elf and Ludimila is a succubus. that's it.
Except for mabye Scarlett, they all seam to be around the same age,

I was so excited to see both Simone and Misasaki because I relly wanted to romance Misasaki, but sadly she isn't datable. I mean, the fact that you can't date her matches her story, but... yeah, that was a bummer.

On the batchelor' side... I loooove the diversity. I love how their design is really unique for each character and i like espetially how they have different ages, or at least, they seem to be.
Lucas is mature, Rainhard is an adult, while Cecil is really young (too much for my taste).

You aren't getting old, it's just a matter of taste and opinions tbh.

[Rikuto01]

Originally posted by Leo D. Marstone:

Nah, that was genuine. As for the jester award...it is what it is.

Normally I enjoy marriage and romance mechanics and it is too much intertwined for me in rune factory to outright ignore it.

But checking out the bachelorettes in RF5 was the first time that I was looking at them and was like....huh. Thats it?

The girls are cute...I guess but in their design boring and there is like only one age range.

Over on the bachelor side there is more variety. From young to adult. I mean look at Lucas and Murakumo.

I referred to age not because of gameplay or story but because the bachelorettes don't appeal to me at all. As I said Elsje is way more interesting with her sleepy laid back attitude than her sister Pamela but every "older" female character is not romanceable in RF5.

Anyway I am bad in explaining things.

Bottom line is that I think the bachelorettes in RF5 were dissapointing and thats all but it seems I am alone with this opinion and thats fine.

Nah, you're not alone in that opinion. Everyone has different things they want, and to me the characters of RF5 were very.... safe. Safe isn't fun when you're playing a fantasy game, you know?

To me, RF3 characters were peak for how absolutely ridiculous everyone was. Those are not nostalgia glasses either, I didn't play RF3 until RF3S came out. THAT was the opposite of safe. RF4 was a bit more conservative, but the characters still felt good and unique. RF5.... yea I don't know. I don't feel any kind of pull towards any of them. They just exist. Some people don't feel that way, and that's fine too.

[Manga System]

Yeah its pretty sad that you cant date Misasagi and Elsje. Especially Elsje i mean she doesnt even look more older than the other ones and dont have any children.

[Vile Eye]

I probably arrived way too late to this discussion, but please check Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma if you haven't. Although I am enjoying RF5, I do think characters look way too young so I am not that interested in romance. But on the new entry of the series characters look more mature in general (since you said you wanted a curvy woman, you'll like Ulalaka, I think?), so I thought I might let you know just in case you would like to consider playing that one.

[Leo D. Marstone]

Yeah I saw Guardians of Azuma and was positively surprised. Not just Ulalaka (weird name btw xD) but the other bachelorettes look interesting as well.

I will definetely keep an eye on this entry.
Wondering if it is still possible to have kids and I have a big question mark because of the villagers.

So far it looks like they consists only of random generated NPCs instead of unique villagers who inhabit shops ect like we had in previous RF games.
They shared so many informations about the game already that I doubt that they held back information about them if they were a thing. So I think we are stuck with the random villagers.

On a sidenote Hina is romancable in Guardians of Azuma as well. My first thought was...poor Julian

[Vile Eye]

Oh, I hope having children is still possible, but they have not said anything about that, right?

I hadn't thought about villagers's place within the village, that's an interesting point. At a very first glance, I kind of liked that concept of having random NPCs, since it adds to the customization of the village? I mean... I like being able to choose who does what, basically.

But I have to admit that, as a result, villagers may lose some personality/background story? Although, if I recall correctly, Iroha is supposed to work at a tea shop, but maybe it is just lore and not a functional shop Now I too wonder how that will work

I like Hina's design a lot, so I don't mind Julian being heart-broken LOL I already know choosing a bachelor/bachelorette will be a struggle, most designs look great imo.

[Sylph]

tides of destiny is great

[vykrom]

This is something that frustrates me every few months lol Scouring the web for suggestions on more adult/mature Harvest Moon / Rune Factory / Stardew Valley type games generally nets me more disappointment and frustration than it does answers. As near as I can tell, Gleaner Heights and maybe the upcoming Grim Shire (if you're okay with Anthro ((not furry)) stuff). And as a child of 80s cartoons, I'm fine with that myself

But if it makes you feel any better, the topic of character ages and the mass disappointment in the fandom is so widespread, the topic is actually banned on the subreddits lol so there's that vindication

And to the first reply about how you can just enjoy the game without the romance.. That's actually kind of hard in 5. Unless you're playing as a girl, maybe. I don't know. I played as a boy. And once it started to feel like pedophilia I tried to back off and enjoy the game as just a fantasy farming game. But the main girls were constantly throwing themselves at me and flirting and hinting at attraction, I had to throw in the towel and just stop playing. It's unfortunate because I put in a good 40 hours at that point, but if I'm not even allowed to ignore the romance part that makes my skin crawl, then the game just doesn't want me to play

And I don't know why it'd be so hard to have both young and more mature characters available. It's not like making the older sister and mom an option would take anything away. It's literally just adding more, and making the experience more akin to what girl characters get in their bachelor pool of options

[Wolfe]

What? you don't like Ludmila?
Also, Rune Factory 5 is widely panned as the worst rune factory game ever made. So, you might not be too old for Rune Factory, you just might dislike Rune Factory 5, but still enjoy 3s, or 4s. which are regarded as the best.

[CCIceTea]

Originally posted by Leo D. Marstone:

Yeah I saw Guardians of Azuma and was positively surprised. Not just Ulalaka (weird name btw xD) but the other bachelorettes look interesting as well.

I will definetely keep an eye on this entry.
Wondering if it is still possible to have kids and I have a big question mark because of the villagers.

So far it looks like they consists only of random generated NPCs instead of unique villagers who inhabit shops ect like we had in previous RF games.
They shared so many informations about the game already that I doubt that they held back information about them if they were a thing. So I think we are stuck with the random villagers.

On a sidenote Hina is romancable in Guardians of Azuma as well. My first thought was...poor Julian :sacrificed:

Late but you can have up to two children in GOA

[Leo D. Marstone]

Originally posted by CCIceTea:

Originally posted by Leo D. Marstone:

Yeah I saw Guardians of Azuma and was positively surprised. Not just Ulalaka (weird name btw xD) but the other bachelorettes look interesting as well.

I will definetely keep an eye on this entry.
Wondering if it is still possible to have kids and I have a big question mark because of the villagers.

So far it looks like they consists only of random generated NPCs instead of unique villagers who inhabit shops ect like we had in previous RF games.
They shared so many informations about the game already that I doubt that they held back information about them if they were a thing. So I think we are stuck with the random villagers.

On a sidenote Hina is romancable in Guardians of Azuma as well. My first thought was...poor Julian

Late but you can have up to two children in GOA

Thank you for the clarification. That made my day.

Where did you learn this?

[GameAW]

Speaking personally, as long as you don't self-insert too hard (or possibly not at all) its still every bit enjoyable regardless. You're absolutely right that the game is aimed at younger audiences just like the Harvest Moon games of then. But they're also made to be played and enjoyed by any audience. In my personal experience, I look at it as the farmer is marrying whomever he chooses, not me. And I think he and the bachelorette of my choosing look cute together or maybe I like her romance story, or so on. So I put them together. Hell, I love coming back to Harvest Moon 64 on occasion, and those girls look young enough to be my daughter, but I won't deny myself a good and fun classic farming sim because of that.

I do agree though that they could afford to have more variety on bachelors/bachelorettes- the fact that Misasagi, Terry, and even Livia and Radea all had recorded and even dubbed romance and marriage lines in 5 yet not a single one of them were candidates was a crime.

[CCIceTea]

Originally posted by Leo D. Marstone:

Originally posted by CCIceTea:

Late but you can have up to two children in GOA

Thank you for the clarification. That made my day.

Where did you learn this?

Sorry I didn't realize you replied til now but here is an interview with the producer confirming it: https://www.siliconera.com/interview-developing-rune-factory-guardians-of-azuma/

And on the topic of children, they revealed silhouettes for them (and if you marry Hina or Fubuki, they seem to share the same animal ears): https://simulationdaily.com/news/rune-factory-guardians-of-azuma-children/