I beat Rune Factory 4... which is surprisingly quick. I'm not even halfway done with summer and haven't even started on the fall crops yet. Compare this with the first game, in which you could not beat one of the dungeons until winter rolled around and permitted you to cross the now-frozen lake to reach the entrance. And if you hadn't beaten the dungeons that were previous to that, you had to wait a whole other year for winter before you could come to that dungeon again. I get the feeling though this game is going to pull a Tales of Legendia and have another forty hours of gameplay after the ending credits because I haven't even found half the items needed to upgrade my weapons and armor, meaning there are areas I have yet to explore.

Besides that, it's a Rune Factory game. You farm, you court a spouse, and you fight in dungeons. The major difference is you can choose your sex at the beginning of the game — you no longer are forced to be a man — and can now court the men of town. It's just so few of them are appealing for me, man or woman. For the guys, I have an asshole, a tsundere, a liar, and two OK dudes, one with a refreshing yet clumsy demeanor and the other a capable prince. For the girls, there's an idiot, a fucking six-year-old (I get shivers knowing she can get married and become a mother), a psychopath, a depressed downer, and another two OK ones, the knight and musician. It's like... eh... I don't feel like trying to go on a date with you.

A weird addition is they added modular furniture. Now, I fucking loved the house in Rune Factory Frontier. I would totally move into a place like that. It had good decor and everything was arranged nicely. In general I'm fond of the drawn backgrounds in the handheld Rune Factory games and they remind me of the old Squaresoft PS1 backgrounds, so having the kitchen / chemistry lab / smithy / crafting table also drawn in makes your home feel really complete. With the modular furniture, it fucks up that entire ambiance. Nothing lines up. It's not like Animal Crossing where there are exact squares. My OCD is screaming when it sees my kitchen be at weird angles whenever I make a new addition. I have to literally throw that shit and hope it works well with the stuff around it. I'm not joking. You go to a store and say, "I'd like a smithy," and they say, "Here you go," and fucking hand that shit to you. Then you pick up literally the whole fucking thing, walk across town, and throw that in the corner. In every other game I've played, you usually go to the carpenter in town, hand him money and materials, and he says, "OK, wait for three days while I go to your house and build that shit for you." Seeing my sprite carry this entire fucking smithy over her head like it's a Zelda clay pot is ridiculous.

The thing with the Rune Factory series is the protagonist always has amnesia, but it's gotten to the point that you wonder why. Like, it doesn't add anything to the plot. In this case, she was going to visit the Dragon of the Wind for the cure to the dragon's sickness before she was attacked by soldiers, accidentally dropped the cure down a ravine, and then was hit in the head, making her lose her memories. As of right now in the game she still has amnesia, but she's figured out the cure and found it in the ravine, so you wonder why have her forget to start with. Just turn the quest into exploring the ravine for it.

The developer, Neverland, filed for bankruptcy after this game, so it's likely this is the last in the series. (Did you know they also made Lufia? I didn't know that.) A shame because for all my griping I still like these games. Well, I can't remember the plot for Rune Factory 3 other than you can turn into a sheep, so I guess I can replay that.

Paul's input on the grate issue:
Paul: Egh, just take it. Obviously your stalker saw that you needed a grate and ordered one. It's better than them leaving a bunch of severed doll heads in your refrigerator.
Me: I like how you thought of severed doll heads in a fridge, as if this were a thing you yourself considered when you were stalking someone.
Paul: That's ludicrous. Your accusations are hurtful and rude. By the by, if you happen to need a bunch of headless dolls I know a guy...
Me: I'm a girl. I have plenty of headless dolls.
Paul: I suspect, from your language, that you think that's a commonly held notion or stereotype of some kind. Let me assure you that it is neither.
Me: I assure you, sir, that such a collection is common amongst young maidens and implore you to acquaintance yourself with more of my sex to better your knowledge on the topic.
Paul: Your sex has a flawed mental capacity and is want to mis-remember details.
Me: And yet here you are, sir, emulating my sex with your intimacy of dolls sans head.
Paul: Wipe that heteronormativity off your face, my dear girl. Dolls are for everyone.
Me: I never said dolls were only for girls. Goodness knows boys like to pretend their "action figures" are not dolls. I am merely discussing the headless variety.
Paul: Well I too had headless... shall we say wrestling models (I didn't play with dolls and I'll kill anyone who says I did. Even my mom). Boys with headless toys, represent!
Paul: Upon reading that I now see that statement reads as though we have penises without tips... I assure you we have complete and/or whole dicks.

How is it somehow every conversation I have turns into genitalia? I didn't even direct it toward that this time.