The artwork for Dorothy is rather simple. She wears a green cloak with a hood, has grey hair with overgrown bangs that cover here eyes and two “stalks” of hair trailing down her cheeks. Her coloration is rather bland, until you get the wedding scene, when you see her eyes for the first time. They are a brilliant red! Very shocking, as I was expecting a bland color to go with the rest of her colorscheme, but the designers threw a very nice curveball there. Sadly, the wedding is the only time you will see her eyes.

The voice acting is simple, but it works. She comes off as a timid girl, which is what you want. The text dialogue with her is much more indicative that she is timid, as for the first half you know her she speaks through her doll, Fern. Even when doing so, she stutters and stumbles in her speech quite a lot.

Now for the amazing thing: The name. Dorothy. That sounds like the name someone’s grandmother or aunt might have, but not somebody young. Or maybe you might think of the Wizard of Oz. Those were the preconceptions and biases I had towards the name before the beginning of the game. However, Rune Factory 2 completely changed my opinion on the name, and Dorothy is now one of my favorite names.

So, to celebrate a great game franchise, and a wonderfully charming character within it, I make Dorothy the fourth Otaku Deus.

1. Neon Genesis Evangelion: Psychological mind-tripping with giant robots.

2. Binbou Shimai Monogatari: The most depressingly happy series about two sisters.

3. Exel Saga: What the f***?

4. Pita Ten: Concentrated happiness in a can.

5. Kanon: A moe-fied exploration into promises and miracles.

6. Azumanga Daioh: High School Randomness.

7. Trigun: A priest (Wolfwood), a disaster (Vash), and a woman (Meryl) walk into a bar…

8.  Five Centimeters per Second: A concentrated truth about growing up.

9. Lupin III: Crime does pay.

10. Naruto: Electric orange ninja runs around Japan fighting bad guys.

Looking at Rune Factory 3, it is clear that it is greatly upgraded from its predecessors. Many mechanics were changed, and most of them for the better. Let’s take a look at what mechanics were changed, and how they compare to others in the series:

1. Stats
This is probably one of the most significant changes to the game is how stats are given. There are still the independent stats for cooking, forging, and fighting, but also an entire slew of new stats for Walking, Brawling, a stat for each element of magic, a Love stat, and more. There’s also stats to help you resist certain effects, such as poisoning, being stunned, being paralyzed, etc… The myriad of different stats seems confusing at first, but after playing the game to completion I saw its benefits as well. Many times there were questions on how you raised certain stats, and you don’t know which stats exist until you get some experience in them. Overall, this change was for the better.

2. Love & Marriage
A major aspect of any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game is the romance elements to it. In this game, there isn’t a whole lot of change, except for a few details. First of all, in order to get married you have to beat the final boss of the game. While in previous Rune Factories you could marry a girl as soon as her “Heart Level” was maxed out and you gave her the appropriate gift, in this game you have to meet much more criteria to meet the girl. First, in order to offer the item “Engangement Ring”, you not only have to forge the item yourself and get the materials needed for it (Lv 20 Forging, 3 silvers and 1 ruby), you didn’t get the recipe for this item until near the end of the game, after you not only had beaten the fourth major boss (the Death Wall), but also united the Univir settlement with Sharance. While this did tie in many elements, I enjoyed in the past games the ability to marry who I wanted when I wanted without having to beating the final bosses, simply because I’m not very good at RPG fighting. Needless to say a large amount of grinding was required on my part to level up to the necessary level to fight the demon, but that wasn’t a major pitfall for me, as leveling up is actually rather easy in this game. Still, in the end, I was sorta glad that they did that since it encouraged me to actually beat this game so I could get married.
Another element I want to address is the concept of rivals: specifically the lacking thereof. In fact, in a lot of cases the spots where I assumed would have been filled with rivals was filled with even more bachelorettes, making the bounty of available women even that much more bigger. However, it also left the town with an obvious shortage of men. I suspect this was done due to the fact that you had to defeat the four major bosses and unite the villages before you could even propose to a girl, but I beat the game in less than one year of in-game time. In fact, I beat the game and got married on the birthday of my character (Winter 16). Not to mention the fact that after you get married, you can have up to *THREE* kids.

3. Transformation
Rune Factory started off the series, and it provided a good foundation that the rest of the series has followed. Rune Factory 2 added quests, but was otherwise the same as its predecessor, minus the fact that the game was split in two parts: the part where you played as Kyle, and then where you got married, built a school, and had kids, and then played from the kids perspective to finish off the game. Rune Factory 3 has made what I will call the biggest change of all: being able to fight as a monster. Once you unlock the ability to transform after beating the Raccoon boss in Privera Forest, I fully used the fighting features of my wooly form to the max. I beat every boss afterwards in my wooly form, simply because it was the simplest way to incur a lot of damage. Although I suspect that the transformation belt will go the way of the school (a feature I enjoyed in Rune Factory 2), I do hope it will make its way into Rune Factory 4 and onward.

4. Overall
Overall, the game is a great leap forward in terms of how the Rune Factory series has progressed. To use an analogy with Pokemon, the original Rune Factory is Pokemon Red and Blue, Rune Factory 2 is Pokemon Gold and Silver, and Rune Factory 3 is Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. It added a lot of nice complexities, but nothing that should get in the way of people familiar with the series. The fishing mechanic update was nice, as you could actually see the outlines of the fish in the water now, and use that to try and catch certain types of fish rather than blind fishing in the past games. Still, I believe the best game to introduce a new person into the franchise is Rune Factory 2, but Rune Factory 3 is only a small step up in difficulty for the beginner. My feelings for the game overall is to give it an A. Great game, great storyline, great mechanics, and a lot of the features that irritated me at first I’ve grown to love.

On a minor side note, I want to announce the Rune Factory 3 Let’s Play will be in sections. It will be a quick mini guide on what I believe is an easy way to beat the game.

Overall, I believe that the AMV is a masterpiece, and I am not alone in this thought. It won several awards at conventions, including “Best Action” at Sakura Con, Tekkoshokon, AnimeFEST, Nan Desu Kan, and Anime Expo 2008. At Sakura Con it also walked away with a total of four awards (including the Best Action).  Here is how I thought it rated:

Visuals: 10/10
Quality: 10/10
Synchronization: 9/10
Total: 29/30

The main point that got to me was the famous guitar riff in the song, where it did indeed become more abstract. While it was nicely put together, I felt that there was room for improvement there where flow of the music and the footage could have been better utilized.

That’s it for this AMV Mania. Until next time, keep on watching those videos!

First, a few quick explanations for the format of this Let’s Play.

1. This will be a text-based LP. Since this game is for the Nintendo DS, and I don’t care to use an emulator to record video, it will be heavily text based.
2. Continuing on from my first point, I will do the occasional video or picture showcasing certain events, or post links to videos that are relevant.
3. I won’t go over every single detail of what I’ve done. What I will do is give details about the game as I play it, give tips and provide useful information, and make commentary on the game.
4. This will be scheduled for whenever I have the time, but I am to do it on a semi-reasonable update schedule.

Now, onward to the true prologue…

The game starts with our wooly hero, Micah, collapsing in front of the General Store while transformed as a Wooly monster. The main heroine, named Shara (who lives in Sharance) finds Micah collapsed, and drags him into her home, much to the protests of her father Wells, who is also the mayor of Sharance. Micah wakes up the next morning in an effeminate human form, and is led to his new home, the Sharance Tree. Shara has her red-headed elf friend named Raven help in the move, much to her silent protests. Micah is then led around the inside of his new home, the Sharance Tree, and is given a series of tutorials about the location of items in your home, ending in you saving the game for the first time. Micah is then led down a ladder to two large fields, and given more tutorials on clearing the fields (good time to clear all the fields), hoe a field (good time to hoe one field), plant some seeds, water the seeds, and even harvesting. Also is a tutorial on fighting monsters, and you are even given your first weapon, which you have choice in. My preference in previous games has been the short sword, so I went that way. With the end of the tutorials, you are free to continue on one of many paths, since the game isn’t exactly linear…

Next week, we go over what I’ve done and achieved, along with details on the various characters.

It wasn’t until summer of 2002 that the sixth Touhou game, “Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil”, would appear. It was the first in a new generation of Touhou games, as these were the first games published under “Team Shanghai Alice”, run solely by ZUN. It was also the first Touhou game to be written for the Windows operating system.

It wasn’t until Touhou 8, “Imperishable Night”, that Tewi Inaba would appear as the midboss for level five. She would also be featured in two other Touhou games, “Phantasmagoria of Flower View”, and “Shoot the Bullet.”

Many times in the ingame descriptions of the characters, it is listed that Tewi Inaba is a lucky rabbit. Humans who become lost in the forest she resides in never fail to find their way out, and many people often look for her because of her supposed powers to grant fortune to anyone who sees her. Also mentioned ingame is her age, at over 1300 years old, she is one of the oldest characters in the Touhou series.

Another trait of hers, that is famous in fanon, and even officially (Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth) is that Tewi Inaba is a trouble maker. She especially loves pranking on her friend, Reisen Udongein Inaba (no blood relation to Tewi).

So, as a lucky rabbit, and a good joker, here’s a dedication to Tewi Inaba: the third AnimeDeus. (Also note that 3 is considered a lucky number in many Eastern cultures).