Friday, January 9, 2009

Ray's Birthday Gift: Rune Factory 2 Anomaly

Each of the characters in Rune Factory 2 has a designated Birthday Gift item. It is only when given that specific item that the character will acknowledge it as a birthday gift on his/her birthday. On any other day, if given the same item, the character will confess that he/she loves it, but wishes it had been given on his/her birthday...

In the 1st Generation, Yue sells every item that is designated as a special Birthday Gift for characters in the game. Each individual has a different item, apart from Douglas and Ray and Grape Juice is the ONLY item that Yue sells that is not designated as a special Birthday Gift item for ANY ONE.

This is the reason why player, including myself, believed that Grape Juice was Ray's designated item. In the test version of the game, however, Ray responded to Grape Juice in the way he responded to any other ordinary item. This perplexed me... In fact, other players had noted that in their version of game, he made the same response and it was only FRIED RICE, the gift designated for Douglas, that elicits the special Birthday Gift response.

When given FRIED RICE on any ordinary day:

Ray: I love this, but I wish I had gotten it for my birthday, instead.

On his actual birthday, when given FRIED RICE: ‘It actually is my birthday today.’

I therefore modified the list to substitute FRIED RICE for the GRAPE JUICE previously believed to have been Ray's Special Birthday Gift Item.

Note on 26 March: A number of players now have confirmed that in the latest version of the game, Grape Juice IS Ray's designated Birthday Gift Item. I therefore will change the Guide to conform with this result. Truly, GRAPE JUICE should have been his Birthday Gift in the first place.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,
I hadn't read this before Ray's birthday, so I gave him Grape Juice, which did elicit the birthday response. I tried again with Fried Rice and got an answer normally reserved for non-favourite items.
Weird...
Keep up the good work with the guides, they're really useful :)

Anonymous said...

After reading this, I have both FRIED RICE and GRAPE JUICE available, I gave Ray the FRIED RICE first and his response was not the birthday response. Then I gave him the GRAPE JUICE and he did respond with the "it's my birthday" response.

Freyashawk said...

Thanks to both of you for logging your results here. Apparently, the version I played had an error that has been changed. Oddly enough, though, other players had experienced the same result as I did in their games, which was why I wrote it into the Guide. I suppose I should change the Guide now. The Birthday Gift SHOULD be Grape Juice and if that has been implemented in the current version, that makes more sense than having Ray share Douglas' birthday gift item.