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If you’ve played other games similar toRune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma, you might already know that affinity is one of the major mechanics in these games. Not only do you get to romance some characters by raising your bond with them, but you may also unlock various new interactions and even recipes in some cases.
However, increasing your bond with a character is a long journey, especially with the sheer amount of choices you get in this game. It’s important to set your goals and decide who you want to prioritize while doing the right things to get the most bond each day.
How To Increase Bond Quickly
To start bonding with different villagers in Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma,you first have to unlock them by progressing the story(more details below). Once you have a character unlocked, you can head over to the Profiles section of the main menu to check your current bond level with each one.
In this menu,you’ll notice that some characters have a red bar while others have green. The red bar indicates that you can romance with the characters while the green villagers are non-romanceable, and you can only increase your normal bond with them. Themain purpose of increasing the bond correlates with combatas you can take these characters in combat with you after they reach bond level one.
Each level after the first one on your bondgives a new ability to these characters, making their value in combat even higher.
Apart from bond,romanceable characters also have a stat called Intimacy on their character screen. This stat can be increased by completing companion quests specific to each character, which are unlocked at every bond level past level three. Each quest you finish gives you one Intimacy, which also symbolizes how close you are to the character.
After reaching bond seven with romanceable characters and finishing all their quests till that point,you can ask them to be your partner. There are many ways to increase your bond with the characters like:
You can only do thefirst three tasks once a day on each bondable character, while the second last one can only be done once on festival days each year.
As mentioned above, hanging out with characters is the main method to increase the bond with them. However, it’s also the method thatforces you to skip some time in the day depending on the option you pick. These options can take away ten minutes to an hour out of your day, which means that you can only hang out with a few characters each day if you want to progress the story as well.
Each character has specific hangouts that they like, and they also have preferences for gifts. If you give them a neutral gift,you’ll get eight bond value, with the possibility of getting 13 sometimes. However, if you give them an item they like or love, you’ll get a much higher bond value, making it the best way to get extra bond.
you may figure out some items that a character likes bytalking to them and paying attention to dialogues related to them.
For example,Ulalaka’s character screen mentions that she loves drinking, and all liquor items are her favorite.
You’ll have a special hangout on a character’s birthday whereyou can give them normal gifts to get even closer. This is a separate hangout from the normal gifting one, and it’s important to pick it since this day only comes once every in-game year.
There are minimal story spoilers down below as we tell you how to unlock each character.
All Romanceable Characters And How To Unlock Them
If you look at the profiles screen of Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma, you’llrealize that there are a total of 25 bondable characters in the game. Out of these, 15 are romanceable as follows:
How To Unlock
Clarice
Clarice is the final character you unlock after you finish the main story of the game.
Cuilang
Cuilang is aresident of the Autumn Village, and automatically gets unlocked after you finish the village’s story.
Fubuki
Fubuki is the god of Winter Village and he can be unlocked after youbeat his wolf form by going through the Winter Wilds.
Unlocks at the same time as Mauro.
Ikaruga
You’ll meet him for the first time as you’retrying to take care of the Winter Astral Shrineduring the main story. However, he only unlocks after you complete the Frostfang Cavern.
Iroha
Unlocks early in the game as you reach the Spring Village and talk to its residents.
Kai
You’ll first meet Kai during the Autumn Village main story, buthe only reveals his true form much lateras you’re trying to find the last two gods.
Kanata
Kanata is the last god you’ll meet in Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma, andshe’ll unlock after you throw a party for herwith all the other gods.
Kurama
Kurama is the third god in the game, and he belongs to the Autumn Village. To unlock him,you’ll not only have to enter the village, but also go through its story, which takes quite a while.
Matsuri
She’s the second god that you unlockafter going through the Summer Village storyand getting her sword remade.
Mauro
As the crisis arrives in Spring Village, you guide his ship to defeat the evil dragon by pointing out its weakness. This character unlocks right after that.
Murasame
As you progress the main story in Spring Village, you’ll eventually head to theAbandoned Shrine where you’ll fight your first boss. This character unlocks after this battle.
Pilika
Pilika is the resident of Winter Village that you meet as soon as you enter, butshe’ll only unlock for bonding after the entire Winter Village arc.
Subaru
Subaru is the only optional character in the game as you have a chance of missing him. After you defeat the evil dragon,you’ll get the option to revive Subaru by making another sacrifice.
For this sacrifice, you’ll either have to lose all your bond with the characters, make your character go back to level one, or lose all the wealth you currently possess.Successfully making one of these sacrifices unlocks Subaru in due time.
Ulalaka
She’s the first god you unlock in the game bypurifying some of the Blight in Spring Villageafter you get her Sacred Drum through a dream.
All Non-Romanceable Characters And How To Unlock Them
There are a total of ten non-romanceable but bondable characters in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma as follows:
Unlocks at the same time as Tsubame.
Kotaro
Kotaro and Yachiyo are the two non-romanceable characters you’ll meet in Autumn Village, and they unlock at the end of the village’s arc.
Sakaki
Sakaki is one of the first characters that gets unlocked in the game after progressing the Spring Village story for a bit.
She unlocks at the same time as Sakaki
Takumi
For Takumi, you’ll have to progress the story of the Spring Village outskirts and beat the boss in the Abandoned Shrine.
Tsubame
Tsubame is one of the three residents of the Summer Village, and she unlocks right after you unlock Matsuri.
Unlocks at the same time as Kotaro.
Watarase
Watarase and Zaza are the two non-romanceable characters from the Winter Village, and they unlock after you finish the village’s story.
