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RomanceinRune Factory: Guardians of Azumais a pretty lengthy process, and is made a little bit more convoluted thanks to a bonding system that is separate but also linked to romance. To help you on your quest to woo your beloved, thisRune Factory: Guardians of Azumaromance guide will explain which characters you can romance, how to increase bond level, what bonding quests are and how they work, and what you need to do to unlock the ability to profess your love in the game.
All Romance Options in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
Who’s Your Favorite?
There areeight male and eight female romance optionsinRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. We’ve listed all of these in the table below.
Subaru
Kaguya
As noted above, both Cuilang and Pilika are only romanceable via the Seasons of Love DLC expansion. This also unlocks a ‘Marvelous Swimsuit’ outfit for each of the marriage candidates.
Are There Same Sex Romance Options in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma?
Romance For Everyone
Yes. Regardless of whether you choose the male or female main character in the game, you’ll still be able to build friendships and romance with all the characters listed above. The only exceptions here are that if you choose the male main character, you won’t be able to romance Subaru, and if you choose the female main character, you won’t be able to romance Kaguya because those characters are the main characters. This also explains why there islimited character customization inRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma.
How to Increase Bond Level Fast in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
To build a friendship and eventually romance a character, you need to increase your bond level with them.You can check your bond level with a character by going to the ‘Profiles’ menu. There are a few ways to increase your bond with characters inRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. These are:
Each of these will help you level up your bond level with a character, but the amount of points they give you varies.
Performing Hang Out Activities
‘Hang Out’ activities are the best way to quickly increase your bond level with a character inRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. These include things such as giving a gift, grabbing a bit to eat at a restaurant, going for a walk in the forest, and even poking fun, embracing, or patting the head of your chosen love interest. Each character has different items and activities that they like. However, once you’ve done something that they like, love, or dislike, an icon will appear next to that option again in future, so you don’t need to constantly remember.
Repeating the same ‘Hang Out’ activity with a character doesn’t lessen its effect, so once you find something they love doing, like grabbing a bit to eat at Yachiyo’s in the case of Ulalaka, you’re able to just use this every time to max out the amount of bond points you get every day from them.
Talk to Them Every Day
Alongside hanging out with a character, ensure to also use the ‘let’s chat’ option. This is only a sentence or two of conversation, but they’ll appreciate you checking in on them all the same. As such, it’s worth doing this every day before or after hanging out with a character. Plus, it gives you a bit of additional insight into the character if you’re interested in learning a little more about them.
Complete Personal Quests
you may ask a character if they have any requests. These often require you to defeat an enemy or gather a set amount of a particular item. It’s nothing too difficult and is often stuff you’ll tick off as you’re progressing through the game. Upon completing a personal quest, the character will give you a small reward and will thank you for your help.There are many personal quests for every character, so keep asking for and completing these to give you a little extra help.
Include Them in Your Party
One of the minor ways of increasing your bond level with characters is to have them in your party. This is done by selecting them within the ‘Party’ menu for one of the slots in your team. As you fight monsters in combat and explore the world, you’ll see a message indicating that your bond with a character has increased. This doesn’t mean it’s increased by an entire level, but that you’ve earned some points towards leveling up.
Complete Bonding Quests
As you increase your bond level with a character, you’ll unlock bonding quests. These quests require you to help the character with some sort of personal development activity. It might require you to gather some materials to help them with a project, or just engage in conversation to help them figure out some personal issues. Bonding quests are unlocked at the same bond levels for every character.
1
4
2
5
3
6
7
When you get some of these bonding quests, they may tell you that you need towait until a certain time the next dayor advance the main story. You should have reached the point in the main story where everything you need for these quests is unlocked within 10-15 hours, so don’t worry too much about it.
How to Unlock Romance and Date Characters in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
After you reach bond level 7 with a character, you’ll be able to take on their fourth bonding quest. This will again see you helping them with a personal quest. After this, the character will let slip in one way or another that they have feelings for you, and you can then tell them you have feelings for them. You’ll then need to wait one day and meet them somewhere for them to give you an answer, at which point you can confirm your choice of romance companion.
From this point, you can begin building your romantic relationship with them by going on dates, using more affectionate ‘Hang Out’ options, such as patting their head, embracing, kissing, and the other methods of increasing bond level mentioned below. All of your romantic actions toward a character will increase their romance gauge, indicated by blue hearts in the bottom right corner of their profile.
The dating bonding quests are very straightforward and don’t really require you to do anything beyond watching some cutscenes and selecting some dialogue options. They’re primarily used to show how the relationship is blossoming between you and your chosen love interest.
Just because you have told a character you love them, you won’t have fully maxed out the romance gauge. You will continue to build this as you go on more dates, give them items, and hang out.
Once you’ve reached level 10 and have completed all the bonding quests that have you dating a character, you’re officially ready for the next step in your relationship. Marriage and potentially starting a family of your own.
