Rune Factory/YMMV

• Base Breaker: Some fans think Mist's cute. Others think she's annoying. The fact that she's supposed to be part of the Official Couple hasn't helped at all...
• Ensemble Darkhorse: In an official Rune Factory 2 character popularity poll, Barrett ranked in first place, beating out Kyle (the main protagonist) by about 100 points.
  • Yue got a LOT more popularity than was expected. So much so that she makes a cameo in the third game selling her wares again.
• Game Breaker - Arguably, the wireless dungeon under your house in Rune Factory 3. Accessible early in the game, it provides the player with an absurd supply of income, items and equipment (especially on the higher levels), all with no penalty for fainting if you choose the multiplayer option.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships - A rare in-game example, in Rune Factory 2, Yue the wandering salesgirl. Most of the marriage candidates, if you don't get married to them, will eventually wind up married to one of the other NPCs. If you marry one of those girls, Yue winds up married to whoever that girl would have eventually married in the first place; presumably this is to ensure that everyone who is supposed to be married as of the timeskip actually is, since many of the new post-timeskip NPCs are actually the children of the townsfolk from the start of the game.
• Most Annoying Sound: Many of the English voices in Rune Factory 2 are this for the fans.
• Narm - In Frontier, activate the events involving the Big Bad, Gelwein, on the Pumpkin Festival. Now try to take the events seriously as he confronts you with a Halloween pumpkin mask on his head.
  • Alternatively, in Rune Factory 3 if you marry Raven, it is possible to trigger her birth cutscene when she is in phoenix form. Impossible not to laugh as she groans and Micah rushes her to the clinic.
  • The first game's ending involves a dragon that breathes plant life coming to save you all from the Sechs Empire's tanks in the nick of time. It's as silly as it sounds, and the fact that the game script shortly thereafter blatantly misspells "swordsman" as "sowrdsman" does little to help matters.
• Replacement Scrappy: Jake who replaced Nicholas from Rune Factory 1 as the love interest of Cecilia.
  • Doesn't help that he's a complete asshole at first and his Freudian Excuse is barely even alluded to (hell, isn't his mother a human?).
  • Inverted with Selphy from Frontier. She replaces Tori as the blonde librarian, but due to her breaking the mold of the traditional sweet, shy librarian, she has gained more of a fanbase.
• Strangled by the Red String: Mist in the first game and Mana in the second, for they're both the "official" love interests for the respective protagonists in each game.
• Tear Jerker - The second opening of Rune Factory 2.
• Toy Ship - A number, but most notably the above Childhood Marriage Promise examples in Rune Factory 2.
  • Nicholas and Cecilia in the first Rune Factory, Roy and Cammy in the second, and Marco and Candy in Frontier.
• Unfortunate Implications: The boys get a lot more marriage options than the girls.
  • Especially in Oceans, considering that Aden gets over twice as many potential brides as Sonja. Not even justified, as several female characters could have been male without changing the story. Elektra, Sierra, and Pandora come to mind, not even bringing Mikoto into the mix.