This hack changes Micah into a girl, allowing the game to be played as a lesbian farmer/adventurer/sheep-monster.
There are now two versions of the patch included, a Standard patch and a "Hacker's Cut" version. Both versions change the following:
The text now refers to Micah as a woman and uses she/her pronouns. Because the original script featured a number of "Micah looks like a girl", "Micah is girly" or "other characters want to dress Micah in girl clothes" jokes, these were changed to new jokes that make more logical sense and are more entertaining in the context of Micah's new gender.
The swimsuit costume has been changed, both in Micah's portrait and the 3D texture. Micah now wears a cute, but simple, two piece bathing suit.
The voice clips have been altered so that NPCs refer to Micah as a woman or do not specify gender.
The Standard patch makes no other changes to the script or story. The Hacker's Cut Patch also includes additional changes to the script. These changes include addressing awkward/confusing phrasing in the original localization, making some of the now changed scenes feel less "flat", making characters feel less "player-sexual" than a simple gender swap, and various other changes (see the readme for further details).
The reason for making two patches was that I was interested in seeing how the script could be altered to create a more specific and curated "lgbt hack" than a straightforward gender-swap. Because much of the result is either based on personal taste or deviates even further from a script players might be particularly nostalgic for, I thought it would make sense to offer it as an option, but not a requirement.
If you are nostalgic for the original script or want to experience a more "vanilla" Rune Factory 3 experience, you may be interested in the Standard patch. If you've already played Rune Factory 3 and want a different perspective or if you are looking for more than just a simple gender flip, consider giving the Hacker's Cut a try.
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Rune Factory 3 - Lesbian Weresheep Edition 1.2
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Like the Story of Seasons series it spin off from, Rune Factory has always had a
strong LGBT+ fanbase, yet shied away from providing explicitly LGBT content
or romance options. While today many talented romhackers have set about patching
that in to older Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon games, the Rune Factory games
have largely had to remain as they were. Until now.
Rune Factory 3 seemed a logical choice for this hack for several reasons. For
one, it was my favorite of the original three DS games in the series. For
another, the protagonist had been described by both the series' creators, fans
and in-universe characters as being "more feminine" than even your average soft
anime farm boi. More to the point, Micah looks like the kind of spunky, peppy
anime lesbian a number of real-life lesbians I know would make a picrew of.
The game's central gimmick of Micah's sheep form was also easy to work with
because what kind of a creep is gonna look at a hornless anime sheep, pull out
their anime sheep gender callipers and go "hey, that sheep's a BOY!"
A weird sheep creep, that's who!
Standard Patch
------------
Included are two patches, the Standard patch and the "Hacker's Cut" patch.
Apply only one of the two patches to your rom. The Standard patch changes the
following:
* Micah is now a woman, and referred to as such in the script and events.
* The swimsuit costume now appropriately covers up Micah's lady nipples both
in her portrait and on her 3D model's texture, as society seems to have
some issue with lady nipples being as visible as dude nipples. Look, I
can't patch society.
* Audio clips that refer to Micah's gender are edited to either refer to her
as a woman, or no longer mention gender at all.
* The original game had a surprising amount of jokes regarding Micah "looking
like a girl" or "being girly" and such. These jokes have either rewritten
or replaced to make logical sense with Micah's current gender.
* A handful of typos and grammatical errors in the original script have been
fixed.
What this hack does not change:
* The story and script, aside from the aforementioned "girly Micah" jokes,
has not been altered.
* The baths. I couldn't figure out how to do the kind of event editing
that would require. Luckily, the game barely mentions gendered bathrooms
and nothing happens if you try to enter the women's bath anyway, so let's
all politely pretend that Sharance has a unisex bathhouse and Micah just
prefers the right side for unknown reasons.
* How babies work. You'll still get your wife pregnant. Sometimes a lady
gets another lady pregnant if they try hard enough. It happens.
* Any other bugs or glitches that may be found in the original version will
still be here.
Hacker's Cut
------------
One of the reasons this hack wasn't too difficult to make is that the venn
diagram of a standard dense anime boy protagonist and a standard dense
lesbian overlaps in key areas. However, it is not a perfect circle. While
the standard patch keeps most of the original 2009 localization intact,
some retro gaming enthusiasts looking for gay sheep content may find
themselves wishing for something more curated.
The Hacker's Cut patch includes all the same features as the standard patch,
but includes further changes to the script, mostly around the romantic
events. It is not intended to be "better", just different (and largely
because I was curious as to what it might look like). Not every event is
altered, but enough is rewritten to stand out if you are already familiar
with the original.
Some of these changes are to help the characters feel less generic
and "player sexual" and give them a more specific relationship with their
identity as they grow closer to Micah. Some of the changes are due to my
own tastes, such as toning down the Carmen/Carlos incestousness, changing
some (not all) of Micah's meaner date options to flirtier teasing or
cuter options than telling Raven to smile for the goddamn 20th time,
and ATTEMPTING to add the veneer of pathos to the "let's end racism with
flowers" plot point. Other changes are completely arbitrary and likely
won't be noticed by anyone. There's too many to list in full but I tried
to keep the same tone as the original localization (which, just for
reference, quoted Jim Carey's The Mask LONG before I showed up).
Which Patch Should I use?
------------
If you are specifically nostalgic for the original or want to experience
a more "vanilla" Rune Factory 3 experience, you may be interested in
the Standard Patch.
If you've already played Rune Factory 3 and want something different
or if you specifically want more than just a simple gender flip,
consider giving the Hacker's Cut a try.
In either case, remember to apply only one of the two patches to your rom.
Requirements
------------
To install this patch you will need to apply it to an untrimmed copy of the
North American release of Rune Factory 3 using xDelta.
Acknowledgements
------------
This hack was made possible due to the hard work of previous romhackers and
fan-translators who made my work a LOT easier with their tools and documentation.
This includes the Rune Factory 2/3 Text Dumper by CUE, Tinke by pleoNeX, and the
nsbmd-texture-tool by necco-atsume.
Database match: Rune Factory 3 - A Fantasy Harvest Moon (USA)
Database: No-Intro: DS (all) (v. 20210227-111036)
File/ROM SHA-1: 121B5DFDDE869E828F9DFBB2F139E970BF25A8B8
File/ROM CRC32: B423F7FC
