Rune Factory 5 Monster Taming Guide

Rune Factory 5 has made a bunch of changes to the formula of the series, though there are still some staples that are returning from previous games. For instance, just like in the last Rune Facotry title, you can capture and befriend monsters, then convince them to work your farm for you so you don’t have to take care of it as much. It can be a bit tough wrapping your head around the mechanics behind monster taming, so we’ve put together this Rune Factory 5 Monster Taming Guide to help you get started. 

How to Capture Monsters in Rune Factory 5

Before you can run around having monsters do your bidding, you’re going to need to get prepared first. There are one or two things you’ll need to have before you can start befriending your foes. First up, you’ll need a monster barn. Complete the story until you meet the first Farm Dragon, then complete the requests that come in. Each one will explain something to you, and one of them will task you with building a monster barn. With that done, you’ll also need to wait until you’re given your official SEED seal. 

The seal will also be given to you as part of a pretty early part of the storyline, and it’s the tool that you’ll actually use to capture the monsters. The final thing you’ll want to get ready is some fodder for your monsters. You can buy fodder seeds pretty cheaply, so grab yourself as many as possible, and then go plant them on the farm dragon. Having monsters at all requires 1 fodder per day, and having them work requires more for each monster you’re employing, so make sure to keep building it up. You can drop it in the little basket near the well on your dragon. 

Actually Getting A Monster in Rune Factory 5

This next part is going to feel familiar to anyone who has played Pokemon before. When you’re out in the wild and see a monster you want to capture, you’ll need to weaken them as much as possible before you try it. Don’t kill them, since you can’t make friends with a dead monster. Next, you’ll need to throw your seal at them, but you can’t just tap the button to throw it. 

Hold down the seal button until it flashes in your hand, then throw it at the monster. If the word ‘failure’ flashes up on the screen then it means the monster wasn’t weak enough. You can try it more than once and it might work on repeat attempts, but you’re better off doing more damage if you can do it without killing them. Once they’re in your service, they won’t become your friend automatically, you’ll have to entice them a bit first. 

Once they’re on your side, monsters will follow you around the overworld. If you want them to come and live on your farm and work for you, you’ll have to give them items until their friendship level gets high enough. Most early monsters can be given basic grasses until they’re your friends, but high-level monsters have specific likes and dislikes. Once you’ve given them enough, they’ll become your friend and you can give them a nickname and send them to your monster barn. 

Raising Your Monsters in Rune Factory 5

Once you’ve got some monsters in your monster barn, you’ll have to start taking care of them. As part of the request to build a monster barn earlier in the game, you should have been given a brush that you can use on your monsters each day. Your monsters will automatically eat fodder each day, but you can give them items each day to increase how much they like you. You can also increase how much they like you by taking them out on adventures. 

Putting your monsters to work

If you press ‘A’ while looking at a monster, you should be presented with a list of different options. From this menu, you can send your monster back to the barn if it’s out, bring it with you on adventures, and set them to work on your farm. Select the ‘Assign Field Chores’ option from the menu, then select which section of your farm they should work on. You can just let them choose for themselves, or assign them to the left, right, or middle section of your field. 

Each day, your monster will water crops, and put ripe crops into the sale bin at the end of the day. As they work, they’ll slowly be losing health, so make sure that you’re giving them healing items every so often or they’ll stop working for you. You’ll also need to keep tilling and planting seeds, as these are tasks the monster isn’t up to. 

Farming Items From Your Monsters

Another great thing about having monsters around is that they’ll constantly drop items for you to scoop up. Each monster will drop a different type of item, and they’ll become rarer and more valuable the higher that your relationship level gets with them. Make sure that you check each monster barn every morning if you want to keep your coffers full. 

Battling With Your Monster

Here we come to the strangest part of befriending monsters: making them fight for you. Once you’re friends with a monster, you can get them to follow you out into the overworld where they will provide support in battle. How useful your monster is, depends heavily on how much they like you, how powerful they are in general, and the area that you’re fighting through. 

Bear in mind, that your monster does have a health bar, but it won’t die if it runs out of health. Instead, it’ll stay on the ground and not move for a fair while. You can just move away and it’ll eventually get back up on its feet again. You can heal your monster friend by giving them healing medicine like herbs or potions, which has the added bonus of making them like you more. 

As you go on, your monster will gain XP and level up, increasing their stats across the board and actually turning them into fighting units. At first, your monsters are basically a distraction for your enemies, but as they get stronger, they might actually be helpful. 

Some Tips and Tricks

There are a few things you need to bear in mind when you’re taming monsters in Monster Rancher 5. First up, you should get at least 4 monsters as soon as possible. It’s easy to return them to the wild, but with 4 you can cover at least one field on one of your farm dragons, and still have a monster to back you up out in the field. That should leave you with some room to rotate monsters between the battling and farming groups. 

If you fail to capture a monster over and over again, it might just be too high of a level for you to capture. Monsters become easier to capture when they’re much weaker than you, so if you’re trying to capture a monster with a name written in red, then you might have to wait until you’ve leveled up a bit. 

Finally, while other presents will make them like you more, many monsters enjoy a certain color of grass, which is easy to find out in the world. On your journeys, pick up some different grass colors and top up your supply at home. Then, you’ll always have something to make monsters like you more.