Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon

1. Official Site
2. Platform: DS
3. Publisher: Natsume
4. Developer: Natsume
5. Release Date: 09/18/07
6. Genre: RPG

by Mitch Youngblood

I recall the first time I saw my former roommate playing a Harvest Moon game and it baffled me. Why would anyone on earth want to play a game that simulated farming? Then I found out that farming was only one part of the overall game and that relationships with between you and those in the community were also, if not more so, vital elements to the game. At that point I tuned out completely because the appeal of such an obviously niche game failed to compute for me.

Several years later I tried them out and finally understood the appeal.

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon takes the existing formula of a farmer who must buy seeds then till his farm based on the four seasons while engaging in dialog and romance with the local villagers and turns it on its head. Now players take up their hoes as an amnesiac former soldier named Raguna, who has a knack for working the land. But in this game he can learn spells, must explore dungeons, and fight off, or even befriend, a slew of monsters.

The graphics scream out "old school" and feel like you’re playing a game on the Super NES, which is actually perfect for the game. Rune Factory looks and behaves like one of the old graphic adventure games where combat also happened to be featured. When talking to other characters, there is a line of spoken dialog as their mutual anime-inspired portraits appear. The blacksmith has one eye closed and appears gruff, Raguna looks like a girl even though everyone initially regards him as a mighty knight, and the women all make doe-eyes whenever you speak with them.

The lay of the land is fun to explore as there are plenty of dungeons with each one being two or three levels deep at least. Fruits, vegetables, and plants are all drawn very specifically with a surprising amount of detail. The village where Raguna interacts with everyone is well laid out and rather immersive. Whether he is exploring the library or the wharf or the inn, each building has a life all its own.

The music is very enjoyable, if a tad repetitive, throughout Rune Factory and each dungeons has its own theme. Since each dungeon represents one of the four seasons, the music reflects this. The winter dungeon comes up just short of outright mournful while the spring dungeon is up tempo and energetic.

Since the game is on the DS, there isn’t a tremendous amount of dialog. What is here is performed well, and the actors bring sincerity to each role, limited though their roles may be. The sound effects for weapons and farming equipment are respectable enough to get the job done, and certain items have a sound to indicate when you’re finished with it. The watering can, for example, makes a sound like a faucet being turned off whenever it is time to refill.

The controls are very well done for this game. Holding down the L button while hitting A will sort through items in your inventory, and hitting the B button will sort through equipment such as swords, hoes, and the like. If you want to flip through the available spells, hit the X button while holding down L. The A button is your primary button the rest of the time because this is what initiates conversations, how you pick up or throw away objects, give an item to someone in front of you or place an item in a container in front of you. The B button controls tools and equipment, and the X button casts spells or puts items in your backpack after you pick them up.

The menu is well laid out and organized, but it may throw you at first. There is a lot of information in this game, not only about Raguna but also about the game world and the items in it. For example, all seeds have levels and if you buy a bag of fertilizer from the doctor you need to know how to use it. There is no obvious way to tell you have successfully fertilized a patch of seeded earth because when you drop the bag onto the seeds it looks like you just threw the bag away. But when the crop sprouts that item will appear in your menu with full stats complete with what level it is.

Everything in the game is like this, so if you are in to excessive amounts of information on which monsters are in your house or how much wood you have, this is the game for you.

The game play of Rune Factory is stellar, but you have to be in the right mood for it. The game is slow, despite the combat you’ll face whenever you run into a dungeon, and if you are not accepting of the rather leisurely pace then forget about it. This is a game that focuses more on your character as a person and as a man of the people, not on how many dragons he may have slain. For farming, you first have to clear the ground, then hoe the ground, then seed, then water those seeds for however long it may take for them to grow. I’d recommend focusing on renewable vegetables and fruits at first because consistency is the key to a good farm.

If this wasn’t enough to be its own game, Rune Factory throws in the aforementioned dungeons wherein Raguna charges at foes, destroys the spawn points, and eventually battles the dunegon’s boss thus clearing the way to the next one. Where the challenge appears is the second you realize the size of the difficulty’s exponential jump up between each one. Raguna’s level was in the mid-teens when I cleared the first dungeon and tried the second one. About 10 seconds in, Raguna was smacked down and kicked out. So I leveled up, and leveled up some more for good measure and still couldn’t make it all the way through. It took a lot of leveling, a lot of combat, and a lot of patience in growing Raguna as a character before I could move on.

If combat isn’t something you’re interested in focusing on right away, there is plenty more to do. You could farm the land and first dungeon, fish all day, or buy accessories for your kitchen and make dishes to give away at festivals and on birthdays. You can also build a monster hut where you keep your captured monsters, just make sure they have enough feed.

The relationship aspect of Rune Factory is something else. The more you talk to people the friendlier they become towards you up to the point where you’ll eventually find yourself in a romance with one of the local lasses. The end goal of the game is to settle down, and even then that isn’t so much a final goal as it is the primary one. This game has something for every one but if it sounds boring I encourage you to at least try it. It may not click for the first little while, but when you find yourself looking up from your DS screen bleery-eyed several hours later, you’ll understand why this game is so addictive.

This game has plenty for every one and is the perfect thing to bring with you on long trips, or to just play on a weekend when you’re trying to relax. It is a very easy going and highly enjoyable game that can last for as long as you want it to. The exploration of the world, and of Raguna’s past, make a solid narrative which drives the game. If that isn’t enough, there are tons of options for things to grow and upgrades to purchase for your equipment and your house. Yes, it sounds silly to play a farming game, but this one is a lot of fun and requires tons of hours to complete. You will get your money out of this one.

Rune Factory is a solid and strangely compelling entry in the Harvest Moon franchise. It feels different taking care of a monster versus a chicken, but at least I don’t have to worry about mourning a chicken. I’ll admit that was one of the dumbest design decisions in any game ever when that happened to me in a previous game. A chicken dies on the farm, and does a farmer grieve? Not hardly. The only question then is whether the chicken gets fried or rotissaried that night.

The good news is Rune Factory is long on farming, exploration, and relationships and short on the sillier aspects of the franchise. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the game is long, varied, and a great deal of addictive fun to play. Pick this one up especially if you have a long trip coming up.

Gaming Trend Score

88

1. Graphics: 85
2. Audio: 85
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 90
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:88