Topic: Rune Factory Frontier

[Bill Aurion]

~ Publisher/Developer: Natsume
~ Is set up to improve upon the DS games
~ The main character, a young man named Laguna, wanders the land in search of a missing girl
~ The game takes place on the island of Tranrupia, an uncivilized land which Laguna is challenged to pioneer and cultivate
~ In addition, a gigantic floating island resembling a whale mysteriously emerged from the sky.
~ As the land is further pioneered, a village starts to develop around the farms, and shops start to appear
~ The game is set for a 2008 release (in Japan)

Screenshots










Looks gorgeous...I always meant to get the DS version (and probably will soon now), but with the lack of Wii RPGs, this is going to be a must-have...

[Ceric]

I enjoyed Rune Factory to a point.  It sort of fell into the same trap as the later Monster Rancher games fell into it takes to log to get to different branches of the game.  (In this case the Wooing.)

[Sessha]

I fell into the same boat as ceric, but for a different reason I think eventually the combat just got too repetitive for me.  But I willl defintely pick this up.  I love Harvest Moon too much not to.

[ShyGuy]

purdy purdy. This is the game that is one part RPG and one part Harvest Moon, right?

[DAaaMan64]

Nice graphics.  For me, I couldn't get into the first Rune Factory. The first dungeon was taking too long.  I look more forward to the new Harvest Moon.

[Kairon]

I never bought the DS Rune Factories, but this one has got my attention. Did you "grow" a village in the DS ones? I don't think you did...

[Urkel]

I would suggest holding off on the DS version. Neither the farming/social aspect nor the fighting aspect of the game felt fully fleshed out.

The town "events" were a joke where everybody just stood outside of their houses with one new line of dialogue.

The combat was really basic, even for a hack n' slash. The AI simply walked in a straight line towards you. It was also annoying how frequently enemy attacks inflicted status altering conditions like poison and silence.

Mind you, it's not bad. It's leaps and bounds better than A Wonderful Life, though that's not saying much. It just felt like it lacked polish. Hopefully they'll have it all fixed for the Wii version.

[Morari]

So is Run Factory just like Harvest Moon, save for the fantasy setting? Does the farming take a backseat to the dungeon crawling? Give more some comparisons people!

[EasyCure]

i wanted to pick up the original ds title as well but skipped over it when i heard the sequel was to improve upon it, then someone one these boards told me the sequen hasn't even been localized yet so i didnt play anything! now this news comes out.. and the game looks amazing...

right now its "must buy" status

[Bill Aurion]

I would suggest holding off on the DS version. Neither the farming/social aspect nor the fighting aspect of the game felt fully fleshed out.

Too late, I already ordered it alongside Summon Night DS...

I demand back story anyway!

[DAaaMan64]

So is Run Factory just like Harvest Moon, save for the fantasy setting? Does the farming take a backseat to the dungeon crawling? Give more some comparisons people!

I never got far enough in it to produce a fair comparison. But it feels like Harvest Moon :p

[Kairon]

BTW, the developer for Rune Factory Frontier is Neverland Co. according to the website.

[Urkel]

So is Run Factory just like Harvest Moon, save for the fantasy setting?

Pretty much. That was part of my disappointement with the game, since I was kinda expecting a total reboot to this stagnant franchise. There are some changes here and there, but it's basically the same aside from the addition of combat.

Does the farming take a backseat to the dungeon crawling?

It's up to you to decide how much time you spend doing what. For me it ended up being roughly 50/50 between the two. You'll have to beat the dungeons to advance the story. Also, monsters befriended (captured?) in dungeons basically become your livestock and slaves. Cow-like monsters produce milk, chicken-like monsters produce eggs, water elementals will water the crops, etc. etc.

The music is quite good, by the way. Sounds very RPGish. I especially love the town theme.

BTW, the developer for Rune Factory Frontier is Neverland Co. according to the website.

Yeah, they also made the obscure CIMA: The Enemy for GBA. There are definitely some similarities in gameplay. I was more willing to forgive the problems in CIMA because it was so damn original.

[Morari]

So is Run Factory just like Harvest Moon, save for the fantasy setting?

Pretty much. That was part of my disappointement with the game, since I was kinda expecting a total reboot to this stagnant franchise. There are some changes here and there, but it's basically the same aside from the addition of combat.

I like the sound of that. I haven't played much of the Harvest Moon franchise however, so I'm not burnt out on the general idea.

[Bill Aurion]

New screens!

[DAaaMan64]

YAY, those graphics are nice looking even if they aren't that good.

[KDR_11k]

Zombie girls?

[Morari]

Zombie girls?

Hot.

[matt oz]

I love Rune Factory.  I stopped playing for a while because I only had time to play at work on my breaks and that wasn't enough time to get through a dungeon in one sitting.  I should really pick it up again.

Like Urkel said, you can divide your time however you wish.  I probably spent the least amount of time farming.  Once you get the watering and harvesting monsters, it's just a matter of laying seeds on the ground.  I did a lot of mining and looting monsters so I could forge new weapons and armor.  It's pretty easy to make your character overpowered in the dungeons, so you have to kind of set limits for yourself.  I don't think I ever died in a boss battle.

As for wooing the girls, I liked the system they had in place.  Some girls were really easy to woo, while others are hard to woo.  There are also holidays where you can raise your love points with a girl by taking them on a date, so you can pretty much marry whoever you want after the first year.

I'm gonna skip the Wii version, because one HM game per generation seems to be my limit.  They're just way too time consuming.

[EasyCure]

  Some girls were really easy

AWESOME!

on a more serious note: I think i'm more inclined to pick up this title over a new harvest moon. I haven't found the art style in the more recent harvest moons appealing to me, so the last HM i've played is the 64 version. The style in RF fits because of the rpg combat elements so i can actually like it over the more realistic looking HM titles. The fact that i havent plaid a RF title yet also makes me want to pick this up over HM.

If they get a (good) HM on ds, i'll take that too though. A dungeon crawler/farming game at home, and a simple farming game on the go seems like win-win to me.

[Kairon]

Yeah, ever since the N64 harvest Moon I've looked at new versions on the GC and DS and their new artsyles and features and pretty much gone "yuck."

This will be the first Harvest Moon game I buy since mortgaging my soul for it on the 64 so many years ago. Ironic how they can make a game I love so much, yet make me not want to buy new versions of it.

[EasyCure]

Yeah, ever since the N64 harvest Moon I've looked at new versions on the GC and DS and their new artsyles and features and pretty much gone "yuck."

This will be the first Harvest Moon game I buy since mortgaging my soul for it on the 64 so many years ago. Ironic how they can make a game I love so much, yet make me not want to buy new versions of it.

Seriously. I remember loving the SNES version so much i pretty muched wet myself when the 64 version was announced. the "you can play beyond the "end" of the game" thing was a big deal cuz it made me sad starting over in the SNES title. I wanted to get the GBC games but something always made me NOT buy them. Then when i heard they were no PS2 i didnt care for any new versions. So much so that the first GC title, when it was announced, didnt excite me. When i finally played it i disliked it right off the bat and the art direction had something to do with that.

People rip on the game for being a farming sim saying things like "why would you want to play a game about doing chores" but part of the appeal was the art style behind it. Doing it in a cartoon like setting was cool, doing it in a more realistic setting is boring. If the GC games looked like Wind Waker i would of been all over them, but they weren't.

As i've said before, the look of Run Factory is different since it has elements other than farming and wooing, so it fits better in those aspects though i could be wrong since i havent played any of the RF games yet.

[KDR_11k]

It's not the art style, it's a form of grind and the pavlovian reward scheme in the basics. However that alone is not enough, you need enough things to do and a decent pace of progress to keep the player motivated, as AWL shows (it's lacking progress speed IMO). Some HM games are more arcadey and IMO those are better, you get absurd abilities like watering 9 fields at once and such which make the chores manageable and change them up by adding more abilities and elements. Repetition must be broken up with progress.

It's similar to games like X where you start out with simple and repetitive trading until you become a factory owner and start building your own space stations, managing your part of the economy and using your profits to buy war fleets or whatever you feel like.

[NWR_insanolord]

I haven't been a big fan of a Harvest Moon since Friends of Mineral Town on the GBA, though I did really like several individual elements of the first Harvest Moon DS. I'd rather go back and play the older ones than have to learn a new one that probably won't be anywhere near as good, but this one is different enough to be interesting.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I like how the environments are filled with STUFF.