While I enjoyed the gameplay mechanics of Rune Factory, none of the girls in it really sparked my interest. I didn’t care for any of them. However in this follow up, Dorothy seems like a winner to me. Must be that “can’t see her eyes” thing.
In an interesting new twist for a Marvelous title, the game has two story arcs.
First you play as Kyle with the ultimate goals of getting married and having a kid… oh… and building a school or something. After your son/daughter is born and grows up, you play as the child – who gets to hookup with a girlfriend/boyfriend.
Twice the romance options: with legal loli action.
Well the good news is, Natsume has been regularly English translating Harvest Moon titles - which Rune Factory is a spin off from - in Europe and North America. The first Rune Factory appears to have been a financial success, so I’m sure the second is on the wings.
Unfortunately, Natsume takes a looooong time to port titles over. They also do shoddy translation work for a commercial company (frequent typos; letter spacing issues).
In the mean time, Harvest Moon DS 2 is supposed to be released early 2008. That game is waaaaaay better than the first DS title. So if you’re new to the Harvest Moon thing, it probably be best to wait until it’s out. If you’re not new to the series… then you already know this.
But the Harvest Witch is soooooo tsundere. Gotta love her “lovey-dovey” pose.
Harvest Moon was great when it was starting out but now I feel that the series has sort of been milked, probably because there has been a game coming out every year. Rune Factory seemed like a cool revival but then I just can’t seem to get myself to get back into it like the SNES game (my sister owns Rune Factory and I’ve actually yet to play it).
For the most part I agree: Harvest Moon has been whored. However the series has evolutionary (vice revolutionary) changes each time it goes on a new platform. For example the NES, Gameboy, GBA, and DS generations of Harvest Moon are different enough from each other… but say, all the GBA titles are basically the same thing rehashed: boy version, girl version, director’s cut, etc
So I dislike the “remakes” - where they use the EXACT same sprites as the one released before it. However I enjoy the versions that “start from scratch” with new graphics and modified game engine.
Ultimately however, Harvest Moon is like Pokemon: they aren’t going to change the formula, because the formula works. And of course Rune Factory is still Harvest Moon… with violence of course.
So did you like A Wonderful Life? I was watching my sister play it and it looked so boring. Opening a store and waiting for people to come by seems like a terrible idea. And the world is expansive but there was nothing there.
Plus I don’t think you can compare Harvest Moon to Pokemon. Pokemon sells millions, Harvest Moon sells below 300,000 (and I’m being waaaay generous here).
I’m not asking them to change the formula, but I’m saying I liked it back in the SNES and N64 days a lot more. Perhaps it has become too complicated in some respects. For example, I liked having time stopped in doors in the SNES one.
AWL was an incredibly linear HM - way more than usual - and thus it actually had a story to it. The ending was really touching, since it really does have an end. However the game execution was sucky… the group who made it, seriously had no clue on how to best use the Gamecube hardware - and it shows. Sluggish and jerky graphics.
Nonetheless I liked the addition of an actual ending - although it seems I’m in a minority with that train of thought, since later generations totally abandoned it.
Sure I can. Of course HM doesn’t sell like Pokemon, but I think you misinterpreted what I was trying to say.
What I mean is HM has established what makes it HM - just like Pokemon has established what makes it Pokemon: the way the game concept and execution is carried out. Even the newest DS Pokemon is like the original GB Pokemon. Same goes for HM. They add a few things, tweak a feature here, and make everything look and sound prettier… but at the core it’s really no different than before. Which is what some critics like to point out all the time.
Aside from the PS generation speed bumps, I like where HM is heading. Rune Factory seems to be the mainstream reboot - more simplistic and action oriented - since I also agree that HM is becoming more and more micromanaging with each generation.
However I’m a SIMS and SimCity nut… so micromanaging is fun to me.
N64 version is one of my favorites. I didn’t care for Wonderful Life because the framerate was bad… REALLY bad. Save the Homeland was good, if short. Innocent Life is fun, but missing some elements that would have made it better (like dating and romance). Rune Factory is nifty. Just plain nifty.
Lol I swear they could have just said NEW!! just for Narg!
I agree with you there was not really 1 girl interesting in Rune Factory. Rune Factory 2 sounds cool though; getting married and then being able to control your kid? I’ll wait for it to be released stateside though. Harvest Moon DS 2 I’ll have a look at(it took forever to get married in the 1st one).
Rune Factory from what I understood was suppose to be what they would like the successor to Harvest Moon to be. If you look at it they were even developing some of the ideas for it in HM DS.
I played Rune Factory, found it overall more fun than HM, but the lack of events imo felt like something was missing. Also, even compared to other HM games it was too easy to make money. Yea, HM has never been good on game balance when it comes to money making, but Rune Factory was just off completely.
I’m hoping RF2 corrects those 2 things.
I’m also hoping HMDS2 gets ported with the fixed version this time and not the buggy one, though the original harvest moon games since FoMT haven’t interested me as much as Rune Factory.
In the events department, RF2 has fixed the problem. The “quest system” and “generation story” has made them more important.
As for the $$$ issue… still the same as RF1 overall. I think this is intentional, as the series seems a lot less on the micromanaging that HM is known for. Not everyone enjoys that aspect of the series… and RF is trying to sell for a larger base.
Of course having stuff like this, is always an improvement:
Edit
Cool side note about the twincest. You can still date them as a girl. Full lesbian relationship for the win! There’s some worry, that Natsume will edit this out of the US version - or somehow censor the dialog. I hope not. But twincest and lesbians might not be what they want on a DS game.
I’m not asking for a perfectly balanced game mind you but I had enough money by the end of Spring to buy everything but the house upgrade and i couldn’t buy that because of wood…
It’s seriously broken far more than even the most broken HM game was economy-wise.
In order for the twincest to be born in the second half of the game, Rosalind and Rei must marry from the first half. Their genes gives birth to twincest. Denying the birth of twincest, is an affront against God and Creation. I repeat: DO NOT DO THIS!!! Narg doesn’t care if you feel Rosalind is the hawtest gurl ever made. Thou shalt not marry her. Make the sacrifice that must be made for The Glory and The Faith!!!
But is it really twincest? Can your child marry both of them?
Too bad you can’t continue on with your child… Thought there was 1 HM game you could, but my mind could be slipping what with all the poor ripoffs out there…
The sisters do indeed come as a set. Trying to court one without the other, only causes them to get mad and you lose love points. It’s true twincest…
You don’t really get to marry them - or any of the 2nd generation romance - because “they’re too young” for such things (evidently you have to be at least 16 or something), but they go out together - which counts as the same thing.
In RF2 you do continue on with your child.
The first half is really more of a long “training mode” for the second half (marriage and all). Then your kid is born, which leads into the real meat and potatoes of the game in the second half (or rather it has more complex objectives to achieve), where you control the child (pick a girl or a boy)… and more importantly can seekout the TWINCEST!!!
Except you can’t marry them both. Kinda weird imo…they could have just designed it so that the game would continue or flash forward until you were old enough considering how marriage has been central to HM series since…Harvest Moon 1.
