Rune Factory Reaping a Review
The Harvest Moon game franchise has always involved two major aspects: farming life and love simulation. But with Rune Factory, Marvelous Interactive planted one major addition into the gameplay: a battle system. Well, we saw that coming, didn’t we? What’s interesting about it is that it adds a different dimension to the game.
Whereas before, you water your plants in the morning and woo some town girl in the afternoon, now you fend off pesky beasts in between. Ah, the life of a love-struck farmer! This is the new dimension of the gameplay we’re talking about. Because not all farmers’ lives are happy-happy-joy-joy. It’s normal that worldly pests and monster would want to steal your well-tended crops. Y’know: dragons and werewolves and spores! Oh my!
And if that’s not enough, you get to capture these baddies and corral them as “livestock” that can provide you with milk and eggs, and sometimes help you with your farming chores.
Anyways, as with the rest of Harvest Moon games, attention to seasons and time of day is very important. It can dictate when would be the best time to plant a specific crop. It can dictate what time of day a monster is most likely to appear in a specific place. Interacting with the townsfolk will likewise be important, especially regarding the “love simulation” aspect.
However, despite these, not everything is “green fields and blue skies” for Rune Factory. The controls setup is very irksome for just about anything you do in the game (buying fertilizer, chatting with your girls, battling evil gel-like creatures). And the use of the DS stylus is quite limited. The controls tend to get tedious… But then again, so is farming, anyways. So live it up, and get your fingernails dirty! This game is as good a simulation of farming as it should be!
Via IGN
The Harvest Moon game franchise has always involved two major aspects: farming life and love simulation. But with Rune Factory, Marvelous Interactive planted one major addition into the gameplay: a battle system. Well, we saw that coming, didn’t we? What’s interesting about it is that it adds a different dimension to the game.
Whereas before, you water your plants in the morning and woo some town girl in the afternoon, now you fend off pesky beasts in between. Ah, the life of a love-struck farmer! This is the new dimension of the gameplay we’re talking about. Because not all farmers’ lives are happy-happy-joy-joy. It’s normal that worldly pests and monster would want to steal your well-tended crops. Y’know: dragons and werewolves and spores! Oh my!
And if that’s not enough, you get to capture these baddies and corral them as “livestock” that can provide you with milk and eggs, and sometimes help you with your farming chores.
Anyways, as with the rest of Harvest Moon games, attention to seasons and time of day is very important. It can dictate when would be the best time to plant a specific crop. It can dictate what time of day a monster is most likely to appear in a specific place. Interacting with the townsfolk will likewise be important, especially regarding the “love simulation” aspect.
However, despite these, not everything is “green fields and blue skies” for Rune Factory. The controls setup is very irksome for just about anything you do in the game (buying fertilizer, chatting with your girls, battling evil gel-like creatures). And the use of the DS stylus is quite limited. The controls tend to get tedious… But then again, so is farming, anyways. So live it up, and get your fingernails dirty! This game is as good a simulation of farming as it should be!
Via IGN
