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great game overall, but little replay value

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've played other Harvest Moon games, including those versions for N64, Gamecube, and GBA. This game is one of the best, with lots of items, shops, townsfolk, and seeds you can plant. The caves are fun, too, and it's easy to get addicted to the game as you go through the linear storyline. I had a lot of fun with the game and it took me a while to get to the "end." Overall I prefer the more traditional farming setup (with cows/sheep/chickens instead of monsters), but I enjoyed this new spin on one of my favorite games. The art (both character and screen) and music were very good.

However, here are my main gripes which are why I'm selling the game instead of saving it to play in the future:
-the townsfolk are BORING--they say pretty much the same phrase over and over, only saying something new if you beat a boss monster or gain access to a new cave. Once I got married, my wife says the exact same thing and gives me the exact same lunch of cookies every single morning, and doesn't seem to EVER move from her one spot in the house.
-most festivals are also boring--they consist of the townsfolk standing around town for you to talk to, with no special decorations, award ceremonies, cut-scenes, etc. (Well, there is a very brief sequence for one "date" night.) Even the "contest" based festivals aren't very interesting, or have very good prizes.
-Gathering various items to use in your kitchen and forge is tedious. Occasionally you get lucky and come across items while fighting in the caves, but when you want something specific you have to figure out which monster supplies it, and then battle that type over and over until a treasure chest shows up. I spent entire days collecting bird wings to make a new sword, for example.
-Fighting the monsters in general was pretty tedious, and only challenging if you rush through it without leveling up first. If you have one of the best swords, and are at a high level, not even the final boss monster is any challenge whatsoever.
-there is a lot of down time in the game where you've run out of energy, and can't do anything until the bath house opens, or if you're in a cave, you might have to just go to bed super early. At first I was grateful for the extra time to get everything done, but in the end it just slows the game down.
-there are so many possible food items, gifts, etc. that it's near impossible to figure out what to give townsfolk. Most times they will just blankly accept your gift, and it's rare to find anything they actually like. If you give them a crop, all they will say is "I wish I got this at the harvest festival." It makes gift-giving pretty pointless, and it's far more productive to just talk to everyone between caves and at festivals to boost their friend/love levels.

In general, after getting through the fantasy/cave-crawling part of the game, I found there just wasn't anything to keep my interest. It was great while it lasted but there were too many tedious/boring things about it to make me want to play it again.

Get ready to waste a lot of time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've never played any Harvest Moon game before, but I've always been a fan of the Animal Crossing series for Nintendo. I had a desire to play a game similar to AC and I had heard a lot of recommendations for this game. It took me awhile to get used to the game at first, there were a lot of things that I didn't really know how to go about doing and there aren't that many instructions in the start of the game to tell you what you should do. Because of that fact, I had let this game sit on the shelf for a month before actually starting to get into it.

The graphics are really nice - one of the best that I've seen for the Nintendo DS. The character renderings are cute and the environments are pretty. The storyline itself is pretty straightforward - the main character has amnesia and ends up being taken in by Mist who gives him a plot of land to farm and a house to stay in. There isn't anything spectacular about it.

The one thing that I really enjoy is the gameplay. There's so much you can do in this game and it's not limited by time or how many seasons have gone by. You have separate skills you can level up - ie swordsmanship, farming, fishing, cooking, etc. On some days you can just farm - or explore a cave - woo the girls - or just cook at home. Anyway, it's hard to put down this game once you've picked it up. It's a great addition to my DS collection. I highly recommend it.

A great game, fun and educational

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

When I was deciding which game to get my 8-year-old son for christmas, I was looking for a game that would have enough action to keep my son entertained, but that would also require some thinking on his part other than with which weapon to kill which monster. Rune Factory turned out to be the perfect game for him.

Unlike most games nowadays, where 90 percent of the gameplay is senseless fighting, Rune Factory has a good balance of action, planning and organizing. The main character finds himself without memory in a strange town. A girl finds him and offers him a plot of land and some farming tools. To earn the right to explore caves and fight or tame monsters (yes, you can actually make friends with monsters!!!), you have to plow your fields and grow crops first.

I found the game quite educational for my son. Of course, he is most interested in fighting the monsters in the cave, but to do so successfully, he first had to organize his fields, and develop routines (water fields after getting up, fishing on rainy days to get money to buy weapons, talk to people and help them to make friends, etc.). Even in the caves, strategic planning on what to plant and how to maintain it determines how long one can stay in the caves, and how well a player can heal. By now, this is his favorite game, not only because it is very versatile and has many challenges, but also because this has been the first game he hasn't been able to finish within a week or two. After two months of playing, he still isn't even anywhere close to finishing the game. While I consider most games to be a waste of money, this one sure was worth its cost.

My Rune Factory Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: September 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This review is by my eight-year-old. He plays it all the time.

"It's like Harvest Moon but better. You get to get a spear, ax, and sword.You get a fishing pole for free when you go to this beach. There are lesser demonds. It's good. It's good that there's monsters. Sometime they're smart enough to do your chores for you. Some of them aren't smart. I like to battle the ones that are green and carry long swords. You get to catch a ton of different kinds of fish. You get to cook them. You can catch squid, lobster, shrimp, rainbow trout."

Did I mention he plays it ALL the time.

Deep and involving, but can border on tedium

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In the past, I've only played a few Harvest Moon games for a few minutes here and there, and I was never really engaged in the gameplay...I mean, how fun can farming be, really?

All of those perceptions changed when I, on a lark, rented Rune Factory for a weekend thinking it might be a nice diversion. Within minutes, I was hooked on the game with no end in sight to the addiction.

Rune Factory is not an action-packed game by any means, but the gameplay is so incredibly deep that it makes up for any lack of twitch game mechanics. In the game, you can farm, raise livestock, mine various ores and jewels, cook, fish, try to find a suitable wife, become a powerful mage, and so on. Each of the activities in the game have suitable depth with a wide range of crops to grow (and subsequently make food out of) and there are plenty of different ores to mine and smelt into weapons or other helpful tools. Put simply: it will be a very long time before you run out of things to do in Rune Factory. I liken the gameplay a lot to the crafting aspects of MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, which I always found more fun than the actual combat in those games.

After a while, your character amasses a great fortune and more than likely a sizable farm that stretches beyond just the default farmland and into the various caves spread throughout the game world (all of which have unique climates which allows the growing of crops out of season). At this point, there is a bit of an embarrassment of riches due to the largeness of your dominion. Everyday tasks soon consume at least a half hour of real time (about 12-14 hours in game time), leaving very little time to explore the world and move ahead. It can become a little bit tedious once you get a lot of things under your control, but with enough captured animals doing the heavy lifting the tedium is alleviated

This game certainly is not for everyone. The gameplay is not action packed and it requires a lot of repetition. There is also very little hand-holding in terms of the game mechanics and moving forward in the story. There is no explanation about how your character should go and talk to various townspeople to get the tools required to tend the farm, so many players will probably be lost in the beginning and at various points in the game, but with enough persistence, the Rune Factory experience is a deep and engrossing one that will hold you for hours on end

This game is fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I first got this game--the music and style in the intro really turned me off. I forced myself to get past it and get into the game and found that I really love it. I've never played Harvest Moon, but have seen that game and was willing to give this one a try. The best description I can give this game is it's a Harvest Moon mixed with Zelda game. There are so many things you can do like: Forge weapons, make your own medicines, cook your own food, dungeon crawl, fish, use magic, and farm. You won't be able to make your own equipment or food at first, but will easily within the first season.

The one thing that is very odd about this game is that you tame and use monsters like livestock and labor. Brushing, milking, getting eggs from them--all kind of interesting things. At first, I thought it really strange, but now I hardly notice it.

Super freaking addictive!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I am someone who loves Harvest Moon games anyway, but this one takes the cake! Even though it's just for the DS, the graphics are great and the gameplay is highly addictive. Where other Harvest Moons can finally get boring when you have made more money than you can possibly spend, have bought every type of cow, crop and tree, this Harvest moon has numerous things for you to work on for awhile. There are several caves in the game, with different seasons and monsters, and you can't enter them automatically, you have to earn a pass. You can grow crops in the caves, but they have monsters, and in the second cave, the monsters are pretty tough so I am trying to work myself up to conquering that cave. Upgrading tools is much more of a processes than in the other Harvest moons so I am still working on upgrading mine. Instead of cows and chickens you have monsters for livestock, and they can do different things, like bees that make honey for you, and I have an archer monster I like to take in the caves with me to help me fight. Once a monster likes you more (you can see your rating on the menu of how friendly they are) you can get some of them to water or harvest crops for you!
There are many women to choose from for marriage this time, and you can also check your friend levels with guys on the game as well. Everyone has a friend and love level for you. You can upgrade your house but it costs $200,000 so it will be awhile before I get that much money. There are things called runes in the game that appear when you have 9 new crops to harvest, and they replenish your rune power energy. Gone are the days where you had to keep watching your farmer pause because he was too tired, and having to quit doing stuff because he was too tired! This time there is a rune meter that shows the energy you have left to do work, and when that is gone you still have your hit point gauge, so plenty of energy and if you have runes to pick up, you can extend the amount of work you do in a day. Also at 3pm you can take a bath at the bathhouse and that gives you full runepower and hitpoints.
I think this game will keep me entertained longer than other Harvest moons have, and it's so addicting I have to limit myself on what days I can play it, because once I pick it up, the evening is gone!

great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great combination of sim game and RPG. It is a little repeatative to begin with since basically all you can do is care for your crops, but once you begin to upgrade tools and fight in the caves the game really opens up and you find you often do not have enough time in the game to do all that you want to in one day. I have often found myself saying, "ok, just one more thing" and spending hours more than I intended to play. Beware, this game is very addicting.

Very Fun! Hard to put away!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: August 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really like this game. I bought the Harvest Moon for the Game cube, but this new Rune Factory is WAY better! You can pick how you make money, and who you like is easier to remember. The game is fun and engaging. I'm very impressed and LOVE to play it.

Old School Harvest Moon Fans Beware!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: December 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I recieved this game as an early Christmas present from my fiance as he knows Im a fan of the Harvest Moon games... I must admit, personally, Im far from impressed and plan to bring the game back.

I've played thru the first 2 season and have gotten to the 3rd cave, I think Ive given the game a decent chance.

The basic "farm life" aspect is still there however to progress in the game you have to venture into the cave and fight monsters. Which wouldnt be an issue but just think about it for a minute, Harvest Moon + Fighting = Really bad combo. Its nearly imposible to tell if your going to be hitting the monster in front of you, and after you damage them they become immune for a short amount of time in which they can still hit you, but you cant hit them. Which leaves, aside from the fact your just button mashing in the first place, a type of "hit and run" game play. You hit them, run away and hope they dont hit you, then run up to them and hit them again. Repeat until dead. Very boring, not to mention annoying.

I was also very disapointed that the only way to get "Livestock" is to tame like monsters. IE Monster cows and Monster sheep.

Another "problem" I found with the game was that by farming your energy went down, as normal in Harvest Moon games. However, if your energy went down, you couldn't do much in the caves, because after your energy wears out, your Hit Points start to go down when you perform actions, and even if your good at the tag style battle system and never get hit, your losing HP any way. Unless you level up in the caves frequently (Fills your HP bar) and never get damaged, I found often times my days were over energy and health point wise by about noon.

The idea is, you farm inside the caves, and when your plants are ready to be harvested, you get a little orb of energy. Idealy youd plant crops thru out the cave and hope theyd all ripen at the same time, as when you zone out, the energy orb disapears if you get it or not.

I'll be fair and say that I havent givin much "tactical" thought to when I want to fight monsters in the cave and how long it takes for my crops to ripen etc. so I can get the most out of ONE day in the caves... However dispite all that, Id find it hard to imagine that it would make it much more enjoyable, accept for that ONE day when I knew all my crops would be ripe.

The "Town Life" isnt much better than beating your head against the walls in the cave.

The characters have yet to give me any hints as to the types of presents they like, and I was forced to look online to gain some information as to what to do to begin courting my future wife. During this I learned their is no baby scene, your wife never moves from the spot she starts in once your married, and your baby will NEVER grow up. Doesnt really seem like much to look forward to, or much of a reason to keep playing after the 2 year story line, which is normally a thing I do in Harvest Moon games.

The only tools you start out with are the hoe and watering can, the rest you recive by triggering obscure events such as tilling 50 plots of soil inside a cave. Again, I was forced to go online to learn how to start most of these events, when it has never been a problem for me before in any other of the Harvest Moon games Ive played.

All and all, I like the Harvest Moon saga because I find them to be a relaxing yet engaging game to counter the more popular violent and or scary games like Resident Evil or Mass Effect etc. (Which I am a fan of however I can really only kill so many Zombie's and Aliens in one day. Hehe)

I didnt find this game relaxing at all as I was constantly watching my heath bar... and it was only engaging to the extent that it was impossible to progress. Very annoying game and a far cry from what Harvest Moon is supposed to be. Sorry, Running for my life and fighting monsters isnt what I think of when I hear "Farming RPG".

So unless what I've mentioned in this review sounds to be what your looking for, Id avoid this game. My only regret is he bought it new, instead of used. Its being returned tomorrow.

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