Rune Factory Frontier - Wii

This game is out/should be coming out soon (depending on which retailer doesn't suck dick). Release date was the 17th, but some stores up here aren't getting it till the 31st. So fuck America, etc. etc.

Anyway, this game. It will be amazing. Harvest Moon + Dungeon Crawl RPG = YES I LOVE YOU ENDLESSLY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune_Factory_Frontier

I never liked Harvest Moon. It was only cute.
Never got the whole thing. =P

Sim games are very niche. Especially social-sim games. I love them, but I also have an obsessive-compulsive nature when it comes to games. So a game that requires me to take care of and cultivate a virtual world is like...holyfuck.

But this is a huge departure from the Harvest Moon series because it has an actual combat system in it, with level-based combat. It's actually very similar to those Persona games I always rave about. Although the combat in this is a bit watered down compared to Persona, and the sim aspect is much more the main focus here.

Cant wait for this to come out. Ive been getting really into the DS rune factory. Fun game, got level 12 in two days and over 3K money.

Picked this up today. Early impressions:

Holy FUCKWIN does this shit eat away at my time. And in the best possible way. It's the kind of game that disconnects you from reality entirely, because you're so focused on the in-game happenings, that 5 minutes of play time turns into 1 hour; 1 hour turns into 3; 3 hours turn into an entire day.

Incredibly addictive gameplay, some very light-hearted characters, and overall the controls are solid.

The only complaint thus far is that the game offers NO sort of tutorial whatsoever; and I don't mean in the sense that it should hold your hand through practice stages. But you're thrust into the thick of the game within the first 10 minutes and left to figure out everything on your own.

Reading the manual could probably make the early game a bit more user-friendly, but really...who does that anymore?

I'll have my full review and impression of the game in about a week's time. Avalon Code review will be up shortly, as well.

can you post some screenshots of the harvest-moon side of the game?
i'd like to know what i'm missing.

snuggans wrote:can you post some screenshots of the harvest-moon side of the game?
i'd like to know what i'm missing.

I'll do just that tomorrow. I know Google Images has a small handful of screenshots from the Japanese version. Until then, though, here's a quick summary of what you can do;

The first tools you get are a hoe and a watering pale. Your farm land is pretty massive, as well - don't have an exact square-by-square number, but it's big. Rocks, tree stumps, weeds, and the like liter the farm land at first but until you get the appropriate tools to clear them, you only have the small bit of dirt to till with the hoe. (You get the axe, hammer, and sickle very early in the game, so it's not an issue).

There's a weather-based system as well, meaning it can rain - and on days it does rain, you don't have to water anything. There's the 4 natural seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Nothing outside will grow in winter, but the game's various dungeons have specific plots of land that will grow any crop any time of the year.

There's four specific types of crop to grow in each of the three primary seasons (again, nothing grows outside in Winter). You can also tame various monsters in the dungeons and use them for farm work; one type of slime enemy early on can break up the larger rocks that the initial hammer is too weak to do.

Elge wrote:

snuggans wrote:can you post some screenshots of the harvest-moon side of the game?
i'd like to know what i'm missing.

The first tools you get are a hoe and a watering pale. Your farm land is pretty massive, as well - don't have an exact square-by-square number, but it's big. Rocks, tree stumps, weeds, and the like liter the farm land at first but until you get the appropriate tools to clear them, you only have the small bit of dirt to till with the hoe. (You get the axe, hammer, and sickle very early in the game, so it's not an issue).

There's a weather-based system as well, meaning it can rain - and on days it does rain, you don't have to water anything. There's the 4 natural seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Nothing outside will grow in winter, but the game's various dungeons have specific plots of land that will grow any crop any time of the year.

There's four specific types of crop to grow in each of the three primary seasons (again, nothing grows outside in Winter). You can also tame various monsters in the dungeons and use them for farm work; one type of slime enemy early on can break up the larger rocks that the initial hammer is too weak to do.

damn, you pretty much just described harvest moon.

snuggans wrote:damn, you pretty much just described harvest moon.

Well the game IS a spin-off series of Harvest Moon, so yes, it's going to be very similar. The Rune Factory games add the element of dungeon crawling, though, giving the game much more depth and emphasis on planning.

Got second DS game.
In love with.