The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, so, it’s a day late, but it’s not like anyone but me cares anyway! We’ll start with Rune Factory. I’ll try to write more today, but damn, I’ve written a shit ton on Rune Factory already, so now these are getting their own posts.

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon was, supposedly, described by the Harvest Moon creator as “Harvest Moon with Swords.” Harvest Moon. This explanation is completely accurate, basically. You can sit there and farm up a storm if you’d like, and some of the series’ improvements since the first game that have carried over, like the backpack, make this just as good of an experience as it can be. You can even grow crops out of season without having to purchase a greenhouse like in other games, since each dungeon has a “season” climate inside with which to grow various crops. (though who knows how they grow without sunlight) The biggest change from previous games that I’ve played is that you can walk over your crops. I guess that sounds kinda stupid, but in previous games, when your crops got close to the point where they were fully grown, they’d block your path. Therefore, even though your seeds would cover a 3×3 square, you couldn’t actually plant them in the full square, because you wouldn’t be able to water the middle square… at least not with the starting watering can. This isn’t an issue in this game, which is nice, I suppose. It does tie into the fact that growing 9 crops to completion gets you a “rune” which refills some of your RP. You can not harvest the crop and it’ll produce a new rune everyday, if that’s your thing, but that’s mostly useful in dungeons.
Which brings us to the new part, which is the dungeon crawling. Your farmer/adventurer has two meters, HP and RP. Each time you do a chore or attack or whatever, it takes some RP. If your RP meter is empty, it takes some HP. Run out of HP and you collapse… run out of HP in a dungeon and you’re dead. You run through, fighting enemies and destroying these machines which sort of work like the monster generators in Gauntlet. It’s really hack and slash and not especially deep, in all honesty. You get some spells, and as I mentioned, you can plant crops in the caves to create “recharge zones” to get your RP back, if you so desire. You can also charm monsters. These monsters work as both the gnomes and the livestock of previous games. You can tell them to do chores around your farm, like watering for you, and some also produce eggs, milk, etc, for you to sell. You can also take them with you adventuring, which is nice, though they don’t have the best AI in the world.
And that’s it, I suppose. The dungeon crawling is not the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s a welcome distraction from the normal Harvest Moon gameplay which, if you’re like me, you’ve already exhausted in previous outings. There’s a plot of sorts, but it’s not going to wow anyone. It’s just something else to put on your daily chore list like any other farm chore… just to see how far you can get and maybe level up, so that you have more RP to get more done in a day. My problems with the game are the hot springs. It’s a bathhouse this time, and it doesn’t open till 3 PM game time. This is insanely annoying, especially in the beginning of the game when you don’t have much stamina, because you literally have to set the game down to let the clock run to 3 with nothing at all to do if you want to make the most out of your day. That’s retarded and frustrating. Also, for once you have a wide variety of people to marry. Not everyone is just a country girl in this game. You have adventurers, spies from other countries… women who do shit other than get married. And yet, if you woo them, they immediately become “stay home and take care of the kids” moms. It’s kinda silly. That’s missed awesomeness potential. Why not have them adventure with you, or research new spells while you’re gone, or otherwise help out the dungeon crawling portion of the game? You could do neat shit with that, but they didn’t. Oh well, maybe in the sequel.
Wow, I really rambled on that one. Anyway, if you like Harvest Moon, but would like a little change and haven’t picked one up in awhile, this is a good buy, I’d think. Just don’t expect a COMPLETELY new experience and you’ll be fine. It’s really just further refined to keep your interest longer… you also might want to wait for the sequel I hear is coming out soon at this point. It might have more in-depth combat and whatnot.