System: DS
Dev: Neverland
Pub: Natsume
Release: Aug. 14, 2007
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Review by Nathan Meunier

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Review Rating Legend
1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
2.5 - 2.9 = Average
3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
3.5 - 3.9 = Good
4.0 - 4.4 = Great
4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
5.0 = The Best

Keeping track of your health while toiling in the fields or spelunking is as important as ever. In Rune Factory, HP (hit points) measure your overall health, while RP (rune points) are a measure of your stamina. RP are expended by physical activities such as tilling, watering, fishing, casting magic spells, swinging your sword or weapon around, and other similar activities. If you exhaust all your RP you may still do those actions, but it will slowly eat away at your health until you become exhausted.

Collapsing on the farm is only a minor health issue which can be solved with bed rest. If you collapse while inside a cave, however, it's game over. Eating certain crops and herbs will replenish small amounts of your health, but restoring RP is not as easy. Elixirs and bed rest are the easiest ways to restore RP, although you will primarily regain stamina from careful planting. For every nine crops you grow, a glowing orb appears which can be consumed to replenish you RP. Certain crops can be grown year-round in small designated areas located throughout different caves. Farming inside the caves is the best way to stay alive during lengthy bouts of dungeon-crawling.

Just as farming is required to gain strength to survive combat with monsters, venturing into the caves to fight those monsters is equally vital to the livelihood of the homestead. Obtaining a special glove will allow you to tame monsters. Depending on a monster's type, you can teach it to water crops, bring it along on excursions into the caves for combat support, or use it to produce resources. Beating the bosses at the end of each cave progresses bits of the story and allows you to gain entry into more dungeons. Each creature you defeat in combat gives you more experience towards leveling-up your character. It also improves your fighting power over time, allowing you to deal more damage. Equipping new powerful weapons including magical and mundane swords, lances, battle axes, and war hammers, among others will also increase your fighting prowess. Rune Factory is not overly violent since monsters are not slain outright. Instead, they're sent back to their own world when defeated, unless you choose to tame them. It's a nice touch that some parents and gaming pacifists may appreciate.

From the onset, the visual style in Rune Factory is striking. The hand-drawn backgrounds are marvelously detailed, making this fantasy Harvest Moon experience a cut above the rest in terms of graphics. The dance-pop tune, complete with high pitch vocals, accompanying the introduction video is grating on the ears, but the music elsewhere is excellent. Occasional voice-over work that crops up during character interactions is nice, sometimes funny, and not always expected. Rune Factory uses only the smallest amount of touch controls, and only really for inventory management. The rest of the controls are mapped out to the face buttons. This control method works great, so the lack of stylus use is not a huge loss.

Series fans will find that Rune Factory far exceeds their expectations. The inclusion of combat, magic, and other RPG elements greatly expand on an excellent game design that will feel familiar, if not significantly improved, to many players. With so much to uncover, the game is vastly deep and endlessly fun. Even for those who aren't already hooked on the Harvest Moon series, gardening, dungeon-crawling, and befriending (or defeating) all manner of cute beasties doesn't get been any better than this. This is Harvest Moon like you've never seen it before.

By Nathan Meunier
CCC Freelance Writer

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