Farming Factor

Around the time I was introduced to emulation, I started playing Harvest Moon. To my knowledge, the SNES version wasn't released in Britain at the time, which is a bit odd, as you'd imagine a game about farming would have quite a market here. To this day, I still consider it one of the best titles in the series. As odd as the concept was to me, I found myself hooked, and ever since then I've maintained a passing interest, playing at least one of the many releases that each generation of consoles receives. Despite that, I never bothered with the somewhat recent spin-off series, Rune Factory. That is, until I picked up a Wii.

Perhaps it was because I really didn't like Harvest Moon on the Game Boy Color, but I shied away from Rune Factory, as it started on the DS, and has two sequels on said format. Perhaps I had some sort of preconception about the quality of portable Harvest Moons, but it never appealed enough for me to play it. For some reason though, I was quite eager to play the Wii version, Rune Factory Frontier.

While the other DS games are standalone sequels, Frontier features the hero and heroine from the first game, along with a few other characters who have come along for the ride. In a bizarre act of continuity, there are original characters who do and don't remember the hero, which I really can't seem to get my head around. Especially as he can marry most of those characters in the original game. It's as if the first game did and didn't occur. Minor gripes aside, I'm really rather keen on the game itself.

For those unaware, Rune Factory takes the basic concept of farming and relationship building from Harvest Moon, and adds dungeon exploration and combat. It might be because I'm already keen on going into dungeons and bothering dragons and their kin, but I've become hooked. Such a simple addition has almost reinvigorated the love that I had for the very first game. Another addition is my favourite aspect of Magical Melody, one of the Harvest Moon titles, which allows you to build friendship with any of the villagers, rather than just potential brides.

However, due to the story's progress being closely linked to how successful your dungeon exploration, villager relationships and crop growth, it's very slow moving. In one instance, I had to unlock a gate. To do so, I had to develop a friendship with a resident near to the gate. Doing so introduced a character who merely appeared, said nothing, and walked off. Upon following him, the following areas had a couple of substantial difficulty spikes, which I've yet to conquer. The problem is, to survive said spikes, I have to make my farm a lot more profitable in order to have access to better equipment. It's not a game that can be rushed.

That, however, is possibly what I find most appealing about both Harvest Moon and Rune Factory. While Rune Factory has added some degree of excitement to it with the dungeons, they are still essentially time sinks. Both series are perfect examples of how to reward effort, though. The more time and effort you're willing to put in, more variety and content becomes accessible. I find, though, that I enjoy the slow pace of the game. For a game that started off about daily life and building friendships, the ever so gradual development that exists in Rune Factory is perfectly suited to it. Provided I don't get too bored, I'm hopefully going to see this through to the end. After that? I might take the plunge and try one of the DS titles, portability be damned.