DS Game Profile: Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon

Real life sim Harvest Moon gets the RPG touch in Rune Factory. Natsume has taken the famous 10-year old Harvest Moon series and mixed it up to deliver an interesting new take for the franchise. Scheduled to release sometime in July, Rune Factory features the full simulation of Harvest Moon as well as dungeon crawling monster battles and other RPG elements.

The first change from standard Harvest Moon games is thrown at you right at the beginning; the game has a plot. You, a character with amnesia, ends up in the town of Karnia in the Kingdom of Norad. A girl named Mist shows you around town and gives you a hoe and a watering can. As you explore the town, a wild beast appears and you must fight it. Rune Factory is a dungeon crawler RPG. You enter monster-filled caves and dungeons in search for experience and items. You can use physical weapons or magic spells to eliminate your adversaries. Dungeons also feature boss fights. As you level up, your characters stats increase, allowing you to perform more tasks during each day.

Which tasks, you ask? The standard litany of Harvest Moon tasks mixed in with the new gameplay elements. Rune Factory is also a full-fledged real-life simulator a la Harvest Moon. You earn a living by growing crops, fishing, mining, and other franchise-standard activities. As you accomplish certain requirements, paths to other, more sophisticated dungeons are opened. A neat twist is that you can grow crops inside dungeons. You have to keep monsters away from your patch and water might be hard to come by, but dungeon-grown crops are immune to weather effects. Outside of dungeons and into the town, you can make friends and girlfriends that might eventually marry you. Every townsfolk has a particular personality, and by giving them gifts that match their style, you can increase their Love or Friendship Stats towards you.

Graphically, Rune Factory looks beautiful on the DS hardware. Continue reading to check out some screenshots and a gameplay trailer.

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon will feature multiplayer options via Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection service. You can trade items with other players worldwide. You can also take screenshots of your game by pressing the L button, which you can later draw on and trade with friends over the net.

Rune Factory promises to be a deep dungeon crawler as well as one of the best Harvest Moon experiences to date. The mixture of real-life sim and action RPG elements sounds interesting and should make the game a nice addition to your DS collection. We will have a full review soon after the game’s July release.