Rune Factory for the DS is quite possible the most featured packed and enjoyable iteration in the venerable Harvest Moon series. I’m pleasantly surprised it was able to successfully combine farming and dungeon running into one solid package. Here are some early reviews:
IGN scores it 8.4 out of 10:
For Harvest Moon fans, Rune Factory is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. The game balances a classic farming system (with some changes for the better) along with a full dungeon-crawling aspect, monster collection, and all the added goodies you’d expect from the franchise. The game has a few minor faults to it though, as there are some graphical bugs that pop up every once in a while, the stamina system is still pretty unforgiving considering how fast you can use it up, and the game pretty much just drops you into the action and expects you to figure it out, but in the end it’s definitely one of the best Harvest Moon games we’ve played. The art style is amazing, the modeled characters look decent (though we still would have preferred hand-drawn to fit the world more), the music and VO is a definite step above last year’s Harvest Moon “effort,†and the game is simply fast and fun to play.
Gamebrink gives it a 91 out of 100:
Pros* Its still pretty much the good old Harvest Moon.
* Nice town to walk about in.
* Good cast of characters to build relations with.
* NPCs are active, moving to different places during the day.
* Characters have more than one line of dialogue to repeat.
* Hack and slash battle system is simple but fun.
* Overwhelming amount of things to do including many fun competitions and festivals to join in.
* Optional activities such as cooking, medicine, and blacksmithing.Cons
* Uncommon control configuration takes some getting used to.
* In-game menu is tedious to navigate using buttons.
* Upgraded tools dont make much of a difference without using charged shots.
* Selecting tools and items is quite a chore.
