Ooh I love harvest moon games,I didn't try Rune Factory though, might give it a try.

but hey...that girl is asking for that guy's(Douglas) daughter's hand and he is ok with it?

Pretty open society they got there :P

Reetesh

Anyone else notice the maps look exactly like the ones from FFXI?

for eg:
[www.ffxi-atlas.com]

Nutchos

@TomSkylark:

You do realize you can tame the monsters to do certain things around the farm? Takes a lot off of you.

Yetanotheruninspiredscreename

Is it just me, or is there a string holding Douglas' MUSTACHE OF MANLINESS on he face?

tinkyXIII

FINALLY there's word about an English localization of it. oo bad I don't have a DS now to play it. :[

SpiritBoy

@Matthew DeLoach:

I think the wii Rune Factory is a sequel to the first DS one. Or it's supposed to be a prequel to the second Rune Factory. I forget which.

Yetanotheruninspiredscreename

I don't know if it was just that I had started a really involved day job right after I bought this or what, but mostly I found the original Rune Factory a little dull. And it was frustrating that you only had so much energy each day with which to farm and go Dungeon Crawling. It looked great, and it was fun, but it seemed like the energy points were way too limiting.

TomSkylark

The only downfalls of Rune Factory were that

-Farming took a back seat to hack and slashing. Save for cooking and wooing a select few girls, you never needed to grow a single thing, just spend your days cutting stuff up in caves.

-Wives still don't do anything. How is it that Harvest Moon 64 is the only HM game where your wife will do something when your married other then have a kid and stand around?

-Rune Points were poorly done. Once I ran out, instead of trying to grow crops in the various caves, I'd just work till I was in the red and then go soak in the hot springs.

-Like every Natsume game released in the last 8 years, it's buggy. I know they are a very small publisher, but jesus christ, please bring some testers on.

Foxstar Sixtail

I've been a fan of Harvest Moon since the N64... but I never got in to the whole Ruin Factory spin-off. Right now I'm more interested in the Wii version.

Matthew DeLoach

YAY!! ^___^ The first Rune Factory was an absolute blast! Truth be told I was a little worried that they wouldn't bother bringing it over...I mean, even though the first Luminous Arc was pretty successful, no one's bothered with Luminous Arc 2 yet...

Thank Jebus.

s1ipstream

This just in, Paul Sr. from American Chopper to guest star in DS rpg.

Rabbite

Douglas should've won the 'stache contest. That thing is outstanding.

wild homes and gardens

Rune Factory was great. My only complaint was that they made it extremely difficult to figure out how to progress. Just getting a shovel required talking to a random person in town after completing some hidden objective never explained to you. But the actual gameplay was fun.

jettokisora

*swoon* I've been a fan of the series since my friend first introduced me to it on the N64. I'm glad this is finally coming out!

MelodyKitn

The game was quite good. Battle was a simple crawler, like Izuna, but not bad. Overly complicated fights would detract from the appeal probably.

This one looks fun.

Setzer IIDX

I loved harvest moon. Never played the first one.. Looks good though, Sword of Mana for DS + Harvest Moon.

vgerik1234

Well this is good news. I've been a huge fan of the Harvest Moon series since I was introduced to the super nintendo version when I was very little, and at this point almost feel obligated to purchase one when it comes out, most of the time without disapointment.

I waited a while before buying Rune Factory...I actually just purchased it a little less than a month ago, and just finished it the day before yesterday, actually. It was...okay. Here are my complaints-

- As said before, farming took a back seat to the hack and slash. As a matter of fact, absolutely EVERYTHING took a back seat to it. The town festivals were uninteresting and ridiculously boring. I miss when the festivals were mini-games, and the romantic festivals you actually felt like you were bonding well with the girl. The festivals in RF:HM consists of nothing more than everyone standing around the city. A good example of how lame the romantic holidays are is the Sacred Night holiday, where you go to the girl's house, share one line of pointless dialogue with them, and then you go home.

- The farming was useless. In just the 3rd cave of the game, of which can easily be explored in just the first month, you can mine 10,000+ gold diamonds. Not just a few, but several. By the end of the second month, I had enough money to buy absolutely everything in the game.

- The hack and slash wasn't very good. Granted, this isn't HM's strongest point ever, but when it's the main focus of the game, I sort of expect it to shine. All you need to do is stand in front of a machine that produces monsters. They come out one at a time, and without moving, you can just slash and kill them. That's what you need to do in order to level.

- All damage-dealing magic is useless, seeing as how you can just hack a monster once and kill them.

-Girls say the same dialogue over and over, regardless of how many love points you have with them. In previous harvest moons, the dialogue changes each time you gain their affection a bit more. It just didn't feel like this part of the game was worked on much.

-Pets were absolutely useless, and served no purpose.

So ultimately...the game was fun, sort of... but with the signature elements of this game useless due to money being too easy to acquire, just so they could implement a dull hack-n-slash, I hope they really polish this next one to make it worth while.

priscabel

I always thought this was a good idea for the series... A lot better than Innocent Harvest. Maybe I will actually give this one a try then?

chuckbanzai

@Shadowmist: word, hm64 was and still is my favorite of the harvest moon series

Kcet

Good stuff. I dig Rune Factory. Still haven't finished it, but it's like a trusty ol' book I can pick up anytime. Though, I kinda hope the energy and life bar system is a bit more forgiving this time around..

BlackdogGT

Meh, haven't loved a Harvest Moon game like I did Harvest Moon 64. They just don't seem to stack up for some reason. That said, I liked the previous Rune Factory game, so I'll definitely be picking this one up.

Shadowmist

All I want from my harvest moons is a remake of the super nes version, better graphics, more content and I'd buy 10 copies.

Lately the harvest moon series has been on a downhill slope for me. The n64 version was good, the ps1 version was also well done. However, the ps2 version, save the homeland sucked hard. I also tried to get in on the DS version (don't remember the name) but I couldn't do it.

Just stick to the formula natsume. I really don't want an rpg hack n' slash from my farming sim.

...really miss hawking my wares to the peddler on sundays.

Nutchos

@Foxstar Sixtail: Couldn't agree more with everything you said. I was explaining Harvest Moon to my girlfriend the other day. When asked which one was the best, I quickly realized "...The N64 version and Back to Nature on the PS1. Hmmm...". Not good.

priscabel

I liked Harvest Moon on the N64...but this series is just all over the place. Sometimes it seems like the series is getting better, but then it just takes two steps back.

There are so many annoying, unnecessary things in the games that you think the next iteration will fix, and it doesn't they just make it worse. There are so many "It be cool if you could just do this..." moments in the game, you think "Well maybe in the next game..." and it never happens.

insaneo

@priscabel:Good points. Let's add a few more.

-Permit system was stupid and a unneeded timesink. I know why they did, it, based on the fact you could level to 60 by the second cave and once you got a half-way good weapon drop from the mobs, you could kill anything. Just slashing at it.

-As noted, the monster segment was poorly done. Very poorly done, at least farming had the completely useless level up system but pets were a pain to tame and sucked all sorts of ass in combat where you'd have to grind like crazy to level them up and still have them preform badly in battles. Their AI was ass too.

-Cutting Lumber for the house upgrade was a very big and uneeded time sink. Just charge me double and let me buy it from the house upgrade guy.

-Child never grows up. After A Wonderful Life, this is uncalled for.

-No real point in picking in between the girls, they all say the same stuff and some are complete pains to marry.

-Crafting system clearly had more time spent on it then the rest of the game and for no point, those uber fancy weapons don't really help.

-Having to buy two sets of most things over again just because you upgraded your house -stupid stupid stupid.

Natsume really seems to have been slipping when it comes to HM over the last few years. I hope they fix things, when the highlight of the series are the N64 and PSone versions, something is very wrong.

Foxstar Sixtail

Actually just beat rune factory yesterday, so this is great news to me. It was by far my fave harvest moon after the classic 64 one that got me into the series

Neon

It's like. I was at the cabin and it was raining. That was basically the only game I had that hadn't played. (The first one I mean).

...Fast forward 4 hours. Girlfriend walks by:

"What are you doing?"

"Playing"

"Playing what?"

"Farming...."

"Oh ok....what?"

Woodwater

Loved the first Rune Factory! I will get this ASAP!

Figcoinc

I hope that when it's time for your son to marry, he's not hitting on the same girls 'dad' didn't want, that there is a new generation of girls for him to choose from.

It's not harvest moon unless the boy gets married after all.

And to everyone saying the wives didn't do much, didn't yours cook something for you every day? Mine did.

MangaDragon56

Never really got into them, but my lil brother loves them.

My fondest memory thats related to Harvest Moon was when he bought one of the GBA ones after a trip to the gamestore and during the drive home he told me, "When I pick up my chickens it makes them happy!"

I'll remember that for the rest of my life.

belo

Rune Factory was a frustrating game. It had so much potential, but the game never let you know when you were getting something right. Little details were missing, like having the pickup box animate when you put items in it - it just didn't seem like your character was actually interacting with the landscape, or even with other people.
For a series that's been out so long, how is it that the SNES and N64 versions of the game do a better job at introducing you to the game mechanics, and illustrating your character's interaction with the world?

Count me as one of the people who thought that the dungeon-crawling stuff was excellent, and a step up for the series. It gave a direction and a variety to the day-to-day chores that the series has needed for a long time.

Hopefully one day the game will learn that gamers prefer to reach goals by knowing what you have to do, and then employing skill to achieve it, rather than coasting through a FAQ or strategy guide to find the right "get yellow pepper, give it between 5pm and 9pm, then trade the barbell for the hairpin in the cave on Tuesday morning..."

Sustenance

I loved Rune Factory. It's one of my favorite handheld games of all time.

GiantEnemyCrab

I remember that story from last year... but i never heard of the game again. Then i checked out the name on Uk websites... the original is coming out here in september... I guess you can re-post this story come december 2009.

Duoae

@MangaDragon56:They all do that, but I no longer count that as a feature, not when the various wives in the HM for N64 would help out on the farm (Depending who you picked).

For long term HM fans it's very frustrating, more so when we've had a taste of what it's like to have a wife DO stuff. Oh and let's not get into the PSP HM(Futuristic Life) which was a abortion.

@priscabel:You know what's really scary? I believe the N64 Harvest Moon had the most interaction I've seen in any of them in between your character and his wife, not to say the various endings (Best one I got was when I got that deck, they had the feast and then it ended with your character, your wife and kid, all looking up at the stars and talking about the future and what's been done so far) What the hell is Natsume doing when a seven year old title outstrips all the others? Bugs or not. And speaking of buggy, let's not forget HM:DS which was nigh unplayable.

@MangaDragon56:I'm hoping 'getting married' isn't forced on you like it was in a Wonderful Life, nor are you pretty much forced to retire after say..two in game years to pass the torch onto your kid because your too old or some crap. It sounds like it could be a neat idea, but devs seem to always screw up neat features like that.

@Sustenance:The only thing keeping me from downloading HM on VC is the fact that it's the hardest HM out of them all and missing features that I'd be pissed over not having which were found in later HM's.

@insaneo:I've honestly gotten to the point where I think Natsume never looks back and that's why features that are in other HM's get left out of newer ones. Is it just me or was the N64 HM the -only- one where your character would at least change for bed and if you got home too late, your wife would already be asleep?

I never thought i'd regret selling my N64 and PSone HM's but when I play Rune Factory and then look back on this thread with other hardcore HM players who miss the same things I miss..blah.

Natsume, don't let me fucking down again.

Foxstar Sixtail