Rune Factory Frontier: Impresiones IGN

Over the last few years, the world of Harvest Moon has gone through a pretty sizable shift. Series creator Yasuhiro Wada has moved away from focusing on the main Harvest Moon series and instead split his time into numerous other projects -- namely games like Wii's upcoming Little King's Story and the "Fantasy Harvest Moon" Rune Factory. On DS, the shift from traditional Harvest Moon over to the Rune Factory series is obvious, as we've seen three mediocre Harvest Moon titles on the platform (including a non-traditional puzzle game as well), each that were a letdown for various reasons, while two Rune Factory titles made the new series spin-off a huge success right off the bat. They had stronger visuals, an added dungeon crawler mechanic for monster battling, and showed evidence of larger budgets and more care overall from the developer.

On Wii, things have been pretty much the same, as we've again seen a pretty mediocre Harvest Moon offering with Tree of Tranquility, but are poised to get a real treat in just a few short weeks with Rune Factory: Frontier. Developed by Neverland and published by XSEED and Marvelous Entertainment (not Natsume), Rune Factory: Frontier looks to do for Wii what the first two titles did for Nintendo DS. It's a visually impressive, fully-realized world filled with lots to do, an obvious attention to detail, and true innovation. If you're a seasoned Harvest Moon fan, or just kicking things off for the first time with Rune Factory on Wii, it looks like you'll have a great game to look forward to in mid-March.

So far we're about five hours into our adventure, and while Harvest Moon games aren't truly underway until you get a few seasons in, start building your farm up to critical mass (and expand into new areas), or begin courting some brown-eyed milkmaid, it's obvious already that Rune Factory has the "it factor" to make for a great farm/life sim, as well as a pretty beefy hack-n-slash RPG. As expected, players kick the game off by coming to a new town and quickly get pulled into working alongside its inhabitants to make the area the best it can be. In Rune Factory: Frontier, players rapidly meet up with Mist (the young girl from the DS games) who has now taken up stake in the new town of Tranrupia.

As far as the timeline goes, Frontier fits best if considered directly after the original DS Rune Factory, and while you're in a new town filled with a whole new farm to take care of, and original quests, some of the characters (tradition for the Harvest Moon franchise) return to accompany you through another game. So far we've noticed Mist, Lara (the nurse and "nun in training"), and the owner of the hot springs, Melody, who is unlocked after a few minutes of exploration in the monster-infested caves.

Rune Factory carries on in its traditional design, which – if you're new to the series – entails a mix of farming, dungeon crawling, and life sim elements. You take up a deserted farm and house, armed only with a watering can, hoe, and packet of turnip seeds, and need to make your fortune by the sweat of your brow. Planting crops carries out much like it did on DS, allowing you to move around the fertile patch of land outside your house, select items quickly with the minus key, and then work the land either free-form with the analog stick and the A button (or motion, if applicable), or with the help of the Z button for strafing. As with previous Rune Factory games, a targeting box shows up in front of the main character, so you always know where you're going to sprinkle seeds, pour water, or swing an axe or hammer. Traditional Harvest Moon players that are used to making farms in a horseshoe design (a 3X3 box with one spot left out for watering purposes) can now rest assured that even full-grown crops can be walked over with no collision, so potentially every square of a field could be filled with crops.

Obviously the most notable change between the traditional Harvest Moon series and Rune Factory is its visual difference, and on Wii, it's all for the better. True, there's something awesome about the simplicity in Harvest Moon Super NES, and I – like many fans of the series – dig the N64 look as well, but Rune Factory is without a doubt the most stylistic and visually pleasing modern version out there. The colors are soft, the village is filled with floating colored sprites, the architecture is impressively built, and the subtle terrain and water animations really flesh out the world. Rune Factory: Frontier is a beautiful Wii game, and it just adds to the already impressive mechanic built over the years through classic Harvest Moon, and the two Rune Factory games before it.

All the typical bits can be found around town, including a blacksmith, inn, tavern, hot springs – for a one-time per day health/stamina refill – church, grocery store, and numerous neighboring towns, but the game pushes the core design even further with the addition of a floating "whale island" in the sky. This is where the bulk of your dungeon crawler gameplay comes from, as players can water a small plant, watch it grow "Jack and the Beanstalk" style into the sky, and then set foot on the massive floating island. Some story elements later unlock here, but for as far as we are the whale acts as a dungeon with monsters and additional farm areas, as players can purchase swords and spears and battle enemies.

If you're one of those "non-violent," boring types, you can also use a specific petting tool to win their affection and have them move into your town as animals (Rune Factory uses monsters instead of pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, and the like). Personally, we're down with just hacking and slashing our way through to gather materials and "send the lost monsters back to their world," also known as killing them. Enemy spawners are included, so it was pretty simple to grind a few extra levels off the bat, run back to the hot springs, and head back in for a second round before nightfall. If you've got a hammer, plenty of rocks can be smashed as well, giving off iron and scrap metal that can be sold or used to repair weapons.

One of the nice aspects about Rune Factory is that if you don't want to play a specific part of the game, you really don't have to. Sure, there are various story instances you can't complete without both farming and battling alike, but Harvest Moon (and Rune Factory, by extension) games have always been about playing how you want, and this one is no different. You start the game out with 500 gold, so if you want to go spend all 500 on the first level sword right away (conveniently priced at exactly that much), you can skip farming for as long as you want and play it only as an action-RPG. Likewise, you could also spend all your time farming, giving food to people as gifts to progress the game's social simulator, and sell you goods for a pretty penny. For the previous DS titles I used farming to fund my battling, whereas in Wii specifically it feels a bit more open-ended in design. If you want to farm, you can. If you want to fight, you can. If you want to harass people around town, get a fishing pole, and spend every afternoon out in a boat cruising around for fish, you can. It's a very relaxing, very open experience.

We've just begun our adventure with Rune Factory, but already it's obvious that this one has what it takes to win over new players to the world of Rune Factory/Harvest Moon, and also bring the impressive DS titles to a full-on console debut. Our five hours with the game thus far feel like a drop in the bucket, as there's a laundry list of things to see and do around town that we've only scratched the surface of. For those doubting the game's lasting power, or for people that have played countless Harvest Moon games, both DS Rune Factory titles, and are trying to figure out why to get into yet another one of its kind on Wii, we've got an event list with nearly 500 main event, optional, bonus, and secret quests and events hidden away within the game. There's a lot to do in this game, and this time around Harvest Moon fans are getting a game that not only offers the core farming experience, but also a full-on action-RPG, and an extremely deep social simulator all wrapped up in some beautiful visuals, scattered VO, and polished world to explore. We've got a long road ahead of us with Rune Factory: Frontier, but it's already showing incredible promise.

We'll have more on Rune Factory: Frontier as we continue our play through the game. Until then, be sure to check out first ever direct-feed footage from the final (Nintendo approval pending) US version of the game, and check back again soon for more on the title.