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Rune Factory Frontier
Wii
Manufacturing Boredom
3/5 stars
My experience with the “Harvest Moon” franchise, of which the “Rune Factory” franchise, and thus “Rune Factory Frontier” (“RFF”) are spin-offs, began way back in 1997 with the original game on the SNES. While I enjoyed that game and found it to have a rather addicting quality, once I had finished, I had no burning desire to repeat the experience. Therefore, I watched rather bemusedly as Natsume pumped out sequel after sequel and a variety of spin-offs.
My interest in “RFF” was largely piqued by recommendations from online peers who said that it added a much-needed infusion of new material to the Farming Sim by partially transforming it into an RPG. As an RPG fan, my pickings have been quite slim in the 7th Generation, making me much more inclined to try ANYTHING RPG-related in the hopes of stumbling across something good.
Presentation
“RFF” is an incredible treat for the eyes and ears. Before even starting the game, the player is treated to a great anime music video title sequence with a really jazzy j-pop intro song. Other FMV sequences appear throughout the game’s story as well, as introductions for each of the game’s characters and to illustrate important events in the narrative.
Outside of FMV sequences, the entire game is rendered in polygons, with a few 2D sprites thrown in to represent items on the ground, etc. If it weren’t for the fact that the Wii limits video output to 480p, the graphics in “RFF” would look fantastic. Even with the Wii’s limited abilities, there are very few jaggies and no blurry or muddy textures. The game also has one of the few great cameras I’ve ever experienced in a polygonal game, as it presents everything from a birds-eye view instead of the typical (and abysmal) third-person. Dialog between characters incorporates the modern convention of using character portraits, but does so spectacularly. The characters transition smoothly between ‘emotions’ and sometimes benefit from some added animations, such as teardrops, sweat drops, or lovey hearts, that look incredibly sharp.
Unfortunately, the great camera positioning allows, or perhaps requires, that the character models are a bit stylized. While the anime stylings of the characters are great, as evidenced by their character portraits, the character models look a bit butter-faced in the few scenes that actually show them close-up. Since the characters models look great from the standard camera view and the movie sequences look great, I find it baffling that the developer decided to use the character models in any story sequences at all.
The audio in “RFF” is just as pleasant as the video. The game has small but enjoyable soundtrack with nothing that bears any semblance to the horrible ‘Summer’ theme from the original “Harvest Moon.” Likewise, all of the ambient sound effects, weapon sounds, and monster noises fit nicely.
The game has a significant amount of voice acting, but is not fully voiced. While I can’t comment on the Japanese voice acting, the vocal cast for the English dub performed admirably, bringing the characters to life while avoiding annoyance.
Story
The original “Harvest Moon” had a very simple premise instead of a story: “You have 3 years to make this farm profitable and find a wife.” It gave the player a goal and a time limit. Nothing more was really needed. “RFF” takes away the simplicity of this original premise and tacks-on an incredibly lame, stereotypical Japanese RPG/Anime story that unravels itself seemingly at random and over vast stretches of time.
The game opens with Raguna, the protagonist, stumbling upon an old nun as he searches frantically for a girl named Mist. Apparently these are recurring characters from the “Rune Factory” games that came before “RFF” on the DS. Unfortunately, none of their back story is revealed… instead Raguna is given a clean slate: Apparently the poor boy is a chronic amnesiac. After a scene transition, the missing Mist shows up and tells Raguna that she was drawn to this new place, the Village of Trampoli, by a voice in her dreams. She convinces the nun, Stella, who has already given Mist a home to live in, to provide Raguna with housing as well. Thus Raguna is forced, apparently for the third time, into a life of hard labor as a tiller of the soil.
As the player sinks more and more hours into the game, eventually random story bits related to the main narrative pop-out. Raguna occasionally hears the same dream voice that drew Mist to Trampoli, Raguna encounters some mysterious people on the island floating in the sky above Trampoli, and a whiny villain emerges. This is enough plot to propel a game that lasts, at maximum, 30 hours (which is, coincidentally, how long I spent on the original “Harvest Moon” in 1997!). However, my first (and only!) playthrough of “RFF” took 111 hours.
Most of those eleventy-one hours were filled with nothing but repetition. Water the same plants every day. Probe the same dungeon every day, hoping beyond hope to discover a useful piece of material to craft better equipment and delve further into the dungeon. Talk to the same people every day in order to make them ‘like’ or ‘love’ Raguna more. Occasionally this repetition results in a random bit of side story appearing that relates specifically to one or more of the citizens of Trampoli. Yet even with a population of over 15 different people, these moments of side story are far and few between.
Gameplay
“RFF” combines numerous gameplay aspects from different genres. This mash-up includes a traditional “Harvest Moon”-like farming sim, a “Diablo”-like hack ‘n slash RPG, a “Monster Hunter”-like crafting system, and a gift-based dating sim. Unfortunately, these genres don’t mix quite as well as I initially hoped.
Like the protagonist in “Harvest Moon,” Raguna has a stamina meter, called ‘Rune Points’ for some reason, that depletes as he performs actions. He starts with 500 RP and that daily amount never increases. Once Raguna’s RP is gone, performing actions expends his Hit Points (e.g., life meter) instead. Once his HP drops to zero, he faints and wakes up at the clinic (run by a comely, young nun) the next day, usually with a cold (that causes him to expend triple RP/HP on actions until cured). Thus it’s best for Raguna to return home and sleep in his bed before that happens. Raguna’s HP (as well as a variety of other stats), on the other hand, can be improved by gaining levels in traditional RPG fashion. However, the only way for Raguna to gain experience is to fight monsters (which are mostly just more bestial-looking versions of common livestock, and can be domesticated).
In addition to character levels gained through experience, Raguna can gain levels in 10 different skills, each of which allows him to either wield better equipment or achieve better crafting results. The only way to level up these skills is to perform actions associated with them. Thus if the player wishes to improve Raguna’s crafting ability in order to make a powerful new hat out of some junk he found in a dungeon, the player had best be prepared to spend a significant amount of time crafting worthless and weak items in order to improve Raguna’s skill. Likewise, becoming a better fisherman involves catching a lot of trash fish… or just standing in Raguna’s house swinging a fishing pole around.
Another returning aspect from “Harvest Moon” is the flow of time. Unlike in the original game, time constantly ticks away at the rate of one minute per second of real time. Thus a ‘day’ in “RFF” lasts approximately 24 minutes. However, since time stops while Raguna is inside buildings, it’s possible for a day to last upwards of 45 minutes. The game world’s simplified calendar is divided into 4 seasonal ‘months,’ each with 30 days, consisting of five 6-day weeks. Raguna typically starts his day at 6:00AM, but wakes up later if he stays out past 1:00AM (and risks catching a cold). The absolute end of the day is 5:00AM, at which point, if Raguna is still out and about, he magically wakes up in bed at 10:00AM the next day (even if he’s in the middle of picking up an item or swinging a weapon). Unlike the original “Harvest Moon,” “RFF” has no hard time limit. The years simply repeat endlessly.
With the above gameplay systems in place, the player is free to guide Raguna around in search of story, profit, or adventure. “RFF” is a bit like a sandbox game in this respect, except that most sandbox games have waaaaay more content to explore. “RFF” has a grand total of four dungeons and one town. Raguna’s field is just outside his house in town, and once his crops have been tended for the day, the player is free to take him into the dungeons or help him attempt to seduce the town’s population of jailbait women (only one of whom is considered ‘too young’ to date) by talking to them and giving them items they like as gifts.
Despite only having four dungeons, the dungeon system features non-random layouts. The enemies, treasure chests, breakable rocks, and even arable fields are always exactly the same on each visit. But the process of working through a single dungeon can take 10-20 hours of real time, since Raguna frequently runs out of RP from swinging his weapons, enemies increase in strength drastically between dungeon floors, and the dungeons are too big to fully navigate in a single game day. Each dungeon, thus, has a shortcut door on each floor that leads to a spiral staircase near the entrance, allowing Raguna to skip floors on his way to the boss encounter at the bottom. This constant, timid pecking at the dungeons reminded me of a low-key version of “Diablo,” except without the manufactured loot drops. Instead, Raguna must take raw loot drops and craft every piece of equipment himself, which is absolutely essential due to the fact that gaining levels only makes Raguna marginally tougher. The only way to progress deeper into the dungeons without being killed is to load up on protective gear and carry a plethora of HP-restoring Energy Drinks and RP-restoring foods.
Where the tedium becomes unbearable, though, is where the farm sim and hack ‘n slash elements collide. In order to craft the best equipment, Raguna needs to grow flowers that take between 40 and 120 days to bloom (there is no other way to acquire these flowers). Since crops and flowers can only be grown in their respective seasons, it’s necessary to plant these slow-growing types in dungeon fields, where the seasons never change. So instead of stepping out of his house and easily taking care of his field for the day, then heading off for adventure and romance, Raguna is forced to take daily trips to his dungeon fields to water his flowers… for dozens of game days.
The most problematic system in the game, however, is the ‘Runey System.’ Runeys are little sprite-like creatures that ‘appear when the land is fruitful.’ Unfortunately, that is the only real explanation of Runeys that the game provides. The manual only has one page on Runeys as well, and is not very useful. In actuality, Runeys also MAKE the land fruitful and, conversely, a lack of Runeys makes the land barren. I ignored the Runeys for the most part during my first game year and suffered no negative consequences. However, after a winter of no crops in Raguna’s field (and me foolishly turning at least 80 Runeys into Rune Stones to unlock doors in dungeons), I found that the little buggers had gone extinct in every part of Trampoli except Raguna’s homestead. I didn’t think anything of it until I planted crops for the Spring and they refused to grow. Even worse, every day I found that at least two of my plants had turned into worthless withered grass. Completely at a loss, I consulted help on the Internet and discovered that Runeys exist in a rock-paper-scissors-like cycle in which the four types (Water, Rock, Tree, and Grass) consume each other, and that having two or more areas devoid of Runeys causes the agricultural problems I experienced. Unfortunately, I also learned that keeping Runeys properly distributed is an arduous task of micromanagement and pattern analysis that requires an advanced degree in abstract mathematics. It also requires that the player drag Raguna on a daily trip to the town’s clocktower to look at a mapping device that is the only way (aside from consulting a specific character) to check how many Runeys are in each area. It would have made the Runey System just a tad less painful if Raguna’s personal map (that can be viewed at any time from a menu) contained this information.
So, on top of caring for the crops in his field, caring for his slow-growing flowers in the dungeons, AND micromanaging Runey distribution, Raguna needs to squeeze enough time out of every day to earn money for house upgrades and furniture (which is, ironically, easier to accomplish by fishing than by farming), conquer the dungeons, and talk to girls. Instead of allowing for a fun experience, “RFF” devolves into a rigid schedule of repetition that rapidly moves from engaging to tedious, specifically because so much repetition is required to achieve any meaningful results.
Overall
“Rune Factory Frontier” successfully combines some of the grindiest, most repetitive subgenres in all of gaming. The result is a game that is highly addicting at first, but keeps its incremental rewards so perpetually out of reach that only the biggest fans of repetitive behaviors will want to attain them. While the game technically has an infinite length, the amount of engaging content is anything but infinite, leading to boredom far before the end credits roll. Combine this lack of content with a few poorly-implemented gameplay mechanics, and the result is a title that I can only recommend to the biggest fans of “Harvest Moon,” hack ‘n slash RPGs, and perhaps the ‘time-wasting simulator’ known as “Animal Crossing.”
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 0.5/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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