Rune Factory 4: A Fantasy Harvest Moon Review

I really like the Harvest Moon series, but you knew that, unless you didn't and now you do.  Harvest Moon is the kind of cute/annoyingly long type of game that doesn't have a real ending though, and on top of that you'll probably find yourself really pissed at the Harvest Goddess who literally can stop all of the problems in every town you go to, but still she finds a way to just do literally nothing. But we're not here to talk about Harvest Moon, even though we kinda have to.

And I said I was going to clean this room because I have to, but...

So let's get Harvest Moon out of the way! Without getting into history or anything, Harvest Moon has just about 20 games in it's series (give or take if you don't consider games like Boy and Girl or  DS and DS Cute to be games of their own accord) and generally speaking, they're all the same. You either come from a city (you know the one) to get your parent's farm or you're an amnesiac that the mayor of a town decides to give full control of the economy. You know. Because.

"Thanks, Mr. Mayor!" - Literally every amnesiac ruining towns across Harvest Moon land

Your job basically is to save wherever you are from the Harvest Goddess, who for the most part, is the reason these towns are failing. You do this via getting married, having a kid, farming, ranching, cooking, mining, foraging, and making friends. Now if you're hearing this and thinking, "But where's the violence?!" well, that's what Rune Factory is. Sort of. I mean it's more than that, but if you wanted to play Harvest Moon but with violence, then you should give Rune Factory a try.

But if you've actually played any of the games from Rune Factory, you know that Rune Factory is a series now because it's... really kind of amazing. There are people called Earthmates who have the power to harvest runes, there are elves and dwarves with political problems with the human races, there are people related to people in other towns and continuity between the games, there is an actual enemy in an empire nearby to the country you live in, there are bosses, there are dungeons-- I mean, the game's world is immense. When you really look at Harvest Moon, there's a lot of vagueness, a lot of ambiguity about the world and the towns themselves, which makes it almost Pokemon-like, except that everyone in the town isn't completely mystified about what's over that mountain range, people of Kanto.

"DON'T GO OVER THOSE MOUNTAINS! WHAT IF THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE OVER THERE?!"

Rune Factory has a lot of story that doesn't really connect in the games until you get deep into the plot, so I'm not really going to talk about the story too much. I know, that's crazy of me.

Rune Factory 4 follows the incredibly creative and stunningly fresh amnesiac main character formula that I've never seen before in games like Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, Theresia, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Final Fantasy,  Cave Story, Megaman Zero, Ghost Trick, and-- surprisingly-- Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You can pick to be a boy (Lest) or a girl (Frey), but I chose a girl, so we're going with that.

Is it a boy or a girl? I guess it... doesn't have breasts...?

You start on a airship with an odd glowing purple ball. You don't get any actual story here, while you have your memories. Nope. You just get kicked off the airship and land on a dragon.Oh, and you live, so this isn't a five second $50 game. The dragon you land on is Ventuswill, the Native Dragon of Wind. The names of the other Native Dragons are just the worst, so be happy you landed on one with a tolerable name. Ventuswill is oddly compelling for a god character (because the Native Dragons are pretty much gods). It's honestly kind of sad and infuriating to hear her story.

Because Harvest Moon as a series almost always has some god-infused problem, Rune Factory sometimes pulls from that idea bucket, and this game is an example of that. Ventuswill is the source of the problems in the game, and there's a lot of "tension" between her and the people of the town of Selphia, which you can't really tell because the game doesn't talk about it until the ending of the first plot. Oh, also, there are three plots to the story. 

Now, most Harvest Moon games have the same engine (depending on the system it is on) and the same goes for Rune Factory, for the most part. They changed this one up and for the most part, it's all good changes. But there is an issue with unequipping items and I am totally not a fan of always having to hold the magic book for escape despite it being on the bottom screen... but it isn't anything game breaking. The controls are otherwise intuitive.

Like most games that have day-to-day life, the people in the town have static texts, which is a bit lame. The people in the town are not all tropes, but they might as well be. You have a tomboy-ish girl who likes sweets, which is normal. You have the overly hyperactive girl with overly hyperactive actions. You have the moody male who is moody for the sake of moodiness... I mean, standard characters. But there are interesting twists on terrible tropes, like the narcoleptic butler who does her work while she's asleep and forms a "Get It Together" club. Or a man who time travels (Trust me, it makes sense within the story) to save the world. There's a gothic girl who sees ghosts, which is pretty trope-ish, but her family is a lovey-dovey couple who people actually think are too lovey-dovey, which is nearly unheard of in Harvest Moon. But  Rune Factory 4 actually has interesting in-game random events... like for example, there are three butlers in the town and one of them wins a butler competition randomly throughout the year and everyone in town talks about it. There are also Town Events with a group of characters who have an event together and they'll have different texts than normal. You can even have sleepovers, and the texts there will be different too (sometimes. I've gotten one or two different texts, but it probably had to do with the fact that I wasn't dating during the first sleepover and I was dating during the second one), but day to day you'll probably get through the static texts within a year, if you talk to everyone equally. The marriage candidates all have more dialogues after you get higher than 3 Love Points or Friend Points, and everyone else doesn't really have anything like that. It seems kind of lazy. When you reach 7 Love Points, you can start dating, and you'll get little events with each of the bachelors or bachelorettes where you start seeing that they might be in love with you.

Pff. Uninterested.

Now, like I said, I played as a girl, so I had to deal with bachelors. When you pass people in this game, they ignore you at FP/LP levels 0-2, wave at around 1-3, and wave with a musical note from 3-7. Around level 7, people will start waving with a heart over their head, which means that these people are free to date you if they're bachelors or bachelorettes. However, just because they're beckoning lovingly to you over a candlelight dinner doesn't mean they're ready to admit they're in love with you. A more surefire way to know is to wait for the event where you and your bachelor of choice are forced to interact. Some are really cute and some are... well...

My bachelor of choice was Leon, because if there's ever a dude who isn't white or Asian, I go for him to see if my kids will turn out dark skinned, except for Kai because I hated him. But it helps that I like Leon's character and I especially like his taste in gifts and foods.

Okay, so he's not THAT dark skinned, but who is in video games? AND DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT FF7!

Leon is the last bachelor you save-- which I will get into like right after this so SHUT UP-- but not the hardest bachelor to marry. Nope, that's Doug, who is storyline related. After Leon though, you never bring a new person into the town. The other three saved characters-- Amber, Dylas, and Dolce-- are leagues easier than saving Leon, who literally is the most ridiculous "end game" that there is. And that's the thing, after saving Leon, the game plays the credits like you just finished the game. I beat the "game" in one year, I even saved one of the characters on my in-game birthday (you're welcome Dolce!) because to make it "hard" on myself, while playing in Hard mode, mind you, I only saved one character per month. But to be fair, I'm the queen of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory... or something. But after the credits roll, you wait for a week and the second plot starts up, so...

Right, but, to beat the first plot you have to level up. In everything. No... seriously.  You level up in eating to get more health and rune points, which like stamina, you level up in sleeping (really) for the same stuff. You level up in bathing (really.) for the same thing. You level up in walking to--

(But in case you don't know, it's the same thing as the other three)

You level up in chemistry for better medicines than the doctor, and crafting for good armor and accessories... cooking for food that you can use to give to other people or to get more RP and HP from what you eat, and forging for making better weapons and tools. Leveling up in taming nets you more powerful animal friends, leveling up in different weapons makes them easy to use with less stamina wasted... and on top of that you still level up yourself. Dungeons have level requirements outside of them, and usually you're way above those requirements because you'll constantly be going back to old dungeons to get monster drops for crafting and forging and new pets for your animal barns. You might have problems with bosses, except in the first plot you'll find that the bosses are all pretty simple, with the exception of Dylas, that lying sack of--

Wait, isn't this a text review?

But this all sounds complainy when I actually really, really like the game. I like the tri-story bit, because it makes your actions seem like they have purpose. I like the fact that you can bring townspeople on trips to dungeons. I like the diversity of the texts, or I did for the first year. I LOVE THE TOWN EVENTS, and I like that the townspeople really do seem tightknit and still have some pretty crappy things to say about each other-- the town isn't nearly as saccharine as Rune Factory 2, where I feel as though everyone should've straight up been like, "Yo but, real talk... Mana suuuuuuuucks."

"I like Pink Turnips and flowers and farm produce, and I'm bright and chipper for no reason. Also, I have a strange lust for you, amnesiac farmer. MARRY ME!"

I like that I don't dislike Ventuswill in the way I dislike the Harvest Goddess, which sounds stupid but... I like that my dislike for Ventuswill is more sympathetic than... well, wondering why she's so pathetic. The Harvest Goddess always says the same stuff when you see her. Either she just straight up ruins a town, A Tale of Two Towns style, and expects some random newcomer to show up and fix her mistakes, or she's like, "I can literally talk to anyone I want, but I choose not to so everyone in town literally forgot I exist. Now I have no power because no one believes in me. I couldn't have forseen this, considering I'm a goddess and stuff."

I like the fact that I can decorate my house, although it's useless and for the most part meaningless. I like that I can open a store, and that my responsibility towards the town is just to attract tourists with more stores and festivals and fresh produce.

But I guess what I like the best is that I always feel like there's something to be done in this game. When I "finished" the game, I remember being confused. I was about to put the game down when I went online to check and make sure I hadn't just beat a $50 game in like... an in-game year. I mean the time I spent on this game to beat it was about... half a week or so if I put the hours together? I mean, it could've been shorter if I hadn't given myself restraints. But when I learned that there was more plot I was really happy because the next set of bosses are difficult and fun (although I hit level 100 before I reached the first boss of the second plot because I farmed the crap out of monster drops so the dungeons to reach the bosses are pretty subpar because of that. I haven't even gotten to the third plot yet, which I only know about because I looked up the first ending and stumbled across THAT gem. But you know what? I'm actually really interested in what will happen in the third arc.

The Gnomes are more interested in the second arc.

And just so you know, I stopped playing Rune Factory 4 at one point to play Pheonix Wright: Dual Destines, Pokemon, and Etrian Odyssey IV (because I can't play Millenium Girl until I actually beat that game). I really don't want to stop playing Rune Factory until I'm done, though. And that's incredible for me. I'm the kind of person who plays a game for a few weeks and then swaps the game out for something else. I mean, the only games where I don't put the game down are in my favorite games list: Sonic CD, 999, Lux-Pain, Ever 17, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations... not very many games, but games that I like because there's something about them that pulls me into them. Sonic CD is colorful, fast-paced and fun, 999 is creepy, dark, mysterious and compelling, Lux-Pain is so thought provoking and compelling with an odd story that has people who really feel real for what could be considered anime characters, Ever 17 is straight up disturbing... and I think I like Rune Factory 4 because it's busy. You have a lot to do and the fact that you can balance all of the things you need to do in game is pretty incredible. And despite how silly the leveling up gets (and it really does have sleeping and eating as things you can level up in, for reals), it makes sense after a while of playing. 

So should you get this game? Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you're not into farming, you'll find you'll really like the farming system in this game, where you don't get penalized for planting crops out of season. If you don't like ranching, you'll be happy to know you don't need a milker or clippers or anything like that because your animals just drop their given item. But those things aren't really necessary, unless you're trying to win every festival, because you can fight bosses over and over and even make most of them your pets if you're into fighting stuff. That's CRAZY.

What I'm trying to say here is that Rune Factory 4 is a fantastic addition to this series and I hope all the games that come after this one have the same pomp and busy feeling to them. Where I felt let down in Rune Factory 2 when I randomly just played as my child for half the game for no reason even though I'd been building rapport with my main character, and I felt annoyed in Rune Factory 1 because it was so rough and ridiculous to play, I really found myself liking this game. (I don't remember what I picked up instead of Rune Factory 3, but I never played 3.) So, 3DSers, get this game. Go get married to some random townie and have a kid that looks nothing like them for whatever reason. I salute you!

But... one thing for Rune Factory 5... Can't we personalize the main character in these games at this point? Do you know how weird it is for the world to be so homogeneous and then Leon shows up and points out that dark skinned people exist? Do you remember there being a black elf in Rune Factory 1? Are you trying to tell me there are no dark skinned Earthmates? It's just that I always go for being a dark skinned person just so that when the entire town inevitably falls in love with me I can blow off most of them by sticking my nose in the air and going, "You're just in love with the exoticism of there being only one black person in miles." I would've gotten away with that in Harvest Moon: A New Beginning if Rebecca and Toni weren't dark skinned. But bet money my kid in Harvest Moon will be white as snow. I'm trying to add diversity to the games here. Diversity and the feeling of stuck-upness at being the only black person in a town. Pokemon did it, so now you have no choice but to do it!