Good day, dear readers of this blog. My blog will be dedicated to games released on handheld consoles of past generations that are worth checking out. At one time I was looking for information about games on the Nintendo DS and was saddened by the fact that there were few people in Russian who were interested in this. By the way, there were a lot of really good games that were released on NDS and it seems unfair to me that not as many people know about them as we would like. I decided to correct this omission and share my knowledge and experience with the Stopgame audience. I present to you the first game on my blog..
Rune Factory 2: A fantasy harvest moon, as many might have guessed from the title, is related to another popular series; it is a spin-off of Harvest Moon with its own world, plot and a greater emphasis on rpg elements. Those who have played games in the main series or Stardew Walley will immediately feel a kindred spirit, the basis of these games is the same. The game is a mixture of a farmer simulator and jrpg with wide social opportunities, where the plot does not drive you at full speed, and the variety of possibilities allows you to almost live in this world. To understand why people still play this game, let’s break it down into its component parts.
It all starts with the character losing his memory and finding himself in the village of Alvarna, where after a couple of minutes of meeting the girl Mana and her father, he is given an unplowed field and tools to plow it, water it and plant it with turnips (which, by the way, has become one of the symbols of the series). Everything requires stamina, or in foreign language “rune power”, which in turn is replenished with a sound sleep in your own home or sleeping bag. In order for our turnip to grow, it must be watered every day and do not forget to look at the calendar. Seeds can grow and produce crops only in a certain period: summer, autumn, winter and spring – for each period 30 days are given and for some seedlings even this is not enough, and therefore welcome to the dungeons. Dungeons are not only valuable loot and bullshit from mobs, but also a free greenhouse where a constant climate is maintained throughout the year. We choose the one we need, for example, with summer or spring weather, and plant the fields with our carrots. Luckily for us, monsters are ideological meat-eaters, and therefore there is no need to worry about your vegetables. In addition to watering, you can cover your farmland with special fertilizers that speed up the growth or improve the quality of vegetables.
Our first field, chock full of garbage and weeds, and an already landscaped mini-farm in the center of the dungeon.
In these same dungeons, in addition to chopping cabbage and monsters, you can mine minerals in the form of gems and ore. The first ones go well as gifts and for sale, and the second ones can be stored until Act 2, when they are greatly needed to create equipment.
In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! Where a million diamonds shine!
Growing crops is not the only job on the farm; there is the opportunity to start raising livestock, for this the player has a barn (well, as it is, you will have to rebuild it), where you can keep animals, or rather monsters that you managed to tame. They give milk, eggs, wool and other useful items, you can go to dungeons with them and they will try to help to the best of their ability. Their capabilities depend on the attitude towards the player and, if you fed and petted the animal every day, it will easily reel in your enemies and give you more milk. And if you don’t need resources from them and you can handle the dungeons yourself, then you can send them to work in the field, which they will water every day for you.
These monsters are called Wooly, they are the cutest and most peaceful creatures in the game.
For one of the tasks you will be given a fishing rod and will have the opportunity to fish. Fishing here is simple and rather boring: you cast a fishing rod, wait for a bite, and get a fish. You can cook it, sell it, give it as a gift, or use it for a quest, but the interest in fishing quickly disappears.
Catch a fish, not big or small, but according to instructions, according to instructions… ahh damn!
And now it’s time https://slotsandcasinocasino.co.uk/ for the pros and cons. At the very beginning of the game, tinkering on the farm is really interesting, a wide variety of different crops and a lack of money encourages you to grow more and better, but the longer you play, the more it looks like a daily routine and soon you completely give up on this pastime. Even the appearance of cooking does not correct this shortcoming. This does not mean that farming is dull and bleak, it is quite consistent with other similar games and can interest the player for the first part of the game, and maybe even for the second if you like these types of games. I’ll be honest, I spent the same amount of time farming as in Stardew Walley and it lasted me for one year, and given the wild popularity of the latter, connoisseurs of the genre will appreciate this part of the game better than me.
All events take place in a small village and its surroundings, and the player (even if he is a sociopath) will have to get acquainted with the local residents and somehow get along together. The social component is the best thing about the game and the entire series as a whole, and it’s done just perfectly. All characters have a daily schedule and, depending on the time of day, season and weather, they can do different things. The first time in the game you have to work hard to remember at least approximately where someone might be and look at the closed doors of the store more than once.
In addition to the schedule, each character has a character and a story, which is revealed the more powerfully the better they treat you, as well as preferences in gifts and even a birthday. Gifts are one of the main ways to make an NPC more loyal, and the right birthday gift can win over even the hardest heart. But no one immediately talks about their preferences and birthdays, and this information can be gleaned from random dialogues, or through trial and error, which also adds interest to the game.
This girl’s name is Cecilia and she is attracted to shiny stones, a ruby is the perfect gift.
Sometimes gray everyday life will be brightened up with festivals – these are holidays and entertainment for which the whole city gathers and tries to have a blast. All of them are interactive and you can participate in them and get prizes or spend time with the girl you like. Although gifts are not something out of the ordinary, they are nevertheless an additional boost and an opportunity to quickly raise your reputation among city residents. Actually, here is a list of them all:
– 30 Winter – 1 Spring. Local New Year, when shops are closed and people are walking on the street. There are no competitions.
— 13 Spring. Flower Festival. You can invite a girl to the garden and admire the sakura together.
— 25 Spring. Eating competition. The one who eats the most food wins.
— 1 Summer. First day of summer. Regular day off.
— 19 Summer. Dance Festival. Take the girl you like and dance, if, of course, she treats you well.
— 25 Summer, 1 Act. Fishing competition. You need to catch the right fish and at the same time larger than your competitors.
— 25 Summer, Act 2. Culinary battle. You will be asked to deliver a specific dish.
— 1 Autumn. Adventure Competition. You need to find an invisible object in the dungeon faster than your opponents. You’ll have to poke through every corner, it’s good to at least give a hint.
— 13 Autumn. Harvest Festival. Another holiday, celebrated in honor of nature and the earth, which gives people food.
— 25 Autumn. Tamed Monsters Competition. Here you need to bring your strongest pet and show it in all its glory. The one whose pet is stronger wins.
— 7 Winter. Falling Star Festival. Another opportunity to improve the relationship between you and the girl. Invite her to watch the stars.
— 19 Winter. Ore mining competition. In this competition you will be tasked with finding a specific gemstone.
Dance Festival. It’s better to be friends with this lady, she decides whether it will rain tomorrow or not.
One of the key features of a relationship is the opportunity to get married and have children. The choice is given…wait, wait, as many as seven girls with completely different worldviews, problems and skeletons in the closet. As the game progresses, we are not only able to change their attitude towards ourselves, but also its character. No, really, how many games do you know where you can change your character?? But here you can. For a serious relationship, you will have to gain recognition from her and complete all her quests, then give some object valuable to the girl, and now you are already getting married. Or don’t play. And all because a lazy player who did not confess his love in time can easily lose his betrothed simply because another guy did it faster than him. In any case, you will not be left without a bride and will have to choose from those who were not married and have children for whom you can also play. In addition to pride in themselves and aesthetic pleasure, some wives can give pleasant bonuses in the form of visiting a bathhouse or predicting the weather for free. The rest of the couples also do not stand still, they have their own children, so your offspring will have someone to play with.
Finally the wedding, a serious step for our hero and the end of the beginning.
Don’t forget about humor, there’s a lot of good humor tied to the situations and personalities of the characters. Consider the fake wedding of children, one boy’s dreams of a normal mother, or the relationship between a daughter and a father who still sees her as a little girl. There are just funny situations, for example, when you can’t pass between two frail fences to get to a new location, because you’re too big to squeeze through, but small ones can.
The great heroes of Rivellon cannot pass through the rope? But no, maybe you just need to be a little smaller to get through.
And as usual, time for the pros and cons. In my opinion, the characters in the second part turned out to be some of the best in the series, their history is interesting to learn, the dialogues are full of humor and drama, you never get bored reading their squabbles, an NPC can easily get you into money, and you will laugh like a child. It’s very difficult to find any cons here and, to be honest, there’s only one and a big one. The First Act will end only when you get married and give birth to a child, and all the most delicious things begin in the Second Act and you will have to wait a very long time until you seduce a girl and she gets pregnant. Fortunately, there is always something to do in the game.
If you are greedy for the social component, you can stop reading right now and go look for a game; dessert is prepared for the rest.
We’ve moved on to the part where it explains why this game is more of a jrpg than a farming simulator. And all because there is..
DRAGONS, SWORDS, WANDS, RUBILOVO AND MOCHILOVO, HUGE BOSSES, KNOCKING THE LAST SHATS OUT OF MOBS, CRAFTING, UPGRADING AND OF COURSE LEVEL PAWS.
For those who want details, I’ll explain everything in order. The game has everything you need for a good jrpg and from the outside it is somewhat reminiscent of the games in the Mana series (Seiken Densetsu). In your free time and sometimes to advance the plot you need to look into dungeons, where you can knock out loot from mobs, mine ore and beat bosses. In order not to experience problems with the locals, the character can arm himself and dress. You can either buy weapons and armor or make it yourself, plus it can be sharpened like in a Korean MMO, but that’s not all. The weapon has the ability to hit with elements, which can be more useful against certain enemies, and also has different mechanics for dealing damage. For example, a spear hits further, a two-handed sword is wider, a one-handed sword is faster, an ax hits harder, and a wand can cast spells, and in battle this really helps, some enemies are easier to hit with a spear, and some with a sword, and the game doesn’t poke your nose into this and doesn’t limit you, hit at least everyone with one ax, it’ll just be a little more difficult.
The battles in the game take place in real time, and the behavior of the mobs is quite diverse, you have to find your own approach to each, let alone the bosses, which require certain tactics. In addition to regular attacks, there are strong attacks, special abilities and magic, which adds variety to the battles. Using everything together you can easily adapt to the behavior of a monster or boss.
A naked character with a puny spear at the beginning of the game, against a fancy knight at the end. Fiersome, I’m coming for you… but first I’ll harvest!
In the second act they will give the opportunity to use crafting things, and learning new recipes is done quite interestingly, I won’t spoil it so as not to spoil the impression, but the idea is quite interesting. You can create weapons, armor, jewelry, food and medicine. But wait, who needs just a sword when you have a +9 sword??! Yes, there is also sharpening and the created equipment can be improved by spending a little more resources, strengthening the already created weapon almost twice. As for cooking and medicine, food and medicine add stamina and HP to the character, respectively, and if medicine can still be given a chance, then cooking looks like a completely hopeless activity due to difficulties with ingredients and the absence of any special problems with stamina.
And here are the recipes, 153 pieces and this is only jewelry.
And what is an rpg without leveling up?. And leveling up here both in the form of raising the level and characteristics of the character, and increasing the mastery of the skill from use, as in Skyrim, the more often you do something, the higher the skill, and there are them for every character’s sneeze (although the third and fourth parts are of course far away). High performance makes it possible to spend less stamina and receive certain bonuses, for example, a high level of ore production allows you to mine rare minerals more often.
Character Stats. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Bored, boring, boring.
I have already mentioned quests, let’s look at them in more detail, they are presented here in the form of requests from town residents on the notice board, the higher your relationship with the characters, the more quests are available. Usually we are asked to deliver a certain item, go and bring a thing or kill monsters, nothing unusual should be expected, but it is through them that the characters are revealed, small stories happen and this is the only reason why you are trying to catch this damn fish on assignment for the second hour.
Through quests at the beginning of the game you can collect good money, especially from the De Sainte-Coquille family, local rich people.
For a jrpg, the game turned out to be pretty good and it has its downsides: returning to the same dungeons for loot for new equipment, leveling up your character on the same monsters in order to gain a level – unfortunately, there is no way to screw up old locations, but there is also a pleasant side in the form of well-thought-out combat and opponents with individual behavior. Munchkins will surely like a wide range of equipment, and the quests are not always annoying and for the most part are quite funny.
Rune Factory 2 is a really good game and worth playing, despite its rather scary pixelated appearance. The plot of the game is not something special, but its presentation is an absolute advantage. When the first act ends and the second begins, you grab your head and scream that you were deceived, you played the same game for several hours, and it turned out to be not at all what you said it was. Everything just turns upside down and the game shows its true colors. Unfortunately, this is also one of its shortcomings; its full potential is revealed only in the middle of the game, and many simply quit playing early.
The combat system is good, perhaps even the best in the series. The characters are well-developed, their dialogues are interesting to read, you can cry and laugh heartily. No matter how much I write about monotony, there is always something to do. Even if you are tired of one thing, no one bothers you to quit and go do something else, ordinary days are replaced by festivals, birthdays, weddings and rain (it’s almost like a holiday), and the crowds of monsters are varied and sometimes give a light to those who are used to using one button.
I’m not an expert in music, but it didn’t irritate me and could even convey the emotions happening on the screen, but I think that’s still the main thing. If you suddenly have nothing to play or want something similar with farming and role-playing, do not pass by, this game is definitely worth the time spent on it.
Links:
therunefactory.wikia – thanks to this resource for the pictures I used for the blog.
milkyFlandre’s Alter Ego – thanks to this YouTube channel for the high quality video.
P.S. I specifically didn’t talk about the school and the bosses, because I don’t want to spoil the plot and spoil the impressions of the battles, but for those who want to find fault, I left several inconsistencies in the screenshots, both simple and complex.
