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Anyways, today I will write a game review. I think I'll start giving ratings in my reviews. The reason why I never did for my manga reviews is because they were all my favourites and I thought it would be strange to give them all 10/10. So i'll start today....@_@. Nice to see me improving my reviews, eh?
Rune Factory Frontier
Game System: Wii
Pros // unique fighting system :: an "enhanced" Harvest Moon :: easy system to understand :: simpler than Harvest Moon :: kid-friendly :: intricate storyline :: wonderful graphics
Cons // Harvest Moon "copy" :: lack of variety of income sources :: highly repetitive :: no female starter
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Graphics - 9.5/10
Story - 8.5/10
Gameplay - 7.5/10
Environment - 8/10
Overall - 8.5/10
Rune Factory Frontier is basically a different approach to Harvest Moon. It doesn't have the animals, fishing, or even gathering. Instead, a fight system is incorporated. You do not start with a pet in RFF, but you can catch one of your own later. Interesting, no?
Alright, let's start with graphics. The backgrounds in RFF are absolutely lovely. Cute and pleasant. The only thing missing is the 3D effect. It's sort of 3D, but at the same time...not really. The characters are also really cute and well...It's a 9.5 simply because I love cute games. If you ever ask me to review a game that's not so cute, then I'll be guaranteed to give a bias low rating.
As for the story, I'm not quite finished. But from what I've read from GameFAQs, the story is quite interesting. You meet more people throughout the game and of course more cute characters! Anyways, unlike Harvest Moon, there is a story to follow along. And you have to fight for it. The story is quite unique and more importantly: makes sense. It's hard to find a game story that makes sense. Most games just want to drag it on and as a result, it either seems like they ran out of good ideas and are stretching it just so that it'll be longer or the plot just falls completely off the original idea. Rune Factory Frontier does not. The only downside to the story? Well, it's hard to balance story and farming. It's also hard to factor in the building of relationships. So the story can go fast or slow depending on the person. If you're the type who can't wait for the story, then you'll probably just do less farming and more story. The story requires a lot of fighting and time, so the reason I took points off is because the story may be decent, but it certainly is hard to find time for when you're trying to get used to the farming lifestyle in the game.
As for gameplay. RFF is pretty good. It's easy to remember the controls and fighting doesn't take a genius to figure out. The downside? In order to give a person an item, you have to open the items menu and look for it. There is no item shortcut like in Harvest Moon. In addition to that downside, you have to open a tool/weapon/seed menu when you want to switch tools/weapons/seeds. One final nuisance is the menu itself. Instead of the old Harvest Moon bar at the bottom, there is one main menu. And you have to go left and right on that menu in order to access the other windows. Other than those time-wasters, I have no complaints about RFF's gameplay.
When I put "environment", I mean the overall mood of the game. The music, effects, cut scenes, and of course...the chatting. The music in RFF is calming and you're unlikely to hate it even if you listen to it for hours after hours. The effects...? Well, it's mostly a farming game. So it isn't one of those flashy fighting games. The fighting effects are alright, I guess. As for cut scenes? They go fairly quickly. I don't remember if they're skip-able or not, but even so...they're not that long that you want to skip them. Unlike the cut scenes in Tales of Symphonia, these don't go on forever and don't go annoyingly so. The chatting system is the typical bubble system. Very rarely do you get to choose what to say, so it's a fairly simple "they talk to you and you seem to just be there" system.
So overall? A 8.5/10. I enjoy playing RFF, but it does get boring. Still, I enjoy the cute graphics and the interesting character personalities. RFF is something you should definitely give a try if you have a Wii since it's a lot simpler than Harvest Moon : Tree of Tranquility which I have yet to get past the intro of. Why? There are simply too many things you can do in the Harvest Moon for Wii.
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