Virtual Farming and Other Technological Indulgences

Like many gamers, the Harvest Moon series converted me from, "Virtual farming? That sounds boring" to "Just a minute dear, I'm harvesting pineapples" with its addictive mix of farm care and relationship building. Just as the Harvest Moon formula of transforming a farm (and usually a town) from poverty to posterity via plowing prowess began to get stale, Marvelous Entertainment introduced the Rune Factory series, which added dungeon delving and monster raising into the farming sim mix. I'm currently playing Rune Factory Frontier, the first Wii installment of the Rune Factory series, and it's an excellent game.

Although I'm only midway through my first summer, I can appreciate how well the Rune Factory series is evolving. RFF controls very well and avoids many interface annoyances that have plagued both the Harvest Moon series and previous Rune Factory games. Tools are easy to select and use, crops and other items stack automatically, and you are given time to pick up any object you accidentally drop. You can even move items in and out of your shipping box freely until the daily pickup, which farming sim vets will recognise as a welcome improvement over the usual "black hole" shipping box.

I'm most impressed, however, by the character interactions in the game. The characters in RFF are some of the best realized characters I've seen in a virtual farming game. They have a wide variety of things to say, and most of them seem to have their own storyline that will play out throughout the game. They write letters to you, sometimes asking for your opinion on things (which you select when you reply to them) or for items that they'd like you to send them. They drop hints about the items that they enjoy receiving as gifts, especially as you start to raise your friendship level with them, so that you don't need to consult a FAQ or use tedious trial and error to discover what they like. You can give them accessories, which they will wear if they enjoy them. They give you quests to go on, which often advance the storyline, help you learn more about them, or even change the town. The protagonist isn't silent, either, so he actually takes part in a number of dialogues. Overall, the game gives you the feeling that your character has an actual relationship with the townsfolk, and that they care about his opinion. It goes a long way towards making me care about the game.

Of course, RFF is as addictive as all of these games, and has led me to take notes in order to maximize my farm's fertility. I felt bad about using so much scrap paper, though, so last night I turned my DS on and started using Pictochat to take notes. That's right, I was playing a game on one Nintendo device while scribbling notes via stylus on another Nintendo device. I should totally get some kind of nifty Nintendo swag for that show of pure nerddom.

I'm looking forward to playing through the entire storyline, and I'll be sure to post a review here once I do so.