I had completely forgotten about this thread but I feel I need to add another post to it.
Rune Factory 4
Retail for US
eShop only EU, we almost didn't get it!
Let me start off by saying I'm a fan of the series. It took Harvest Moon and added some action, dungeons and RPG elements to it. I've played the first 3 RF games and enjoyed them quite a bit. Rune Factory 4 is without a doubt the pinnacle of the series for me.
A quick description. You arrive in a town with amnesia cliche trope. You make some friends and end up looking after a plot of land as well as issuing small orders for the town such as some constructions, festivals, increasing shop inventory and stuff like that.
Like the Harvest Moon games, you look after your farm. You can grow vegies, harvest and cook them. You need to increase farming and cooking skills. You can buy different cooking devices such as the oven, pot, mixer etc. You can craft accessories, clothes, hats, shoes. You can use alchemy to mix various herbs into medicines. You can use the forge to make weapons or farming tools. You can befriend all the residents in town and even romance some of them.
There are dungeons outside of town. There are also areas that are always a specific season. The Spring field will have a small plot of land you can till and plant spring vegies or flowers throughout the year. The same for the Winter, Summer and Autumn variants. Each place also has different common minerals you can mine as well as creatures to fight or tame.
The aim of the game is to complete the story and if you want you can marry someone from the town and have a kid with them.
This is the first Rune Factory that allows you to choose your gender. There are 6 bachelors and 6 bachelorettes to choose from however the game does not support same gender marriage. Later in the game however you can change the appearance of your character, some people start a male, marry a female and change their avatar into the female one later for example.
What I like about this game is the characters. Each of them have their own personalities. They will seem one dimensional at first and they remain sort of true to this but their interactions and many trivia comments make them very enjoyable to be around. The game makes a number of references to other games that you may recognise including previous RF titles and pokemon.
The game feels like it is packed with content and it is. My character is currently level 140 or so just playing regularly, no grinding anything yet. I have just finished Act 2. There are 3 acts and I thought I had finished the entire game after I completed the 1st but was pleasantly surprised to find more. A lot more.
A lot of activity has a skill and almost everything you do uses up stamina (Rune Points). You will fall into habits to conserve your RP for specific tasks and learn how to regenerate RP as you play.
The combat is actually pretty good. A lot better than I expected any way. You have a very short dodge with the R button. You can attack with B to combo and later unlock Charge Attacks and Ultimate Attacks with your weapon types. There are skills and spells you can map to X, Y, R+X, R+Y. There are a number of weapon types, all of which are functional and have their own perks. Hammers for instance deal huge damage in a single hit. Dual swords attack fast. Short swords allow you to take full benefits from the equipped shield (some weapons half stats or ignore entirely). Gloves allow you to throw enemies when you knock them off their feet. You can have 2 party members with you. Either a companion or a pet. You can tame most of the monsters in the game including some of the bosses. Some monsters allow you to ride them for faster movement. Others will give you different attacks while mounted. Some of the bosses give you slow regen of rune points when riding as well. Allies often have healing spells, you can give them equipment and the ones who don't have healing spells will toss high level food at you sometimes. Monster allies are typically stronger if you find some good ones as you don't need to equip them. That said, well forged and upgraded weapons and armor on an ally will be great as well. The difficulty is very fair so long as you don't sequence break too much(possible and a few good opportunties in the game to do so). Some of the bosses can be quite challenging and fun. At the start of each dungeon there is a sign telling you the name and the recommended level for each area.
Another interesting feature is the dungeon seed. Grow in your farm to open a random dungeon. If you level up the seed (level it the same way you level other crops) the dungeon can have more levels and better loot.
Everyone should try it if they enjoy cute things and fun simulation type games with some good ol' RPG dungeoning.
