Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon - Nintendo DS

Typically, where novels or films are concerned, a sequel seldom attains the quality of the original. Where games produced by Natsume are concerned, the reverse often is true. This certainly is the case with respect to Rune Factory 2, one of the greatest games of all time, in my view. Rune Factory 2 spans two Generations. In the first, your character is male but in the second Generation, you play as your first character's child, giving you the option to play either as a girl or as a boy. The plot in the 1st Generation is devoted mainly to basic survival and a wealth of courtship opportunities. In fact, the main purpose of your character in the 1st Generation is to choose a wife and have a child. Most Events occur in the course of performing 'Requests' for characters. These are 'Quests' of various kinds that appear on the community bulletin board and offer romance, humour, danger as well as chances to discover more about the other characters in Alvarna. Although you can defeat or tame Monsters in the 1st Generation, it is only in the 2nd Generation that the real 'action plot' unfolds and every area on the map is unlocked. Cooking, forging weapons and accessories and creating other items becomes possible only in the 2nd Generation when your child attends the School built by the father. Do not underestimate the enjoyment of the 1st Generation of the game by mistakenly perceiving it as nothing more than a conduit through which the 2nd Generation game becomes available. The 1st Generation game resembles a traditional Harvest Moon game in many ways, offering opportunities to farm, ranch, fish, mine and court an eligible girl. If there were no 2nd Generation component, Rune Factory 2 in the 1st Generation would be a wonderful game. The fact that it offers two games in one makes it utterly incredible. Characterisations in Rune Factory 2 are even more detailed than those in the original game and the combination of humour, romance and adventure is irresistable. The graphics and music in both Rune Factory and its successor are breathtakingly exquisite. Added touches in the form of showers of cherry blossoms in Spring, the twinkle of fireflies in Summer and colourful falling leaves in Autumn make the landscape truly magical. A player could be content to live in this world for many years! Finally, Rune Factory 2, like its predecessor, stands as an eloquent testament to the fundamental philosophy of Harvest Moon. The message of these games is to learn to appreciate all forms of life, to work with society and the land in creating a partnership that is beneficial to all. Selfishness and greed result in missed opportunities. It is only when your character interacts with every individual in a positive fashion, exercising patience, understanding and compassion, that you will gain the ultimate rewards and in doing so, create a better world for every one.

To start, I really loved this game. The characters are interesting and I love the four areas that have a yearlong season so you can always grow spring strawberries, fall yams, and so forth. The taskboard in-town to do favors or tasks for the people in the town was great. It got me to explore the world with more purpose, let me get to know the people better and to advance friendship and relationship status with marriage candidates in a much more fun way than just giving them their favorite item. It has a lot of flaws though. Most can be chalked up to it being an older game. First and most irritating: you can't put anything down if you're holding it. If you try to put something down if your bag is full, or if you just miss the shipping crate (urr) the item (or stack omg) disappears forever. I lost so many items and so much money by accidentally standing a millimeter too far back or to the side of the shipping crate. Switching between tools and abilities is rather clunky and I kept fumbling for how to do it even when I was playing constantly. The the bag being a single horizontal line at the bottom of the screen when you opened it also made it a slog to find things as you have to scroll sideways as it would take awhile to get what you wanted. The map is large, but there's only so far in the map you can explore during the first part of the game - there are fences and statues in the way and there's nothing further to do there than farming - which does get kind of annoying as there are monsters constantly hacking at you (and occasionally killing you) while you're watering your crops. And I do mean there's nothing to do but farming. There are the requests, but for your own activites all you can do is farm and fight monsters - no cooking or crafting of any kind. This really stagnates the game as the story starts to go nowhere. Once you do get to the second half of the game though, you are basically starting over an entirely new game (stamina included) that is a clone of the previous, but now you can craft and cook. I was pleased at first, but eventually these activities were what made me put the game down. To learn a new receipe or item to craft you have to do a very boring mini game of checkmarking what the "teacher" tells you on a list of items - and you can only learn 2 a day of ANYthing. Also, success is hit-or-miss. You can make Apple Juice many times (only ingredient is an apple) and have it fail and lose the ingredient because you haven't leveled up cooking enough to have more than an 80% chance of success. It was a fun game if you're patient, but not one I could play for long. I would recommend Rune Factory 4 instead as it has none of these problems and is overall a better game.

First off I must say I bought the first Rune Factory and I loved that game. The only issues I had with that was that it was too short but seriously it took me a good 40 hours to still beat it and it didn't even force me to actual marry someone (I just like beating games and not really doing side quests). Which was all well and good for me, because it was very satisfying game. This game is a lot more fun (still playing in fact). First you start of as a boy that needs to marry someone to get to the "real" game. At first I was in a hurry to marry someone so I can have a kid and be that kid. Let me tell you guys, being the first generation is okay, all you experience don't go away it gets transferred to your child. So my communication level was pretty high before I switched over to the point where my animals were hearting me at one a day and that still happened when I transferred to my kid which was a big help! Also if I knew this before - your plants that are in dungeons don't go away, this would have been super helpful to me because the dungeons get a million times harder as the second gen and so having those mana there from crops would have helped a ton! I guess my point is - do not rush through the first gen like me. I'm sort of an impatient person and at first I just wanted to marry one girl so I can move on to what I thought was the "real" game and didn't take full advantage of all the things I could do as the first gen which is the only thing I regret. Though I still had a lot of fun as the sec gen, the dungeons are way harder than the first one. Another interesting thing is things are super more expensive than the first one so it does cause you to "save your pennies" and really think about what you want to buy and if you really need it right now which I thought was a wonderful add on, you're just not all willy nilly with buying things like a lot of other games are. I think this is a wonderful idea to enforce good spending habits on the younger gamers that play this. This game is super fun. For anyone that likes Harvest Moon with a little bit of an RPG spin. As a warning it gets pretty addicting, sometimes I think I'll only play for an hour and 3 hours have gone by, usually I'm pretty good at keeping my gaming time.

If you like the Harvest Moon series then you know what you're getting. Rune Factory 2 is a great new twist to the series, but there's only one problem, and a huge problem at that, it freezes up. I've previously owned Friends of Mineral Town for the Game Boy Advance, and freezing was never a problem for me even though both my brother and I have separate files on the cartridge. So I'm not sure why, even with a new and technically more advanced system (the DS lite) that Rune Factory 2 freezes on me frequently. It didn't start happening until my brother started a new game. I would be happily fishing or farming and the game would suddenly freeze up on me. I'm paranoid about the next freeze, and I constantly save just in case, nothing's more heartbreaking than to lose an entire days worth of work and having to do it all over again. And let's not talk about the slow motion lag times whenever there are more than 3 characters or animals on a screen. The game is fun, but the lag times and freezes seriously puts a damper on the fun. Sadly, it's step down from Friends of Mineral Town in that aspect. I hope they can fix these issues by the release of Rune Factory 3.

This is game is an absolute delight. You play a young man who has lost his memory. He arrives in a small town and is given a house and a field. He must till the soil, sow it and harvest the crops to raise money. There are fish and ores to collect, and errands to run for the villagers. There are some young women he can flirt with and eventually marry. But watch out- if he doesn't show interest the girl might be snatched by a competitor. There are dates on which each girl will marry another guy. Unlike the first Rune Factory game, there are only 4 cave areas. These are limited and there is no bosses in the first part of the game. But there are plenty of regular monsters for him to fight and capture. Some monsters give produce, others help out. There is no leveling upp weapons or tools in the first part. There are fields in the caves that can be sowed. As in similar games there are a few events that takes place in town on certain dates. Once he gets married, has a child and builds the school, the second part of the game begins. Years later he remembers who he is and runs away in the middle of the night, leaving his wife and child behind. In the second part you play the child as he/she takes over the field and receives lessons in school on cooking, medicine, upgrading weaponry and tools, and magic books. The child can sneak into areas of the caves that was inaccessible for the father. Beware - the monsters are now way tougher. It is up to the child to discover the fate of his/her father. This is among my favourite games along with Rune Factory 1. It's part Harvest Moon, part Animal Crossing, part Pokemon, part Monster Rancher. If you like any of these games, you'll love Rune Factory.

They charge you to return items. Not worth it.

Didn't quite play it, I'm sure it could turn out to be a very good game but I was led to believe it was very similar to the Harvest Moon / Story Of Seasons series & I don't believe that's quite true. I can't quite reccomend the game since I didn't go very far through it, but I will say that if your looking for something that's similar to the previously mentioned series, then this might not be it for you.

I have never played any of the Harvest Moon games, or the first Rune Factory game. That being said, this game was really interesting at first. You get this large field to grow seasonal crops on, and there are also surrounding lands that represent the four seasons, so you can grow any crop you want at any time of the year. The downside is that when you want to go tend to your crops, you have to fight the monsters that are in the land before you can get to work without being bothered. I've been playing this game for about four weeks now. I noticed that despite giving gifts to some girls more than others, their love level for you increases at about the same rate. I got married by the Fall season, and even after I got married, people were still asking me if I've thought about marriage yet. So that is one of the things that don't quite make sense to me. It seemed that after I got married, everything was quite dull. There were no errands for me on the bulletin board. Everyday consisted of just caring for the crops. My child was conceived and born in about 7-10 days time, and after the child was born, I could talk to the mayor about building a school. The school takes 10 days to finish. I've already built the school for the town, and once the school was done being built, that was when the second generation begins. I haven't played much in the second generation yet, but I've noticed a few things. Everybody's friend levels go back to 0 once you play as the second generation. There are now new love interests, who are the offspring of the first generation characters. The main field needs to be reworked, but the tools that were used in the first generation are now rusted and old, so you can only work one square at a time, as opposed to being able to work 9 squares at a time. You keep the same monsters, although their friend levels also go back to 0. In the surrounding lands, you keep the crops that were in the first generation, save for a few squares that have turned into grasses. There are different monsters in the second generation, some that can cause a lot of damage to your health. It seems that you keep the same skill levels as the first generation, but when I've fought, I don't give as many damage points as the first gen. There are a few quirks about this game, but when the second generation started, it seems to have opened up a whole new storyline, so I will keep playing to see where it takes me.

Ich spiele immer wieder gerne Harvest Moon und nwollte diesmal gerne etwas anderes ausprobieren. Rune factory ist in einer etwas anderen Umgebung angesiedelt und man muss zusätzlich noch gegen Monster kämpfen. Es gibt verschiedene Dungeons und denen man ab und an für die Dorfbewohner Quests erfüllen muss. Finde das Spiel wirklich gut gemacht und das man später als sein eigen Kind weiterspielt ist auch eine tolle Neuerung. Für jeden Harvest Moon Fan ein toller Titel.

My favourite Rune Factory game. I've been looking for it for a long time and I was delighted to find it here. When I recieved the game I was worried as it had and "E" rating (the US rating system) and on the back it even said "For sale, rental and use only in USA, CANADA, MEXICO and LATIN AMERICA". After some research I tried it out and it does work fine on my PAL 3DS XL. (Bought from seller VGP_VideoGamesPlus. -Emma.

I'm a really huge fan of the Rune Factory series! In fact Rune Factory 4 was the first DS game I ever bought and played. So what's good about Rune Factory 2? The second generation for one. This is one of the only Rune Factory games that really makes the "having a child" thing a meaningful part of the story. Other Rune Factory games like 4 have added areas that only "families" can enter and you can take your child out fighting monsters to give purpose to having a child but it's small and not a story aspect. In 2 you need to have a child because it's integral for the story to progress. Yes that is kind of annoying in some regards if you just wanted to take your time and progress slowly but I really enjoyed it. Finally a reason for having a child in these games! The story is layered and wonderful I also really enjoy that. The characters also feel very 3 dimensional, I never get too bored with them. Now there are some things that are not so great with this game. In the first generation where you play as Kyle you cannot level up past 10. In the first generation all the area dungeons have very similar (low) level recommendations to enter which isn't a bad thing, that just means you can go into them all regardless. This is only s***y because once you get into second gen the level requirements for these dungeons change drastically. Now you can't go into Messinah Valley and fight monsters because it's danger level is no longer 2 stars, it's 4 meaning the level you have to be fight these monsters without dying is higher but it wasn't like that in first gen which you're probably used to by now because first generation takes such a long time to finish! As well in second generation when you die you don't go to the clinic you die, game over, you have to start from your last save point. Compare this to first generation where you wouldn't, you would just wake up in the clinic! This is extremely frustrating if you went into an area like Messinah Valley (that you didn't realize had it's difficulty ramped up for second gen) and you die. Like oh s***, when was the last time you actually saved?! The story doesn't really pick up until second generation either. All first generation is, is marrying someone, farming and chopping stumps to meet all of the money and wood requirements to build a school and have a child so second generation can begin. You will also have to grind a lot in second gen if you choose not to do Tanya's monster fighting quests. Because of this I highly recommend doing her quests because a) you can get really awesome items, my favourite sword came from her as a reward and b) it makes the grinding less painful because it's disguised as fun little quests with rewards. The crafting system isn't utilized until second gen because it's in the school and I didn't find myself using it like in Rune Factory 4 where I was always crafting something. Befriending monsters for anything other than resources was pretty pointless because it was so hard to get them to level up for fighting. And is it just me or was the fences as a blockade for areas that you aren't allowed to go yet in first generation silly? The excuse that because Kyle's child is tiny they can squeeze through is kind of silly. Don't tell me you couldn't jump that fence Kyle. It's wonderful to be in second gen and to see characters from first generation and the people they married and children they had! It's also nice to have a marriage rival, though they weren't too big a obstacle. Overall I love the series and the story so I can forgive these annoyances. With any other game I might not be able to forgive them. If you're new to Rune Factory I wouldn't recommend that you start with this game, try 3 or 4 first. They don't have to be played in order because they don't have an over arching connecting story. If you're a Rune Factory fan I definitely recommend playing this game if only for the unique use of a second generation and the fun characters and good plot.

I have been a big fan of the series but unfortunately I'm playing them in reverse. Loved both 3 and 4, (4 is my favourite game ever) this one not so much. It takes a long long time to get the story moving. I had to look it up because I was so bored of doing the same thing every day and nothing advancing. If you are a big fan of harvest moon (I am not for this reason, yawn) then maybe you will really enjoy it. If you like how RF3 and 4 were made then pass on this because it's not anywhere near as good. I have not played 1 to reference this but seeing how the series progressed I think I will pass

great game, fun casual concept, just right for killing time in the evenings ( or mornings, or afternoons...!)