The story is not noteworthy and visually the Wii heritage shines through. But nonetheless the mix of conquering uncharted territory, collecting rare materials, finding treasure, recruiting monster comrades and taking care of your property is motivating.
Rune Factory surely has some qualities with its long game experience and its colorful and aquatic universe that players will enjoy crossing thanks to the introduction of the Golem. However, the ones that usely play the IP to satisfy their farmer spirit, will be disappointed to see that all the hard work has been given to the mobs, the players' role consisting in checking if they have enough cookies to eat. Hopefully, fight sequences remain entertaining, yet repetitive.
This game... I have so much emotional connection with it. One of my favorite games ever but not the reason you might think. So many memories and so many beautiful laughs. I love this game because it gives me the feeling of "home". Yes, this is one of my favorite games because I played it with my girlfriend. When I first saw this game I didn't really want to play it because I've already played a lot of the same type of games before. But I knew that my girlfriend was going to love it. So one day when we were just chilling, I opened the game and said "I'm gonna show you a game that you'll love instantly". She doesn't love video games. But I know her, "she will be addicted to this game," I said to myself. And when I gave the controller to her, she didn't stop playing it. One of the toughest years of my life became my best year thanks to her. She was always there for me, with me. We spent all our time together and this game was a part of our daily routine. She was playing the game all the time while I was watching and commenting and sometimes I would take the controller to beat a boss fight. Exploring the vast ocean together was so exciting and addicting! We laughed so many times together to the silliness and cuteness of this game. We played for approximately 150 hours and although we have beat it, we're still playing! I will never forget this game. So many beautiful memories. We always watch the intros before we start the game. The sweet soundtrack, the cute characters, and lovely memories. I have a connection so deep with this game that I couldn't see its flaws. Now we're playing the other Rune Factory games because my girlfriend has become a Rune Factory fangirl!
One of my favorite games of all time.
This game does not get enough hype, it is amazing, characterd are great, gameplay is awesome, controls are good but nobody seems to see it! I really enjoyed it am I hope everyone who tries it does!
While the motion and camera controls leave much to be desired, there is a huge amount of gameplay in this title for anyone looking to discover all areas and level up all their skills.
Showing its age both mechanically and visually, there's still fun to be had here if you've got the patience and the right mindset. It'll send everyone else to sleep, however. [Issue#220, p.79]
It's when you get into the tedium of every activity that you realize a game that only does a few things well holds more value than a game that does a dozen things poorly. Variety is supposed to be the spice of life, but let's be honest, everything has its limits.
After playing Dark Souls and Skyrim, this game was a nice change of pace. The critics mostly had beefs with the changes that have been made to this series. I have never played the series before and think the game is great. The characters are awesome! A **** priest with two adopted kids, a tough old sailor that sports a floaty and snorkel at all times, an overweight baroness that is spending her family fortune on an obsession with treasure hunting while her daughter works three jobs. All lovable and comical character that are very intricately woven together. Combat is good, golem combat is fun and strategic while character combat is a little repetitive and involves some button mashing. Crafting, fishing, and farming all have a fun mini-game element. The game loads up and plays without a glitch or patch, load times going through doors are a mere 1-3 seconds. The game is smooth, functional, fun, and addicting and for that I give it a 10. Don't overlook this game it's very different and has no genre.
RF:ToD is actually not a bad RPG in fact it's actually a refreshing to see decent JRPGs these days since most of the JRPG's (mainly just about everything made by NIS) are just unbelievably terrible these days. The story isn't great. It's not terrible. It just isn't the strongest point of the game. My play through took around 67 hours and most of that time was spent crafting and farming. You can also fish but I didn't spend too much time doing that because it was too mind numbingly boring. That said there is a lot that can be boring in this game, constantly talking to towns people to raise friendship level, brushing your monsters so they can produce better materials, cutting down trees and harvesting crops & ores can become ridiculous and drone on you, it eventually had gotten to the point where I was so sick of doing everything that I just stopped doing it altogether. It becomes way too much of a hassle and isn't fun and not as rewarding as you'd think. The graphics and sprites in RF:ToD are nice, again comparing this game to anything made by NIS and you can see why I am giving this game praise for it's graphics. Fenith Island is not too large but it is nice to look at and explore when you start up the game. The characters are pretty, yeah - to say the least "unique". The one that stands out is the priest who I'd imagine any church would find offensive. Combat system is pretty good, it's your standard action RPG I wouldn't have minded seeing more combat abilities however - from what I saw there was only 3 that you could purchase or receive as a reward. I didn't really understand why you were able to level up "skills" like sleeping, eating and bathing. From what I saw it did nothing. The only skill that seemed to matter was weapons. The higher level up it goes the more combos you get. Dungeon design aren't the strongest part of this game either. They can become extremely repetitive cluttered with flipping switches and going through teleports and just way too long to begin with. In fact they just became too much that I started running by enemies just because I wanted to be over and done with and see a new change of scenery. All in all this games not too bad it can become annoying the difficulty does spike a bit too much and makes the game start to become irritating but it is an overall enjoyable experience and not really too bad of a JRPG by the time I reached the end of the game I was actually satisfied. It seems like a low key game but it's a pretty good one. It's no Final Fantasy or "Tales" game when it comes to story but it was certainly enjoyable.
If you've played Rune Factory before, this may come as somewhat of a letdown. The developers definitely took a risk, but it falls slightly flat, making the game seem like a cheap imitation of a lot of other games. It still has the charm of Rune Factory, but the loss of the traditional farm system was a huge disappointment, as that was always the beef of the gameplay. The game has been shifted towards combat and interaction, which had a somewhat mixed effect on the game. The novelty of Rune Factory always came from the atmosphere and "suite" of things to do in a fantasy world. When focused on only a small part of that world (like combat), they turn into almost mini-games, and not very well done ones at that. However, the sheer amount of stuff to do does balance this out, as each is actually kinda fun, and you'll almost never feel a lack of things to do in this game. Luckily, all the elements actually do blend together into a surprisingly cohesive game. Overall, it's a pretty game that would make a great relaxing change of pace. It's easy to lose an hour or two in this fantasy world. Like all Harvest Moon games, the appeal of building something rather than destroying can't be denied, and although it falls a bit flat from the other Rune Factory games, it is unique in it's own respect, showing risk taking from the developers. If you've never played Rune Factory before, by all means try this game, but don't judge the rest of the series by this alone. I would recommend Rune Factory Frontier or 3 for the DS over this, but it is by no means a bad game. One of the better ones I've tried this year.
If you find the review too long, please ignore my rating if it comes to deciding if you wanna buy a new JRPG to enjoy and you look for opinions. My rating is only for people that have played this coming from the Harvest Moon game.
This is probably my first review on here and amusingly enough, negative. I do not comment on games if I do not like them, usually because I dislike how some reviews show that the person does not like this kind of game and still throws his opinion about it. But since I have been playing Harvest Moons since the 1st one that a friend gave me on my game boy and ever since I have been addicted to them, I wanted to lay here my opinion.
Before continuing with my review I want to say this; The reason I gave it 3 and not 5 is because I wanted my rating to be negative and not mixed. Rune Factories slowly tilted away from the farming part and towards the RPG fighting part. I loved the First and second one even if the farm felt as a small part of the game and slowly got less and less important. But this one was the one that made me realize that Rune Factory is not anymore a Harvest Moon with a warrior RPG element but the total opposite. It tired me quite fast, making me feel that Harvesting was not that much important afar from following some story.
I am giving it a low score as a Harvest Moon though and not as a Rune Factory. I believe as an RPG it is relaxing, beautiful and quite enjoyable. But I felt sad I actually felt bored through the game, not because of the story, but because I was waiting for the farming part to kick in and it never really did; at least to the point I reached. If anything this RF proved to me that if I want just a cute farming HM, I should stop looking for them in the RF franchise.
SummaryFeaturing a vast region to explore, a wonderful cast of characters, and a huge variety of activities to enjoy, Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny is sure to make waves! Aden and Sonja, two lifelong friends, live a tranquil life on Fenith Island until they're struck by a mysterious curse: they awaken to find both of their souls are now trappe...