Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon | 
| From: Natsume, Inc.
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $25.00
You Save: $4.99 (17%)
New (15) Used (1) from $25.00
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 653
Platform: Nintendo Ds
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Everyone
Media: Video Game
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Operating System: Nintendo DS
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0 x 0
MPN: 10014
Model: NDS10014
UPC: 719593100140
EAN: 0719593100140
ASIN: B001BWRBA8
Release Date: November 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Multigenerational storyline lets you play as your child! | | • | Befriend monsters to help on your farm! | | • | Exciting new gameplay modes via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection! | | • | Upgrade your skills and forge your own powerful weapons and tools! |
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Product Description
Several years after the time of the first Rune Factory, the evil Sechs Empire has been defeated, and the Kingdom of Norad is once again at peace. Things may not stay that way for long, however, as dark premonitions foretell of dangers to come. It's up to you to uncover the source of these premonitions and bring peace to the kingdom once more. In a first for the Rune Factory series, the story of Rune Factory 2 is multigenerational. You begin the game as Kyle, a strange man who comes to Alvarna Village. Eventually, you will take on the role of Kyle's child, opening up a whole new adventure. It's an innovative feature that lets you follow the story of your family and the townsfolk over two generations. Over the course of the story, you will build and develop a farm, befriend townspeople, raise monsters, take on quests, and find a wife. Rune Factory 2 offers innovative Touch Screen controls, easy-to-use menus, and an all-new compelling storyline.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Great Characters & Lovely Details January 3, 2009
I love all the details of Rune Factory 2. Cherry Blossoms fall in spring and the water foutain's water flows and makes noise. There is a dock too, where you can sail to another cave. You start off with a two story house and a double bed!
The characters are all very unique and different from eachother. Remember the little elf girl Cecelia (aka Cece) from Rune Factory 2? She's back but as an adult and you can marry her.
4 caves are unlocked once you start the game. The 4th one you have to sail too. The monster generators look more natural too. There are different mosters at night though. (ie; during the day there are orcs, during the night there are buffamoos)
I would recommend this game to harvest moon fans and fans of the first rune factory.
Fun, but a little repetitive after awhile December 29, 2008
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.
Lovely Addition December 28, 2008
The Summary: Rune Factory 2 is sort of a sequel (though completely playable by itself) to Rune Factory. The game starts with a boy, Kyle (default name, which is changeable), who loses his memory and comes upon a town where Mana (a girl with an overprotective father) offers him a farm. Hence, you start farming, fighting monsters, taming monsters, trading, making friends, making girlfriends, cooking, making babies, etc. etc. An extremely lovely addition is the second generation, where you can play your own child (girl or boy).
The Great:
-Beautiful graphics; there are cherry blossoms falling, the characters are well drawn, and they even have varying expressions. The most delightful change in graphics that I've noticed was the surroundings. Rune Factory 2's graphics has exceeded my expectations. The town is set near sea, and everything is gorgeous; you really have to see it to understand. Rune Factory's graphics was extremely good, but I thought this sequel's graphics just added to the theme of the storyline much more. Whereas the other Harvest Moon games was set in a rural land, Rune Factory 2 has a much more fantasy, fairytale feeling to it. Also, as an addition, the map on the top screen has the character moving around as opposed to Rune Factory's map, which only has the character stopped in the general area.
-Wonderful soundtrack; one of my favorite things about the Harvest Moon series is its amazing music. The Rune Factory series is outstanding; the general (when you're farming or outside) music is whimsical and light and it's one of the reasons I don't get bored of constant farming. The music in the "dungeons" where the monsters are reflect each map perfectly. The voice-acting could be better, but it's pretty good.
-Awesome gameplay; probably the most important aspect. The farming is fun, and there are a lot of variable activies for the player to do so that the game doesn't become mundane. You have to farm, make friends and lovers, do quests (a LOVELY addition to this sequel), cook, build, fight, tame, etc. etc. The lists keeps going on and on. A lot of things to discover!
The Moderate/Good or Bad:
-The tools. One thing that I personally hated was the fact that we didn't have to upgrade the tools in order to water/farm/hoe/etc. more than one square, since upgrading took a lot of my effort during the first Rune Factory. Many people probably felt this was relieving, but I was personally a little scandalized since upgrading was one of the activies I thought was synonymous with Harvest Moon tools. Of course, this leaves for many other things to do and more opportunities to farm more, but I feel that the upgrading of the tools is what makes a part of the game what it is.
-The currency. Boy, what inflation! Everything costs a LOT more than it did in Rune Factory. Perhaps this acts as a foil to balance out the easy tool feature, since we don't need to upgrade *and* make more money. I personally didn't have any objections. It's definitely more of a challenge. Prepare to work a little harder.
-2nd generation privileges. As you play, you might notice that the first character can't cook, go through certain places, etc. That's because only the 2nd generation can. This could be good or bad, since that means the storyline is definitely deeper and you can focus more on farming on the first generation. I think it's a great touch to the storyline, but it could also be a hassle.
The Bad:
-Not much. Other than personal opinions that I have, this game is objectively pretty awesome. The changes from Rune Factory depends on the player's preference. Other than that, you should DEFINITELY try this game out.
Harvest Moon? Awesome.
Rune Factory series? Even better.
Much Improved December 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
With much love for the first edition of Rune Factory I was waiting on pins and needles to get this game. Harvestmoon has brought be much disappointment in their last few games for the ds. With a 2nd generation playing capability Rune Factory hasfefinitly worked hard to bring usa great game for the ds platform.
An excellent addition to the Harvest Moon series December 1, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'll start off by saying that I've never played the original Rune Factory so I'm new to this series, but I'm a long time fan of Harvest Moon. With that being said, this game definitely has a lot of the things that made Harvest Moon great.
The farming is pretty much top notch. You have a wide array of stuff you can plant, and you can plant pretty much anything during any season. (though this sort of takes away from the whole planting certain things during certain times of the year aspect) I haven't married anyone yet and I've only gotten into the middle of the second season so I'm not aware of a lot of the remaining stuff I have yet to see. I'm assuming there is cooking since there is a skill for it and a ton of ingredients but I haven't been able to find a way to do it yet.
Anyway, farming is great as you can now walk over your crops which means no more wasting one square and surrounding squares of farmland just to be able to water the crops you plant. You can now maximize the entire field and use every square for crops... which is a feature that has been a long time coming.
One thing I'm not liking too much is that I've already been through several earthquakes and storms within the first 2 seasons of the game so it's destroyed quite a lot of crops and I'm the kind of person who likes things neat and organized on my farm.
The combat aspect of the game is fun and there are several areas to go if you want to fight monsters. However after doing this for a few days (actual days) of playing, I'm getting kind of tired of fighting them, it seems more like a chore and I usually just avoid them to mine and farm in monster areas. (or just take damage because I don't feel like killing everything every time I enter a level)
The thing I'm enjoying most is how fast the npc characters progress. You get to learn a lot about the characters in a short time and they almost have something new to say every other day so you won't get bored hearing them say the same thing day after day. The requests board is basically a "quests" board, which is pretty fun however I get kind of bummed when there aren't any new requests up and I find myself having nothing to do with my remaining time for the day.
As far as graphics, they are fantastic, the music gets a tad repetitive yet it's catchy enough to have me whistling some tunes when I'm not playing. There is the problem with the game lagging down badly when there is more than a few NPC characters in a level with you. Which is pretty irritating when you're running through levels of your barn to take care of animals since you'll normally have 4 to a level. They really should have addressed this issue before releasing the game.
My one big gripe is that I'm already finding myself running out of things to do during any given day, so I'm going to bed early just to get the next day going. I wish there was more of a challenge with monsters, seeing as how within a day of playing you can pretty much take on all the monsters with ease. I'm hoping there are more monsters to come, as there appear to be a lot of locked off areas (which I guess open up in generation 2?) Either way, it's boring fighting monsters now as it's the same dozen or so monsters with no challenge.
Overall the game is shaping up to be quite fun and I hope it only gets better. I would say it's one of the top Harvest Moon games out there except one major bummer is that you get this gigantic house with a kitchen and two beds right when you start, which kind of makes it less fun to actually build up your own house and watch your wealth grow.
This game is definitely worth purchasing if you are a fan of the series or if you're totally new to the series, as it's definitely a lot of fun and satisfies your Harvest Moon addiction.
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