I enjoy these games as much as I enjoy Dragon Quest IX. But I aint here to talk about Dragon Quest IX This is about Harvest Moon And Rune Factory and the fact that Harvest Moon Tales Of Two Towns has been out since the 20th.... It is alot of fun. They kept it like they did in Grand Bazaar except for the voices and the bazaar but there are some familiar faces, I wont say who you have to find that out for yourselves. And instead of Hearts you get Flowers and there is a much harder quest than you have for ToTT. As for Rune Factory I love it...... Battles :D But did not like the 1st one.

I just finished a aToTT and it was one of the better Harvest Moon games.

My heart still goes to Back to Nature though

---

I want to get into this series, where should I start?

If you want a thrill of an adventure play Rune Factory 2 or 3 (to be honest the first one is a huge pain). If you want to make money while raising animals and win festivals play Harvest Moon.

I've never played Rune Factory. Is it as good as most Harvest Moon games?

---

Having recently 'finished' (been married off) Rune Factory 3, I enjoyed it lot more than most Harvest Moon games. There aren't any rivals in love, and the whole romancing aspect is generally way, way easier (maybe too easy...) - and making money is pretty simple too. I suppose the fun in HM is a bit like Animal Crossing, building up your farm and everything, and I think that those aspects are much easier/simpler in Rune Factory, and there's more focus on the plot/combat/characters. However, I enjoyed the characters and the humour a lot more than the Harvest Moon games I've played. All of the girls were likeable, and I totally adore the one I ended up picking as my wife <3

---

I'll have to try it sometime. Thanks!

---

Who'd you pick?

---

Am I the only one who likes HM cute?

---

I love Harvest Moon games, and I'm currently playing through Island of Happiness.
I plan of getting aToTT if I find it , but FoMT will always be my favourite.
As for Rune Factory, I'm itching to buy it, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

---

If you liked FoMT, you should definitely play Back to Nature. FoMT was actually a port of BtN from the playstation to the GBA except it's 2D instead of 3D. It's kind of hard to find nowadays though.

---

BtN (I believe) is available on PSN for PS3 in the US.

*late reply*
Sofia. I could have picked anyone, to be honest, they were all so adorable, but Sofia was the one who really stuck in my head as someone who would be interesting and hilarious to be with. And every time I would pass her and she would say "I hate you" with that adorable blushing sprite, it just melted my heart <3

I considered getting one of the other Rune Factories, but I heard they were more finicky and not as good. Anyone know?

---

I never really looked because I have it on the original PS. I knew it was on the PSP though.

---

I don't own any playstion consoles, so sadly, I can't get BtN.
But if I ever do, I'll be sure to get it.
And I had no idea FoMT was a port of BtN. I thought they were really different from what' I've read up.

---

Played Rune Factory games (1,2) but a little bit playing Harvest Moon

I haven't played FoMT in a long time, but if I'm not mistaken, they are the same. I know they have the same characters, music, and setting, but they might have added/taken out things I was not aware of, so suppose remake would be a better word than port.

Regardless, it's still a great game.

---

Ooh Sofia, yeah, I have it narrowed down to her, Karina, or Dahlia Daria (haven't finished yet, I will one of these years.) Undecided at the moment, but I'm leaning towards rainbow.

3 is the most polished in the series for obvious reasons, and it had the quirkiest heroines, but I enjoyed the other games.

RF1 has pretty much the worst battle system; it's not godawful but after playing 3 it'd feel really rough. After clearing a dungeon, you can't advance to the next one until you till so many patches of soil in the one you just finished, which can be annoying. Also, you can't access one of the last dungeons at all until winter, so if you blow through the others early on, you have to just kind of kill in-game time before you can finish the story.
The biggest thing that'll probably throw you about the first game is that wooing a wife is really weird compared to the rest of the series (and Harvest Moon in general). Generally, giving presents doesn't raise their affection levels, just friendship. You need to do specific actions to raise affection for most of the girls (plow lots of fields for Mist, befriend a lot of monsters for Tabatha, etc.), which can make courting easy as hell or an absolute nightmare, depending on who you want to wed. Mei in particular is literally impossible to marry unless you know someone else with Rune Factory or use an AR or other cheat device since you need to give her a Level 70 Love Snapper to propose and you can't catch one at that level. You have to trade it back and forth with someone to raise its level that high (or, again, cheat).

Rune Factory Frontier has most of the same characters from the first game in a pseudo-alternate reality story. It's actually pretty good other than the stupid Runey system. I hate you forever, Runeys. I'd suggest looking up an explanation on that on GameFAQs or something since it's incredibly complicated.

RF2 is actually a lot like 3 as far as how it plays. Problem I had with it, and that a lot of people apparently had, is the game forces you to marry someone before it lets you do much anything else, and shortly after you have your kid, the game timeskips a few years and puts you in control of your kid for the rest of the game, at which point most of the other features like forging, cooking, dungeon crawling, and so on actually become available (you can do a little exploring in the dungeons with your main guy before the skip but they're mostly blocked off). Still, if you don't mind being rushed into marriage a month or two after starting the game and playing the rest of it as a six-year-old, it's still a solid game.

Honestly, they're all solid, though. I'm just pointing out the flaws.

Haven't tried Tides yet but a friend of mine said it was good.

---

I just realised that for some reason I got the names of 'Save the Homeland' and 'Back to Nature' mixed up. And after realising I got it wrong I agree with you completely. Sorry about that! And I would say that I prefer the story of FoMT (Probably because you get an unlimited amount of time) to BtN, but the other one is still good.

---

I love the Harvest Moon series.
I basically grew up with it, although I generally didn't get my hands on most of the games and still don't. Starting with Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo, I stayed with that for years before eventually getting FoMT. I loved FoMT, although the fact that the girls were basically slightly changed from the Super Nintendo version was a bit of a let down. Also the fact that we had rivals!

With the 64 version, it was like FoMT, but still better. I don't think I ever managed to complete the album with all pictures. At least, not without using a cheat code! Although why have us walk at an angle and reverting the camera back to the side angle when having an event talk? I preferred the straigt-on camera.

I never played Back to Nature or Save the Homeland because I never had a PS1 console at home... my brother being the gamer, we were more the Nintendo camp. Although BTN is basically FoMT. And Save the Homeland was apparently terrible cause the relationships were always reverted back upon a new game... although the Summer and Winter Farm Melody is amazing! I love Snow Flower!

A wonderful Life was quite enjoyable.... it got extremely boring at times, but I always loved it when the kids were toddlers. They were just too cute! So when I played the Girl version and now the Special Edition, I still have trouble getting myself to finish the game....

DS and DS Cute were pretty good games - I was happy to have those anime portraits, but having the entire game basically be an enhanced version of FoMT? That was a terrible downgrade for me... and my main problem is that, to get married, you need to have at least 60 Harvest Sprites.
I mean, that's over the half, so once you have 60 of them and the Harvest Goddess is cured, you basically have nothing left to do... I mean, the main Sprites you'll still miss are the Ship 1.000.000 Crops of this or similar. Where's the fun? Also that it took the kids two years to get older... I'm impatient. Oh and that you couldn't make sure what your child's gender would be in DS Cute.

But my favorite Harvest Moon is definitely, definitely Magical Melody!
Okay, the graphics were extremely chibi and colorful, very different from Wonderful Life's slightly more realistic nature and all... but the amount of bachelors and bachelorettes! Especially great for nostalgic purposes, having Nina, Ann, Maria, Eve and Ellen finally in 3D. Not to mention, having missed out on BTN/STH, I got to have Dia, Gina and Gwen as well. Too bad that the male character's design seems so incredibly bland when compared to the girl's....

For Rune Factory, I started with RF2.
It was okay. It had good bachelorettes, decent farming and fighting. Playing as Kyle was incredibly easy, but that was the whole point of the game - the actual part being in the 2nd Generation. And I loved that I could choose to play as a girl.
So when I played RF a year or two ago, I really noticed the problems and how things got heavily improved in RF2..... so I basically gave up on that. Rune Factory Frontier did well, it improved on things, especially in the graphics department. It gave me enough bachelorettes to choose from and even some decent voices. Although the fact that
A) there is a goddamn loading screen for practically everything!
B) there is no Copy Option,
makes it extremely hard for me to do much with this game. I mean, without the Copy Option, I basically have to go through the Main Story, upgrading my skills and levels, equipment and getting the House Upgrade money together as well as the LP/FP for a girl.... I have to do that at least 14 times!

Rune Factory 3 is my favorite of the DS ones. It improved extremely on everything! There is barely any lagging anymore, the characters aren't stationary all the time, the bachelorettes are somewhat funny and look pretty, the addition of Dual Blades...! Downside being that the kids are basically nothing more than decoration these days... also, they all look the same.

Now, Rune Factory Oceans is an awesome game.
I loved the graphics, the environment, the fighting I saw - a Katana? As well as Dual Blades and Spear/Lances? The marriage candidates were beautiful, although there are only 4 if you play the girl later on.... I even didn't mind that they made the Farming basically nonexistant in this game. I just have too much to do in a single day to do everything, so that helped.
Downside is that you can't marry until you have finished the storyline... and by then, you have nothing to do but to get married. Also, the design for the kids was somewhat.... bland. Although the additions of visible accessories was great.

I haven't seen much of RF4, but it looked great.
Either playing as a Girl or a Guy and finally having Bow&Arrow as a possible weapon?
Wonderful!

C-A

---

I wish I could get one of the platform Rune Factory games. I'm so unlucky when it comes to finding them.

As for harvest moon, I only played Harvest Moon for the Super Nintendo, Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, and Harvest Moon: Animal Parade.

Personally, I don't think the series is all that great. After I had a child in Magical Melody I felt like there was nothing else for me to aim for, and I got lazy. Animal Parade was so much better in terms of almost everything but I eventually got tired waiting for my second child to grow up. (I married Owen btw, he's actually underrated, he's very sweet. As for Magical Melody I could only get my hands on the male only version and my character married Ellen and she is just the best. I wish I could've played as a female so I could marry Carl though. :c)

I kind of wish I could play one of the DS games but it would probably just the same old repetitive chore-like series to me.

---

That's what I disliked about the Wii version of Magical Melody - the only one that actually got to Europe. They completely got rid of the option of playing as a girl! They basically took half the game away. Thank god I decided to import that game.

I guess if you want a fun RF game on the DS, I'd say go for RF3, Emiko.
It has lots of stuff for me to do, although I do have to say the fact that I might be losing friendship points with people just because I don't talk to them for at least a week or more... and the voices used were actually quite good. At least, much better than RF2 - those were terrible voices. They literally just read their lines, like the audience was composed of 2nd Graders.

I played Grand Bazaar and I found it.... different.
The freshness system was interesting, the fact that I sell all my stuff on a Bazaar, that was really interesting and fun! Although I find it incredibly hard to come by money.... or to even reach the Money Goal for the week.
But what I disliked was the fact that I couldn't save unless I went to bed... what was up with that?

So when I got Twin Villages a while ago, it felt a lot like Bazaar. Except that the bachelorettes and such were a bit different now. And the whole changing clothes, I love that part! But again with the saving only when you go to bed.... I don't like that. Also, I barely had anything to do in Bazaar or Twin Villages for the most day. Worst part was, after getting married (and I kind of rushed) I got bored and basically had nothing to do....

C-A

---

*searches on wikipedia* Ok, I might as well give the DS games a shot. Even though I wanted the wii games so badly because they look so godly...or maybe I'm speaking too soon...but still, Raguna is cute. >.<

I need a job ._.

---

Raguna is cute. But I find that the DS heroes became more and more cuter (and feminine) as the game progressed.
I mean, compare Raguna to Kyle, then to Mice/Micah and then the boy from RF4.
You can barely tell that the boy is a boy in RF4.

Johnny Young Bosh did a good voice for Raguna in Rune Factory Frontier - I just got extremely sick of his panting very fast because I constantly was at low HP.
Two things I have to warn you about, though, if you want to play Frontier. The loading screen is everywhere. You'll probably see the loading screen as often as you see gameplay and the screen can take 3-5 seconds to load. It really does get annoying after a while.... the other thing is the Runey System.
Just... the Runey System.
I guess if you take care of it in the beginning, you'll be fine. But if you ignore it, Runeys die out and you basically shot yourself in the foot on using the dungeons as year-long crop factories.

Oh but the "music" for snowy days is absolutely mesmerizing~

The Wii version of Oceans... I dunno, I saw videos of it and it looked basically the same as the PS3 version I have. Only difference I know of between those version is this: On the Wii you need to use the WiiMote if you want to be able to knock on people's doors and get left in early. On the PS3, you simply move the R3 (Right Analog Stick) button to knock.
Which I have to say I am grateful of.
I don't like using WiiMotes for my RPGs (You hear that, Knight of Ratatosk? ) so being able to knock on the PS3 version while using a controller was so much more comfortable for me. In Frontier, I last just plugged the nunchuck in so I could knock onto Mist's door, give her a Turnip and then proceed to go to bed. XD

C-A

---

Johnny Young Bosh voiced Raguna! Last time I checked Raguna didn't sound like Lelouch or Izaya or Ichigo at all! Now that I know......*nosebleed*

And that nun-chunk bit is interesting. :/

---

Oh man someone else noticed that

on that note, I actually found some super-secret art of the main guy in Rune Factory 5


Emiko, Frontier has different voices than Rune Factory on DS so if you're using that version to compare Raguna's voice to JYB it won't match up. XSeed got some regular voice actors to dub Frontier whereas Natsume probably grabbed whoever they could find around the office for the DS games. hey don't knock it it worked for Ace Attorney

---

I'm not too picky about voice acting. ;P

But knowing JYB's sexy voice is Raguna's voice I am overjoyed. (Now that I think about it, I wonder why I didn't realize it in the first place.)

---

I've played a couple of Harvest Moon games for the DS. They haven't really interested me though. The games felt more like a chore than something fun and I couldn't see the point in the game. The farming was especially tedious. It was just the same things over and over again- I just couldn't get into it.

Rune Factory seems better, although I haven't played any of the games. I would like to try one, but if it's similar to Harvest Moon then maybe not.

---

REALISM

---

Yay, Harvest Moon! \(^.^)/
While I admit that I had my times in which I get bored of the game and stop playing, I think Harvest Moon is a neat game.
Basically it's not all about having a prosperous farm but also having a strong bond with the folks and learning more about your place. So I guess Harvest Moon is for those who are very dedicated despite of the slow progress.
The first Harvest Moon I've ever played was Friends of Mineral Town, I managed to cover all my field with plants and crops, I upgraded my house, got married and had a baby. The only thing left was those Harvest Sprites, but I didn't do anything about it.
I wished I played the female version of that game, I felt weird with courting a woman but meh :P
Since I was very young back then and had too much time, I remember that my farm was 7 years old and I don't think I will reach that far with another Harvest Moon game XD.

(Oh, god. I should stop typing...)

---

I got this game for one of my birthdays for the gamecube so I decided to give it a shot. I didn't play much dating games so the option to choose your wife and get a baby got me curious too I must admit.



At first I thought the realism was okay but then like Lucy said I started hating it and it was turning out to be more of a survival game because I couldn't keep up with the hungry animals and my own stomach. I would desperately eat whatever I would find on the road pretty much and the character's slow walking/running made the errands-before getting the horse-feeling like a paintasking long journey...

Well, the herbs and plants growing along the roads are the worst things to eat, since they don't fill you up. Think of what you eat when you feel a little hungry, but not so that you want to eat much. You have to cook - and since you have the Gamecube version, you can just abuse the Ruby's Spice Glitch to unlock all cooking categories.
The crops and produce to use for cooking, you have to get yourself....

And, thankfully, the Girl version and the Special Edition for PS2 made them move a bit faster.
Well, mostly the Girl version.... the PS2 version is slowed down....

C-A

---

I have a question to all of you: What's your favorite Harvest Moon feature?
As in, what's your favorite thing in the game? Fishing? Mining? Festivals? The TV? Cooking?
For me, it was either the TV or Cooking. I remember that in FoMT I watched all the shows (Soap Operas, yay!)
And well, cooking is awesome. Then I started to hate the whole "fresh/rotten" ingredients, sometimes I want to make my reserve of ingredients but now I can't because it gets rotten and stuff...

---

Cooking! :D

---

Now there's a series I haven't touched in a while. It actually contributed to some temporary animosity between me and my younger sister. With pretty much any Harvest Moon game that we both played, I was usually the first to get all the big stuff done--marriage, property expansion, competition victories, town expansion, tool upgrades, exploration, you name it. That tendency of mine hit her really hard when we were playing Magical Melody. There was almost nothing in that game that she did that I didn't do first, better, or both. I suppose her attitude toward me at the time would be best compared to how Franziska tends to behave toward Edgeworth--determined to surpass me, furious that she never could. I wasn't exactly trying to upstage her, but I have a decent sense of how she felt. Having someone be better than you at something you're passionate about is annoying. Having them be better at it without even trying is downright insulting.

Thankfully, we've both matured a lot since then, and we are as close now as we've ever been. It's been a while since the last time I played a Harvest Moon game, and even longer since I really dove into one. I think the last one that I spent a lot of time on was A Tale of Two Towns. Come to think of it, there's still a decent amount of stuff that I haven't done in that game. Maybe I'll pick it up again one of these days.

---

Mmh.... It changes for me over the games. I know I liked A Wonderful Life because the focus of it was on the family. Oh god the kids look so adorable when they're toddlers! But then they get older and aren't that cute anymore....
In MFoMT and A(nother) Wonderful Life (+ Special Edition) and DS Cute, I like the fact that I can change my outfit. Okay, basically it's just the colors and patterns, but I still enjoyed it. Must be a girl thing.

The cooking in MFoMT was fun! But I also enjoyed mining a ton, especially in Magical Melody... although I agree, having that whole Freshness in Grand Bazaar and such is just annoying. It's nice, but mostly.... nah.

Oh, General Luigi, no need to feel so bad. I know how your sister felt.
My brother was the gamer, so I became more of a tag-along in gaming and he was always the one in Harvest Moon who had a decent farm, full of animals or crops, a wife with the second kid already on the way and the bigger Rancher Rate. I mostly goofed around, flirted with the girls and just planted some crops at times.
Then I grew older - I was 6 when Harvest Moon for SNES came out! - and I became more competent.

Tales of two Towns was an okay game.... it basically is an enhanced version of Grand Bazaar.
And I have to say, I already finished the game - got married to Ash - and I am so bored already. I actually haven't touched the game since shortly after I got married to Ash.... I dunno. Grand Bazaar was a nice idea, but the fact that I can't save unless I go to bed? Nothing to do, actually, unless I walk all over the place until it's 4 PM and the crops are dry again and I can water them a second time?
It's just... urgh, and I can't get myself to finish Grand Bazaar, either.

C-A

---

I just started Tales of Two Towns, so far so good.
Kind of inconvenient whenever I save. I waste a day, I miss the old save system!
Ohoho, Cooking Festivals are SERIOUS business. I love living in Campbell (Maybe I literally fell in love with Cam...). I love grabbing animals...But they hate me ;w;.
I wonder what happens if I cook a dish with rotten ingredients...Do I make a rotten dish? Mistake?
(BTW, I love how whenever I try to make a drink and it fails it gets this black juice that looks like petroleum!)

---

I actually chose Konohana, myself. I suppose that's one thing that sets me and my sister apart with regards to the series. I'm more of a crop person while she prefers livestock (especially horses).

---

It's refreshing to see people here who don't get a bit too excited for their own good about the marriage element in the series.

Me, I just go with the guy who has the best personality to me. Personality means more to me then whether or not a character design is pleasing to my eyes.

---

I wonder how do you name your livestock.
I named a horse Epona once, and won the horse races xD.
Usually name my cows things relevant to milk such as "Cheese" or "Cream".
And to my chickens? I named them after countries such as "Mexico" or "France".
Ahahaha...I was weird back then.

---