Is the Pokemon/Harvest Moon styled combo worth your time?
One of the main aspects of the game is farming and as Bart Simpson said “I want to go on the yard work simulator.” That is a pretty accurate description of Rune Factory 4. You work the fields behind the castle to become stronger. Finally all that manual labor is paying off! You can grow different food in the garden and then harvest it for profit. You can also use some food to create different weapons and I know you were expecting that some of the crops can grow into full fledge dungeons to explore. You won if you had the turnip turns into a dungeon in the pool this week. Farming has other beneficial qualities as well. You’ll be able to find runes while tilling the fields and as Vishnal, the character who teaches you the ins and outs of farming, said that runes are “life energy of anything and everything organic in this world.” Rune Points decrease from performing different farming tasks and when you run out of RP, your HP will start to decrease.
One of the mainstay RPG concepts is doing favors for the townsfolk. I wouldn’t be talking about favors or in this case “requests” if they weren’t in the game now would I? The better your street credit or “reputation” the faster the farm will progress. You increase your reputation by performing requests for the townspeople. You can gain Prince Points or PP by completing requests. Prince Points represent how well the townsfolk trust you. The more Prince Points you have, the more orders you can pass in the town. You’ll only be able to perform one request a day until you progress further in the adventure.
The Pokemon aspect of Rune Factory 4 deals with fighting monsters and then gaining their trust. You can actually put them to work in your farm and get work done quicker with monster help. Like most RPG’s, you can buy and sell weapons and armor and then equip the best equipment for battle. The game uses a real time battle system where you can keep attacking with the same attack over and over again, if you want to. I felt the menu controls and the fighting controls were easy to transition between except when you were fighting a monster and you needed to eat to restore HP.
