"Rune Factory" series

[niightwind]

It isn't my top favorite game series, but one of my top fives - the Rune Factory series. It is a spin-off of the Harvest Moon series, with the farming simulation still there but with added combat and action RPG elements. The first game came out in 2007 in North America (2006 in Japan), and the latest one was released in 2013 (2012 for Japan). There was originally confirmation of another game coming out but I'm not sure if they still plan on that happening.

So far at least, however, the series consists of 6 titles: The original Rune Factory, Rune Factory 2, Rune Factory Frontier, Rune Factory 3, Tides of Destiny, and 4. They've been mainly released for NDS/Wii/3DS. My favorite in the series has been RF4.

But, because I love this series so much, I thought I should start up a thread on it. Surely there are at least a few other RF fans among the userbase of this forum, after all!

So if you've played any of the Rune Factory games, did you enjoy them? If you haven't played them, do you plan to in the future? Which - if any - has been your favorite game in the series thus far?

(PS: I hope I put this in the right section! I wasn't sure if it would be best put in the Nintendo section, as they're mainly released on Nintendo consoles, or if General Gaming would be a better place. Please let me know if I've chosen incorrectly.)

 

[Patrick]

I've only played the first one on NDS. I thought the idea of raising beasts and managing a farm was pretty neat.

 

[Kaitara]

I played its predecessor, Harvest Moon, on SNES. The combination of resource management and dating sim was absolutely awesome and I loved every second of that game (even the repetitive farming). I always meant to play a Rune Factory game, but I have just never gotten around to it. I guess now that I'm reminded of those games I'll try to track one down to play

 

[Dkaraly]

I played some of the Harvest Moon ones, many years ago. I didn't know there was a spin-off serie until I went to an university. I saw a girl playing it outside of a classroom and asked her about it. She told me that the game was like Harvest Moon Friends but with magic and monsters and some kind of dungeons. It sounded interesting so I looked it up on the internet and found out it was a spin-off serie. I played the first one, I really liked it. Many things to do in-game and different types of monster to fight and befriend.