Thursday, March 19, 2009

First Look at Rune Factory Frontier for the Wii






I thought I would share some screenshots of Rune Factory Frontier for the Wii, a new Rune Factory game released this week.

All games in the Rune Factory series are exceedingly beautiful but Rune Factory Frontier has a watercolour quality that distinguishes it from the DS games. I definitely would not declare that it is more beautiful by any means, as I never encountered any game to rival the exquisite quality of Rune Factory 2 in visual terms. Rune Factory Frontier certainly has its own unique breathtaking loveliness, however, and the concept of the Whale Island that floats in the sky makes it very different from any other Rune Factory game.

The basic premise of the game is similar to that of the others in that your character, named Raguna once again as in the original, must restore a dilapidated farm to prosperity. Some of the characters will be familiar to players of the original Rune Factory. Mist, Rosetta, Bianca, Melody, Tabatha and Lara all resemble their counterparts in the original. Other characters are entirely new.

Rune Factory Frontier is not simply a remake of Rune Factory DS. It has its own distinct character as a game. It appears to be far more of a traditional Harvest Moon game than an RPG than the two RF games for the DS.

Finally, a note to players, and especially beginners, not to disregard the in-game tutorials in ANY Harvest Moon/Rune Factory game. I have included a screenshot here of a page from one of the tutorial books in Rune Factory Frontier.

1 comment:

D Figman said...

My first impression of this game is very positive. While I think the artistic style of Rune Factory 2 was great, I actually prefer the look of the Wii version. I think it has to do with the actually character 3D models. The limited power of the DS created ugly 3D character models amongst great background visuals.

The game seems very deep, and only on day 7 I have become attached to the characters. This may be Rune Factory's Harvest Moon 64 in terms of overall quality. I hope this early impression isn't wrong, but I have a feeling the game will grow with time. The translation by Xseed is very good as well.

I look forward to reading what you have found in this game, because I definitely am not skilled enough yet to do more than the basics yet.