Preview of Rune Factory Frontier

I am going to write guides for Rune Factory Frontier but, from what I have read, a player of Rune Factory 2 will not have much trouble with Frontier.

There are some differences between the two games, of course, both positive and negative.

Positive changes:

You can breed your Tame Monsters!
Your child will go through three different stages from infant to toddler to adolescent.
Weather can be predicted to some extent when you gaze at the sky.
You will receive letters from villagers.
There is a gallery similar to some extent to the one in 'Princess Debut' consisting of 'Memories', meaning that you must play the game repeatedly, marrying all eligible girls, inter alia, in order to complete it. Memories consist of film clips, much like those in Valkyrie Profile Lenneth.
Each item slot can accommodate 99 items rather than 9.
There are interesting new entities named Runeys, not to be confused with Rune Points. These have earth fertility powers of various kinds. There are four types of Runeys: Tree, Grass, Water and Rock Runeys. There is a new piece of equipment called a harvester that is used to suck up Runeys from the earth. You then can release them in areas where they will do the greatest good, give them to Candy to create miracles known as Rune Wonders or to be made into Rune Stones.
There are three save slots instead of two.
There is only one Ranch tool, freeing slots in your Rucksack. The Harvester is used to harvest Runeys, Wool, Honey, Milk and Eggs as well as Ores/Gems and Seeds obtained from Tame Monsters.
Yes, this is another new addition: There are varieties of tame Monsters who will yield Seeds and Ores or Gems!
Monsters of the 'Grim Reaper' variety can be set to the task of mowing grass for Fodder.
There are Constellations in the heavens to be 'traced'. These each have their own stories as well as a correspondence to one of the Eligible Girls.

Negative changes:

You cannot play as your own child in the 2nd Generation, making it impossible to play this game as a girl.

You cannot sell items to merchants or shops. The menu at any shop only allows you to buy items. This effectively restricts your income to anything earned through shipping at 5.00 p.m.

Wii games are FAR more expensive than DS games and can be played only in locations where you can set up the system and a screen.

Changes that may be positive or negative, depending on your point of view:

As in Magical Melody and Island of Happiness, characters can be 'persuaded' both to arrive and depart, depending on your own actions.

There apparently is no trading option in this game.
There are no Winter Crops either.

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In all honesty, my favourite game system is the DS. The fact that Rune Factory Frontier has been made for the Wii makes it less attractive to me than Rune Factory and Rune Factory 2... even so, I can't bear to ignore any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory title...

Speaking of series with individual games on different platforms, the latest Valkryie Profile title has been made for my favourite system but from all accounts, is not quite as compelling as previous Valkyrie Profile games. For a start, you do not play as a Valkyrie! That is rather disappointing, as I had hoped to find a game with Hrist as the main character. As with Rune Factory Frontier, I will be able to judge better when I actually have the game.