Harvest Moon Forever: New Rune Factory Characters Guide

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

New Rune Factory Characters Guide

Although the original Rune Factory DS game was released in the States a couple of years ago and my guides for the game were published then, it evidently has been released in the U.K. only recently. While players in the States ask questions about Rune Factory 2 and Rune Factory Frontier, those from the U.K. and Europe send queries about the original Rune Factory game.

Rereading old Rune Factory General Guide recently, I was rather appalled to discover that I had not added as many details as I usually do to any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory guide. Rather to my dismay, although birthdays were given in the Calendar section, they were not added to the description for each Character in the Characters' section of the Guide. I therefore am revising my Rune Factory General Guide today as well as creating a new Rune Factory Characters Guide. It would be shameful if the original game in this series received less attention from me than its sequels!

Incidentally, my game journals for Rune Factory did not neglect any aspect of the game and are filled with the text of the Events as well as the information about the items that characters prefer. It therefore simply is a matter (as always) of organising and transferring information from my journals to the Guides.

Evening of 20 October: The new Rune Factory Characters Guide has been uploaded by IGN and you will find a link under 'Rune Factory Guides' on the right side of the page.

I have modified the 'Most Favourites' Lists for each Character slightly, including those allocated to the Eligible Girls, even though it seems to me that when a character responds in precisely the same fashion to more than one item, all those items will have equal point values in terms of LP and/or FP.

Evening of 21 October: I finally added proper sections for the Stoller Chalice Quest and Holy Book Quest to the Rune Factory Walkthrough/General Guide as well as the Characters Guide.

Shame on me for not completing these Guides properly any sooner! There have been so many incredible Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games in the past couple of years. One is driven forward to a new game long before one has exhausted all the potentials of an existing game...

3 comments:

midna said...: As a long-suffering Moon fan in the UK, I've long since given up on waiting for Euro release dates. Not only are we decades behind the Japanese/US release schedule, we often get inferior versions of the games (the horribly censored Casino in HMDS springs to mind) or worse - no release at all in the case of the various 'girl' versions!

I've long thought importing is my only friend in relieving some of the frustration, and although the dollar/sterling exchange is now much less favourable than it used to be, it's still the only way to go if you fancy marrying Cliff or Skye :) Sadly it's only really an option for the handheld consoles, I'm too much of a techno-Luddite to get into chipping my Gamecube and Wii!

Incidentally Freya, Rune Factory appears to have been released over here in February 2009. And as of this morning there is STILL no word on when we might see Sunshine Islands... *sigh* :); October 21, 2009 at 4:56 AM
Freyashawk said...: Midna, could you tell me if and when Island of Happiness was released in the U.K./Europe? I believe that Rising Star is responsible for that one as well... It would be interesting to know how much was cut out of THAT game. As Sunshine Islands is the sequel to Island of Happiness, knowing when IoH was released in Europe might give some indication of the prospects of seeing a release of SI.

Sunshine Islands is due for release in the States in November I believe. My guides should be on IGN either the day prior to the official release or on the date of release.

I ALWAYS advise international players to try to buy the genuine Natsume (English) edition if possible. I believe that Natsume tries not to cut corners where Rising Star evidently is willing to produce 'lesser' versions of the same game. What they did to HM DS was depressing.; October 21, 2009 at 6:40 PM
midna said...: Island of Happiness was released in the UK in December 2008 I believe, some 4 months after the US release (relatively speaking, not a bad timeframe - we were around 6 months behind for HMDS). However, there is still no word from Rising Star to confirm whether they will be releasing Sunshine Islands at all at the moment, so I would definitely second your recommendation to import the US edition if at all possible.

Yep, HMDS was a disgrace. Ironically, it was the first HM game I'd chosen NOT to import. Rising Star had promised they'd fixed all the horrific game-breaking glitches and bugs that had plagued the first US version, so I decided the loss of the Casino might be worth buying British for a change! (As an aside, I know Natsume fixed a lot of the bugs for later versions of HMDS, but as an importer I was wary of being sold an earlier version).

Well, Rising Star did not exactly speak the truth. After approx. 70+ hours of gameplay, BOTH my save files became corrupted and refused to load. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you how that felt! I was in year 4 of the game, just married off my last rival and was about a week away from marrying Celia. I had a field full of crops, a purse full of gold, and I'd just done a mining trip and uncovered all the cursed tools. So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I sent an extremely angry email to Rising Star, pointing out that the save file corruption bug had been well-known in the first US version, and surely a glitch so potentially devastating should have been first on their list to sort out. The response? Basically some guff about how they can't be held responsible, they weren't the original developers after all, they couldn't POSSIBLY be expected to fix everything... but they'd be happy to replace the game if I could send them the old game back and provide proof of purchase. Yeah. I didn't take them up on it!

Apologies for the rant. That was 3 years ago and I'm still bitter about it! So yes, I wouldn't touch another Rising Star game if my life depended on it, and I will certainly be visiting www.play-asia.com on November 13th!; October 22, 2009 at 6:17 AM

For all Harvest Moon fans and players

As Freyashawk, I have written about 150 guides for games, most of which have been guides for Harvest Moon games. These are published on IGN. IGN has given me the title of 'Mistress of Harvest Moon' and I strive daily to earn the right to maintain that title. Although there is a link page on IGN that lists all the guides published there, they are not organised by game, but rather given in alphabetical order. I therefore created this page in order to provide links to the guides I have created for each Harvest Moon game. If you access the General Guide for any game, links should be included to all other guides for that game in a section at the end. I will try to add links to ALL guides as time permits, but until I do, you always can refer to my user page at IGN for the complete list.

I wrote the Official Strategy Guide for Tree of Tranquility for BradyGames as well.
Harvest Moon Forever!

How to Use my Guides

I write three different basic types of game guides. I usually write a General Guide for every game, which is fairly comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the game. It may or may not be in the form of a Walkthrough, dealing with game aspects as they occur. My Innocent Life General Guide is an example of a General Guide that is organised as a Walkthrough.

After writing a General Comprehensive Guide, I often write a Calendar Guide giving birthday and festival dates, with additional information that may be helpful, such as favourite gifts for each individual. For all Harvest Moon games, I usually write a number of 'mini-guides', such as Events Guides for each year of gameplay, or Recipe Guides that give all recipes one can make. Fishing, Mining, Shipping or Item Value Guides are other mini-guides that can be very useful when playing Harvest Moon. Character Guides give detailed information about every character in any specific game. My Courtship and Marriage Guide is devoted to all aspects of Courtship and Marriage, including schedules of Heart Events, Rival Heart Events and the likes and dislikes of every Eligible Girl and/or Bachelor.

Although this site is devoted to Harvest Moon, I have included links to game guides for other games. I created a separate link section for Animal Crossing Wild World as well, because I wrote more than one guide for that game.

N.B. All my game guides are published by IGN. This webpage has been created simply to allow players to find links to all my guides more easily.

Copyright Infringement Warning

It is really sad to discover that there are individuals who are willing to steal my guides and to attempt to publish them under their names. Fortunately, there are many players who recognise my guides when they see them anywhere on the internet and who are willing to alert me when some one tries to steal my material. I want to thank all those players for their help in these cases.

Some one stole one of my guides and tried to publish it on Gamefaqs under his/her name. The guide has been removed and the poster has been banned. I now have a contact in the Legal Department at CNet. I spend many months sometimes writing a guide. They are available for the private use of any individual without cost, but they are not available for theft!
If you want permission to include a link to one of my guides on your site, please contact me directly.

Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town

You will notice that I wrote far more guides for More Friends of Mineral Town than I did for the original 'Friends of Mineral Town'. At some point, I would like to publish more specific Events Guides for Friends of Mineral Town, but players should be aware of the fact that ALL Calendar Events Guides for MFoMT can be used when playing the original FoMT. The Events are the same in most cases in both games. If, therefore, you are playing FoMT and you wish to know the events that can be experienced in the third year of gameplay, refer to the 'Third Year Calendar Events Guide' for 'More Friends of Mineral Town'.