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* :)

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.

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!