Rune Factory: Tides Of Destiny Review

 

Rune Factory: Tides Of Destiny is the 5th installment in Natsume's Rune Factory series, and the first Rune Factory game to ever be released on a non nintendo console, the PS3. Rune Factory is a spinoff of Natsume's famous Harvest Moon series, and has been described as "harvest moon with swords" which is a fair summary of it. There's no continuity between the titles other than the occasional character cameo, so feel free to jump in anywhere.

In this game, you control a young boy by the name of Aden (you can actually choose whatever name you want, but Aden is the official name, so I'll be using that) who, along with his childhood friend Sonja (same deal here, you can choose whatever name) who land on the tropical Fenith Island with no recollection of how they got there, not only that, but they're also stuck in the same body (Aden's) They are found and greeted by the local cook Odette, who gives them a home and introduces them to the townspeople. As you're adventuring around to the different islands, you discover a dark sinister force is at work, and you must stop this plot to destroy the world while getting Sonja her body back. But the main point of Rune Factory isn't just completing the main storyline, it's building up your relationships with townspeople, and immersing yourself in the expansive world they provide to you, this worls very well on a console, as there's more room for larger environments. As this game is for the Wii as well as the PS3, it's not expansive as it could be due to the underwhelming power of thee Wii, but it's still a pretty and fluid game nonetheless. Also as a small side note you will hate water by the end of this game, seriously, there's a LOT of water travel, think of Hoenn times 3

There are other elements of Rune Factory as well, cooking, mixing medicine, growing crops, taking requests from the townspeople, participating in festivals, and forging all make for lots of fun. You have tons of stats that range from walking, to sleeping, to battling with a certain weapon, however there's no need for grinding as just playing through the game normally will allow these stats to take care of themselves. Another big part of Rune Factory is marriage, there are a total of 9 bachlorettes for you to choose from, from the clumsy Lily to the thickheaded Elena, as is the standard in the series up to this point, the cast of characters are all very colorful and unique. This game handles relationships a bit differently than previous games, in the previous games you would continue raising your friendship level with a certain girl (or all of them and splitting your game up into multiple saves if you wanted to go that route) you'd go on a date or two, and eventually give her an engagement ring and get married. In this game however, you can't pursue romantic relationships until after beating the main storyline and getting Sonja's body back, the main reason for thie being that you can choose to play as Sonja as well, there are a total of 4 bachelors for Sonja to choose from, giving any girls or weird guys some alternate options.

Overall thoughts: Overall Tides Of Destiny doesn't do much to distinguish itself from past games in the series, but that's not really a bad thing since every game in the series has been very strong. Great peaceful soundtrack, addictive gameplay, and a huge world that allows you to fully immerse yourself in it all makes for a strong video game experience that should be experienced by any fans of the JRPG genre. 9/10. And also here's a wonderful song from the soundtrack.