RF2- Good, but nothing really that new
Well, the sequel to the popular DS game Rune Factory : A Fantasy Harvest Moon has hit American shores, and I must say, this game is pretty good. It's at a good difficulty, it's long, meaning there's lots to do. Some menu controls have been improved, a few new game aspects were introduced, but the rest was pretty much the same as the first, which was a little sad because I anticipated something more innovative and fresh. The game is divided into two halves. The first half you play a young man with amnesia (See? That's one of the same, reused concepts ) who's wandered into a village and settles in a worn down farm, a suggestion by a young girl, then a demand by her overprotective shopkeeper father. This half is mainly about wooing a possible bride and then having a child. Your child can be male or female. Then once the child is born, you can build a school. When the school is built, the game skips about seven years. Your child is older, and your character remembers what he came to do, so he sets off. Now you can play as your child, and then you explore the depths of dungeons and face bosses like the first one, in hopes about finding clues to where your father is. Your child can also have a boyfriend or girlfriend, for some of the possible marriage targets you did not pick in the first half will marry another man in the village and have a child that is possible to start a relationship with in the second half (The relationship isn't like marriage). You still can befriend monsters and explore caves, but cave exploration isn't really an important game aspect until the second half. Forging, cooking, and medicine making are features unavailable until generation 2. Now for a quick sum up:
GAMEPLAY: Improved since the first, but not that improved. The new menu system was helpful, and the icons that appear above characters when about to interact with them was useful in preventing wasted items. The bulletin board was a new concept I found enjoyable, but other than those, gameplay is pretty much the same.
SOUND: This was a let down. While the character dialogue has been expanded and improved, and the background music was appropriate, character voice overs were awful.
And when I mean awful, I mean the voices were totally wrong for their character. Most sounded like they were just reading the script in a dull monotone with little or no enthusiasm. So, while the music's good, you might want to keep the volume off for the character interactions.
DIFFICULTY/GAME LENGTH: Difficulty is good, not too easy, but not an impossible to beat game. With two generations the game length is a little long, but the game still can keep you entertained for all of it.