Let me say I'm not a big fan of harvest moon. But Rune Factory has given me a new experience that isn't of other HM's.
There are many different caves and you can buy swords and other weapons. Later you get the ability to create or forge your own weapons from materials you can mine in caves. Once you make a monster barn out of wood you get from chopping logs, you can tame a monster and you can take it anytime with you to fight along your side. The monsters you tame can also either help out on the farm or give you milk or eggs or something.
There's this thing called your RP meter, every time you attack or cast a spell the meter goes down. To maintain losing all your RP in a dungeon. You plant crops inside and you collect the RP that comes from them, it works very well with battling.
Rune Factory is really fun and shouldn't be missed even if you don't like the other games but thought about the realistic formula than Rune Factory will surprise you in many ways that you loved about battling monsters.
Gameplay: 8.5
Well if farming displeases you completely, than avoid Rune Factory. If there is something you think could come out of a farming game. Rune Factory is the thing to get. Taming monsters, battling monsters, farming, mining and fishing. You'll be doing this and more in Rune Factory
Graphics: 8.0
2D beautiful drawings as an environment are great in Rune Factory. However the 3D characters are kind of... cheesy.
Sound/Music: 8.5
Dungeon music is simply awesome in this game, you should listen to it with ear phones. The village music is repetitive and sucks though.
Controls: 8.0
Controls work great, other than taking items. When you take out an item every button does something else. Say you take out an herb and you want to eat it, press the wrong button to throw it away and it's gone forever though.
Overall: 8.0 A nice farming and fighting experience.