Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny, a great game to play!
The farming system is a staple of the game, and different from other games in the series. First, you have to befriend monsters that roam through various islands. You also need to have found islands that can host plant growth, which is indicated pretty easily when you find them. Once you find them, you'll acquire a tool to plant sprouts immediately afterwards. The monsters you then have on that island grow the crops based on what they can grow as shown on their icon in the monster book. Farming consumes RP.
The transportation in Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny is on foot when walking around the main island, and when out looking for islands, on a golem known as Ymir which can be accessed a day ( in in-game time) after going through the various events of the first day when you take control of Aden. On Ymir, you have the monster barn which houses tools for taking care of monsters, as well as the monster book. Outside of the monster barn, you can use the plate in front of Ymir's face, or the tree on his head, to control Ymir and move. In this view, you can hit the B button to pull up rocks or islands, and to throw punches and kicks at other creatures when roaming the seas, you hit the A button. When controlling Ymir, you can hit the 1 button to pull up the ocean/world map to set destinations for Ymir to go. When using Ymir to get to places, you have an RP, or "Rune Points," bar which if it runs out, consumes health instead to get you where you want to go. It also helps to plan time accordingly because it usually takes a load of the day when traveling to far areas.
The time in the game is split into four months of thirty days, each month a season, each day twenty-four hours. On certain days there might be holidays which can help get Aden some nice items depending on how skilled you are in the subject of the holiday, or whether the townspeople give items on that certain holiday.
The battle system is basically the same as what it's like when using Ymir. You can also pull off special attacks if you have a skill item in your bag that can be used with your weapon. To use the technique, you need to hit A and B at the same time. If you run out of RP, your health starts to drain, and if you lose all of your health, you faint and am sent back to your house waking up the next day, sometimes with a cold that can easily be cured by purchasing cold medicine from the town nurse from 9:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M. every weekday, or you can make it yourself if you have the right ingredients.
Crafting is also an aspect familiar in the series. you gather the correct ingredients and go to the corresponding crafting machine and craft what you want by hitting A when the cursor is on the blue areas in the bar that pop up when you click on the item. Crafting thogh requires RP, and to restore Aden's RP, you need to eat RP replenishing food, bathe at the bathhouse during bathing hours (any time except 11:00 A.M. - 3:00 P.M.), sleep, or do all of the above besides sleep unless you're done for the day. If you stay up too late though, you can automatically faint and possibly gain a cold.
To wrap up, Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny is a great game if you're looking for a JRPG to pass some time.