Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny – Review

Title: Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny
Developed By: Neverland
Published By: Natsume
Based on: The Rune Factory series
Console: Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii
Genre: RPG, Simulation
Subtitles: English
Classification: This game has been classified E10+ by the ESRB for Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol
Review Conditions: This review was done on a North American Playstation 3 version of the game. There are some slight differences between the PS3 and Wii versions of the game.
Special Thanks: This game was purchased out of my own pocket

Just like the ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection which I reviewed the other night, Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny was a title that got lost in the pile of other games I had to review… only this time around it was as I was only half-way through the game when my old Playstation 3 kicked it, and I found it hard to get motivated and build myself back up to that point for a number of reasons. However, having finally completed the game I am ready to pass judgement on it. Unlike Harvest Moon which is focused more on a farming lifestyle, Rune Factory is a mixture of farming, life and RPG – but does the travelling around an expansive sea and ending up trapped in a parallel world really do it for the game? Read on to find out in my review of Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny for the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

Aden and Sonja (Also known as %Male_Protagonist_Name% and %Female_Protagonist_Name%), two lifelong friends were living a tranquil life on Fenith Island. Thenm one day they were struck by a mysterious curse! They awoke to find both of their souls were trapped in the same body! On top of this unusual calamity, the Fenith Island they knew was gone, replaced by an island populated with unfamiliar faces. Solving this mystery will require adventure, strategy and plenty of new friends! Can you stay afloat in the Tides of Destiny?

The story begins with you playing Aden who along with his best friend Sonja are for an unknown reason exploring a temple which is filled with monsters (Cue introduction to fighting). Sometime after this event they return to their island but due to a plot twist find themselves on the same Fenith Island only with a completely different group of inhabitants and other minor details that had changed… oh and Sonja is trapped in Aden’s body for good measure. Upon being welcomed to this village by the villagers, they find themselves in possession of a golem that was once a part of the island – travelling the seas for the purposes of finding what is going on with this world and the usual cliche Rune Factory farming and defeating enemies. While there was a half-decent plot involved, it took far too much time for the main plot to kick in and overall turned out to be a rather decent experience albeit separated by some hit or miss side quests. If I were trapped on an island (Assuming I lived on that island) with people who should not have been there I would have had a bit more urgency than chatting up every female in the town and taking part in community events.

While the main story was rather average…. what about that whole community spirit thing you can expect from any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game? Well… it is there and there is quite a lot to do including getting married, having children and taking part in the many community events such as swimsuit contests, tests of courage et cetera, but these could have perhaps been improved upon a little bit better. Some of these events were nothing more than a “Vote for your favorite girl” and in the end it seemed like the girl I picked then spent every morning going down to the beach and standing there in a bikini for a couple of hours before trodding off to work. It was a nice system but needed that extra kick to really make it fun – although events such as the ones that required fishing or combat accuracy were fun enough though. As the game works on a four month calendar each representing a season, and each has its own respective season and activities so while you do loop occasionally, there is enough to keep you feeling the town hasn’t isolated you.

There was a major problem that I found detracted from the game. You are given the chance to change your main character to Sonja near the games ending… but regardless of what path you choose it will lock you out of using the other character which halves the post-game content and choice of bachelor/bachelorette possibilities unless you play through a second time. Other than that, this game will have you grinding veggies on your island farms and ignoring the islands residents but at the same time lets you build relationships with them but they will usually only reward you with brief sequences everytime you “level up” your relationship (For example – I randomly chose Violet as Aden’s main partner for the first playthrough and while you know early on she develops a crush on him – she beats around the bush for far too many level ups. You are not restricted to any particular character so if you want to hit on both the busty caretaker of the inn and the elfen maid in the mansion at the same time you are more than welcome to.

Provided on what you like from your games, you will either appreciate the storyline or find it tedious but personally it was a mixture of both for me. At the very least I can say that provided you do not mind wandering round a town hunting for people and things to do – you will rack up quite a few hours in game time.

In terms of design, the series has that nice light-hearted charm with a strong anime-styled aesthetic to the environments and character designs which was welcome however some of the texturing and other miscellaneous design features dragged it down a bit and did not allow the game to reach its full potential. I would perhaps go as far to say they tried to keep it in line with the Wii’s graphic capabilities a bit too much which drew from the overall design and resulted in it being underwhelming. I did appreciate the little things such as being able to slightly customize your character and the character designs themselves, but more work needed to be done overall. To the games benefit, it does have a couple of really well designed anime cutscenes.

In terms of the games actual soundtrack, as well it proved nothing memorable but also nothing all that bad providing an average to above average tracklist that does a decent job at setting the tone right during both the carefree days on the island and in the more intensive battles. The game has a small amount of English voice acting and it does the job.

When it came to actual gameplay, it was a mixed bag of very good to just so-so, although as this is the first game I have played in the series it might just be I am reacting to what is expected in the game series. The game can be divided up into many elements which I shall look at individually, these consist of the “Village Life”, “Navigating the Seas”, “Farming” and “Adventure”.

Village Life

While I have discussed the plot element of village life prior, there are also gameplay aspects which need to be taken into account. As soon as you appear in the village you are welcomed and provided with a house free of charge… and after a few days are given the choice to either enjoy the town or go out and hit the open ocean. The town itself has a few amenities such as  an item shop and weapon shop although you are also given the option to craft these items with materials you collect. Unfortunately this range of items is not all that diverse and through special seasonly sales you can end up with an overpowered item relatively early on during the game. As these stores are run by town members there is a good chance that the story might be empty during the middle of the day leaving you wasting more time waiting around – as while the game runs on 24 hour time it is slow when you really don’t need it to be but doesn’t leave you enough time to not pass out in the middle of a dungeon (Think of it as being similar to Majora’s Mask’s Double Song of Time). The crafting and cooking systems are all the same mini-game and not all that difficult – and not really worth the time invested into it when you build up your farming empire a bit.

The actual events were pretty hit or miss depending on what one you took part in. Some were just a simple survey where you could vote for a person and they would win a prize, or alternatively take part in a little mini-game yourself such as catching the biggest fish or breaking as many pots as you can in X minutes… it was simple but it was fun. While it also was fun building up relationships with the vast variety of different personalities on the island – actually levelling their relationships were time consuming, often resulting in basic collection quests or giving the bachelorette the same weeds or other items which were their favorite item. The game sort of benefited more from end-game when you had more time to get married, have children and complete everything to unlock that Platinum Trophy and fully complete the game.

Navigation

Navigating the world using your golem is one of the more simplistic and easy to pick up systems that allows you to either take direct control of it giving you freedom to explore or eventually pick your target location and move there is a quicker period of time potentially missing some secrets hidden within the oceans depths. The system has its limits however as moving golems drains its Rune Points, which can result in it passing out and you ending up sick the next day with decreased HP and stats. Nothing much to say about the system but it is there, with a decent but not expansive number of islands to “pick up” out of the water.

Farming

So you may expect that a Rune Factory game would have some decent farming system correct? Unfortunately if there was one system that could be called the most underwhelming it would be this. Throughout the game are four islands, each with a specific season to it that allows you to plant or create different types of food or material. While the game comes equipped with an animal micromanagement system and lots of promise all you will find yourself doing is waving your “magic wand”, growing shoots etc and then the next day come back and pick up your items. The game doesn’t let you jump into it straight away through the implementation of a levelling up system of its own, which you use environment stabilizing coloured fairies to increase the quality of your land – thus more produce, more growing zones and more money. I know they had many other systems in this game but this was the one that could have used much more improvement.

Adventure

Throughout the game are a number of dungeons and other stages which require you to fight various monsters in order for treasure and plot progression. While the game doesn’t offer much more than button mashing attack and the occasional skill to diversify things, I didn’t mind it so much and found it quite enjoyable when mixed with having to strategize when to use items, the type of weapon I needed to use (Offering a nice selection – personally I chose dual blades) and what enemies to attack first… it wasn’t all that unusual to miscalculate and end up back at your house sick. While the bosses are also few and far between they offer some further strategy which at least warranted some grinding as otherwise it was possible for a one, two or three hit KO at the hands of them.

In my personal opinion, this game had a lot that could have been worked on but I would be eager to give the next console version a chance as I do see potential given a bit more polish. Provided that you are going for the Platinum trophy or full completion you might just be looking at 50+ hours in the game which is great when it comes to replayability, but given the gameplay not everyone would be able to keep their attention for that long to even get to that stage. I am a fan of Japanese games, thus I found some charm in this game but I could not give it any more than this score unless they really ironed out the problems and gave gamers more to work with… especially since the underlying plot sounded promising, a good set of characters and given previous installments in the series a decent base concept.

Final Score
Storyline/Character Development: C+
Design: C+
Music/Voice Acting: C-
Gameplay: C-
Replayability: B
Personal Opinion: C
Overall Score: C