Rune Factory Frontier
Encyclopedia
Rune Factory: Frontier is a simulation
Game (simulation)
A simulation game attempts to replicate various activities in "real life" in the form of a game for various purposes: training, analysis, or prediction. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, just running around, playing as a character...

/role-playing video game developed by Neverland Co.
Neverland Co.
Neverland Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game developer founded on May 7, 1993. It has developed games for Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color, Nintendo DS, PSP and the Wii...

 and published by Marvelous Entertainment in Japan, Marvelous Entertainment USA and Xseed Games in North America, and Rising Star Games in Europe for the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

 video game console.

On July 11, 2008, Marvelous Entertainment USA and Xseed Games announced that they were both bringing Rune Factory: Frontier to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, with a date of March 17, 2009. This is the first game in the Rune Factory series not to be brought to North America by Natsume.

Gameplay

The player can grow a farm. There are 4 distinct seasons, 3 of which you can grow different types of crops. Examples include: Strawberries and turnips in the spring, tomatoes and pineapples in the summer, and yams in the fall. There are many other crops, and you can grow flowers, which can all be sold for gold (the game's currency.) Farming is only half of the game. The other half is dungeon crawling. There are four very different dungeons, three of which represent the four different seasons (the third dungeon represents both autumn and winter). In these dungeons, crops of that dungeon's seasonal affiliation can be grown. The fourth dungeon, Whale Island, is omni-seasonal, and all crops can be grown there at any time.

Another feature is the concept of Runey distribution. Runeys come in four different variations: water, rock, tree and grass. Runeys represent the ecosystem of Trampoli; when Runeys are in perfect harmony, the area that they occupy reaches a state of Prosperity, and crops in that area will grow much faster than normal. However, should even one area of Trampoli become devoid of Runeys, the ecosystem suffers, and crops grow much slower than normal. Runeys can be re-distributed from area to area using a tool called the Harvester. Every nine ripe crops in the field in front of the character's house also spawns one Runey daily.

Also standard to games related to Harvest Moon is the social system and marriage system. In Rune Factory: Frontier, there are a total of 13 marriageable women, as well as many other townspeople whom Raguna can socialize with. The social system involves speaking with the townspeople as well as giving them gifts, which may increase, decrease, or make their affection stay the same. As the player, you must find out what each townperson likes and dislikes and give them gifts accordingly. Additionally, you may gain affection by participating in and winning festival competitions, or doing something arbitrary that increases only a certain person's affection, such as simply maintaining your farm.

Plot

Frontier begins with Raguna searching for a missing girl, Mist, who has moved to a new town because someone is calling to her in her dreams. Raguna moves into the town as well, living in the house next to her with a field. Then Raguna finds out that the whale island in the sky is in danger of falling on the town. Somehow Mist and another girl named Iris's fates are tied with the whale's.

Development

The game was announced during an interview between Cubed³ and Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon, on June 6, 2007. A year later, the game was fully revealed on June 4, 2008 in the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese magazine Famitsu
Famitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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