I traded a review copy of Orcs and Elves for Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. "Right after Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl?" My editor told me I was crazy. I probably was, but the combination of RPG dragon slaying and the object – time management aspect of Sim-Farming was too heady a lure. I wanted to see how well it would be achieved. The verdict? Very well, indeed. Natsume have done a bang-up job of delivering a fantasy Harvest Moon.

Gameplay
In classic Harvest Moon tradition, this is Sim-farming. You are Raguna (although the name can be changed), a young man who has found himself in a strange land - hungry, confused and ragged. A mysterious woman known as Mist asks you to help on her farm. You grow crops, harvest them, sell them, upgrade your tools and weapons, improve your house, build farming structures, grow better crops by creating better seed, learn to cook, socialize with townsfolk, participate in the town festivals, and finally woo a wife.

Formulaic? Perhaps. But in Rune Factory, you also have the ability to harvest runes to fortify your stamina (known as RP or Rune Points), eat to regain your health and... slay monsters! With sword and magic, you - the intrepid farmer warrior - explore caverns and destroy monsters. Why are you exploring caverns? For within can be found precious ore and minerals with which to upgrade your farm implements, your weapons (of course) and you can tame monsters.

Graphics are immensely fun with a bit of cute overload as the tameable monsters are indeed adorable and look strangely familiar. Some look like… sheep and squirrels, and live in monster houses that you pay a fellow in town to construct for you. Some of these monsters act like livestock and provide marketable commodities such as milk and wool; some will assist you in taking care of your farm by watering or harvesting your crops.

But some of them will actually accompany you into the caverns and battle at your side! So keep a few monsters. They do have to be maintained through grooming and feeding but they are more than worth the effort. Feed can be grown on your farm, allowing you to build up a stockpile before you go taming them.

The play is amazingly deep as you delve further and further into the caverns, leveling your character by slaying evil monsters with sword and magic. In each sub-level you'll find arable land. That means that you can grow crops out of season, and harvest runes to top up your stamina while inside the caverns. Rune Points are important as every action with tools or weapons requires some. If you run of out Rune Points, your actions will begin to eat into your health.

Caverns are opened up — once again by in-game actions, beginning with tilling most of your farm before visiting the Mayor. He likes to reward hard work, so visit him again once you till a couple of plots in the first cavern you visit.

Progression is linear — you have to do A before B, B before C and such, but it's a logical progression and this isn't an MMOG. There are puzzles in game to unravel and most of these have to do with simply talking to the townsfolk, trying to find out where you obtain the various weapons and spells required. This can prove a little irritating as different in-game actions trigger others and the manual only hints at a few, but when taken in context of RPGs, this mechanism is a standard part of them.

I ranted a little when I finally found my Monster taming glove but not my hammer — how am I going to mine without it? — because it was the maid at the mansion that handed it to me. Similarly, her mistress, the spoiled pampered daughter of the richest man in town was the one to hand me or rather, had her maid gave me my axe. First she insults me for my ragged clothing and rundown house, then tells me I need an axe to improve it.

"Tabatha! Tabatha! She calls. "Go find an axe for Raguna." Go figure. The lady at the beach selling bait gives you a fishing pole but the local snooty princess gives you your rusty axe.

The woman who provides you a farm to work on is a mystery — and you feel as if the townsfolk are all laughing at you in the beginning of the game, as they do! "Oh, you are working for Mist! Teehee!" "I see Mist got some fool... err... someone to help her."

This is one of the puzzles in the game that you will revisit as you progress and begin to court a potential bride. There are ten to choose from and the manual hints at mystery for a few of them - such as the one that disappears on sunny days.

Monster slaying is accomplished only in the caverns where monster generators spawn daily. To explore or farm underground, you’ll have to destroy the monsters and the generators daily. Farming in the caverns provides you food to replenish your health, herbs to cure some effects such as poison, and runes to replenish your Rune Points.

You are a real weenie when you begin and direction control is awkward, so you'll find yourself doing some good old zone camping. Venture in far enough for the monster generator to spawn monsters, lure them down the cave entrance and there's only one direction to fight them in. As you venture further into the caves, you'll have gained enough experience to properly position your character and further strategy.

Visit town often. Running doesn't use Rune Points and like other Harvest Moon games, a bath does wonders for you physically and spiritually. Visiting town also allows you to check out the new items merchants may decide to sell you after they've heard of your intrepid adventures in the caves; and reading Library books may provide you more useful information including... spells!

Game Controls
The manual for this game is well written and provides many clues and tips for success in the game. I highly suggest reading the whole of it. Surprisingly, the touch screen on the DS is not used for movement. You have to rely on the D-pad. However, one piece of programming which I heartily approve of is the use of the touch screen to macro actions. With the proper equipment assigned in the hands slot and active, a touch on the proper square will cause your character to walk over to that square and perform that action. These actions can be queued, and you will find that particularly helpful in repetitious actions such as watering your crops.

In monster slaying, whether with weapons or magic, aiming is also square dependent. Face the wrong way and you swing at air. This is surprisingly easy to do because you are using the D-pad for movement, and your character faces the direction it is moving. It's hard to get him to face the right way during combat when whack-whack, you're dead. When you die, you revert back to your last save, so the savvy player saves often. Until you have gained a few levels and hence some hit points, you'll be running often. Keep that getaway spell handy.

The user interface and various screens are well laid out and make use of the touch screen's capabilities — touching to get item specs, dragging and dropping, etc. There are many menus and they are all easily accessed. The upper screen is really pretty useless. It displays the Overview Map of the world but doesn't track your movements. It just displays where you are on the map. In the cavern. Somewhere. It doesn't tell you the name of the cavern, so it can take you some time to find the correct one after you receive your cavern pass, and it doesn't map the maze which is the cavern itself.

Extras
Rune Factory makes use of the Nintendo DS' Wi-Fi capabilities and allows you to connect with other players to trade items. This is actually done with an in-game action. Visit the beach and explore the large shell on the shore.

The game also has screen shot functionality. These screen shots can be viewed on the monitor inside your home. Not only that, when you are viewing your screen shots, you can also draw on them with your stylus.

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon is a title that will keep lovers of the RPG and simulation genre happy for many, many hours of play. Neither Harvest Moon titles that I reviewed thus far has been a "play for 3 days, write a review" type game as some DS games are. Rune Factory is definitely a more complex game with the addition of the RPG monster aspect. As Natsume continues to develop the Harvest Moon titles, I look forward to many more combinations and permutations of an old title. Yes, for someone who could not begin to envision enjoying a Farming Sim, I am hooked. Now... just how do I pry the futuristic Harvest Moon: Innocent Life or Puzzle de Harvest Moon out of my editor?