61 FPS Farewell Review: Rune Factory Frontier (Wii)
It’s a bit odd that my final post for 61 FPS is a game review rather than my farewell post, but I had already committed myself to doing this review and I’ll be dipped if I’m going to let it slide.
Rune Factory Frontier is the third installment in the Rune Factory series, which itself is a spin-off of the Harvest Moon series. Don’t let that skew your impression of what these games offer though. The Rune Factory titles each have decently robust action adventure elements to them along with the usual farming, crafting, and courting. However, where Rune Factory 1 and 2 feel like games with lots of unrelated stuff to do in them, Frontier ties all of those elements together into a very satisfying cohesive whole.
Rune Factory Frontier is a massive game packed to the gills with content. It’s a game that will keep you busy every moment you play while also setting up long term goals and big payoffs. It is a game that wears many hats: dungeon exploring action adventure, time and resource management, climbing social ladders, but ties every last bit together. This is an adventure game where the hero must truly be self sufficient. Think you can just waltz into the Adventurer’s Store and buy some magic potions, anti-dragon armor and a sword of troll slaying? Or go out and kill a few goblins and wolves for the money they drop to pay your way? Not so here.
The hero of this tale begins penniless and actually has to earn his money in a realistic fashion: by working for it. The options are numerous. Farming provides crops to sell, mining produces ores. Monsters do drop items but they are relatively realistic and not worth much in their raw form. Got a fur pelt? Use it to craft something more valuable. Want a better sword? Forge it yourself. Don’t have a forge? Sell stuff to pay the local architect to build it for you. Running out of energy fighting off monsters? Learn to cook so you can replenish your strength with a quick bite to eat.
There are no wasted skills, even monster taming provides you with goods like eggs and wool, cheap farm labor, quick transportation, and fighting companions. With a little effort, your home farm can pretty much run itself which is a good thing because the adventure element in Frontier is really the bulk of this game.
Past Rune Factories seemed to tread lightly with the dungeon crawling aspect of this “fantasy Harvest Moon” experiment but Frontier goes full bore with massive multi tiered ruins that are challenging to explore and loaded with monsters that can and will hand you your butt on a platter. As you dig deeper into dungeons you’ll run up against ever fiercer opponents which force you to retreat, only to come back with new gear you forged yourself and a good supply of food and potions you prepared yourself. A bit of fighting, some levels earned, and the progress you make is utterly satisfying since you really do have a hand in every component of your success. Outside of the ruins you have numerous domestic tasks to perform, villagers to socialize with, and even little bug-like spirits to manipulate to your advantage.
Most of your non adventuring time will likely be spent on various tasks like farming, cooking, crafting, fishing, and forging. While farming involves multiple simple actions like using axes to clear stumps, a hoe to till the soil and the planting of seeds, most of the other tasks are managed by a skill level based timing game. A little slider bar with a target zone pops up and, if you have good reflexes, you can time your button press to gain a high end result, be it a record size salmon or an extra powerful sword. This system is much less tedious and more engaging than what was done in previous Rune Factories, making the different creation processes painless.
One of the quirkier tasks in Frontier that hasn’t been seen in the earlier games is managing the local nature spirits. These little glowbug-like beings, called Runies, are also one of Frontier’s more annoying features. They are incredibly useful, playing a part in monster breeding and weapon forging. They’re used to alter the weather and are practically necessary for quickly growing crops. Unfortunately, they’re also a bit of a pain to deal with. Runies populate all of the non-dungeon areas and exist in a sort of ecosystem, with one type of Runey eating another type. It’s not a balanced ecosystem, however, and thus requires maintenance from you to keep it healthy. Unfortunately, this maintenance feels like busy work and the process of collecting, relocating, and releasing Runies is slow. I won’t say the addition of Runies to Rune Factory is a bad one, but if it sees a return in future games it really needs to be streamlined in some way to make it less tedious.
The other major time sink in this game concerns socializing with the other villagers, a large number of which are eligible for marriage. The characters are generally interesting with realistic dialog, but it could have been a lot better. If there is one area this series really could improve in, it’s the writing. I realize that coming up with a large cast of distinct characters can be challenging, but considering this is a major focus of these games it’s sad to see a continued reliance on two dimensional stereotypes.
Most characters have one distinguishing personality quirk and they run with it. There’s the spoiled rich girl, the depressed emo guy, the perky mail carrier, the jovially drunken tavern owner; and they never really develop beyond these personality gimmicks. Most of the characters do have interesting back stories and learning about them is fun, but once that surface has been scratched, there’s nothing more. Also, once again, I have to complain about the female characters. They have a greater variety of personalities this time around but would it be too much to ask for just one of them to have a spine? For just one to be something other than a variation on the “princess waiting for her white knight” theme? Better yet, how about giving us the option of a female lead, or hell, a gay male option. I spent most of my time hanging around the emo guy anyway. What? He had awesome theme music!
Speaking of which, the sounds and sights of Rune Factory Frontier make it a lushly gorgeous game. You won’t be wowed by fancy graphic effects, rather, the visual strength of this game is good old fashion art design. Taking the motif of a whimsical fantasy adventure, Frontier’s world is fleshed out in a storybook illustration style, filled with color and fine detail. A soundscape of chirping birds accompanies your first steps into a forest and singing frogs herald the coming of night. As time passes, four seasons alter the landscape’s character, changing the color scheme, what flowers bloom, and the musical theme. The music throughout the game is wonderfully composed and fitting for the environments and action at hand, whether your exploring a floating whale-shaped island or fighting a giant chicken-gryphon.
Minor spoiler: shows first boss of the game
Rune Factory Frontier is a finely crafted game. It’s main story sees you saving a village rather than the world, but it’s no less epic for the scale while the individual stories of the villagers themselves give the adventure a much more personal touch than what is found in your typical RPG. Frontier is an action adventure game where the hero must be self sufficient and has a full life outside of the dungeons. It takes the tasks of daily life and distills them down into engaging video game goals. The Runey system still needs some work, and the daily chores can become tedious if you sit and play for a long period of time, though the sheer number of tasks help break up the action. Finally, the writing and basic editing needs improvement. Some of the dialog is odd or nonsensical and was surely lost in translation, while other errors include sloppy spelling mistakes and missing letters and punctuation. Still, rough patches aside, Rune Factory Frontier is an excellent game with generally high production values. It offers addictive game play involving various levels of tactics, strategy, and good reflexes. One of the most robust game experiences to be found on the Wii, it is not to be missed. I rate it a solid A.
Tags: amber ahlborn, rune factory, the 61FPS review, wii
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
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Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
