The player is able to use food to tame and then befriend any creature that is a significantly lower level than your character. Whilst the mere mention of befriending monsters may immediately bring the likes of Pokémon to mind, within Rune Factory 3 such a concept serves an entirely different purpose. However, through story progression, you are soon granted the opportunity for expansion, allowing you to construct, for example, a Forge, Workshop and Barn for your sole use to delve into crafting or to befriend monsters. The Sharance Treehouse in which you reside remains an invaluable resource throughout the entirety of the game, initially providing fundamental mechanics such as a bed to rest in, a calendar to keep notified of upcoming festivals, and item storage. You’ll also intermittently face boss battles although these won’t pose a significant challenge to those that soon discover that the usual RPG fare of attack, dodge, repeat works a treat, all the while healing where necessary. The dungeons, which encompass Privera Forest, Sol Terrano Desert, Oddward Valley and Vale River, not only provide a further opportunity to level your character by defeating increasingly difficult foes, but also allow you to secure more valuable herbs and materials as well as weaponry and tools. Doing so then ultimately allows you to raise the overall level of your character, strengthening their core attributes and allowing you to tackle the more challenging dungeons that surround the village. Fun, if not a little bizarre!Įverything you do, whether it be trivial activities such as walking or sleeping to more significant elements such as combat or farming, allows you to continually gain experience to become more proficient with such specific skills. Opting to check them out though can provide a number of humorous moments, a personal favourite being a festival in which the player is required to repeatedly attack a giant Wooly with a large fish in order to remove the wool from it.
These are then uniquely blended together with role-playing elements that have allowed the series to differentiate itself from its Harvest Moon counterpart.įestivals themselves are optional, with the player able to choose whether to involve themselves within them or to completely ignore them and continue to do whichever daily tasks that you prefer. Much of your early hours with Rune Factory 3 will see you performing basic tasks that allow you to get yourself acquainted with the game growing crops that are then able to be sold for profit, fishing, gathering materials and partaking in village festivals. Micah soon realises that he must utilise his unique ability to rebuild the trust between the Univir and humans, to allow them to once again live peacefully alongside one another. This allows him to come into contact with a nearby Univir settlement located within the desert, where he learnt that the horned Univir once lived amongst the humans in Sharance Village but were exiled due to a disagreement. Though Micah soon discovers that he hides a secret: that he is a half-monster and is able to freely transform between either a human or ‘Wooly’ (a two-legged sheep-like monster). Making the villagers aware of his predicament, Micah is then allowed to take up residence within the Sharance Tree until his memories return, and is tasked with taking care of the farmland that surrounds the tree’s roots.
Rune Factory 3, as this latest game is aptly titled, follows a similar storyline set-up as seen in previous entries within the series, where a young boy, Micah, falls into the care of a nearby village only to wake the next day to find himself suffering from amnesia. Rising Star Games have at last brought the latest instalment in the Rune Factory series to European shores, providing the perfect excuse for role-playing fans and farming aficionado’s to while away the hours on their Nintendo DS.