When the Father of the Bride's neck is thicker than your entire torso, it pays to get on his good side.
In a previous post I listed some games I had missed out on and didn't really expect to play any time soon if at all. Well, one of those games found its way to me for Xmas I'm happy to report, so naturally I played the heck out of it over my generous holiday break. I speak of course of Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. For anyone familiar with this long running series, these are role playing games based on creating social ties with the locals and farming. I can only imagine what that pitch meeting sounded like when this idea was first introduced. A bazillion sequels later and it's proven itself a winner.
Other than a brief introduction with Harvest Moon 64, this is the first time I've seriously played one of these games and I find it mesmerizingly addictive, as have so many others willing to give this sort of thing a chance. However, I have to say one thing up front. This is one of those types of games that should not have reality based reasoning applied to it. Naturally, I've been thinking a little too deeply about what all is happening in game and for your amusement, I figure I'll share my musings with you.
So, I start the game as a guy named Kyle (or whatever) who has lost his memory but found himself wandering into a very idyllic little town where he gets suckered into living on a farm. No problem, he seems cheerfully committed to trying out this new life. After cleaning his new home up I guide him into town to meet his neighbors and the first thing I notice is how every parent is a single parent. There are no couples at all, which leaves me wondering what happened to everybody. Was there an epidemic? A war? A mass murder of spouses? Feeling a bit weirded out my next discovery is how about a third of the population consists of eligible bachelorettes (Alas, I couldn't start the game as a woman but at least I can pick to play as a girl or boy in the second generation...)
Unfortunately, all of the eligible females seem to have slight variations of the same personality. The only exceptions being the painfully shy girl who annoys the hell out of me and the jailbait whom I also can't stand. They all fuss over clothes and being pretty (this game isn't sexist at all, no siree). The only woman in the whole town I actually find interesting is the drunken sword lady, but she's not available.
At this point in the game, I begin my lifetime career as the town's gofer, running errands for the locals, being rewarded with tools and money, and finding treasures I can use to bribe the townsfolk into liking me. What keeps the game interesting is the sheer amount of stuff to do. There's the farming aspect, animal husbandry (or in this version of the Harvest Moon motif: monsters. See, you've got monsters that look like cows, monsters that look like chickens and sheep...you get the picture). There are all sorts of fetch quests to do for the townsfolk, there's fishing and foraging and mining, and even more skills to pick up during the second generation.
There's also the adventuring aspect since you can actually grab a weapon and head out into the wilds. I can see why the monsters tend to be aggressive; when they see a human approaching they have no idea whether they're going to get slashed with a sword or felt up. The monster taming involves petting said monster with a special glove, which is fine when the monster in question is a wolf-thing or cat-thing...but it gets a little uncomfortable when I find myself groping a humanoid goblin pirate.
Speaking of goblin pirates, some of the monsters have a skill that will help with your farm work. The only reason I picked up a goblin was to have it water the crops. However, it doesn't actually carry a watering can, and as I watch it run around I have to wonder if it's not just out there peeing in the field.
So far I have only made it into the Fall of my first year, but I already managed to get married. If you do marry early, make sure you don't pick a bride who has a useful vocation because once she marries you, she essentially stops functioning as a person and just becomes this mannequin that stands in your house and calls you “darling”. No, not sexist at all. In other words, don't marry the girl you want to buy things from like I did on my first aborted run of this game.
I really am enjoying Rune Factory 2 a lot. It's exceptionally fun in short bursts, but it's really hard not to get snarky about its content. It's also rather annoying that the townsfolk seem completely unaware that my character is married and has a kid already. The next time the bride's father threatens me about dating his daughter I'm going to hit him with my watering can.
Related Links:
Harvest Moon Anniversary: Ten Years of Potatoes and Sex
Watcha Playing: Soul Bubbles Again
Watcha Playing?: The Lost Vikings
