Rune Factory 3 Review

Rune Factory 3 is a FarmPG for the Nintendo DS

The games that I enjoy the most seem to ask a certain quality from their audience. They have some laser targeted goal in mind that asks for a part of you in exchange for sharing itself. It's all give and take. Demons Souls asks dedication and knowledge of you, STALKER asks that you buy into some mythology and roleplay a bit, and Ninja Gaiden Black (I've said before, my idea of a perfect game) asks perfection and a honing of the right skills. Rune Factory 3 is something of an anomaly in that respect. It can ask quite a bit from you. If you're business minded, entrepreneurial, curious, eager to explore, or all of the above you can flex every muscle and succeed on a variety of levels. But... you can also take your time in life. You can pick the weeds and grass that naturally grow in your garden for a bit of money talk to some people and live socially, and basically survive on the smallest amount of effort possible.

Seriously. I'm not even fucking trying.

It's your regular farm simulator, slice-of-life RPG. It's Farmville with character. It's the Sims with a point. It's Animal Crossing without the kleptomania and with a womanizing streak. It's an endless summer camp where you can grow and profit and maybe walk away with a life-lesson and a story. But hey, if you want to be stubborn about it, you can pursue pure wealth and just kill everything in sight. The game is less directed actions toward a goal and more you deciding your own goal and making the means to attain it readily available.
On the down side, it's allow-for-everything approach tends to simplify what's there. Fishing boils down to dropping a line and waiting to reel in at the right time. Fighting is frantically mashing the attack button while trying to avoid occasional telegraphed attacks. Farming and crafting however, have multiple layers to consider, and the multitude of items you can grow, scavenge and create add to the complexity. The bottom line, however, is that it's enjoyable.

I enjoy slaying wildlife, okay? Endangered is just an excuse.

I attribute a large part of this enjoyment to the incredibly compelling leveling system. You gain levels in just about everything you do. Fighting with particular weapons, farming, fishing, walking, getting hit, cooking, sleeping, EVERYTHING. So no matter what you're doing you're making some sort of progress and it becomes harder and harder to put the game down. The screen showing your progress in all these areas is really only a collection of bars that indicate what level you have at the moment and your progress towards the next one, but it is truly an exercise in Pavlovian psychology. I don't know why I enjoy all these big numbers, but when the words SKILL UP flash across my characters head I can't help but salivate at the thought of being able to sleep and fish better.

But never as good as this asshole.

Of course it all goes toward a general character level like traditional RPGs, and it all more or less affects your base stats as well as your health and exhaustion capacity, but I constantly find myself trying to level up things I just don't care about. I want those flashy words. I want some marker of my progress. Sure this type of system has been done in other RPGs, but I've never seen it given such an impulsive twist. It always seems like one of your meters is on the very cusp of completion right as you're about to quit, and 20 minutes later, it's another one. The game's ease of use and constant economy of attainment combine to form some sort of complex state in me that I can only imagine crack-addicts feel in the throes of addiction. It's absolute madness. It's fucking fun.
It also helps to be just the tiniest bit invested in the world. The story is really sparse when it's even there at all, but there's a lot of character here. The speaking denizens of the world can quickly become archetypal and one-note, but they're entertaining and there's bound to be at least one you grow attached to.

This is my fetish.

I do feel really bad. I was instantly enamored with this game, like a toddler with a particularly shiny piece of silverware, but I still find myself unable to enjoy Minecraft. The two are wildly different games, but their opposing philosophies set me a-ponderin'. Minecraft is the ultimate expression of freedom. You can do literally anything. There is no set progression or story, but the world is yours to do whatever you will. You can mold the landscape or just wander for days and build dick towers to pass the time, or build gigantic monument dick towers on a (relatively) small spot of land. Rune Factory 3, in comparison, leads you completely by the nose. Your progress and exploration is dictated entirely by the game, but you have a fairly neat world and array of characters, and a distinct set of goals. Compared to Minecraft, you are a slave.
So why do I prefer slavery (though slavery presented in a cutesy anime-style package) to absolute freedom? I think it speaks to seem deeply rooted aspect of my character that I'd rather be told what to do than define my own goals, but maybe I enjoy my digital shackles. Surely this philosophy doesn't carry over to the real world, right? Is that depressing?
Let me put it a different way. Minecraft, to me, is like a big empty field. It's huge, enormous even, and you are free to roam and hey maybe there is a friend or a perfect spot for a dick tower on the next horizon. Rune Factory 3, by comparison, is a backyard. You're locked in by a picket fence, but you wouldn't ever want to leave because holy shit there's a roller coaster here and some interesting women who would just love to talk to me about my latest turnip harvest and subsequent baking extravaganza.
More than likely I will grow tired of this game. I may even regret the score I'm about to give it (spoilers: it's a one out of one), but the fact is Rune Factory 3 is just instantly fun to me. I get lost in it. And all that it asks of me is that I put on some shackles and pretend that they're bracelets.

You're probably just mad on account of me stylin'.

Rune Factory 3 gets a one out of one.