Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon

Producer(s)Yoshifumi HashimotoArtist(s)Minako IwasakiComposer(s)Tomoko MoritaSeriesRune FactoryPlatform(s)Nintendo DSReleaseGenre(s)Simulation, role-playingMode(s)Single-player

Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon^[a] is a simulation role-playing video game developed by Neverland and published by Marvelous Interactive Inc., Natsume Inc., and Rising Star Games for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console.

The protagonist, Raguna (whose name can be changed by the player), who had recently lost his memory, wanders into the town of Kardia. Starved and dehydrated, he collapses in front of the house of a farmer named Mist. Having no idea who he is, she discovers Raguna outside her home and feeds him. Afterwards, Mist offers Raguna a house on her land if he promises to work the farm. Raguna accepts, and this is where the game begins.

As Raguna continues his work on Mist's farm and befriends the townsfolks, he learns that monsters have been summoned from the Forest of Beginnings and that defeating them sends them back. Raguna obtains passes to visit seven locations (Carmite Cave, Toros Cave, Clemens Cave, Mt. Gigant, Misty Bloom Cave, Kasmir Ruins, and Danaan Cave) fighting monsters and cultivating the areas. He soon learns that the monsters were summoned by devices called Shifts, built by the Sechs Empire, who seek to dominate the world. Raguna and Mist encounter Lynette, a Sechs soldier, who explains that the reason that they were summoning monsters in the first place is to capture a powerful monster called the Grimoire and use it for their own means. After destroying her tank, Lynette is forced to retreat. Encountering Lynette again, she reveals the truth: the Grimoire is actually Terrible, a young dragon god, and that the entire ordeal was a scam arranged by Sechs to summon Terrible from the Forest of Beginnings. It was they who wiped Raguna's memory and dropped him off at the village, also revealing that he is an Earthmate, beings born with special abilities. Raguna's cultivation of the six locations and the destruction of the Shifts and tank were also part of their plan to gather enough energy to call forth Terrible. Raguna manages to defeat Terrible and send him back. Ethelbird, Sechs' emperor, arrives and, outraged by this failure, forbids Lynette from coming home and commands her to commit suicide, but Raguna convinces her not to and instead move to Kardia, and she agrees. Ethelbird reveals that he has a backup plan to invade Kardia with a large number of tanks, prompting Raguna, Mist, and Lynette (who has now sided with Raguna) to take action. When the army arrives, Raguna is ready to face them, but Terrible, now fully grown and has also sided with Raguna, arrives and stops the army with overgrown plants, forcing Ethelbird to retreat. As the citizens celebrate, a merchant named Ivan leaves the town and returns to the capital city of Norad to inform King Gilbert of the incident. They suspect that Raguna may be Ivan's long lost brother and that Ivan is really a royal who disguised himself as a merchant to investigate the town. The two then make plans to continue their conflict against Sechs.

In the main story's aftermath, Lynette moves into Mist's house and becomes an official villager. The player can then do whatever they wish from this point on, including marrying one of the bachelorettes and having a child.

The game received "favorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.^[1] In Japan, Famitsu gave it one eight, one nine, one seven, and one nine, for a total of 33 out of 40.^[2] IGN gave it an Editors' Choice Award^[13] and the award for the DS Game of the Month of August 2007.^[14]

• Official site (in Japanese)
• Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon at MobyGames