Magical Review: Rune Factory 3

The third installment of Rune Factory for DS. This game was released in Japan on October 22 2009, and the US version in November 9, 2010. This game will give you new features, like weapons, quests, and much more.

Story

Rune Factory 3 - A Fantasy Harvest Moon 02.png

Now comes to the story. This game start in the stormy night, the Golden Wooly (JP: Mokomoko) falls in the sky. Then a girl named Shara (JP: Sia) comes to save the Wooly and take care of it. Next day, the Wooly has just transformed into its human form. The man named Micah (マイス Maisu; Maisu in JP) gets amnesia and only gets one way: Escape from the house! At the way Micah escape, he was meet by the mysterious girl named Raven (トゥーナ Tōna; Toona in JP), then Shara, which they are townsfolk in Sharance. Shara then takes Micah to a large tree, shows you around the interior and the farmland in front of it, and gives you advice on farming, and some tools. But suddenly, a monster appears. After defeating it with your hoe, two more come. Gaius (ガジ Gaji; Gadzhi in JP), the blacksmith, appears, and lets you choose between a shortsword, a longsword, an axe, a hammer, a spear, a stave (a type of staff) or a dual blade (a new weapon in this game). Then, Micah finally defeats it.

However, there are some problems in this peaceful town. The residents of Sharance despise the horned-residents of Univir. The difference between humans and monsters fuels this hatred. Then, Micah must united that two residents before the unseen evil sweeps both of them!

Features
Now the features. You can explore the 5 dungeons and like Rune Factory 2, excluding final dungeon, since the beginning of game you can explore all the dungeons. There are: Privera Forest (Spring), Sol Terrano Dessert (Summer), Oddward Valley (Fall), and Vale River (Winter). The final dungeon, Dragon Cave can only be access once one of your bachelorettes is missing, near the end of the game. Unlike other Rune Factory games, you can invite the villagers to join battle by pressing L or R when talking, though you can invited tamed monsters and also Magic Seeds!

The most things to look out is Time. The time flows very fast than previous Rune Factory games! And the very important, the times flows even in indoors and outdoors! So, it's important to look the time in top screen.

If you like, you can visit Yue and Mei where they arrive randomly in Miyako Inn in 2nd floor. Mei can change your name or your farm if you like (but its useless for me since I dislike changing the default name of the hero...), and you can buy random thing from Yue (nah, she's useful for me)! The cons, they can't be married neither have a face icon.

Shop is more unique! You can buy some Crops you shipped or random Weapons. The shopkeeper was changed depending of the day (ex: Raven was in charge at Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when Gaius was in charge on Tuesday and Thursday).

Quest was changed too! There are 3 locations where you can take quest. There are Bulletin Board, Mail Box and Owl. But unfortunately, you can only take one quest per day and location (ow, darn...). There are 3 types of quest, General Request, Simple Request, and Battle Request. General requests have the greatest amount of variety and tend to be related to how well the main character has gotten to know the individual villagers. These sort of quests are also unique and are not repeatable. Simple requests are usually small tasks that can be repeated many times, the reward is random. Battle requests typically involve the eradication of problematic monster mobs and can also be repeated multiple times.

There are 11 marriage bachelorettes you can marry on. But, first you must united Sharance and Univir first, also you must complete 9 requests from her. There are:

Carmen (イオン Ion; Ion in JP): Loves fishing and her brother. Helps out the family fishing resort. Full of energy and easily excited.

Collette (ショコラ Shokora; Chocola in JP): Works at the diner. She'll out-eat anyone in town...unless she's distracted by food.

Daria (ダリア Daria): An excitable and eccentric artist of many mediums. She LOVES rainbows.

Karina (カリン Karin; Karin in JP): Unbelievably lazy girl who works at the general store. She's napping on the job.

Kuruna (クルルファ Kururufa; Clurufa in JP) : The proud elder of the Univir settlement. She has an intense hatred of humans, but cares deeply for her monster brethren.

Marian (マリオン Marion; Marion in JP): Outgoing girl who is training to become a doctor. However, her treatments don't always go as planned...
Pia (ペルシャ Perusha; Persia in JP): The bathhouse assistant. Ditzy girl with a bit of a fishy secret...