Rune Factory's Future Looks Troubling

Yesterday was a dark, dark day for everyone, though most people don't even know it.  Neverland, the developer behind the Rune Factory series, announced that it was immediately shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, which...you know, is bad.  It's also completely unexpected because Rune Factory 4, their latest released game, did well enough to greenlight a Rune Factory 5.  It seems that they were simply struggling financially and nothing was helping it, so they're just closing up shop.  It's depressing as hell, because Rune Factory as a series, 2 aside, has pretty much been getting exponentially better with each numbered iteration and would probably continue doing so.  Though, technically, they do still have a chance to do that.

You see, it's simply Neverland, the developer, that's going out.  Marvelous AQL has owned the IP for Rune Factory since the start, I believe, and that's not going to change.  Being that they're the publisher, what it means is just that they need to find a new developer to make future Rune Factory games if that's their choice.  Considering Rune Factory 5 is almost certainly already started and it's a good series that sells well-enough for what it is, it's pretty easy to hope that they will indeed continue making it.  One can simply hope that it won't lose any of its charm with a developer change, if one is indeed going to take into majority effect.  I know, you're just yelling "STOP WITH THE LEAD-INS", but it's as much for my own benefit to assuage my own fears about the situation as anything.

The plot thickened when Yoshifumi Hashimoto, Marvelous AQL producer of the Rune Factory series made a little post on the Rune Factory blog regarding their next project, since things appear up in the air.  If you'll allow me to shamelessly steal Siliconera's translated version of the post...

“Hello, Hashimoto here.

How are you guys enjoying Rune Factory 4?

I’d like to take this occasion to make a comment about the future.

As of now, it’ll still remain a secret as to what kind of title we’ll be releasing next, but I can say that the staff members are still doing great.

I will leave it at that for now, and I thank you for your continued support.

Producer, Yoshifumi Hashimoto”

The part of that message that states "The staff members are still doing great" is what's causing a bit of the rumor mill spinning.  The people in a folding developer are generally not "okay" when the announcement goes out, much less "doing great", so there are two different interpretations of what that actually could mean.  Either he means that the Marvelous AQL staff are okay which is...superfluous to say, or he means Neverland is great as it seems to imply, which would sort of make on think that they're doing great because Marvelous has something to say about it in the matter.  People are speculating that Marvelous might be hiring some, probably not all, of Neverland's staff with the intention on making a new development studio that can continue working on the Rune Factory series.  It might seem a little too good to be true, but it does absolutely no harm to anyone to at least -hope- it's true.  At the worst, we're wrong and Rune Factory 5 will be finished out by a studio unfamiliar with the series (or Marvelous' own in-house studio, but they might be a little busy with the new Harvest Moon at the moment) and at best, we're going to get Rune Factory 5 which is still mostly a Neverland production.  Either way, it still seems like Rune Factory 5 is still a thing that is probably going to happen, and I don't think I'm deluding myself into thinking that.

Still, gotta be honest, when I first heard the news, my reaction was basically this:  (Sorry, Chance, I'm stealing it)

It's good to be optimistic, however.  To hope.  Something something, A New Hope.

I just really want Rune Factory 5 if that wasn't blatantly obvious, and Vita plz if you like, I'll buy both versions

I Haven't Talked About The New Harvest Moon Yet

No, no, I don't mean Rune Factory 4, but I haven't gone deep enough into that quite yet either.  Just last week, Harvest Moon: Connect to a New Land was announced for the 3DS, further solidifying my purchase of the system even if I would really just prefer them making Harvest Moon/Rune Factory games for the Vita.  It seems silly to be getting excited for a new game when I'm -still- excited for Rune Factory 4 and I haven't even really played A New Beginning just yet, but, well, we all know that I am excessively prone to silly things.  This is no exception.  However, there are some very big, very real reasons to be excited for Connect to a New Land just from what little information has been shared for now.

First off, they seem to be taking some of the improvements from A New Beginning and keeping them baked in going forward, which is always a good sign.  Specifically being able to pick a Male or Female protagonist at the beginning is still relatively new to the Harvest Moon series, strange as that seems, so to see the trend almost become 'standard' now is good.  I personally hold no interest in playing the female character of a Harvest Moon game simply because I play the games to woo virtual people and I'm just...well, I'm not interested in wooing the virtual dudes in Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games.  However, having that option baked in to the game's very design means that you're definitely set to get at least five characters, male and female, who are wholly interesting since their inclusion is partly being interesting enough to date.  Rune Factory never has a problem with having interesting characters, datable or not, but Harvest Moon games have had fairly small casts in the past which is helped some by ideas like this since, at the very least you get -more- characters.

Keeping with the 'More is better' theory, CtaNL will be featuring a "Safari" area which will hold a host of exotic animals that you will be able to tame and bring back home with you in case the animals you get in Harvest Moon proper just aren't enough for you.  Which...in all honesty, might be true.  There has been expansion in that field (heh) with the last few games, taking the potential roster a bit away from the traditional Cows, Sheep and Chickens, adding in Ducks, Alpacas (At least one game, if not more) and probably at least a few more things that I can't really think of right now since I haven't played ANB for more than twenty minutes.  All in all, the amount of animals that are tamable in Harvest Moon games is said to be doubled in New Land, but I'm hoping they're using a bit of an inflated figure to start, since double of five is just ten.  Which is...not a big enough number to tout as "double" or "twice as much" since you can just say ten.

Some other information from the Famitsu article that broke the news and details of the new game also mentioned what is very, very obvious from the name of the game itself - you'll be able to visit other people's ranches.  It's unclear as to how this'll be managed - the theories seem to be an Animal Crossing-esque Street Pass method where your Farm 'State' is saved and loaded elsewhere so that someone can visit it as it was in that state, ala the Dream Suite (for your town) and the Happy House Academy Showcase (for your house specifically) or just straight up Wi-Fi traveling to the other and co-habitating the same space, perhaps working side-by-side and whatnot.  That alone is rather amazing, since it's basically one of the big things Stardew Valley had on the Harvest Moon games it was clearly inspired by - multi-player farming, as inane as that might sound to you.  Which it shouldn't.  Because farming is serious business.

The game will also feature something called a "Trade Station" which will allow you to buy and sell particular things from and to other countries (unknown if this is in-game countries, or real-world countries) as a new little facet to the business numbers side of the game.  Because as we all know, you're not doing all this farming and animal rearing for your health and happiness - there's gotta be some cold, hard green involved, yo.  Farmer's gotta make bank so he can upgrade his house and get a few of the locals under their belt as a little pick-me-up between field chores.  And to buy new things like new animals and new barns and plants and tools and such, you know, responsibly growing what is generally accepted as a business to a very nice enterprise.  But also the opulence and the making it with the locals.  Mostly that.  Maybe.

The game likely won't be out in the states until late 2014, if not 2015 since it's still in development and will assuredly hit Japan months before a localization is even announced, but I think the series has expanded a niche enough in the states and elsewhere that it's a safe bet on coming out over here.  If nothing else, I'm sure a few particular people at XSEED would love to localize the game, and we would all absolutely love for those people to handle it as well.  Because XSEED does great work, you see.  And also @Hatsuu has the absolute best tweets about Rune Factory and Harvest Moon in general that I always just love reading.  So I want more of them.  As should everyone.

you'll be able to raise a friggin' reindeer in New Land, I don't even

Rune Factory 4 is Pretty Fantastic

It's not surprising that this game that I've been looking forward to for forever is wonderful and definitely something that I wanted and the like.  It's not surprising that I feel compelled to tell you to pick it up if the Harvest Moon bits of the game tempt you because the Rune Factory bits are better than ever.  It's not surprising that it's got its hooks into me in a way that few games do, pulling me into playing it whenever and however, constantly luring me and calling out to me, pleading with me to play while I'm doing important things like writing a blog post about how it does all these things.  What it is, however, is refreshing.  Vindicating, even.  I hoped - I knew- the game would be exactly what I wanted, and even that level of certainty does grant a little bit of relief when it turns out to be correct.  I can enjoy everything about it while also enjoying the fact that I knew I would enjoy it.

It's hard to really know where to begin, other than the beginning, which is actually easy enough to do.  Every game manages to have the protagonist have amnesia to start with and, as tired of a trope as it is, it's not shoe-horned in and it -does- manage to serve a purpose.  RF4's method is perhaps one of the more spectacular the series has seen and ends up dropping you right into the thick of things in a light-hearted way that the series seems to just ooze.  You're then prompted to introduce yourself to the cast of characters this iteration boasts who are just as crazy and fun as they've been in previous games, making it hard to pick a favorite immediately.  Of course that's not where the end of the cast is, however, as more people (including more Bachelors/Bachelorettes) start appearing as you get more and more into the game for various reasons.  The cast is filled and rounded out well, to put it mildly.

The controls have been refined to such a degree that doing just about anything is fairly easy and intuitive, making it just as enjoyable to play as it's ever been.  The "Magical L Pocket" as it's referred to in-game lets you hit the L button and bring up a menu (that thankfully stops time) to allow you to go through your Weapons, Armor, Tools and holdable Items and manage them right there without jumping into the proper Start menu.  This cuts down on the tedium of switching between the various things that you have to manage to do simple tasks.  Planting and watering seeds, for instance requires you to equip a hoe, use it, equip the seeds, plant them, equip the watering can and then water them.  Imaging doing that in a quick-swap menu (ala Animal Crossing) and it's cumbersome, but just imagine going into the Start menu proper for all that.  It wouldn't be pleasant, which makes me thankful that RF4 had that amount of forethought put into it.

Some people tend to worry that these types of games are slow-starters and that's understandable, especially after Harvest Moon:  A New Beginning.  While generally considered one of the best straight-up Harvest Moon games in a long time, it nonetheless had a first season that I've heard described from anywhere as "a really, really long tutorial" to "a slog" before it really opens up and lets you do things.  Rune Factory 4 is not like that.  It's not like that at all.  On my second day, I walked outside of town, Forte came out and was like "So hey, it's dangerous out here, want me to come along?", I went "Okay", and then we partied up and I proceeded to rail through the entire first dungeon without so much as a "woah, wait, are you sure you wanna do that".  On my second day, I cleared the entire first dungeon, boss-fight and all.  It was a good feeling.  There have been absolutely no barriers since then aside from the one I'm self-imposing because I need to stop stumbling into things until at least Summer if I don't want to beat the game's story before Fall.  And I don't.  I think.

Finally, the translation is absolutely wonderful, but that's hardly a surprise.  There's a good blend of humor spiced into things, of course, but it's not excessive nor is it cringe-worthy (as some tend to worry when 'humor' is mentioned) unless it's in a good way.  Otherwise, it's handled quite professionally and everyone has a cohesive manner of speaking that's individualized enough to give them all their own character.  Dolce talks differently than Forte who talks differently than Amber who talks differently than Nancy and so on and so forth.  Things are just as they should be, I should say, so I can't find fault at all with XSEED's handling of that portion of the game.  If anything, I have to applaud them for it, because the experience has been uniformly great on that front.  Of course, the game is uniformly great on -all- fronts, and it's engrossing as all get out.  In fact, that's mostly all of what I wanted to talk about for the game, so I'm going to get back into it now.  Because it's awesome, you see.

actually I'm going to watch this episode of Attack on Titan first, then play RF4 as the next one pre-loads because oh my god, Attack on Titan

Oh, My, New Little King's Story is Delightful

I have to be careful with this one here because it seems that I have not been good with first impressions lately, both with the whole Touch My Katamari thing the other week and....some other things in my personal life that are -very- frustrating and the entire reason why I actually didn't get a post out last night.  Or rather, why I typed up a short post and, still in a blind fury, hit "Save" instead of "Publish" and closed the window so I could go be angry until I wanted to relax, which is when I turned to New Little King's Story.  You'll notice that the post is still not up, which is...mostly because it was me embedding a youtube video of a Halestorm song and typing a few angry sentences about how I wasn't able to do a proper post.  So you didn't really miss anything but the song which you are not missing now.  But that all is a terrible tangent and I've gone completely off-point.

Ahem.

Anyways, I bought New Little King's Story because it was going for a paltry $9.79 thanks to the wonderful Japanese Games Sale that I talked about a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately I didn't play it until the sale was over (as it was just a couple days ago that I started playing it.) so I couldn't recommend it before it went back to retail price and it's -seeming- like that might be a bad thing.  I'm absolutely enchanted with the game from the start of it, so it's obviously endeared itself to me, surprising myself, to the point where I might be tempted to recommend it to others.  Except I'm wary to do so, mostly because of the issues mentioned above.  Especially with the price back up to $20 in North America, it's something I want to be a little certain on before I shout that you need New Little King's Story in your life if I do indeed end up doing just that.  I'll have to probably....like, beat the game first before I can decide if I'm going to do that or not and I'm not even -close- to that point.

What New Little King's Story -is- is something that I can't quite put a finger on, mechanics-wise.  It's like a really odd blend of what I can only assume Pikmin is like (having never played it) as well as the sort of easy-job system that probably has a better example than Fat Princess, but that's all I can come up with.  Basically the jobs, like in Fat Princess, are designated by hats, and you get the hats from buildings.  In NLKS' case, you send the members of your Royal Guard (basically people that you make follow you around) running into a building that gives (or sells in some cases) the hat you want them to wear and they walk out with that job.  There's a little more of a level of permanency to it than you might expect in that, while you can switch their jobs, and there doesn't seem to be a reason -not- to do so if you aren't so inclined, they will stay in that job from day-to-day.  So when you finish up for the night (game has a Day/Night cycle) and get up the next day, when you walk around town to pick your Guard again, those who were Grunts yesterday, Farmers, etc. will all still be in that job, mingling with the townsfolk until you recruit them again.

The story starts with you more or less building a domain from which to rule and that's a pretty decent start-up as any I've heard really.  Neighboring areas have monsters that don't trouble you unless you step out into the wilderness and even then they're start-of-the-game monsters so you won't be too fussed.  Though it introduces a system where a Miniboss controls the monsters of the area and when it's defeated, you gain control of the land.  So clearly, that's the idea to start out with so you can build more buildings and expand your kingdom for more subjects who will be more recruits with more jobs.  Etc. etc.  What this also means is that you should generally give a good bit of thought into your Royal Guard because there's certain things that you -don't- want to do, and the list includes: walking across a long, long distance with a group of grunts only to find out you need a carpenter to build a stairway, and walking directly into the den of a miniboss with a Hunter, Two Farmers and Two Carpenters.  Both can be very frustrating situations, let me tell you.

I haven't really even gotten into the meat of the game, though I suspect the meat is what my next objective is, so I'm -close-.  But even then, it's the first of many bits that comprise the meat, so it's going to be a fairly lengthy game, I'm guessing.  That's good.  I'm hoping that by the time I'm finished with NLKS, I'll think of it as the right length instead of wishing it'd been more or, even worse, thinking there was entirely too much there.  But I don't know -how- the game will get to a point where it will be too much of what I consider a good thing, nor do I know how this good thing can wear out its welcome.  So, overall, I'm just being quite positive about it.  It's going to be a nice ride in the meanwhile, figuring out the further nuances with the game and the jobs that it'll continue to offer.  And I'm sure this isn't going to be the last post that I make on the game, so there's that to look forward to as well.

I was lucky in that one miniboss encounter, however, since it just sat there and let my Hunter murder the shit out of it

Soul Sacrifice Looks Brutal, Awesome

Look at the screenshot above.  Now look at your Vita.  The above screenshot is concept art for the oft-teased (at least, in the last week or so) "Soul Sacrifice", a game which has just now started spilling out delicious delicious information.  A game that will be on the Playstation Vita, and a game that looks wonderfully screwed up.  A game that has literally planted itself on my radar simply by being insanity given form in a budding thing.  And a game that I will no doubt be following fairly intensely in its development process.

You've probably been thinking to yourself "Why is he eating his hand?" or something similar while looking at the above picture and I assure you, I will get to that in all due time.  First, I should probably explain the premise of the game, or at least what little bit of it has been shared.  You play a wizard that is the slave of a more powerful mage and, at some point, a demon comes by with a magical book that seems to serve as the 'hub' by the way it sounds, since it apparently lets you 'experience' the different events inside, indicating that it would ideally be the actual storyline and the way it progresses.  The wizard that you play is meant to be -your- wizard and as such, you'll be able to change their appearance to your liking, and I imagine the style in which the wizard specializes in will be up to your whims as well.

Speaking style, I of course mean fighting style, which hasn't been detailed too much, but the little bits that have been pointed out are....quite a thing.  They're the focus of the game for a very obvious reason when you get into it, and will likely be the main thing you either love or hate about the game.  You see, the magic used in Soul Sacrifice all works off of, well, "Sacrifices".  Whether it be an item, likely health or, for the big, bad spells, parts of your body itself.  Literally.  You see, the picture at the top of the post here depicts a wizard using the "Excalibur" spell, for which the required sacrifice is, uh....your spine.  So he literally rips his spine out through his mouth and the body part is used as an instrument of death, likely for a short period of time only.  After which, one could assume it just sort of...uh....goes back in.  Maybe.  Similarly, other spells discussed so far are "Greipnir" which sacrifices....the bones in your fingers, s'far as I can tell, to turn your hand into an extending instrument of torture, and "Gorgon" which requires an eye, thus summoning other eyeballs that fire lasers.  Seriously.

Some will likely take well to the rather over-the-top insanity that the game clearly has at its core where others will simply say that it's 'trying too hard'.  I'm sure with my history and the praise I've had for it so far makes it fairly clear which camp I'm in.  And still others won't know what to think beyond "How is he walking around if he ripped his own spine out" to which the obvious answer is "Shut up, that's how".  One does not question the merit of using your own spine as a weapon, but rather must simply applaud the ingenuity involved in even -thinking- about that, much less the backbone guts to actually do it.  Of course, with only these three spells being the ones I've seen so far, that's only the tip of the ice berg and I can't wait to see just what else they can think of along those lines.

Of course, there is a downside to ripping apart your own body in various ways to destroy your enemies.  Who would've thought, right?  Apparently, from a few pieces of information pulled together, the baddies of the world may just be other wizards who wielded the same sorts of spells in the same situations (fighting the wizards before them) until they twisted and mutated them into that which they sought to destroy.  It's a vicious cycle thematically, and might just come into play in the gameplay itself, especially with the Multiplayer aspect of the game that plays up on the slight "Monster Hunter" vibe the game carries.  Which is to say that there will be lots of rather large monsters that will be much more fun to take out with a friend or friends, and the Vita's capabilities will allow just such a thing to occur.

Despite the rumors and comments about the art style of Soul Sacrifice, From Software, the makers of Demon's and Dark Souls, has nothing to do with the game.  In fact, it's one of those (I'm assuming) rare games that actually have three different developers behind it working cooperatively.  Soul Sacrifice's trifecta come in the form of Sony's Japan Studio, Marvelous AQL and Keiji Inafune (or rather, Inafune and his development studio Comcept I would assume).  If you had managed to hear word of Inafune accidentally admitting to working on a Vita game, well, this would be the one and it's...certainly not what anybody expected, I'm quite sure.  Still, it looks quite out there and as I've said, I'm already looking forward to it just based on the little information we have.  There should be a trailer here soon for the game, so when it comes out, I'll link it here for your viewing pleasure!

Update!:  As I said, a trailer went up today, so let's take a gander, yes?

Still no real gameplay, but it does show what "Excalibur" looks like in motion and it's just as brutal as you might expect.  Also, at the tail end of the video, it gives a little glimpse at just what you might expect after using such a high-end spell:  Death.  Of course, with a game like this, that might not be quite as much of a barrier as you might expect; after all, the creatures of the world are only creatures because they were so badly disfigured after using so many strong spells.  Death in battle seems to be able to serve as a primary tactic as this siliconera post goes on to say.

This group of players decided on sacrifice and a wounded sorcerer set himself on fire to cast the spell Salamander. The other three players decided to sacrifice Cerberus and claim the reward.

One player sacrifices himself so that the others can finally finish off the creature, or even offer it salvation, after the end of the battle.  They will then be rewarded accordingly.  I've seen elsewhere that such a sacrifice from a player can result in a large buff for the remaining party as well, though I imagine there are other advantages.  And of course, it won't always be completely necessary for three players to reap the benefits of a victory; I'm sure part of the challenge comes in at finding out just what these times are.  With such a system in place, though, I'm curious as to hearing just how the lasting effects work.  After all, after playing your character online with others for so long, you'll likely use enough magic for disfigurement, but it seems a little odd to reward your players for success by rendering their characters to being awful abominations.  Regardless, it's something curious and great to look forward to, since even though localization is just 'an option' at this point, this is almost assuredly coming this way.