It's been a pretty stellar year so far on the Wii: Fragile, House of the Dead: Overkill, MadWorld. All excellent third party offerings. However, if there is one tiny complaint that connects them all together it would be game length. While awesome from start to finish, it can be a tiny bit disappointing when the end credits are rolling after only a day or two of gameplay. Well, Rune Factory Frontier has finally come along and it will keep you occupied for weeks, if not months of gameplay. XSEED recently made a localization deal with Marvelous Entertainment in Japan. One of the first fruits of this labor is Rune Factory Frontier for the Nintendo Wii. Taking place shortly after the first Rune Factory on the Nintendo DS, and before Rune Factory 2, Rune Factory Frontier is easily the best console Harvest Moon since Harvest Moon 64.

One of the first things you will notice immediately is how pretty the game is. The game overworld, while not huge by any stretch of the imagination, is jam packed with foliage, colors, and effects. The world is dotted with little floating creatures called Runeys that affect gameplay as well as bursting the screen to life with color. The world is entirely 3D,  eschewing the painted backgrounds of the DS titles, however, the game still looks so beautiful that it resembles the PS3/XBOX 360 RPG "Eternal Sonata" on a standard definition TV.

The music is appropriately calm and set right for the mood. While it's true there are dungeons and monsters in the game, it is still a Harvest Moon spin-off. The overworld music will change depending on the season, while dungeon and shop music remains mostly the same. The only downside is that due to the game taking so long, you might get tired of hearing the music for so long.

The real meat and potatoes of any Harvest Moon game is naturally the gameplay. Originally, you farmed crops, raised livestock, and maybe got married. Rune Factory was created originally with the idea to add monster slaying and adventuring in between your daily chores. Rune Factory Frontier follows its DS predecessors by offering a plethora of things to do, only unlike Rune Factory 2, you are pretty much able to do anything almost right away. In Rune Factory Frontier you will farm crops, tame beasts, fish, cook, practice alchemy, forge weapons, make crafts, learn magic, master fighting, paddle boats, expand your farm, woo girls and get married, and building a strong relationship with the townsfolk. Rune Factory Frontier does make some improvements to the basic farming and starting phase. Money is much easier to raise this time -- even weeds are worth something. They are also more generous on how much RP (Stamina) it takes to plow and water the field. The game offers either your choice of the remote and nunchuck or the classic controller. Both set ups are fine, though personally I prefer the classic. The game has hot key assignments for items and a quick screen for your weapons, tools, and seeds by pressing the minus button.

The game is actually more story-focused then the previous titles. The game starts with you following Mist from the first game, who's disappeared from your original village. You come to find her in the village of Trampoli far out in a forested countryside. One of the most striking features of this little village is a giant stone whale that floats in the sky overhead. It doesn't take much to reach it: simply water a plant in front of the clock tower to get a giant beanstalk to sprout. Upon entering, the spirit of the whale island will talk to you and set a quest involving 12 maidens in motion. Rune Factory Frontier really lets the player determine their own course of action, Every ability or action has its own skill level. The more you practice that skill, the higher the level becomes and the less RP points it consumes. If you're a more action oriented player you can spend the game simply building your weapon and character levels. Or you could play it more traditionally and try to create the ultimate farm, or if you're more into the Animal Crossing style of play you can play the game building strong relationships with the townsfolk and doting on one of nine eligible bachlorettes. The more you try to accomplish the longer you will make the game. Even with all that has been described, there is still much more to the game. It can feel a bit daunting, especially if you attempt to maximize accomplishments every day. While Rune Factory Frontier has made good steps forward with story, controls, and the introduction period; it has taken some steps back from Rune Factory 2. In Rune Factory 2 the center of town had a bulletin board that townspeople would periodically post quests on. Not only was this a good way to pass time and build town relationships, the board would also set up requests depending on how you were playing the game, who you were dating, etc. Rune Factory Frontier has no such bulletin board. It does have a mailing system, but request letters are few and far between. This can make raising peoples friendship levels much harder. In Rune Factory 2, secondary jobs such as cooking, alchemy, and smithing were reserved for your second generation. You only play as one character this time, and while it does make the game even more open ended, it also crams a bit to much on you at once. By spacing out the abilities by generation in Rune Factory 2, it ended up helping the game's pacing more, whereas here everything's available pretty early on.