DS Critic Reviews

Rune Factory 2 is packed with depth and content and offers a tremendous value for its package.

Harvest Moon fans who never played the first Rune Factory are obliged to play this one. Natsume promised: Rune Factory is a new franchise, which will follow a different path from Harvest Moon. Until now, the tracked path hasn't disappointed.

This sequel is not very far removed from its predecessor at all, and while that doesn't make it a bad game, it should be taken into consideration for fans who've already invested tons of time into exploring last year's effort.

Despite the aforementioned pacing problems and slowdown that occurs when more than a handful of characters appear onscreen, Rune Factory 2 solidly integrates two disparate forms of gameplay in a lengthy, elaborate experience.

Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon is a pretty cool game with enormous game-depth and long-term motivating gameplay.

Rune Factory 2 is the best Harvest Moon title to come out this year, and if you are just itching to get your agricultural juices flowing, Rune Factory 2 provides the perfect vehicle to do so.

Another engrossing and attractive RPG adventure. [Oct 2010, p.62]

It is long, boring and tedious, and seems to exist entirely to extend the game's length and force players through uninteresting toned-back gameplay to get to the actual fun. Thankfully, once you get past the first generation, Rune Factory 2 is a completely worthy, if not particularly different, sequel, and one that any Harvest Moon fan should enjoy.

It may sound like Rune Factory 2 is a worthless game, but that's only my tendency to focus on the negative, and it is especially frustrating because the developers made so many avoidable mistakes.

Dull quests make it a step down from the original. [Oct 2010, p.83]