Videos

30 Years of Story of Seasons + 20 Years of Rune Factory

A video + text retrospective sharing why these two game series are among my favorites.

The usual Full Metal Fukumi YouTube banner with some artwork from the Story of Seasons series and the Rune Factory series. There is also text stating "Absolute Cinema Acclaimed Bangers Skibbidy Kino Peak Gaming".

Asalam Aleikoum how's it going. This is the companion article for our video focusing on the Story of Seasons and Rune Factory series. The video is embedded below. Followed by commentary / additional details on each of the subjects brought up in the video.

See also the Rune Factory segment in a previous episode:

We'll try to make an article/video translating the results of the popularity poll when they're out. It's also important to note that the developers published several articles, each focusing on a single one of their favorite SoS/RF characters and what makes them interesting. There are eight articles in total and the last one is about Mist, the main Heroine of Rune Factory 1. We'll try translating these too insha Allah.

30 Years of Story of Seasons, 20 Years of Rune Factory (時々日言ってたことを日本語でまとめるから良かったらみてね

00:00 self PR intro

01:00 intro

Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons copyrights conundrum

This is something I completely forgot to mention throughout the stream. The series was always called Bokujou Monogatari in Japan. However outside Japan, the name was changed in the early 2010s from Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons due to copyrights issues. All the newer games in the series, and the remakes, are now under the title Story of Seasons.

However, there are still games titled "Harvest Moon" being developed, different from the original series. I never played any of these "neo Harvest Moon" games.

07:25 The origins: Bokujou Monogatari / Harvest Moon on Snes

If you love seeing how much a series can chance through time and yet stays the same, it's a must play. Really good game.

14:30 How even Honogurashi no Niwa / Village in the Shade and similar horrific spins of farming games can be rooted to the first Bokujou Monogatari

I'm really excited for this game but I'm not sure I'll play it myself, since I avoid scary games. And yeah like I was saying in the video, the official JP twitter for the game is regularly sharing new info. Most notably how there's a "no scary things" mode. But instead of removing the monsters it simply makes it so you can't leave your home at night lol. Meaning you'll miss out of some items and stuff.

ゲーム開始時に「#あんしん暮しモード」を設定しておけば、真夜中に出歩くことはできなくなるので、怖い“もの”に出会う心配もありません🎵

🌱#ほの暮しの庭
7月30日(木)発売予約受付中 pic.twitter.com/NuZvqAliCA
— ほの暮しの庭公式 (@Honogurashi) March 23, 2026

Horror games with specific rules like this usually surprise the player by reversing or breaking these rules at some point. There's guaranteed to be scary stuff happening on daytime too as you progress through the game. So I don't trust this mode lol.

There's also how the tweet specified you won't meet scary "things" by activating that mode. "things" as in inhumane monsters. This implies that some of the villagers can be scary too, or that horrific elements can still happen in the daytime in some form.

The English announcement also explained this mode prevents you from breaking the code and thus preventing scary stuff from happening, but I don't trust it lol.

👤　コマコ
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
穏やかで優しいが、気弱な印象の少女
主人公が初めて出会った村人

🌱#ほの暮しの庭
7月30日(木)発売予約受付中 pic.twitter.com/3HvjjPC6eU
— ほの暮しの庭公式 (@Honogurashi) April 3, 2026

The characters' introductions being published on Twitter always have a few censored words, hinting the villagers have secrets. It's like the typical horror countryside story like Higurashi etc.

The very first Story of Seasons game, and the series as a whole (Rune Factory included), are all really underestimated in terms of how good and how influential they are. And they keep having great new ideas too. Like how in RF Guardians of Azuma, you can reset a relationship and marry different people without having to restart a completely new save. I'm sure this is gonna get copied by other games with mariage elements starting now.

19:30 Bokujou Monogatari Game Boy

First game in the series with a selectable girl protag, and innovative autosave. Though they didn't (I assume they couldn't due to various restrictions) include a marriage system. Haven't played it yet so I don't have much to say. Gotta try it sometime.

24:00 Harvest Moon 2 GBC

I really like this game. It has no marriage system either but still lotof cool stuff. Also has a link capability with one of the River King games. I could never try it myself so I don't know what it unlocks. IIRC there are several games in the series with link capabilities with River King games.

30:40 Harvest Moon 64

I didn't play that game that much but I remember having a lot of fun with it.

34:05 SpiceAndWolfLive's Kaela streaming HM64 was fun

35:00 My favorite Heroine in the series Popuri

36:18 Talking about the other HM64 Heroines

The HM64 heroines are pretty special in how they also appear on the PS1 game and also in Friends of Mineral Town.

38:20 Harvest Moon Back to Nature (haven't played it yet)

40:35 The first ever For Girls enhanced version in Japan, with its exclusive female protagonist

42:30 Harvest Moon 3 GBC

44:50 Harvest Moon Save the Homeland

I haven't played these three games yet so didn't have much to say. Save the Homeland is interesting in how the relationships play a big part but there's no marriage system. I also have an interesting theory regarding the chara design in Save the Homeland. This is the first game and one of the few games in the series where they went for a more mature look. I think this is due to the fact that it's a PS2 game, full 3D game (you can rotate the camera) with cell shading. And how it was released in the golden age of anime/manga adaptations, so it was more in vogue than ever to have these kind of designs. See this article: https://ko-fi.com/post/Thoughts-on-Long-Running-Anime-Disappearing-Boomer-J3J11H7Z3U

49:50 Friends of Mineral Town

I could have talked even more about this game. Some stories I won't share as it's too personal. But yeah I played this game for hours. Would replay it if I had infinite time.

55:50 Innocent Life A Futuristic Harvest Moon + the mines in FoMT paving the way to Rune Factory

I need to play Innocent Life at some point as well.

1:00:10 Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life

This game was tough. Liked it a lot but it was hard to keep up. Never reached the ending. It's I assume the longest game in the series when it comes to games with a specific ending. Also got some interesting personal stories about it but I'm saving them for my hypothetical future wife.

1:08:58 Shiawase no Uta / Magical Melody

I wanted this game so much lol, but never played it.

1:13:00 Coloboccle Station / Harvest Moon DS

1:15:00 The Best Friend system in Coloboccle Station For Girl, how it amounts to same-sex mariage in everything but name and how it got censored outside Japan. And regarding the addition of more Special/Secret/True Last Boss Heroines

The Ushi no Tane article I was reading in the video.

I was sadly too tired and stressed to properly explain everything in the video so let's do it now: Harvest Moon DS/ Coloboccle station has secret requirements to marry secret Heroines in the game. In the For Girl version of the game where you play as a female protaoginst, the same thing exist for these secret Heroines but it's called Best Friend (大親友) instead. It's same-sex mariage in everything but name. However you can't do it in DS Cute, the English version of Coloboccle Station For Girl.

Story of Seasons had romance and mariage systems since the very first game. Inevitably, this means that these aspects of the games often scrutinized in EN gaming discussion. Over the decades, I read a few articles about it, and I barely check them nowadays because I always end up disappointed. Overall there are two major problems that I notice.

The first issue is the usual racism. In the English gaming discussion sphere, in the French one, and even in the Japanese one as well (inferiority complex), people tend to be much more compliant with games made by primarily Caucasian people based in USA or western EU, and much more critical of games made elsewhere, ie Japan.

The second issue is a lack of knowledge and experience with all the SoS / RF series and hyper-focusing on a single game, lack of understanding of otaku culture, etc. I've seen people discuss Rune Factory without knowing the existence of the Best Friend system in Coloboccle Station, without knowing that Rune Factory was initially a spinoff, etc. People not knowing specific facts like how Rune Factory 5 and GoF's staff acknowledged that there's a huge demand for same-sex mariage from Japanese fans. (See for example the words of the current director of the Rune Factory series, Maekawa Shiro, during the Ryuu no Kuni / Guardians of Azuma pre release live stream that happened on January 22 2025. Staring at 54:00. It was privated on YouTube so I'm linking a reupload on Bilibili. I watched that stream live and did a quick live translation on Bluesky but I need to do an actual full summary article for ko-fi subs one day) This rebukes the dumb racists who don't know anything about otaku culture and who love to claim such mechanics are added because of "wokes and feminists and DEI and -whatever the next buzzword will be- ruining Japanese culture". (Same-sex marriage was in from the start in GoF, and it's obvious they wanted to do that with RF5 too. However it wasn't in the initial Japanese release of RF5 on Switch and had to be patched in because the game was released unfinished, with other technical issues).

Anyway I don't wanna sound too elitist or whiny, but it's just always so tiring how White gaming discussion is. I'd like to write an article about the Best Friend system one day. But I'd either have to pitch it somewhere or get a new position in games media. 15 years ago I'd just do it on my blog, but nowadays I can't afford to spend so much time doing research for free. I want to (re)check sources, check and translate magazine interviews, etc. The Best Friend system is linked with the secret Heroines of the game so it's one of the many hidden mechanics the Story of Seasons series always had. Meaning it's likely there are some staff comments/interviews mentioning it inside official strategy/guide books etc that released at the time. For example, I have a pretty good theory as to why it was called Best Friend, but before just sharing my own opinion, might as well do things thoroughly and check if the staff actually talked about it back then. Could even go extra and try to see if I could find reactions from JP players back then, from JP forums and anonymous message boards. Surprisingly it's not that hard to find if you're lucky and if there are archives on matome sites etc. Like, in 2025, while looking up stuff for a Tales of post, I managed to find posts from back when Tales of Eternia was released, and most notably saw posts from racist japanese dudes complaining they can't fall in love with Meredy and Chat because they're "black and look horrible" lol.

Things would be so much better if instead of trying to show off how leftist they are and ending up missing the mark when analyzing Japanese games, people would campaign to get more diverse people hired and platformed, especially Black people. As lotof people don't realize the existence of concepts like "closeness to Whiteness", that not all minorities are equally discriminated, and overall the blacker you are perceived as, the more likely you'll get hit.

We need to elevate the voices of Black people not from USA, Black muslims, Black trans people, Black queer people, Black disabled people, etc etc, and elevate people who are crossovers between these categories. Because people can be so unconsciously racist and misinformed about Islam they don't even know black queer muslims exist, for example.

Of course SEO, gen Ai, Google, companies who only think about shareholders and keep laying off their staff are all major problems. (For example: Inverse got rid of ALL of its gaming staff in January 2026. It was also one of the few sites with a freelancers budget. Pitching as a freelancer is incredibly grueling and mentally damaging. Having one less editor to pitch to, even if they might never answer your emails, is still a critical blow). But people have no idea how better the gaming industry would be if there were more Black people who know their stuff among the leading packs.

1:21:10 more talk about the mines and action rpg, Fushigi no Dungeon elements in Friends of Mineral Town

Just a few more details I forgot to mention before. With the mines floors changing layouts every time, and needing to manage your stamina and inventory (and the Basket trick!!!) it's pretty similar to Torneko no Daibouken / Fushigi no Dungeon. I hate roguelites and how every indie games has roguelites elements nowadays but Fushigi no Dungeon types are fun.

1:22:30 More talk about the special Heroines in DS / Coloboccle Station

I remember liking the Witch a lot. I think she doesn't return in most games after that sadly. They should have made her a recurrent character just like Harvest Goddess.

1:25:55 Starting Island of Happiness I haven't played any the games past that point yet, so just general talk

As I often say, I never owned a Nintendo 3DS so there are plenty of series that continued from DS to 3DS I never played the last entries of. Gyakuten Saiban / Ace Attorney for example I never played 5 and 6.

1:39:00 I don't like the chara design in the FoMT, WL remakes

I think this is pretty objective and not just some boomer talk. There's simply a huge lack of moe.

1:43:00 Rune Factory intro 1

Some prep talk regarding RF series.

1:44:12 Forgot to talk about the River King series a little, wanna play it one day insha Allah

1:46:08 Rune Factory intro 2

More prep talk.

1:47:05 Rune Factory 1

Starting then it was getting late and my voice is getting harder to hear. The opening movies' volume is way too loud but thankfully I never said anything particularly important. Or would repeat it later.

I have no proof but I'm really convinced Marvelous might do an RF 1 remake after releasing RF6. The game's story is barebones so they'd expand on it wildly. Maybe rewrite everything to fuse RF1 and RF Frontier into a single game. It'd mean having too many Heroines though, so maybe not a good idea.

Like I said in the video, this game's announcement was a huge shock to me. I was really really hyped about it and was not disappointed. It's really barebones, especially with how big of a improvement Rune Factory 3 is compared to 1&2, but I still recommend playing 1 especially if you care about the overarching story.

I don't like saying "X aged nicely/poorly". I think most of the time, if something was actually good, then it'll always be good. That's why I consider it a classic in the first place. Saint Seiya, Pygmalion, Braiger, Princess Sarah, Tekkaman Blade, Escaflowne, Cross Ange, and whatnot all fall into this category.

When it comes to games especially, and due to Youtube culture, people tend to exaggerate issues like "bad controls" or "it's unplayable" etc, and keep saying certain games "aged poorly" because of that. In my opinion it's a matter of mindset. Mostly, do you have the time and patience to get used to the controls or not. Are you playing with loved ones at home, or are you streaming and feel like you need to constantly entertain an audience. Overall it all boils down to whether you really wanna play the game or not. If you don't wanna play a game it's fine to simply say so. A lot of people nowadays don't wanna admit they're just not interested in something. It's a big problem with sports anime, kids anime, mecha anime, or fighting games for example. People make up false reasons to disparage these things to not engage with them, instead of saying "I'm not interested and I don't want to". And sadly a lot of fighting game developers keep trying to make these people play fighting games, not realizing they'll just never be interested. Bama talked about this really well in the conclusion of the Fate/Unlimited Codes video.

It's not like I'm a "purist" though and one thing I always did, evne more so as an adult, is using turbo modes on emulation. Don't have time for how slow certain games can be. Time is your life, not money. (I hope Shuuka won't piss me off if I ever have the time to finish watching PriPara S3 and watch S4/ Idol Time PriPara and S5 Idol Land PriPara).

Last but not least, I also forgot to talk in detail about Mei in RF1, in how she's kind of the secret true last boss Heroine of the games seeing IIRC you had to use the link capabilities to level up special fish to gift it to her or something like that. It's not possible on emulation anymore unless you use cheats or something, don't remember.

02:03:00 Rune Factory 2 and talking about Iwasaki Minako sensei

Rune Factory 2 gameplay and systems wise isn't that much of an improvement compared to 1, but the story is really cool. And has a selectable male/female protagonist in its second part. And lot of cool stuff in general.

02:16:00 Rune Factory Frontier

This could be its own article so Id like to save my thoughts for another time. I'm not giving up pitching some of the ideas too. Already talked a lot in the video anyway.

If I ever manage to write my chara design theory thing in English, Eunice is one of the chara I'd like to talk about. Really wish there were more fat Heroines and fat characters in otaku culture in general. We're getting further away from this as nowadays I feel like newer manga, original anime, and even console games are starting to design their characters the way sociage do. It was kinda wack when Nikke added Bready and some people were like "woah cool a fat girl" when she's not even fat imo. It's just that the level of sociage chara design is so excruciably low, it was seen as a level up.

At least there's still Nintendo games. The next Xenoblade game is definitely gonna have so many cool black characters, even more than Kinoblade 3. Can't wait to see it.

02:29:26 Rune Factory 3

Don't really have anything to add I haven't said. This was the first game game in the series, true masterpiece.

02:46:40 Rune Factory Oceans / Tides of Destiny

Truly a great game as well.

03:10:20 Rune Factory 4 and onwards

Didn't have much left to say - haven't played RF 4 yet, I started RF 5 when it first released in JP but the stopped because I wanna play 4 first

03:12:46 Ryuu no Kuni / Guardians of Azuma is a follow-up to Oceans / Tides of Destiny, not to RF 5

I also wrote an article in detail regarding that for Ko-fi subs.

03:15:20 Hoping Iwasaki Minako sensei is back for RF6, conclusion

They brought her back for Rune Factory 5, and she hasn't lose her edge, all the characters look cute and cool. Thankfully she kept her distinct style instead of smoothening it up to to be more in line with post 2020 chara designs. So I hope she'll stay for 6 onwards.

Thanks for watching / reading till the end. Please let me know in the comments if I missed something or got something wrong.

If you liked this article, share it with the oomfs. Subscribe to the newsletter to get future posts in your inbox. Subscribe to the YouTube. You can also get a paid subscription on Ko-fi to read exclusive articles and bring me one step closer to making "woke political games journalist otaku" my main job. I most notably try to translate/summarize Japanese live streams that are often ignored in English gaming media, besides reposting timestamps for gameplay sequences:

Some of the gameplay videos I showcased:

I subscribed to this streamer btw thanks to finding their Frontier playthrough video, they seem nice. Like, the kind of chill JP streamer who's stream on Niconico in the late 2000s/early 2010s but who streams on Youtube nowadays:

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