Fantasy Farming: Orange Season vs Rune Factory: Frontier
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season is a relaxing farming game and is an amazing new addition to the growing popularity of farming games like Stardew Valley and other similar games, such as My Time at Portia. Grow various crops and earn tons of money, go out foraging and sell what you get, and build relationships with a colorful cast of characters in town by helping them with tasks, giving them gifts, and simply talking to them every day.Being essentially a farming simulation game, you can expect to spend most of your playtime planting, watering, and harvesting a variety of crops. The game starts you off with a handful of them, but as you progress, more crops are unlocked and you’ll then be able to buy their respective seeds at the store at a price. Some seeds even require specific conditions to grow.
Considering there that crops take some time to grow and mature, you’ll likely be spending most of the remainder of your time trying to earn cash by foraging. Foraging here means picking up stuff that is dropped on the ground like sticks, fruits, flowers, etc. Once you can go into the mines and start mining for stuff, you can harvest a variety of valuable ores and stones as well.
You’ll also want to head over to the town as soon as you can. Here, you’ll be able to interact with a variety of characters, some of which have quirky personalities. You’ll need to help them with their requests from time to time and you’ll get something nice in return. You can also gift them presents and depending on what they personally like, they may or may not appreciate said gift.
Fantasy Farming: Orange Season has a gameplay that’s somewhat similar to another indie farm game, My Time at Portia, albeit with cute pixel graphics similar to Stardew Valley. And if you love that game, you’ll definitely love this one. The grind here is real though, so if you find grinding for materials on MMOs to be fun and relaxing, you might be able to enjoy playing this game.
Rune Factory: Frontier
Rune Factory: Frontier sends you to the frontier town of Trampoli where you are expected to set up your very own virtual farm. Desiogned for the Wii console, you can literally do everything in the game simply by using your Wii remote and nunchuk (classic controllers are compatible as well), be it tilling the land, fighting monsters or fishing. The game has a much improved interaction system where your interactions and relationships, including romantic ones, feel a lot more life-like than usual, adding the rare EQ element to the gameplay.Unlike the previous games, you don't need to recruit monsters or townsfolk to maintain your farm for you. Due to the game's dynamic ecosystem, symbiotic creatures called Runeys will help hasten the growth time and quality of the plants you produce. And of course, there are plenty of dungeons for you to dive into, monsters to fight, and rare items to loot.
Rune Factory: Frontier is a pretty entertaining game overall, especially if you've enjoyed any of their previous or later games, and is definitely worth your time and money.