"Take all the crop growing, harvesting, fishing, and courting you'd normally find in a Harvest Moon title, and then add in a healthy dose of hack and slash dungeon exploration and you get Rune Factory, described by producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto as 'Harvest Moon where you wield a sword.'"

Perhaps this game will add a little life into the Harvest Moon franchise. I've been wanting to play all the new Harvest Moon games, but they just don't sound that interesting, probably because it's the same old story: you take care of your crops and livestock, and try to start a family. Adding an RPG element makes this game feel more... complete. And apparently it's been doing extremely well in Japan. Rune Factory comes out for the Nintendo DS in August.

(from Kotaku)