Harvest Moon is undoubtedly an RPG. Or at least, the latest Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon is. If you haven't grabbed a copy for your DS yet, or simply refuse to believe us, here are some new screens from Famitsu screaming RPG goodness.

HP/MP bars? Check. Fantasy on its title? Check. How exactly will a game about farming transition into a different genre? It's not difficult when you think about it, really. Spice up the story with an adorable older sister, a king with a scar on his left eye, a girl who loves her sword, and a good variety of places to visit, then you've got a great adventure.

Of course, we can't miss the fact that you can employ monsters to help with your farm. You also get skills and the ability to make tools and items. Like in previous Harvest Moon titles, you still get to fall in love with the girl of your choice.

Anyway, on with the screens. You'll find the characters we mentioned in their cutesy forms, as well as some shots from the many places you can explore in the game. Enjoy!

More screens after the jump!

A couple of days ago, we shared with you a partial list of developers, publishers, and video game titles that will be making an appearance at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). In relation to that, development studio Natsume has just confirmed its presence at the said show and promised to bring loads and loads of Harvest Moon titles among others.

Currently, there are three known video games from the franchise: Tree of Peace for Wii, Innocent Life for PSP, and DS' Rune Factory. The whole franchise is all about farming simulation coupled with RPG elements. If you're very much into these kind of games then you will be delighted with the company's E3 showing:

• Harvest Moon 2 (DS)
  
• Harvest Moon DS Cute (DS)
• Harvest Moon Wii (Wii)
• Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl (PSP)
• Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon Special Edition (PS2)
• Math Play (DS)
• Metropolismania 2 (PS2)
• Puzzle de Harvest Moon (DS)
• River King: Wonderland (DS)
• Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (DS)

It's good to see that aside from Harvest Moon, Natsume is also offering other titles. If we are not mistaken, River King is actually a fishing simulation which also features RPG elements.

What does is take for a guy to create a farming sim and turn it into a popular and successful videogame? When Official Nintendo Magazine talked to Harvest Moon series creator Yasuhiro Wada, we were hoping for some answers to our question and we got them, but we also got something more: details about the Wii version of Harvest Moon and the franchise's future.

According to Wada, the Wii version of Harvest Moon will fully utilize the Wiimote for all of the activities in the game. Also, rumors that the game will feature a lot of animals like penguins and monkeys are apparently true. For the old-school fans, the original Harvest Moon games could also be making the jump to the Wii's Virtual Console in the future.

"I'm thinking about it," said Wada "I'd like to do it, but if we decide to do so, I want to be directly involved with bringing them over myself. At the moment because I'm busy with the Wii version I don't have the resources to do this, but I'm thinking about it for the future."

Wada also shed some light on Rune Factory, a "branched out version of [the] Harvest Moon story." Wada is currently working on the more mainstream Wii version of Harvest Moon, while Rune Factory is being handled by another creator. "I allowed this creator to [add an element of fighting] because it's a new element of gameplay," said Wada. "But the mainstream versions of Harvest Moon will never have fighting in them!"

You can check out the full interview as well as Wada's thoughts on why a farming sim could appeal so well to a lot of people by clicking on the "via" link below.

Marvelous Interactive Inc. has now announced the official 2007 games lineup for the DS and the Wii direct from TGS 2006.

For the DS, Rising Star Games will release RPG games based on the Harvest Moon series: the Rune Factory - shin Bokujou Monogatari, Luminous Arc, and Bokujou Monogatari - Kimi to sodatsu shima. Under the Wii platform, Heroes and Bokujou Monogatari will be released.

The Rune Factory promises new monsters to fight and dungeons to explore. In Luminous Arc, you'll be immersed in a deep story and get to train your team, learn special attacks and combine objects to progress through the game. Bokujou Monogatari - Kimi to sodatsu shima allows you to build your own island while discovering new 3D characters.

Bokujou Monogatari on Wii lets you use the Wiimote in another Harvest Moon game to work the farm. You can plough the land, plant seeds, and cultivate crops. Heroes for the Wii (developed by Grasshopper Manufacture) is based on Killer7 for the GameCube, but is not a sequel to the game. It's a different game that lets you deal with social issues instead of political ones, as those found in Killer7.

The Harvest Moon game franchise has always involved two major aspects: farming life and love simulation. But with Rune Factory, Marvelous Interactive planted one major addition into the gameplay: a battle system. Well, we saw that coming, didn't we? What's interesting about it is that it adds a different dimension to the game.

Whereas before, you water your plants in the morning and woo some town girl in the afternoon, now you fend off pesky beasts in between. Ah, the life of a love-struck farmer! This is the new dimension of the gameplay we're talking about. Because not all farmers' lives are happy-happy-joy-joy. It's normal that worldly pests and monster would want to steal your well-tended crops. Y'know: dragons and werewolves and spores! Oh my!

And if that's not enough, you get to capture these baddies and corral them as "livestock" that can provide you with milk and eggs, and sometimes help you with your farming chores.

Anyways, as with the rest of Harvest Moon games, attention to seasons and time of day is very important. It can dictate when would be the best time to plant a specific crop. It can dictate what time of day a monster is most likely to appear in a specific place. Interacting with the townsfolk will likewise be important, especially regarding the "love simulation" aspect.

However, despite these, not everything is "green fields and blue skies" for Rune Factory. The controls setup is very irksome for just about anything you do in the game (buying fertilizer, chatting with your girls, battling evil gel-like creatures). And the use of the DS stylus is quite limited. The controls tend to get tedious... But then again, so is farming, anyways. So live it up, and get your fingernails dirty! This game is as good a simulation of farming as it should be!

From August 21 to 27, the Nintendo DS dominated MediaCreate's Japan game console sales chart moving 163,274 units within a week. This brings the total DS Lite units sold to almost 4 million. PSP is a distant second (21, 829) while the Xbox 360 was at No. 6 (1,197). The "other" DS sold 410 units putting it at No. 8.

On the games title chart, Final Fantasy III for DS went straight to the top on its first week of release selling more than half a million copies. The only other new release, Rune Factory, landed at No. 3 with 42,210 copies sold. All games in the Top Ten are DS titles.

Note: The number in parenthesis is the total units sold since the system/game was originally released.

Game Consoles:

1. Nintendo DS Lite - 163,274 (3,967,887)
2. PlayStation Portable - 29,945 (3,911,800)
3. PlayStation 2 - 21,829 (19,662,064)
4. Game Boy Advance SP - 2,719 (5,881,627)
5. Game Boy Micro - 1,819 (533,249)
6. Xbox 360 - 1,197 (139,243)
7. GameCube - 837 (4,156,706)
8. Nintendo DS - 410 (6,577,160)
9. Game Boy Advance - 14 (8,822,654)
10. Xbox - 12 (475,522)

Game Titles:

1. Final Fantasy III - 503,051 (NEW)
2. NEW Super Mario Bros. - 65,556 (2,901,264)
3. Rune Factory -  42,210 (NEW)
4. Brain Age 2  -  41,784 (3,073,195)
5. Cooking Navi - 37,326 (384,045)
6. Tamagotchi 2 - 30,504 (430,934)
7. Mario Basketball 3-on-3 - 30,355 (233,762)
8. Animal Crossing Wild World - 30,023 (3,149,130)
9. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day - 22,866 (2,736,150)
10. English Training - 17,465 (1,401,669)

We just realized we haven't updated you on Rune Factory: Shin Bokujou Monogatari (New Harvest Moon). Time to correct that mistake. Rune Factory: Shin Bokujou Monogatari is set to be released in just a few days, August 24 to be exact. But that's the Japanese version. However, if you really want to get your hands on this, you can purchase your copy from online stores which ship worldwide.

We came across two Netshops, Play-Asia ($48.90 plus $2.50 shipping) and Lik-Sang ($54.90 free shipping). Both stores will start selling as soon as their stocks arrive. According to Play-Asia, their copies have no region protection.

On the other hand, if your Japanese is a crusty-and-rusty as ours we suggest a little more patience and wait for the North American version. Make that a lot more patience since Nintendo has not announced a solid release date for it. Meanwhile, here's the opening movie that ought to keep you satisfied for the next couple of hours...

So what's keeping Harvest Moon fans giddy with infectious glee? The arrival of Rune Factory, a spin-off of the aforementioned series, is just around the corner now. So, what better way to anticipate its release than to drool over more scans from Famitsu!

Well, if you can't understand the Japanese text, the pictures themselves are pretty to look at. The character designs are way impressive, and even more, the creatures look astounding. Everything about this game looks so fresh; that "familiar-but-not-exactly-the-same" look and feel. While it does have a cute factor, it isn't too cutesy-wutesy for the more hardcore players (all together now: "Oooh, dragon!").

More scans from before, here and here.

Every now and then we come across a game that is as mysterious as ball lightning. Take the Rune Factory: New Harvest Moon for the Nintendo DS. Fortunately, we came across some revealing and interesting info on the game.

Rune Factory: New Harvest Moon is a revision of the Harvest Moon series. The plot revolves around a boy named Laguna who ends up in Caludia Village with amnesia. A girl named Mist came to his aid and helped him set up his own farm. The game combines the slow pace of rural life with the thrill of battling monsters including a Dragon, a Buffamo (cow/buffalo creature), a Monster Box (a carnivorous treasure chest), Big Mush (large mushroom) and a few more.

The gameplay revolves around sword fight training but the general idea is to befriend the monsters that live around the area. The farming aspect is typical Harvest Moon with over 500 types of tools available. The DS touch screen can be used to till your field soil and even catch fish. There are dungeons to explore and some may have seeds hidden inside. When seeds are sown there is a chance it would produce a Rune. Collecting the Runes will increase your Rune Points (RP). The game is WiFi enabled and allows exchanging of items and farm screenshots among gamers .

Rune Factory: New Harvest Moon is set to be released on 26 August in Japan but no release dates for North America has been announced.

Japanese DS magazine, Nintendo Dream, have published details and pictures for 12 forthcoming DS games. The scans below show off the game's details, however they are in Japanese. They are definitely worth a look just for the screenshots, game graphics and art.

Bomberman Land DS:

Brave Story DS:

There's 10 more games covered in the Full Article, check it out!