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Natsume's Rune Factory was a change of pace for the normally-staid Harvest Moon series -- a fantasy-infused take on the farming sim where you spend time not just tending to the crops, but also exploring dungeons to kill and/or tame the monsters lurking about inside. The formula worked well enough to merit a sequel which is hitting the US this fall, and now some more details have been released on Rune Factory Frontier, a brand-new Wii game and the first time this particular series has hit a non-portable platform.

You once again play the role of Raguna, good-natured adventurer and occasional farmer, as he ventures to a new land and tames it to do his bidding. As before, you have to carefully tend to your crops and animals if you want any chance of success, and you'll uncover monster lairs as you explore the world around the village that serves as your home base. Mist, the lovely girl that saved Raguna's hide in the original Rune Factory, is back -- but now she's only one of approximately nine girls in Frontier who could potentially become your lover and wife, including twin girls named Eris who have the strange power to communicate with spirits.

There's a load of new stuff to check out in Frontier, not least of which are the new 3D visuals and a wealth of original anime sequences to introduce the girls as you encounter them. In the game world there are spirits known as Runies that float about; there are four types of them (Aqua, Tree, Rock and Grass), and they co-exist with each other in a set food chain. If you can keep the Runie population well-balanced, relocating certain Runie types to and fro to ensure no single type grows too numerous, then your crops will grow faster -- keep it unbalanced, and you'll run into some major farming problems. These Runies can also be used by a certain NPC in-game to create miracles known as Rune Wonders; you can summon these to make your monsters friendlier, cause certain plant types to grow quickly, and so forth.

And that's still not even the half of it. To be blunt, Frontier is a huge world, with everything from whale-shaped islands in the sky to a mail service that lets you exchange items with your Rune Factory 2 game, and if you're an OCD personality game-wise, you may want to pay close attention before it ensnares you permanently. Japanese Wii owners will get their first glance at the Neverland-developed title November 27; the game has not been formally announced for America yet.