lol you've begun putting CAPS in your thread titles

WHEN WILL THIS COME TO EU!

Man I bought this game for fifty yesterday.

Of all the luck!

So return it (I assume you haven't played it yet) and grab this instead. Use the saved up money to buy LKS!

Edit: Aaaaaand I'm a day late and twenty dollars short. Clearly I need to get out of school more, because I've completely lost track of what day it is.

What is the attraction of this game? Isn't it just another rogue-like at heart?

Not at all. Here's the official thread, if you're interested in a few more details, but in essence it's Harvest-Moon married with a basic ARPG. Not for everyone, but highly addicting to those of us who like the formula.

I read that.  Having never played Harvest Moon, the entire OP tells me very little.

Harvest Moon is a farming game in which you must complete the tasks on your farm and do whatever extra work you can within the space of a day, which in-game lasts for about ten minutes. The game has a sense of urgency and immediacy that doesn't exist in most games, especially most console games, because there is always something fo you to do; your tomatoes are not going to pick themselves, and will rot on the vine if you wait.

Everything you do is of your choice, and there are many ways to live out your virtual life. You can build extensions to your house, marry one of the girls (or guys, depending on the version) in town, work in the mines, go to festivals...

It's kind of like Animal Crossing, only with a sense of urgency and purpose.

Actually, it's the reason I didn't like Animal Crossing much when I played it.

I see. Well, Harvest Moon (and Rune Factory) center around farming: the main goal is to clear your fields, plant/grow crops, save up cash to build expansions (barns, bigger bedrooms, etc.), and repeat. Each season has different crops to grow, and you can raise animals as well.

You also spend a lot of your time socializing with the villagers: talking to them/giving them gifts make them friendlier over time (a looooong time...), which tends to unlock new dialogue/events. Additionally, there are several bachelorettes, who you can try to marry (mostly by the same process, although they have their own special events to hurry the process along as well).

When not farming or socializing, you can fish or mine in Harvest Moon, or fish, mine, and dungeon crawl in Rune Factory. Additionally, Rune Factory has your crafting your own weapons and armor, so you'll be collecting the proper materials (usually be getting random drops from the monsters).

In the end, the gameplay's pretty basic, but for an OCD person it can get hard to put down. It's a very niche series, but give it a rent (preferably with Harvest Moon 64, or Frontier) and see if you like it.

Thank you both for the explanations.

@Words

It's the Sim's with hack n' slash features.

Sims:
Dating Sim
Farming Sim
Animal Crossingisc (but no multiplayer, doesn't need it when you sum it's parts)

Dating Sim - Simple enough, you build relationships with the villagers and also the girls who happen to be around your age (whatever that may be) can become your wife if your good enough.

Farming Sim - This is the part where you grow your crops, you can use alchemy to help with fertilizer and upping the grade of your corps; it get's fairly complex and that's not even adding in the runey harvesting. (Runeys are spirits that seem ambient but are interactive, they can help or hurt your crops growth if you don't maintain homeostasis.)

Animal Crossingisc - You can go fishing, talk to the towns people, their is a day to night system 1 second in reality is 1 minute in game. You can pet your animals, and recruit monsters and so on.

Hack n' slash:
Story
Combat
Ending?

Story - There are personalized events between each of the females and also an underlying story placing your protagonist in the usual canon role. Overall it's just something to do, the voice overs are great in fact the cut scenes are way too short considering how good they are. =(

Combat - It starts out simple enough, but eventually becomes plain frustrating to deal with the enemies, because they hit so hard or have really cheap moves, fortunately if your like me, you just do what you can to tank the hits and keep bee-lining through (avoiding enemies if possible) dungeons to continue the story.

Ending? - Yea there is one, but the personalized interactions keep narrative going well and after beating the game, but the characters hardly recognize you for your achievement.