More of an Adventure than Anything Else
I'm more than 30 hours in, and I could say- if you're expecting a relaxing farming game like Harvest Moon, then this is not the game for you.
This installment of Rune Factory kind of brushes aside the farming in favor of exploration, battling, and taming.
Yes, taming.
As I've mentioned, don't expect much farming cause your monsters will do all that for you. You don't buy seeds, you don't till soil, you don't water the plants... cause your monsters kinda do all that for you. You plant crops through magic, and what grows up out of it depends on the kind/s of monster/s working in your island.
While yes, farming is left out, I still enjoyed the game immensely. I like exploring ruins, I like battling monsters, I like taming monsters, I like the thrill of discovering new lands- and these are enough to satisfy my gaming needs. All in all, I guess farming was thrown away in favor of Rune Factory's other elements.