I haven’t always been a fan of farming and life sim games. For most of my life I very much had the wrong idea about them, as my assumption was always that they were slow and lackadaisical. Then Stardew Valley came around, and my game-world view was forever changed. Since then, I’ve played a number; Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Animal Crossing, My Time in Portia etc. You could even say I grew to love them thanks to my wife’s love of the slow life and all things cute.
My biggest problem with the genre however was the lack of good, meaningful combat. You might be reading this thinking “…but it’s not that kind of genre!” and I get that, but there still felt like there was a gap there. Even in farming sims with combat, such as Stardew and Portia, it always came across as an afterthought – a very simple system without many options for build.
So going into Rune Factory 5, I was somewhat excited. Knowing that the series originated as “A Fantasy Harvest Moon” in 2006 and that it had pretty much lain dormant since 2012, I was interested to see how it would match up to these more modern examples.
As with most Rune Factory games, you play as an amnesiac hero newly arrived in an area. This time around you appear in the town of Rigbarth and are immediately conscripted into SEED – a group of “rangers” who protect the people of the land from monsters. You are given a plot of land near the station to farm and the tools to do so, and are asked regularly to do various missions in the surrounding areas. In doing so, you progress the story – concerning the protection of the natural order of things – and unlock new skills, abilities and plots on which you can expand your farming efforts.
I’ve got to be honest here – RF5 did NOT grip me in its first few hours. Unfortunately, it falls into the same trap which plagues many titles – it tutorialises everything. Your first few weeks in Rigbarth feel like a slog, with new elements and mechanics being drip-fed at a snail’s pace. It also doesn’t help that the early hours are full of ponderous and long cutscene segments introducing you to the characters, or that the protagonist walks more slowly than my gran. Eventually though, you are given your freedom to farm, explore and socialise at will – and I can seriously say it’s worth the wait.
I consider there to be five main components to RF5 – the story, the farming, the crafting, the combat and the socialisation. Whilst they are all inextricably linked, each feels like its own phase inside the game, hence I’ll be tackling them separately.
The story feels like the main focus throughout your first 20-30 hours of play. It gates off mechanics and opens the world up gradually, but aside from in the opening section I didn’t mind being dragged back into it from time to time. As the days progress you’ll gain new missions, and eventually gain access to dungeons. Usually, it’s these dungeons which the story inevitably leads to – and defeating the boss in turn pushes the story forward back in the town. The first act concerns itself with preventing an antagonist from draining the power of rune spots, and it feels like a real chase as you track down the culprit and face him. The second act comes after a short break, and I must say that it really upped the ante with its unexpected revelations. It isn’t the longest story mode I’ve ever seen in this genre, but it feels like more of an actual journey than you usually see. After the story is finished, you can continue to engage with the game like in any other farming sim, and whilst I missed the progression in the post-post-game I still enjoyed my time interacting with the townsfolk and increasing my riches.
Next, farming! You start out with a very small patch of land, and like most similar titles it’s an absolute disgrace! Mercifully, you eventually gain the tools with which to tidy up, hoe, plant and water – and eventually you even gain access to new, much larger areas to farm. If you’ve played one farming sim, you know what to expect- mostly. What I enjoyed about RF5 particularly was the depth of the systems in the background, which can be engaged with if you choose – for example…
- Each patch on your farm has its own quality level which can be boosted using fertiliser, with higher quality earth producing better crops. Some crops take a greater toll on the soil, whilst others can actually be cut down instead of harvested to renew it.
- Seeds have their own individual quality levels. The more of a crop you produce, the better the quality your future examples will be. So, if you grow a load of turnips, there’s a chance that the next time you go the shop they will have level 2 or higher seeds, for example. This can also be achieved through cutting down your crops instead of harvesting, which again rewards you with higher quality seeds.
If you want to micromanage to get the highest quality of seed and crop, you can. If you just want to enjoy the world and combat instead, whilst also having a steady stream of good, but not optimal income, you can. I really appreciated this balanced approach and found it much more relaxing that other contemporary examples. Aside from at the start – where my energy was a limiting factor – I rarely felt overwhelmed by the farming in Rune Factory 5. Every action you can perform has a skill level which increases the more you perform that skill. Running around naturally increased my speed, hoeing made it so that it took less energy etc. This meant that by the third week I was pretty much done with my farming by midday, and so could spend the rest of the day catching up with residents, diving into dungeons or capturing animals. Compare that to the panic and frustration I felt every harvest day on Stardew Valley as I ran around frantically planting and fertilizing past 1am. Rune Factory just doesn’t give you that feeling, and my blood pressure is all the better for it.
Crafting comes in many forms here – you can learn cooking, chemistry, crafting and smithing recipes once you have the appropriate license, and use them to improve your home, arsenal and bank balance. Strangely, most of these recipes are learnt through eating bread, but I’ll let that slide. There’s a lot of flexibility to the system, with many recipes outside of weapons requiring types of items instead of just specific ones. As an example, to craft Chain Mail you need a piece of silver and a piece of string. That string could be an old bandage, a vine, some spider thread, a tentacle or even just a simple piece of string. Different materials will affect the difficulty of creating the item, but also give it a higher level or additional states. Again, this flexibility gives the player the choice of either getting a weak example now or a better example later, and in doing so it caters for both min-maxers with specific build in mind or just general players.
Combat in Rune Factory is actually fun! As you traverse the world you will find a variety of monsters out for your blood, and so you will need to fight. You can do so using 8 different types of weapons – swords, long swords, spears, axes, hammers, dual blades, gloves or staves – and by casting spells. Each weapon feels unique to use and each have their own levels and combo-attacks to play around with. The spells – or runes – can either take the form of a special weapon attack or a more traditional spell, but you’re able to slot a lot of different ones at once and play around. There are also a number of elemental types and status effects to consider. With all this in mind, you can really fight however you want to and there’s enough depth to actually make you think about your build. With tougher enemies and bosses, you’ll also need to block and dodge, watching out for signs that the enemy is about to attack. It’s not exactly Dark Souls, but in certain fights you really need to watch out for enemies winding up to avoid a costly death. In short, the combat is the best I’ve seen in a farming sim, and that’s high praise.
It’s not always just you on the battlefield though. You also have the ability to capture and befriend monsters, who can then either tend your farms or join you in battle. Some can even be ridden. Whilst this aspect isn’t as customisable as something like Pokémon, it was nice to have some friends along for the journey and to back me up. I was even able to befriend the first boss – a nine-tailed fox. She NEVER left my party.
Of course, as you’d expect there’s also a lot of socialising to do in RF5. You can build relationships with all of the townsfolk and even marry a few of them. Relationships play out as in any other similar game, but with the addition of being able to invite them to fight alongside you on your adventures. I liked having Fuuka (the fox-tailed bachelorette) fighting alongside me and my monsters, though if I had one criticism it’s that they tend to run away a little too quickly. There are also a number of pretty difficult mini-games to contend with as part of festivals, but I generally tended to avoid organising them as it closed the rest of the town down for the day. There are a number of other systems to play with in the town through the orders, building upgrades, and character events, but this review is getting a little too long already without me going into details with them. In short, they have done a great job at making town upgrades and management a joy, and have even put a number of helpful quality of life features in which help the overall flow – showing new character events on the mini-map as one example. Everything you could need from the genre is there. The characters are also pretty cool, well designed and fun to interact with, even if there are few which fall flat.
Graphically I was also really impressed. It’s clearly not a next-gen title, but it has a charming, cartoony style and decent-enough textures that I can give it a pass. Perhaps I would have preferred a few more player voice-lines and music tracks – they tend to get a little repetitive – but overall RF5 is aesthetically charming and its sound won’t drive you completely crazy.
I’ve been very positive so far, but I do have some small quibbles. Even after levelling my walking, I still felt like the player character was too slow and like I spent a lot of time travelling from place to place. I also got very frustrated with the inventory system, as the maximum number of items you can stack is 9. This left me going back into the inventory multiple times whilst trying to plant hundreds of seeds, which slowed down the pace of the title. Similarly, I also despise item placement, as only one piece of furniture can be carried at a time and placing it perfectly can be a real pain. There is no grid, no guiding force, and the zones in which you can place items are frustratingly bordered. If you want your wardrobe against the wall, you’re out of look. Another weird feature was the lack of character customisation. Yes, there are a few costumes to buy (both in-game and as DLC,) but you can’t change your hairstyle or face. I know this is a common element of the series, but it feels a little outdated to be missing such a basic feature.
My biggest quibble came only once I chose to put a few hours into Rune Factory 4 Special, also available on Switch. Immediately I felt a difference in the controls, as the previous title just feels so much more immediate and player-friendly. Yes, it’s not full 3D, has many of the same issues and is missing some big quality-of-life changes, but aside from the story it’s pretty much the same game. Running around in RF4S is quick and efficient. Dialogue feels less drawn-out and ponderous. You gain all of your tools and access to the farm and seeds pretty much immediately. I wouldn’t say it’s better than RF5, but it’s clear that some strange choices were made in the years between 4 and 5 which have negatively affected the sequel. I still think Rune Factory 5 is a superior game to play overall – it looks better, it sounds better and there’s more variety (from what I can tell) – but it also requires much more patience than its predecessor and it doesn’t really do much to push the series forward.
Overall then, what do I think of Rune Factory 5? In a vacuum, I loved my time with it (after the dreadful opening) and could easily recommend it to farming-sim enthusiasts with a penchant for RPGs. Series veterans may be disappointed with how little it differs from RF4S mechanically, but if you like the look of it and can deal with a ponderous start, it’s definitely worth your time.
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch
Developer: Hakama Inc.
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Publishers: Marvelous, XSEED Games
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