Rune Factory 3 Special
Rune Factory 3 Special is a remake of the original Rune Factory 3 released on the Nintendo DS back in 2009. This remake features reworked graphics, new difficulty options, and a brand-new Newlywed mode akin to what we saw in Rune Factory 4 Special.
For the uninitiated, Rune Factory as a series is a spin-off from the Harvest Moon games. In fact, the original Rune Factory went by the title Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon. Whereas Harvest Moon games focus on farming, The Rune Factory series has a much bigger emphasis on storytelling and combat with the farming side of things taking a small step back from the forefront.
Rune Factory 3 Special starts with a very vibrant animated intro sequence that looks very nice, especially on the OLED version of the Switch. During the sequence, we get a brief glimpse of the characters we will meet along our adventures and even get to see our protagonist, a young man named Micah.
Story
As with most of these Rune Factory games, Micah is found suffering from a heavy bout of amnesia. Shara, a kind local flower girl takes Micah in and promptly sets him up with some accommodation in the Sharance Tree. The new digs come with a bed, fridge, storage, and a decent-sized patch of land at the bottom for cultivating and growing crops.
After a brief tutorial on farming and how things work around the Sharance tree. Shara takes you into town which is where we will be spending much of our time. The town’s folk are friendly for the most part and Micah quickly assimilates himself into town taking on requests and helping people to earn his keep.
Gameplay
Once you are settled in, Rune Factory 3 Special takes a hands-off approach and doesn’t force you to progress the story or rush through the game, instead, you are free to decide what you want to do for the duration of the day.
Being a new arrival, it takes a little while to build up a rapport with the various townsfolk and get to know them one one-on-one. The easiest way to do this is by completing requests for each character and they usually act as a mini tutorial. Requests can range from something as simple as tracking down another character and delivering something to them or hunting down a certain type of item dropped by monsters in one of the game’s combat areas.
You can only take on one request per in-game day from the quest board in town, your mailbox directly outside of the Sharance Tree, or from another location that opens up pretty early in the story, but I won’t go into here as it’s a slight spoiler.
You must talk to the townsfolk to progress parts of the story. For instance, one of Rune Factory 3 Special’s early dungeons requires you to build a bridge to gain access. There are no instructions or guidance on how to do this, it’s down to the player to figure it out by talking to people. This encourages the player to converse with as many of the game’s characters as possible.
Speaking of Dungeons, there are 5 main dungeons in Rune Factory 3 Special, and each is key to restoring Micah’s memories. After each dungeon ‘boss’ you’ll find an orb. These orbs can help our protagonist remember his past. After each orb, we learn a little more about Micah and these memories quickly become the central plot point of the game.
While progressing through the game, there’s an underlying story arc revolving around two separate factions the humans and the Univir, a horned race of humanoids who used to call the lands around the Sharance tree their home. The story here can get pretty dark for what is otherwise a pretty light-hearted game and deals with themes of hatred and xenophobia.
Between defeating bosses and unlocking memories Micah can spend his time wooing one (or numerous) of games 11 marriage candidates. These, like all the other characters in the game, are very well realized and each character feels like a real person instead of a walking trope like some of the characters in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life which I reviewed earlier.
Each character has their own schedule, friend group, etc. and the whole town feels like it’s really lived in. You’ll often see characters dashing past you taking items to friends and so on.
With the game being divided into different seasons you soon find yourself taking part in many of the town’s holiday events such as the harvest festival or the fishing competition. These events all add together to create a cohesive and believable world.
The writing is on-point, and each character has some voiced dialogue lines, these can get a little repetitive over time but thankfully they are not too intrusive. I opted to stick to the Japanese audio, but English is also an option.
Each character you interact with in the game has a meter represented by hearts from 1-10 depending on how they feel about Micah. This can be increased by completing requests, talking to them daily, or gifting them items you think they will like. I found a lot of the characters in Rune Factory 3 Special were pretty forward with what type of gift they would like the most, which made things a little easier to guess.
While speaking to a character you can press one of the shoulder buttons to invite them into your party, you can then take them into battle with you as you clear your way towards the boss area in each map. Each character has their own level and type of weapon they like to use, we can even provide them with better gear as we work our way through the game.
Occasionally, when inviting a character out they will suggest an area to visit, and some character-specific story will unfold depending on your relationship level. It’s very satisfying to learn more about the characters as they slowly open up to Micah.
Systems & Levels
As with all Rune Factory games, almost every action the player takes has an experience bar connected to it. You can level up walking, sleeping, eating, etc while also leveling up more traditional attributes such as farming and cooking.
As Micah levels up his skills new crafting and cooking recipes will become available via Recipe Bread, a series staple. Up to 5 breads can be purchased a day with some being offered a reward from quests or in chests. The five different types are Medicine, cooking, weapons, accessory, and Farming bread.
Each bread will teach you one or two recipes that we can craft back at the Sharance tree. We do have to be careful though, if Micah’s proficiency in that skill isn’t high enough, he won’t learn anything, and the bread will be wasted.
While playing Rune Factory 3 Special there are two main meters, we must be aware of, HP and RP. HP is how much health Micah has, if this drops to zero, he will pass out and have to pay a small fee. RP works in a similar way and stands for Rune Points, this can be thought of as a stamina bar, crafting, cooking, and farming will slowly chip away at this one so be careful.
You can bathe at the Bathhouse to fully restore your HP and RP; however, this can only be done once a day. Food items can also restore your meters which become essential in some of the later dungeons and if all else fails, you can always rely on a good night’s sleep to fully restore Micah back to 100%.
Farming is easily the best money maker in Rune Factory 3 Special and will provide essential items and crops for cooking. As your farming skill levels up you’ll be able to craft higher level tools making the work a lot easier and more importantly for us, less RP consuming. The watering can for example initially only waters a single crop at a time, whereas the higher level can water an impressive 27 crops from one charge.
In terms of presentation, Rune Factory 3 Special is not as fancy as Rune Factory 5 with it’s fully 3D environments and free camera control. It takes the DS top-down style and improves upon it with cleaner graphics and generally overall better presentation.
Upon launch, Rune Factory 5 had a few performance issues on the Switch, specifically framerate and I’m pleased to let you know that I had no issues at all here with 3 Special. The game runs great.
The music is also very good, especially the final dungeon, and fits the game very well. Due to the nature of the game, you will be hearing certain tunes over and over, but they never get to the point of being grating. The levelling and skill-up sound effect is something you will be hearing often and never once became boring, in fact, I quite enjoyed the little rush I got each time hearing it knowing Micah has become a little more proficient in something.
I managed to finish the main story of Rune Factory 3 Special around mid-autumn of the first year in the game. The fact that I didn’t see the winter month may seem like I rushed the game, but I’m pleased to say the main campaign took me around 35 hours in total to complete. I was focusing on the main storyline, however, I could easily see 60+ hours of playtime if you want to see all that Rune Factory 3 Special has to offer including post-game child rearing and the optional Trophy Dungeon / Sharance Maze which offers enemies and challenges far greater than the main story.
Newlywed mode is accessible from the title screen once you beat the main game and essentially lets you choose from any of the 11 marriage candidates. As the name of the mode suggests, you start out as newlyweds starting the game in year 2 with pretty much maxed-out stats in crafting, etc.
This mode is more episodic with the game always telling you what to do and is much more story-based than the main mode. I chose to playthrough with Pia as my second wife and the story revolves around her bathhouse. Newlywed mode is a fun addition and a great way to get to know some of the other candidates without having to spend numerous hours slowly giving them gifts.
Conclusion
Rune Factory 3 Special is a great game, I really enjoyed my time spent with the various townsfolk. The Story, although a little formulaic at times is an interesting one, and the overall gameplay loop of farming, dungeon exploring, and socializing is very addictive. I’d often find myself thinking about the game while not playing, which is always a good sign in my opinion.
While I enjoyed my time with the main campaign, I’m not sure if I have enough stamina to go through and ‘clear’ each bachelorette in newlywed mode, although I am sure some will enjoy diving in deeper with each character.
Overall, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this charming and addictive game!
9
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Marvelous!
