Rune Factory 5 Review
Rune Factory started off life as a spinoff of the Harvest Moon series with the first title being released back on the Nintendo DS. This subseries focuses more on traditional RPG mechanics like dungeon exploration, Monsters and combat all layered on top of the already excellent Harvest Moon framework. I think the producer of the Harvest Moon Series Yoshifumi Hashimoto summed it up perfectly when he described the Rune Factory series as “Harvest Moon where you wield a sword.”
Rune Factory 5 starts off with our main character suffering from a bout of unexplained amnesia. After having the option between choosing between a male or female protagonist, we awaken in a forest to the calls of a young girl being harassed by monsters and jump into action to save her. After dealing with the threat, Hina introduces herself and you escort her to the nearby town of Rigbath.
Rigbath quickly becomes your home and after the previous demonstration of your ability to fight monsters, you are drafted into SEED, an organization that helps protect the town and its residents. You are provided with lodging, uniform and a small plot of land to grow crops that can be sold for a profit.
The gameplay loop is what you would expect if you played any kind of Rune Factory / Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons style game before, you wake up in the morning, tend to your crops, head into town to by supplies etc but the rest of the day is really up to you, you can take things at your own pace and there’s a ton to do.
At its core, you could argue that Rune Factory 5 is a time management sim. There’s a ton to do and a finite amount of time to do it. Doing an action will increase your proficiency in that skill and there are a lot of skills to level up including Farming, Mining, cooking, walking and even sleeping. This made even the most mundane tasks feel somewhat rewarding as your character is always getting slightly better.
As you spend more time with Rune Factory 5, you’ll end up unlocking a whole bunch of activities that you can take part in from fishing, cooking and crafting to slightly more in-depth things such as mining, farming and capturing monster companions. There really is a lot to do and it’s down to you to choose how to spend your day.
Here’s an example of what my character got up to on a day: Our protagonist woke up at 6 am, immediately headed outside to check over the farm plot. We cleared off the few rocks that appeared and picked up some weeds on the plot before plucking up my pumpkins that were ready for harvesting. The pumpkins were deposited into the shipping bin shortly before the 8 am collection which netted me some Gold.
I finished off watering my crops before heading into the town to buy some recipe bread, this taught me how to make an upgraded version of my hammer. Back at my farm plot, I checked the requests board which was thankfully empty for once. I checked on components needed for the upgraded hammer and noticed I needed more Bronze, so I decided I should head to the Kelve Lava Caves to mine some bronze ore.
I spent most of the rest of the day in the caves mining and fighting with enemies, collecting important crafting materials along the way. I returned to town to craft my hammer, only to realize I was short on RP (Stamina) from all my efforts in the mines. A quick trip to the bath house was in order.
There are a lot of residents in Rigbath and the surrounding locales that you can build relationships with 12 of them being romanceable. As the main story progresses, you’ll eventually have access to 6 female romance options and a further 6 male candidates. This time around, Rune Factory 5 allows for the option of same-sex marriage which is a series first as far as I know.
The residents themselves, are a pretty eclectic bunch overall, although their personalities can be a little two dimensional at times generally falling into some kind of a stereotype, I think that works perfectly fine considering the format of the game and I had a lot of fun getting to know the residents of Rigbath.
Like previous entries, each resident has their own unique story arc and purpose within the town. They follow schedules and you can even instruct some of them in what profession they should take up.
Each character has their individual bond level with you denoted by hearts. Their fondness can be increased by talking to them daily, giving gifts and levelling up skills you have in common. It is always interesting to see the scenes between the residents and your main protagonist as you strengthen your bonds.
The presentation is pretty good, although does suffer a little from what I like to call ‘Switch Blur’ with some of the character models looking a little fuzzy around the edges at times. That said, I have to admit the world and characters designs are top-notch and Rune Factory 5 is pretty bright and colourful in design which I think looks really nice on an OLED screen.
There are very high-quality anime introductions for each character you meet and a pretty flashy fully animated introduction video. There’s also a nice effort with games music, although it’s a little repetitive I found myself humming along with it even after I finished playing for the day.
The voice acting is top-notch and offers both Japanese and English audio which is a really nice addition and there’s even an extensive voice actors’ commentary that can be accessed from the main menu which is a nice bonus.
You noticed familiar voices from other games such as Fire Emblem and Persona along with actors from various anime series such as Demon Slayer and Lupin the 3rd. It’s pretty much an all-star cast and the acting is great!
Although the gameplay is great, I do sadly have to mention one gripe I have in particular and that is the performance. Throughout my time with Rune Factory 5 I have experienced several framerate drops and stutters, this is in no way game-breaking and I only found it to be a minor inconvenience and I’m usually super fussy about my frame rates. I found stutters seem to happen when entering a new area or a scene transition briefly.
The framerate issues may be able to be smoothed over with an update, but that does seem unlikely as the game has already been out in Japan for 10 months and they still persist.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Rune Factory 5 has a lot to offer, more than I can go into in a single review. The gameplay loop is addictive, and the writing is very good. Occasionally, I wish the game would hold my hand a little more. However, I love the freedom afforded to the player to take things at their own pace. Apart from a few minor technical issues, Rune Factory 5 shines bright and sets a great example for the genre as a whole.
If you like farming sims, RPGs and or slightly slower-paced games in general I would highly recommend picking up a copy of Rune Factory 5.
8.5
Update: Rune Factory 5 is now available on Steam, which fixes many of the switch version’s performance issues and adds additional options like 4k resolution support and an uncapped framerate option.
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Marvelous