Rune Factory 5

amazon Rune Factory 5 reviews

The Rune Factory series, a spin-off from Harvest Moon (now Story of Seasons), almost disappeared from the world because Neverland, the series’ developers, went bankrupt, and Rune Factory 4 – out eyes 10 years ago – seems to be the end.

Fortunately, Marvelous has re-hired the Neverland team, with Yoshifumi Hashimoto still serving as producer, so we have Rune Factory 5, the future of the game is once again opened.

So is the 10-year wait worth it? Let’s find out with Biareview through the following review.

Ever heard of Stardew Valley? Harvest Moon? Story of Seasons?

Rune Factory 5, although “reputation” of being a JRPG, is a game in the genre of… farming.

At first glance, JRPG enthusiasts like Final Fantasy or The Legend of Heroes: Trails may not feel very interested, because they are role-playing why have to go farming? The epic storyline, bloody fighting?

This is practically the same as the first time I played the Rune Factory series, specifically Rune Factory 2 on the Nintendo DS somewhere before 2010.

At that time, the writer was caught up in playing a lot of “terrible” JRPGs like Persona 4, Final Fantasy XIII, The World Ends With You, so to satisfy the “addiction”, the writer almost played everything tagged the “JRPG tag” at the time, and meet Rune Factory 2.

At first, the writer was also quite dissatisfied, why run around forever without seeing the plot? What do you mean by planting some trees? Then suddenly… 10 hours passed in the blink of an eye…

More than 10 years later, after two more versions of Rune Factory, Rune Factory 5 has also brought a similar experience, enough to see how fascinating life in this town of Rigbarth is, and I will analyze the aspects, of how to make your “new life” become “sweet”!

Briefly talking about the plot, the player will initially pass through a portal and fall into the world of Rune Factory 5, accompanied by the player’s loss of memory.

The player then rescues the cute, but exhausted, demi-human Hina, and is brought back to the town of Rigbarth. Here, we are provided with food, clothing, and a place to sleep, on the condition that we join SEED, Rigbarth’s defense from swarming monsters.

And so your life begins…

Unlike Persona, where you also play a life simulator, but the plot will have a certain schedule that you must follow, in Rune Factory 5 you like to continue the plot at any time, It’s okay to spend a few months in the farming game, fishing and then watching the next story.

The town of Rigbarth, despite its small size, the liveliness here is really impressive, with NPCs who are not only “lifeless dolls” who can only say the same line over and over again but are real residents, with their mission, and their personality, genuinely interacting with each other, making us feel like we are living in a new town.

You wake up early in the morning, go out to the street and see Lucy, the sales girl at the bakery, rushing to get things for the store. At noon, you see the demi-human girl Fuuka running around on the street, looking for a place… to go out next.

Before every big event, you’ll see Priscilla running up and downtown, asking residents one by one if they need help. Things like that, detailed interactions between NPCs, what make the town come alive and very soulful, not to mention the NPCs are all designed to be cute and beautiful.

Occasionally there will be festivals held, and you will be able to participate in special activities with the beautiful inhabitants of Rigbarth, increase your affection for them, and gradually you will be able to receive a favorite girl (or the guy, and whatever gender you choose, since Rune Factory 5 allows same-sex marriage).

Therefore, it is easy to understand that “living” in Rigbarth and interacting with its inhabitants becomes so “engrossing” that many times the player neglects the whole plot. Although the world looks like it is about to end, unfortunately, radishes waiting to be harvested at home are still more attractive!

Indeed, the farming system of Rune Factory 5 is not complicated, you have a field, you hoe some soil, you get seeds and plant them on a new hoe, then your irrigation them every day (if it rains irrigation is not required).

I don’t know how to describe it, but the cultivation looks simple like this, but it is very “addictive”!

where can you get a Rune Factory 5 online

Rune Factory 5 – Nintendo Switch: Buy it now

Rune Factory 5 – Nintendo Switch & 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – Nintendo Switch: Buy it now

It may be that I quickly see my results, it may be because the game constantly “gives” us a lot of titles, which makes me feel that I am growing very quickly, but anyway, the cultivation and fishing consume a lot of my time, especially after tiring working days where the writer just wants to relax his body and relax.

Of course, with the “branded” JRPG, everything will have… stats, and farming is no exception, you will have to cast and forge new farming tools with higher stats to increase production quantity

Farming also consumes your stamina (in the form of RP or Rune Point), making you have to allocate your stamina and food properly during the day to optimize the time of day.

To be fair, the writer thinks that the fighting (pure action) of Rune Factory 5 is not necessarily a bad aspect, it is like an additive to an already lively game.

However, if you look at it broadly in the JRPG world, the combat in Rune Factory 5 is extremely sketchy, not bringing too much play value to the game.

The first is that the combat is quite easy, even in Hard mode, the enemy is “lucky”, giving players free time to dodge attacks and counterattack. Boss monsters, needless to say, each of their attacks seem to be foretold for 10 seconds for players to freely “watch”.

Second, the areas you can explore are relatively poor. The caves are quite colorful, the lands are empty, and here and there are a few stupid monsters, so there is very little to explore.

You can use many different weapons, and each weapon has different strengths and weaknesses (like Monster Hunter for example), but to learn skills, you have to… plow, because skills only can be unlocked through practice and continuous slashing.

Of course, the writer has also tried many different weapons (two swords seem to be the best), but learning from scratch a weapon is not very attractive to the writer, because monsters are very popular anyway and easy to beat, it’s better to leave that time… to plant a few radishes makes more sense!

A bonus is that you can “catch” monsters like catching Pokemon, then summon monsters to help fight monsters. Although of course not as diverse as Pokemon (apparently less than 20 monsters can be caught), exploring new lands and catching new monsters is also an interesting point in Rune Factory 5.

Rune Factory 5 has very cute character drawings, but the graphics of trees, houses, and monsters are not like that.

As a version transferred from the Switch system, it is not difficult to see the “mobile” graphics of the game, even though it has been adjusted at the highest configuration, it still shows a bad look!

Not to mention times, such as if you rotate the camera quickly, the game will drop significantly in frames per second, causing some bad experiences.