This is for poor people. You should buy the switch 2 version which features worse performance and +$10 price tag.

Day 1 PC release is enough for me. Don't have to suffer through the absolute performance nightmare that was rune factory 5 on switch

First off I will say it isn't an awful game.... but it is NOT Rune Factory. It is a spin off game that has completely gutted almost every system that made rune factory games what they were. Farming is more a side thought to make town and you money and can pretty much be done with no effort and even automated with villagers. Crafting? Nearly completely removed from the player's hands. It's done via npc's now. Give them money and material for the items. Weapon upgrading? Simplified to the lowest standard possible. Give them money and ore to increase its basic attack by a few points. No adding poison powder to give it a chance of poisoning, adding a fire crystal to make it fire element etc. Skill levels? Completely removed. Now you have some basic skill trees which can be leveled from "general" exp so you don't even need to focus that weapon or skill. That said they're basic as hell and mostly just stat increases. No leveling to gain recipes. Progress story interact with statues you get your recipes that way. Progression is fully linear, no grinding to prepare yourself. Rune Arts? Completely removed. Your weapon skills will come from the skill tree and mostly just continue smashing the button or hold button to unleash this move. Magic will come from your treasure relics and they're very simplified. So far it's mostly city building and running around in the rune factory universe. And the city building is pretty basic. You have very tiny areas you can build in, in each city. Grid based, plop the prefab where you want and done. But you're going to have to build specific things no matter what so if you dont want them in your layout, tough, you have to have it. This game is basically what Atelier Nelke was to the Atelier franchise. Story so far has been okay, tho even 7 hours in the only characters that really feel relevant are the gods. And some parts feel like they were written by a middle school kid. If you're buying it cause you think it's the next rune factory, don't. This game is not a rune factory. It is based on the rune factory world and has the items etc but all the systems have either been gutted or revamped completely. If you simply love the rune factory series and just want to play it for the lore, get it. You may enjoy this new game. Just do not expect a traditional Rune Factory. Even Tides of Destiny did not add twists/spins on the systems as bad as this game.

I really wanted to love this game. The series has been a long-time favorite, and even with past entries making the jump to PC, I hoped Guardians of Azuma would recapture at least a fraction of what made its predecessors special. But the more I played, the more I felt like I was chasing a memory rather than experiencing something new. The systems that once felt deep and rewarding have been stripped down to something much simpler. Crafting, the mechanic that made me fall in love with the series, barely matters anymore. Magic has lost its charm, reduced to basic and uninspired abilities. The skill tree is laughably limited—so much so that a linear leveling system would have been just as effective. Exploration, too, used to be something exciting—a world filled with secrets waiting to be uncovered. But here, the map feels empty, lacking meaningful places to discover. One of the most disappointing changes is that you can’t enter people’s houses and rooms anymore. In older titles, these spaces weren’t just set dressing—they gave a glimpse into the lives of the characters, added depth to the world, and created a sense of immersion that made everything feel lived-in. Now, that simple joy is gone, replaced with static doors that lead nowhere. The characters don’t help either. In the past, they were interesting, memorable, even worth forming relationships with. Now, they feel like placeholders rather than people I’d want to connect with. Even the art style feels detached, like it belongs to a completely different series. It lacks the unique identity that made previous entries stand out, blending into something that could be any other fantasy RPG. And then there’s the price. $60—and that’s before factoring in the shameless DLC—it’s hard to justify when the experience feels so underwhelming. There are moments when the game sparks something familiar, brief glimpses of what made the older titles great. But instead of pulling me in, all those moments do is remind me of how much more this series used to be. I had the release date written down in my calendar, counting the days until I could dive in. I even planned a week’s vacation to immerse myself in the experience. But instead of excitement, release day turned out to be a sad one. I wanted to believe in this game. But now that I’ve played it, I just feel let down.

Sorry who did the UI design for this? It's terrible. entered into Main Menu Screen and I was not welcomed into a 60 buck game. As i played further not only is the UI not worth the look but farming isn't how it used to be anymore. I have to "CRAFT A FIELD SPOT" in order to hoe the ground. That is ridiculous! I know it's to implement some sort of way of inquiring good soil or making one for the ground but that is not fun. I like I can smash rocks and smash wood with the hoe tool but crafting soil is a whole pain. Going further in the game for an hour, it's not bad. The games smoothness is good, fight battles can be sticky and not free form much but it's better than other rune factory battle movement and it's pretty cool when they fight in the game. first introduction story: It flowed into a real fast unnatural pace for someone with no memories. It's so static and bland. You have to be joking me. This is the most bland opening so far. It's like you didn't put heart into the game anymore. do I recommend? if only you would like a come back to it later game or once in a while game. This game experience typically doesn't perk my interest to play everyday and for the worth of money to spend on this game is completely not recommend on full price unless you would want to. overall, please get your creativity together Marvelous and SEED on UI design Rune factory 4 was better in term of UI design and story. Azuma design is so simple and not interesting, it didn't stand in uniqueness at all. and before you say it's because it's going to be translated into a switch it needs to be simple, that is not a good excuse compared to other games for the switch. I will continue to play because I find this game different and want to explore the differences and the game's combat as I get higher and higher. I rate the game so far for playing intro and a bit for an 1hr or so a, 6/10. going to have to say no recommend even tho I would say it's playable.

I'm mixed but as of right now, it's a no. Why? First of all; let me go into the good. The art direction is good, the gameplay is good for what it is, and as someone who was played every Rune Factory; this IS a spinoff. They've done them before, not all of them have been cut-and-dry full on Rune Factory typical. A lot of things have changed, but I am learning to accept them for what they are. Progress is made through experiment. That said, I don't actually think they really had testers- there are lag spikes , the game has a lot of bugs, and the faces often glitch and spaz out. I think they need to invest more into testers and bug refinement. The story is not well-paced. It feels rushed and like none of it is earned. The others had far more compelling plots; suddenly, you're 6months in and you've lost your memory and just watched the world fade away. There's been a carpenter in town and this whole time, you never got your roof fixed, never found out you were an earthmate, everyone is familiar with each other making introductions pointless- They need to really refine their storytelling. It's going in a poor direction. It's too impatient, and the tutorial feels a bit out of order, as well. That said, this is a spin-off, so I don't expect the same start as the rest of the games, but why put amnesia in if you're just going to speed-skip the intro to the world and its people? That said, some of the systems are really entertaining and fighting feels good until you get to a boss, where... it's a downgrade from previous bosses. I understand it changing because it's 3D, but it feels a little cheap/like they didn't put much effort in. I really like fighting normal enemies.

I was excited about this game for a long time and I'm very sad about how they've oversimplified things. To summarize my disappointment: - The leveling system has been changed from leveling specific skills such as sleeping and farming to a skill tree - Crafting doesn't allow for upgrades with other materials - Farming has been made too easy and basic to feel satisfying (imo) The graphics are beautiful and the voice actors do very well, but it's just not what I was expecting from a Rune Factory game even if it's a "spin-off". I am in the process of receiving a refund which I rarely do for any game.

What if, there were Guardians, in Azuma, but you f*cked up the timeline in RF5 so actual goated characters can't show theirself in this game. But apparently Hina can, and you can romance her. My boy Julian didn't deserve this ending

No native widescreen resolution support.

Weak start to the story, feels like runefactory as a simplified flash game rather than a full title. Some things to note: - The dialogue feels rushed - traditional intricacies of rune factory are left out of this title as it's a spinoff. - It feels like you're launched into dialogue scenes without any context, like you have to know ancient japanese traditions to know exactly what things are. - It's profusely simplified content-wise, very veeeery low learning curve. - Controls handle like a kickstarter unity game. The pros though: - The character designs are great like Ulalaka. Marriage candidates aren't limited to absolute lolis anymore - Good soundtrack - 11gb of space, very lightweight game. - Graphically it's great, however there doesn't seem to be much audio diversity in actions. (jumping uses the same sound byte) For me, it's a 45:55 split. Try it out if you want to, but don't expect a game to dedicate yourself to like other Runefactory titles.

If you hated Paimon in Genshin, you'd hate this game too. Why is a furball talking in place of my character in scenes? Are they deaf? Mute? Disabled? Obviously not. Bad design decision. Bond levels are too easy to level up, skill trees and "all purpose exp" made doing the related activity irrelevant when it comes to leveling skills. The only thing that this game got going for it is the better combat. Otherwise even RF5 eclipses it when it comes to many stuff. I should've waited for Lies of P Overture instead of buying this.

Top 10 things I like about Iroha 1. Her sister 😭

The game is okay, I dont think its worth the price tag. 40$ at best. Story is really quick with barely any effort put in. I also really miss proper player housing in rune factory, we can have a family and all but no housing? I hope they will finally add that to future titles. The maps are rather small, at first when you open them you think to yourself "ohhh thats not to bad" but then you ran across the map in less then 10mins, they seem bigger then they are. I personally dont mind the village building > farming aspect, but it would be more fun if the areas we can build on would be bigger. And yeah yeah, I know - its a spin-off but this doesnt mean we cant have proper game mechanics, story or quality in the game. The price tag after all isnt "spin-off". The budget for this game most likely went into the Japanese Voice Actors, as usual they did fantastic. Its not worth to buy at full price - wait for sale.

God this is even worse than Rune Factory 5. Everything about the game is extremely slow and boring - and I mean everything. Somehow they even managed to make basic dialog slow (there's weird delays on when you can move to the next line of dialog, which a lot of the time creates this weird laps where the characters just stare at each other for several seconds before anyone speaks.) After 45 minutes and like 3 or 4 in-game days, I'm still being hand-held and treated like a baby. Can't even do the actual point of the game. They tried SO HARD to make the farming different than everything else that's just incredibly cumbersome and unfun doing even the most basic of tasks. Combat is also incredibly stiff and just not very good at all. All in all, XSeed REALLY should have learned it's lesson with Rune Factory 5 and should have just went back to 2D. I was excited for this game, but it's just so bad. Never refunded a Rune Factory game, even 5 was at least serviceable, but genuinely hated every second of this one. Did not have a single second of fun. Also, XSEED, if you really think your players are so incredibly stupid that they need a tutorial on how to breath, at least space the tutorials out and make them faster. The game could end up being amazing later on but the intro was genuinely worse than watching paint dry, I can't force myself to play this garbage.

E G G P L A N T E N T H U S I A S T has landed

This is not the Rune Factory formula I fell in love with during the first game on NDS. This feels like a dumbed down over simplified version of the Rune Factory Formula. Gone are the dozens of stats I had to juggle leveling. Gone is the difficulty of choosing how to live your day during the early game. Early game RF doesn't allow you to clear your field AND farm AND water AND explore AND craft AND progress the game, you don't have enough RP for all of this even with a bathhouse visit. This game is definitely a spin off and I don't recommend it if you're looking for the traditional RF formula like I was. Even Tides of Destiny didn't gut the game's core identities this badly. Edit: Also, cloud sync seems to be broken, it continually gave me errors when trying to upload my save until I turned off cloud sync and then turned it back on, then my PC client tells me it uploaded, but when trying to resume my progress on the Steam Deck, it tells me my save file created earlier was not yet uploaded. Double checking my PC, it still says it was uploaded.

played the first like 10 minutes and this is not it. feels super low budget like a mobile game like bro they are using a orange jpg lookin like its from google maps as the quest indicator i literally could not stop thinking of those mobile game ads like how is genshin impact seem more polished than this

If Rune Factory has a million fans I am one of them. If Rune Factory has one fan, that is me. If Rune Factory has zero fans then I am no longer with us.

The look of horror on the shrine maidens face when the child said she wants to eat buxom was absolute cinema 10/10

Marvelous Inc, Please add the s3x scenes for romance characters. I'm in desperate needs of Ulalaka's treesussy. I dream about those bonkers day and night. Thanks!

rune factory for people without the tism

i could play as wendelin von benno baumeister 10/10 ulalaka best grill

I judged it too harshly, at first. It's not quite Rune Factory, but it's solid when considered as a separate, standalone game outside of the series. Early game is borderline unbearable. Give it some time after leaving the starting zone. It doesn't scratch the same itch, but its pretty decent.

Your honor, it's peak.

I lost