Rune Factory 4 has had a lot of attention surrounding it due to its sudden cancellation, and even more sudden revival, and so it has quite the reputation to live up to now that it’s finally reached Europe. I’ve only had little experience with the series previously, as I’ve only had the chance to play Oceans, and so much of what happens in Rune Factory 4 is fresh to me; fortunately, it’s good fun and felt reminiscent of IX. You begin your journey on an airship journeying to an unknown location, until you’re suddenly attacked by thugs and kicked from the airship.
You land in a small town and now suffer amnesia, marking the true start of your adventure as you try to regain your lost memories. You’ll take control of your male or female character, depending on what gender you choose, and be set to work on the farm and as the acting prince of Selphia.
The cast of characters are unique to eachother and loveable – I personally really liked Clorica and Forte – and I really liked the different personalities that everybody brought to the table; it has a feel good feeling that isn’t common in gaming, and being able to talk with everybody kept a smile on my face, more so as building relationships in games is one of my favourite gameplay mechanics. Relationship building may not be as in-depth here as it is in some other series’, but it does a great job in presenting everybody which is important when you choose to confess your love somebody. Of course it isn’t all socialising, you’re a prince after all!
You’re expected to care for your farm, hold festivals which you can participate in, including a cooking festival, to appeal to tourists and earn money, and help clear out dangers from the surrounding areas of Selphia. I’ll start off with the non-battling duties you’ll be doing, beginning with the joys of farming. Farming genuinely is fun, satisfying and easy enough to do that it doesn’t feel like a chore; I get bored cutting the grass in my garden after five minutes so it’s glad to see that Rune Factory 4’s farming isn’t equally as dull! You earn Prince Points via various tasks which you can then use to upgrade your weapons and weapon space, as well as buy licenses to cook more food, create more items, hold festivals and more. You’ll be doing everything from cleaning and maintaining the garden by removing loose branches, rocks, etc, and then using the new space to dig a hole, plant seeds and water them – after three or so days you’ll have your very own whatever you planted! You also learn to harvest minerals and runes via gardening which become very important in ensuring that you have a comfortable journey later on; it’s best to stock up so you don’t struggle with requests, battles and in earning the people of Selphia’s trust.
The battling is simple with R to dash and B to swing your weapon of choice, and you’ll want to remember to use the L button to access your backpack to change weapons or access healing items, especially as some of the fights can be quite gruelling. Areas are easy to navigate with one huge area consisting of many little ones littered with enemies and items to pick up, until you reach the ‘boss zone’ which is usually indicated by a save point in the room before it.
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The gameplay is accessible and enjoyable, and anybody should be able to enjoy both the battles and the farming aspects of the game. You can ask others to join you during your fights to strengthen your relationship with them, which is best to do if you have a best girl or boy in mind that you want to confess your love to; you can also strengthen these via completing requests submitted to the letterbox outside of the royal castle. You can have multiple partners until you get married but well, you’re a jerk if you date more than one person! Choose a best partner and stick with them, damn it.
The art style is one of my absolute favourite things in Rune Factory 4. The character design is superb, colourful and cheerful and adds so much life to the little town of Selphia, and aided immersing me into the town as if it were real. Animated cutscenes are beautifully animated, with potential partners receiving one the first time you talk to them, and I’d be more than happy to watch a Rune Factory anime if they could keep this up.
Dungeons and enemy design are almost equally as impressive and the developers have done a great job on the in bringing everything together, with chibi-inspired graphics to fully round off the pleasant feel of Selphia. The soundtrack perfectly fits the tone of the game with its lighthearted tunes when wandering around town and suitably light-rock themes for battles. Games like Rune Factory 4 make me wish that official OST’s were easier to buy in the UK rather than having to import them.
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The voice-acting is spot on but sadly there isn’t a whole lot of it, with characters having catchphrases rather than speaking their dialogue; the subtitles are clear but I feel a fully voice-acted game would’ve been really nice. XSEED and Marvelous deserve a round of applause for finally bringing Rune Factory 4 to Europe, and I’m sure many longtime fans are pleased to get their hands on it. It’s a terrific game brimming with content and the varied choice of partners offers replayability, especially if you play through as the opposite gender; each gender has their own partners to choose from although all the characters will be present regardless. I can’t really say if you’re a fan then you’ll love Rune Factory 4 as I’ve had little experience with the series, but if you love a solid RPG with town-building mechanics then you’ll fit right in at Selphia.
By / October 10th, 2013 Let’s get one thing straight: Rune Factory games are huge. There is little to no chance anyone on staff can play one of these games quickly enough to do a proper review after a week, given our review guidelines. So, here are my first impressions of Rune Factory 4 after at least ten hours of the way through the game. First things first, if you’ve ever played a Rune Factory or Harvest Moon game before, you’ll be familiar with most of the base concepts of the game. You have farming, which hasn’t really changed since the beginning, and you have the adventuring, where you mine, gather resources and fight in the action-RPG side of things. One of the things touted coming into this game was a removal of grid-based farming.
I’m not exactly sure what it means but I don’t see much of a difference. You have designated areas where you can farm—which isn’t limited to just your living area—and you till squares that are predetermined. There is a difference in that you have 2×2 squares that have differing soil quality levels. You can check the levels with the Magnifying Glass and create fertilizer from grass in order to raise the soil level. (NOTE: I originally said Greenifier was what improved soil quality. While Greenifier does have uses for the soil, that was inaccurate.) But other than that, not much has changed.
The action sections in the game are pretty standard for this series as well. You fight the monsters you come across and gain experience as you fight more. You can also befriend monsters in order to help you fight and work on the farm by brushing them and giving them a gift. I usually go for a combination of brushing and Onigiri (rice ball) in order to befriend monsters. You also travel through caves that feature major boss battles at the end. So far, I’ve defeated one boss and am working on the second. You can also take requests from townsfolk—which is done by talking to either villagers or a talking box called Eliza (cute touch there, Neverland)—which will result in a number of different rewards upon completion.
One of the things I like about the requests is that they don’t expect you to do something that you’ve already completed. For instance, if a person asks you to befriend an animal and you’ve already done so, you just simply talk to Eliza again and she (or would being a box make Eliza an it?) will give you the reward. And, of course, you have the other signature of these games: crafting, forging, and cooking. Just like most any other Rune Factory and Harvest Moon game, you need to earn your tools and the recipes to make items, food, weapons, and better tools.
However, there is one catch: you can’t get the tools until you earn a license for it. And this is the start of where Rune Factory 4 separates itself from the rest of the series. The main plot of Rune Factory 4 deals with your character becoming the Prince/Princess that rules the town of Selphia. As the head of the town, you can dictate what happens via Orders. This can lead to new Festivals, licenses for cooking and crafting, and even a bigger backpack. You execute these Orders by earning Points, which are earned through shipping items, defeating monsters, completing requests, and even simply talking to the townsfolk.
This system works very well. Some of the Orders may seem out of reach at first but can be executed rather easily. Every little point really does add up, especially if you keep up with shipping, adventuring, taking requests, and talking with the citizens. I’m about 16 days in and have so far earned nearly all basic licenses, built an animal barn, expanded both my backpack and storage bin, and have created all but one festival that was available to me.
Pretty soon, I’ll earn that festival, work on a higher cooking license, and start working on expanding my backpack more. There is only really one thing I don’t like about Rune Factory 4 so far. That would be the in-game clock.
It keeps running inside of buildings. This is something that bugs me, especially since I grew up on Harvest Moon games on home consoles. I like to have time stop when I’m inside a building. I want to feel like I don’t have to run around with my head cut off to do anything.
One of my last favorite Harvest Moon games, specifically on a handheld, is Island of Happiness, partly because I can take my time inside of a building. I’ve actually returned and traded-in Harvest Moon games because of it. However, after playing through a bit of the game (and having my anxiety under control), I’ve realized that it’s not that bad, especially with fast travel via airship (which you’ll need to earn a license to use). I’ve been able to farm, talk with citizens, complete requests, fish, and go exploring through a dungeon in a single day and still make it back in time to get at least 8 hours of sleep. Still prefer the other system, but I’m feeling a bit better about this.
There’s also a couple of interesting things that I found in Rune Factory 4 that need to be called into question. The first is a very minor one for XSEED, the North American publisher.
There is a conversation part during the Fishing Frenzy Contest day were my character talks with a group of villagers when Margaret, one of the love interests, suddenly utters a line of Japanese. I don’t know if that was intentional or not but I don’t necessarily blame XSEED for missing it (assuming they missed it). This is a publisher that probably looks over a million Japanese characters per game. They’re bound to miss three or four in a game. I don’t blame them for missing it. I just wanted to bring it to their attention. The second thing was more on the developer, Neverland.
After falling into the dragon’s castle (because dragons have those, apparently), you are asked what your name is. After giving your name and having a brief conversation with the dragon, the main butler will call you by the expected royal family member’s name, which you will object to since that isn’t what you said. But you can also input the Royal person’s name, Arthur, and still have the same conversation.
This gets weird when your character, if a man, says something like ‘But I’m not Lord Arthur. My name is Arthur.’ There was a missed opportunity here for some funny dialog with the butler, as well as an “I am you, and you are me” conversation with Arthur when he arrives (again, if you choose the male). On the female side, they did make sure to have your character point out that Arthur is a boy’s name. But besides those issues, I’m having a lot of fun with Rune Factory 4.
Everything that makes it a Rune Factory game is wonderful and the added Royal duties in the game hit the mark. This is a top notch game worthy of anyone’s money. It may even be my personal Game of the Year. If I were giving Rune Factory 4 a score today, I’d consider giving it the full five stars. However, I think I need a little something more to put it over for a perfect rating.
I can’t really put my finger on it right now but I feel like something in the game needs to ‘wow’ me. I hope it’s still in the game waiting for me. If you were on the fence about Rune Factory 4, I hope I convinced you to buy it. But be warned: if you purchase the game through the eShop, you will need at least 11,000 available blocks to download the game.
Like I said earlier, Rune Factory games are huge. This copy has been provided by the publisher for review purposes. About Jeff Neuenschwander Jeff has been a supporter of the website and campaign since the beginning. Joining in for E3 2012, he worked his way up the ranks quickly, making it to the Editing Manager post at the beginning of 2013.
Jeff has a wide variety of tastes when it comes to gaming and pretty much likes anything that is quirky, although his favorite genres are Action, Platforming, and RPG. Outside of gaming, Jeff is a musician, being trained as a trombonist for Jazz and Classical music, and holds a degree in Sound Recording.
A nicely baked Medicine Bread. Teaches you a difficult recipe appropriate to your skill.
Reward found inside Tips:. It is possible to cook an item without having the recipe unlocked in-game, but doing so will require a far larger amount of RP than usual. Attempting to cook without a recipe AND without sufficient RP will always fail. Any recipe with less than the maximum of six ingredients can be improved by adding edible items to the empty slots during creation.
Dairy items, such as eggs and milk, can be (S), (M), or (L). While any size will work for recipes, larger sizes will result in higher level dishes. Likewise, vegetables and flowers can be substituted for their giant versions. These will also result in a higher-level dish. The selling prices shown both here and on the recipe in-game are for a level-one dish. Prices for higher level dishes increase with level. The player must first buy cooking appliances from, in order to cook.
Note: Once all cooking appliances have been purchased, one can spend Prince/ss Points to unify all cooking appliances. When you do this, the individual tools will not physically merge, but you can click on any one tool and have the option to use all the others from it.
Rune Factory 4
Even though Rune Factory has seen steady releases on multiple consoles since 2007, it still hasn’t become a household name. Instead, the franchise has a dedicated following of gamers who love the engaging blend of dungeon crawling and simulation elements. At this point, hardcore fans know exactly how they want to play and what to expect – it’s a shame that Rune Factory 4 forgets that and acts more like a tutorial for hours on end. Rune Factory 4’s overbearing hand-holding is the biggest issue this entry faces. As a longtime fan, I already had my strategy in mind, but instead of diving in, I was in tutorial mode for many hours. The basics are delivered through the sidequests, showing how to befriend animals, farm, and fight. As a seasoned player, I was completing quests well before the game even thought I’d dive into the content.
I ventured outside the city walls quickly and I bought products before quests required me to. This is an annoyance to veteran players, as you’re always several steps ahead of the game without the freedom to do your own thing. On the other side of the coin, this entry is by far the most newcomer-friendly, though even some newbies might find themselves growing tired of the nonstop guidance. Even at the 10-hour mark, the game still doesn’t trust you on your own, still offering mundane quests. As the prince or princess (with amnesia) of the town, you bring more villagers in by sprucing up the place.
You earn points to unlock extra festivals and expand your facilities, but they are scant – especially early on. The other problem is that these points are your sole currency for upgrading your abilities and your town. This forces players to choose between the main objective (making the town bigger) and the more enjoyable character progression.
If you love cooking, you need to devote points to better cooking licenses, but you also pay a hidden cost of not being able to use your precious few points on better festivals to draw in more townspeople. This feels like a bottleneck to keep players from progressing quickly, holding them back from the activities that they enjoy most. The trademark quirky townsfolk are still the game’s stars. One of my favorites was the brother/sister dynamic between the playful bookworm Kiel and his super-serious knight sister, Forte.
The characters aren’t as animated as, say, Rune Factory 3’s family that spoke in opposites, but interesting personalities make their way in. For the record, having a giant dragon as your bantering guide during the adventure adds something special. One positive thing this time around is how group conversations emerge if you engage certain characters while they’re hanging out with others. These scenes are especially funny; one has some of the younger men contemplating, “What is love?” Another refinement is having special character missions pop up, where you might follow a character to a special place or find a clue for them. The important part is that they always lead to a new scene and fresh dialogue, keeping things from getting too mundane. Dungeons are bland, focused solely on fighting and gathering.
Rune Factory 4 Amazon
Like previous games, you locate levers and open up previously inaccessible areas with mind-numbing predictability. Boss battles also follow suit; enemies have large health bars and usually several forms to grind down. Instead of keeping me engaged, bosses feel like unnecessary time sinks. To add insult to injury, the combat is still clunky, and the moves you unlock can end up costing you matches; the margin for error is thin, making it easy to take a hit and get stuck in a combo. Although Rune Factory 4 is not as refined as I would like, it still has an engagement level that’s hard to ignore.
Settling into a routine while balancing farming, monster recruiting, dungeon crawling, gathering, and socializing provides you with something to always do – and plan for. Much of the fun I had was discovering new areas, like coming across a fresh fishing spot, or finally earning the requirements to unlock new meals to cook. The vast area Rune Factory 4 provides gives you plenty of these little moments that can completely change up your strategy. For instance, as you explore, you might find fields where it’s always summer to grow certain crops. Additionally, what you find when revisiting fields is often unpredictable. 2 5 crack license and serial. As I was scavenging, I found everything from better swords to new fruits to better crafting items.
This is also the game’s biggest strength – all the parts complement each other well. Recruiting monsters becomes more thrilling because monsters can also lend you a hand on the farm and some even produce items such as eggs and fur for profit, cooking, or crafting. Even when I roamed dungeons, they weren’t just about fighting and advancing the story; I found tons of resources and rare rocks to mine. The satisfaction comes in discovering a new item and realizing you can cook a new dish or craft new armor with it. This is the most engaging part of the experience; I lost myself maximizing my success each day.
Rune Factory 4 Review
At times, I couldn’t put Rune Factory 4 down, at others I found myself disappointed, wanting more than small tweaks. The lackluster dungeons and bosses and the hoops veterans have to going through for many hours isn’t fun. The series has had plenty time to advance beyond what Rune Factory 4 provides. Still, the formula is still entertaining and I found myself enjoying my daily chats with locals and finding ways to increase my profits. I even appreciated the small enhancements, which are steps in the right directions. Unfortunately, the areas that need the most improvement – like dungeons and the core battle system – are relatively untouched.
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