Rune Factory 5 Review – Enduring Rough Edges For Great Reward

Animal Crossing and The Sims, for example, are a great game that draws you in by their familiarity. They make it easy to get into the system and let you customize the experience. The Rune Factory series exemplifies this gameplay style, blending farming, socializing, and dungeon crawling.

As someone who has played the franchise since the Story of Seasons spin-off’s first entry 15 years ago, I’ve always loved how the action/RPG captures a sense of discovery. Whether it’s unearthing a new locale that provides fresh items and monsters to raise or learning more about the eccentric people of the town, there is a satisfying sense of progression in the nigh-endless options for how to spend days. Rune Factory 5 is a great entry in this area. Some technical problems, such as a poor framerate and poorly-designed combat systems and upgrades, can make the experience less enjoyable. 

Rune Factory 5 follows the tradition of using an amnesiac plotline as the driving force behind the story. The town of Rigbarth is where you end up, and there’s no way to remember how. All you know is something’s amiss as monsters are invading the land. You can search for the answers by becoming a ranger. You can take on townpeople’s requests and conduct investigations in suspicious areas to find the next clue. Of course, to make an income to live on, you’ll need to farm along the way. 

The plot does its job of getting you in the world and providing twists to keep you exploring, but it’s the townspeople that make the experience. The cast is one of the series’ strongest, with likable and interesting characters aplenty. They’re not as over-the-top as some past entries, but I was engaged by their personal struggles, like Lucy missing her father, in addition to more comical situations, like Ryker always wanting to nap. Character-focused quests give them additional depth and dimension to their daily personalities. 

Rune Factory can be used as an action/RPG or relationship/farming sim. Being a part of the town can lead to side adventures that will eventually lead to romance. Your profits will increase quickly if you cater to agriculture. You’ll be able to improve everything, including your home and stock from local shops. The plot is often improved by entering dungeons or defeating the bosses. You also can level up, get new weapon combinations, craft items, and train some monsters so you can work on your farm and fight with them. Although the game is engaging, it doesn’t feel like you are in a dead end. It quickly dawned upon me that most of the system I used were either average or poor.

For starters, the combat, while improved from previous entries, is clunky, and the awkward multi-button combination abilities don’t help. To dash, tap R. However, holding down the button will open your magic. The small difference in input is the recipe for disaster you’d expect; my magic menu came up when I was trying to dodge more times than I’d like to admit. The variety of weapon options and the unique feeling they give each one, from long heavy swords with punch to melee boxing gloves, was what I loved. My way of combat has changed because I used different weapons. For instance, with speedy, less-stamina-depleting dual blades, I could afford to spam attacks and combos, while heavier weapons made me stand back and wait for openings to wail on enemies. 

Unfortunately, Rune Factory 5 doesn’t encourage much experimentation with its different weapons. Players have to level up each weapon’s proficiency to learn combos and new attacks. Starting back at square one didn’t seem worth the effort for me, and had I not been trying to get a panoramic view of the game for the purposes of this review, I would have stuck with only one or two weapons the whole game.

I enjoyed seeing the bosses’ cool designs (one personal favorite is a colorful octopus), but fighting them is very humdrum. Bosses focus on watching out for enemy patterns. However, I felt never challenged once I had brought in tamed monsters. You can also bring villagers you befriend to battle alongside you. They provide powerful team-up attacks with your character, but they all start low-leveled and must earn fighting experience before becoming useful. All my villager combatants died too quickly for my liking, and I didn’t find the grind worth it, so I often left them behind in favor of monsters I tamed. 

That’s the thing about Rune Factory 5; everything is fueled by gaining levels. While this is satisfying, tedious grinding can make it difficult. It’s not just about your combat level; your cooking, forging, crafting, and chemistry levels also center on this progression system, where trying new recipes creates better items, weapons, and armor.

The only way to unlock recipes is to blindly experiment, buy recipe bread (available in limited quantities every day), hope an NPC reveals one in random conversation, or receive bread as a quest or festival reward. You will be amazed at the creations you make when you get to higher levels. A plush monkey shield was my creation. I could make everything, from chocolate sponge cakes to star-shaped hashbrowns. But, it was just too hard to upgrade weapons, armor, and farm tools.

Because you have the ability to craft, forge potions and harvest them, it is easy to pick up many items every day. This makes inventory management a pain. You can only store a small amount of stuff in your backpack, so I ran out of space. I lost so much time moving items to storage, which I also had to expand constantly. To add insult to injury, the game doesn’t automatically group items together when you move them to storage, forcing you to find ones to pair together to save space. 

Despite being annoyed by my limited inventory, I never lost my passion for exploration and the joy of discovering new things. From searching bandit hideouts, crystal caverns, lava caves, and more, every new area is an opportunity – whether it’s locating rare items and ores for crafting, finding powerful monsters to tame, or acquiring a new fruit that can be used in a cooking recipe. Every trip you take feels rewarding – even if it’s simply to walk around town to discover something new about a villager.

Special events and festivals help to break up the year. I enjoyed their interaction, where they required me to complete small tasks like dodge beans or create my own team for a tournament. Sadly, the events are brief, and the rest of the day is lost because villagers just continue to stand around the festival grounds. A variety of events would make these celebrations more worthwhile and meaningful.

Rune Factory 5 can be rough, but it was still a great game. It’s all about the interconnectedness of everything that draws me back to Rune Factory 5. Even after completing the main story, I’m still playing, as I have recipes I haven’t unlocked, a romantic journey I’m embarking on, and many upgrades I can still do to the town. It has its flaws, but Rune Factory 5’s enchanting loop of constant progression and discovery helps mitigate a lot of these annoyances, so they don’t sting so much.