Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

Azuma is a bit of a genre sidestep for the series with the new town management systems, and the graphics on display would have looked rough ten years ago. But these things are easy to overlook because the addicting "just one more day" gameplay loops are very fun and rewarding. It turns out putting fun first makes for a good game, imagine that.

I love this game! As one who has played other titles in the franchise, this definitely scratches that itch. Without spoiling it, lets just say, the game opens up like an onion. With many layers adding on to the depth of gameplay and the story. 5/5 stars!

Highly suggest giving this game a try! If you are unsure you would like it then wait for a deeper sale and then question yourself as to why you haven’t bought/experienced it sooner! Haven’t played a Rune Factory since Frontiers on the Wii (granted I bought 4 on the Xbox but haven’t put too much time into it but also hear it is great in its own way.) This game has so much to do from: Romance/Combat and leveling up main levels and skills/Crafting/Exploration/Village Building with 4 separate villages to attend to and build up (each village is a different season and has a very different look, so find your favorite! But don’t neglect the others!) These are the people of the original Harvest Moon series (now known as Story Of Seasons so highly suggest checking those games out as well, granted story of Seasons are more Cozy/Farm simulators instead of having full on combat also integrated within) these games are a big chunk of my childhood. Enjoy!

Still holding out hope for an RF5 release on a console that can actually handle it, but this fantastic spin-off will definitely hold me over till either RF6 drops or hell freezes over and Marvelous decides they like money enough to fix the memory leak in 5 and release it on the big boy platforms. But to be clear, this isn't RF6. It's still in a similar genre, but the farming and crafting is a bit more streamlined and the combat is a bit deeper and a bigger part of the game. You can think of it as the game you wish harvestella was lol But that said, it still very much has that Yoshifumi charm and the creative, systemic excellence and endearing characters that he's known for, and you really can't go wrong with his games. (Tho if you get RF5 on switch, remember to close and reopen it every in game day or two so the leak doesn't eat your fps lol )

Been playing all night great game