Ah, Rune Factory. My first foray into the series was with Rune Factory 4 on 3DS. It gave me some of the farming simulation I grew to love from Stardew Valley mixed with the combat I also loved from games like Fantasy Life. Rune Factory 4 also had a compelling story surrounding a quirky cast of characters that drew me in. The series just oozes personality and charm in a way that absolutely delights me from the opening scene through to the credits. That’s why I’m so torn with Rune Factory 5 so far. I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the newest release and while I like the idea of some of the changes, there are things that leave me a bit disappointed. Since this isn’t a full review just yet, I’m going to simply list a breakdown of things I like and things I don’t.
What I Like
- The intro is jazzy and reminds me of the persona series
- Nice quality of life changes like being able to easily switch to the last equipped weapon and farming tool
- Seeing familiar faces like Eliza now fully rendered in 3D is a treat
- The move to 3D enables cutscenes with cinematic camera movement and rack focusing I appreciate
- I generally like the the switch from 2D to 3D
- The animated 2D sprites used during dialogue cutscenes look great in high definition
- I seem to level up a skill simply by performing daily tasks which feels rewarding
What I Don’t Like
- The first thing I noticed was the frame rate issues. The FPS drops when in town, in battles with multiple enemies, and even when entering my farm if a lot of crops are planted. It also tanks in the sub 20’s for a second or two every time I exit a building and enter the world until the engine catches up
- Speaking of buildings, they all look pretty similar and lack any real identity
- The lack of any quest markers sucks. What makes this even worse is the fact that the journal doesn’t have details about currently active quests, so I need to cancel the quest in question, go to the quest board, accept the quest again, and view the details from the requester.
- Hopefully this is a bug, but shop vendors repeat the same one or two lines of dialogue every ten or so seconds when shopping around and figuring out what to purchase….which is incredibly annoying
- It would be nice to be able to disable my character’s dialogue for activities like planting, watering my crops, etc. because having to listen to the same few lines of dialogue almost every time I perform a task repeatedly drives me crazy
Well there you have it, a simple list of things I noticed I both like and dislike so far about Rune Factory 5. I’m definitely enjoying my time with the game overall, but there’s definitely aspects of the game I’d love to see improved. Keep an eye out for our full review coming soon!
