Ever since the release of Stardew Valley, farming simulation RPGs have seen a rise in popularity. But what some gamers don’t know is that these games have been around longer than they think. The trend started off with a series of games called Harvest Moon (now known as Story of Season). And like all popular games, it eventually spawned off a couple of spin-off games. One of those spin-off was a series called Rune Factory, a fantasy spin-off of the main series on the Nintendo DS. It was released in celebration of Harvest Moon’s 10th anniversary. Since then there has been four games and two spin-offs. Marvelous and XSEED decided to bring everyone back to the fantasy farm with a remastered version of the last game in series, Rune Factory 4 for the 3DS. So strap on those overall, put on a straw hat and pick up that sword, we are taking a look at Rune Factory 4 Special for the Nintendo Switch.
Green thumb
Gameplay is Link to the Past meets Animal Crossing- The best way that I can describe the gameplay of Rune Factory 4 is that its one part Link to the Past and one part Animal Crossing. In the game you are tasked to help grow the population of Selphia through doing various task for the townspeople such as gathering items, killing/taming monsters and of course farming crops. Along the way you can get to know and eventually marry one of twelve characters (six male, six female) and have them hep you with your tasks. That’s the Animal Crossing comparison, as for Link to the Past: as you’re trying to grow the population, there’s are some strange occurrences that are happening in the surrounding areas of Selphia. It’s also up to you to figure out what’s going on and see if these events have to do with your arrival to Selphia (more on that in a bit). So you explore the surrounding areas in a top down view, hacking and slashing you way for answers.
Touch functionality transitioned to Switch- One of the more difficult tasks in porting a 3DS game to the Switch is merging any touch functions that the game may have into one screen. This includes maps, inventory, navigating sub menus, managing equipment, etc etc. All the touch functionalities that were on the 3DS version of the game have been implemented pretty well in the Switch port.
Simple and fun farming/combat mechanics- The farming and combat mechanics in Rune Factory 4 Special are pretty simple and fun. With the farming aspect of the game, you’re giving a plot of land and some farming tools to use for growing crops. Till land, plant seeds, water and repeat. As you progress further, you will start to gain items that will help speed up the progress of the plants, new seeds to plant, new additions to the farm to store materials and much more. There’s a sort of calming feeling when tending to the farm relaxing and fun.
As for the combat, its almost the same as farming except your equipping weapons and killing monsters. Most of the combat takes place in the areas outside of Selphia’s gates such as forests, fields and dungeons. You’ll be able to level up skills and learn new attacks for certain weapons the more you use them. As you get stronger, you’ll be able to one shot most monsters, which is useful when trying to gather materials.
Monster taming- Monster taming has to be one of my favorite things to do in Rune Factory 4 Special. It’s pretty simple: you take and hold on to an item, walk up to a monster and give them the item. If they like it, they will now follow you and fight along side you. Sometimes they’ll just eat the item and regain health , have some effect happen (such as poison or paralyze for example) or not like it, get mad at you and start attacking. Once tamed they can do much more than just fight, they can also be ridden on and help out on the farm by you assigning them chores. This is really helpful as this frees up more time for you to explore and complete quests.
New content- The new content for Rune Factory 4 Special comes in the form of a couple of new modes: Newlywed and Another Episode. Newlywed mode are addition missions that you are able to take on with your new spouse. Previously these were DLC for the 3DS game, but now are part of the game to be unlocked, the way its suppose to be in my opinion.
Invasive weeds
Inventory/time management can be annoying- I have two complaints with Rune Factory 4 Special: inventory and time management. I’m the type of gaming who likes to pick up everything that isn’t nailed down to the floor, then goes on to eventually pick up the floor that things are nailed down to. In most RPGs that isn’t too much of a problem, things are sorted in their categories: weapons and armor are in one space, consumable items are in a different spot, crafting items have their own place, etc etc. And its easy to be able to organize everything and have quick select slots all sorted out. Not so much for Rune Factory 4 Special. You can’t put items in any order you want, you can’t quick swap between weapons and farming equipment, you have to bring up the inventory menu to swap anything out or to use consumable. Not to mention that your inventory will fill up pretty fast since you need to keep building materials/fertilizer stocked so that you can build/grow things. You can increase the slots in your inventory but you need the materials to do that, but you can’t get them right now cause your inventory is full because someone in town needs a lot of something….it can get pretty frustrating. I’m also the time of gamer that will take on multiple side quests and take my time going through them. When some people think of time management in games, they think of managing your real time ie which quests are the fastest to complete and in which order to tackle them. What I’m talking about is making sure you plant the crops at the right time, while trying to get items for a delivery, while trying to make sure I have enough stamina for a dungeon run, while trying to remember to harvest the crops before they rot and all of this in the span of a day in game. Not to mention scheduling festivals, wooing potential marriage partners and fighting off an impending threat. Trying to juggle all of that plus fighting with inventory management can get a bit frustrating.
Rune Factory 4 Special is a good example of a 3DS game getting remastered and ported over to the Nintendo Switch. It’s mix of Link to the Past and Animal Crossing gameplay makes it that there’s something to do, be it running through dungeons, farming new crops, or in the case of my favorite activity, monster taming. The touch functions, though limited, transfer well over on to the Switch. New content in the form of Another Episode and Newlywed Mode extends replayablity. My minor grips about Rune Factory 4 Special are time and inventory management, which is mostly a personal issue I have with most games. If you been curious about where farming simulation RPGs got their start or been craving for a new Rune Factory game, I recommend giving Rune Factory 4 Special for the Switch a shot.
