Goodness do people dislike this game. In the whole genre of Story of Seasons, and Harvest Moon, this iteration fits very well right above RF:F, and under RF4 for me. The fact that this game went through severe difficulties during development really shows in its graphics. While the main city avenue is beautiful, it all falls flat the moment you venture further. The frame rate is all over the place, the mechanics as breakable as ever. Yet I absolutely adore it.

The story, while not as impactful as RF4, kept me on my toes. It was nothing spectacular, but I appreciate how goofy the implementation of fields in this game has become. We went from a cosy cottage to a water giant to a noble courtyard to fucking dragons. The progression was a little to easy for my taste, and some more juice in the post-game would have been greatly appreciated. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the themes surrounding the Sechs aftermath, a flawed police institution, and how it ties into the established dragon lore. What I was missing was more information on the environment we were in. As much as I liked the setting, I barely got to understand what the history of Rigbarth is.

I loved the characters, and hope they will go even further with more mature characters to date, such as my beloved Lucas. Young characters like in past iterations have always been a major problem for me, and I hope that with the next two games coming up, the cast will become rich and mature. I did enjoy the character concepts, and the traditional gift loop that all the games have remains fun. I hope they improve on the gift-back mechanic, and make you genuinely think about what characters love. Gifting a smith ore is not getting more fun when it's in every game. The slow development of every character is intriguing, and the events are cool, but limited by the visual dissonance.

I think the mechanics are pure fun, and where the game shines the most. As ever, I feel like the game should tone it down with the many systems it tries to tie together.I enjoyed just choosing how I want to spend my time with the game. It's neat, and I never got a moment where I didn't know what to do. It felt way slower compared to RF4 where I got through my day pretty much until 8pm max. This may be a bad thing for some, but a good thing for me. I still believe that the soil mechanics are by far the strongest in the whole farming sim genre, which is why I wish it to be way more transparent and accessible. What I throughly disliked was the furniture system which is just such a shame because of how clunky and unappealing everything is. Where my home looked like an empty mess, I couldn't leave my eyes off of the monster and character models. Genuinely fun to look at, and exploring the drops of every boss and critter was very engaging to me. I went in very deep into the grind, and taming those bosses is a peak Rune Factory experience to me now. I do miss all of my monster living on an island like in ToD, though. There is so much to explore.

Genuinely fun game if you can brush over the terrible frame rate when you leave your house or when 10 mages cast a spell at the same time. The music is nice, the characters are delightful, the mechanics as rich as you want them to be. I hope that the studio can find footing with their two new releases, and really tune the experience they want to create.

Hoo, boy. Even nearly two decades after the fact, we’re still witnessing stragglers adjusting to HD -- a growing pain undoubtedly facilitated by Nintendo’s commitment to standard definition. Not that this was a Nintendo-exclusive thing, mind – Kingdom Hearts III’s numerous delays couldn’t mask its PlayStation 2-styled environments – but even years after the Wii’s exit, Japanese developers are still discovering that, yes, high-definition gaming is more than just saturated bloom and detailed graphics. In a way, it’s interesting how this has all translated into the hubbub surrounding the underpowered Switch console; really, I can’t say I’m a graphically-inclined individual, yet the likes of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Game Freak’s Pokémon offerings remain stunning gaps in quality among peers and predecessors alike – blocky polygons and fuzzy, stitched-together environments inducing all the cringe of an amateur 3ds Max experiment rather than the immaculately-polished products you’d expect from gaming’s biggest properties.

Of course, gameplay remains king, yet Rune Factory 5 is a sober reminder of how such stumbling blocks bleed and pervade throughout the proverbial fabric. It’s one thing to note how the graphics are only a marginal improvement over the series’ 3D debut in 2008’s Rune Factory Frontier, with its GameCube-era visuals a ghastly mesh of muddy textures and blocky compositions that rarely tap into Rune Factory’s brand of lush, pastel fantasy. Yet it’s the lethargy laced in it all – from the sluggish combat to the oversized environments to the clunky room decoration (“what do you mean the chairs have to be three feet from my dinner table?”) – that render Rune Factory 5 a frustrating exercise in dated familiarity; an uninspired facsimile of its handheld legacy’s cozy compactness.

(Heck, even the American release can’t mask all the glitches from the game’s messy Japanese launch. Character animations fidget and sputter, their heads stammering like worn-down automatons rather than the living, breathing townsfolk we’re supposed to marry.)

It's a darn shame, too, given there’s a good game underneath it all. The feedback loop so inherently addictive in Rune Factory rings true here, and the prudent farmer will quickly exploit crops and materials to hoard wealth and supplies alike. In this never-ending cycle of pastoral capitalism – one the game frequently peppers with dungeon-crawling, monster-taming, and institutional conspiracies -- do we meet Rune Factory 5’s lovable cast, their individual foibles endearing us little by little as we settle down and perhaps even sprout the seeds for love. (Lucy, an athletic go-getter who masks her perceived inadequacy with perfectionism, was my bachelorette of choice.)

Yet when thinking back to the stellar ingenuity of Rune Factory 4 Special – its fertile soil rich and plenty with abundance, yielding an impenetrable depth of options and features – the half-baked harvest of Rune Factory 5 imprints a disappointment not even the vindication of married life can banish. It’s not that it doesn’t want to tap into the malleable whimsy of, say, rolling around on an apple-shaped pet just because – it’s that it can’t, and while it never breeds overt contempt, the static direction of a turning point entry such as this raises concerns all the same. Perhaps the implications of a spin-off title might be the soul-searching Rune Factory needs?

(By the way, does the festival music have to be this obnoxious in every game? Thank goodness for Switch’s portability – I can’t imagine subjecting others to that unending cacophony.)

I put a lot of time into this game and did enjoy it for the most part but felt very empty after beating the main story line. I didn't really like the story all that much and i generally felt that the writing was uninteresting. Lots of Anime stereotypes, unfortunately not in a good way. The combat was fairly fun, the gameplay loop was engaging enough and i did like the little events and romance quests, but after getting married, i was hit with this sense of emptiness. Somehow i felt like all that's worth experiencing I've seen already and whatever comes next is not really interesting enough to make myself continue playing. So i quit and if I'm completely honest, i doubt I'll ever play this game again.
i don't regret the time i spent on this game and it's definitely fun enough for a while but it had so much more potential and it's unfortunate that it didn't end up being a deeper experience.

Poor performance isn't really something that bothers me in games, provided that the game isn't literally unplayable because of it, and so the minor frame rate issues and somewhat poor graphics never really got in the way of my enjoyment with this game. With another charming cast, combat that has been well-translated into 3D from Rune Factory 4, and a story that felt more engaging than the ones from the other Rune Factory games I've played, Rune Factory 5 continues to show how modern Rune Factory is some of the most fun that the farming sim genre has to offer. My only real complaint with this game is how, in removing a lot of the grinding present in the previous entry, the main gameplay loop becomes somewhat less satisfying, as it is no longer urgent to be constantly crafting better weapons and armor to progress with the story. Normally, I'm all for streamlining gameplay and cutting down on grinding, but the grinding is part of what made Rune Factory 4 so fun, so to see it be toned down here is somewhat bittersweet.

A downgrade from its predecessor in almost every way, this farming-/adventure-sim is unlikely to offer more than a briefly enjoyable experience.
+ solid variety of old and new activities
+ ability to see and trigger town events by choice
+ overall quality of life improvement with some caveats (farming controls, slow animations, etc.)
- very short and badly presented main plot
- generic cast with limited involvement in the story
- cheap graphics and level design making the world seem rather lifeless

[European Portuguese - Windows PC/STEAM - Dated 04/08/2022]

"Apesar de algo divertido quando não perturbado pelos problemas acima descritos, Rune Factory 5 é o primeiro título completamente 3D da franquia e um passo na direção certa para a saga (se existirem sequelas depois da bancarota dos desenvolvedores). Os sistemas já tradicionais de Rune Factory, como o combate, agricultura e as famosas relações interpessoais encontram-se intactos em certa medida, mas é triste verificar que os visuais chegam a ser demasiado simplistas para uma transição de larga escala como a verificada. Com os controlos a dificultarem a vida aos jogadores, recomendo que primeiro adquiram Rune Factory 4 Special e, caso gostem, prossigam para esta quinta iteração."

See more @ https://squared-potato.pt/rune-factory-5-pc-analise/

Watering time

Grow big and strong ok?

Maybe you disagree with my ranking so lemme just say I've not played a rf before. I found this easy to jump into but tbf ive played a lot of Stardew valley. I'm currently having rough days recovering from ankle surgery and in a lot of pain and this game is getting me through the pain spikes.

Also idk if it's just I'm an adult but a lot of the adults that aren't romancable are the ones I wanna kiss on the mouth with tongue. But I get that would be weird in canon cause the main character is young.

I think maybe it's a bit much for the switch, mine seemed to chug a bit. Idk about like technical stuff but something's up cause it would be noticable during long gaming sessions maybe someone else who knows what's up can talk more about that.

I could see someone who finds the technical issues unforgivable and distracting. I lost about a day or twos in game time cause the game just kind of froze up. Which given the nature of the gameplay being grindy/repetitive (which I enjoy deeply, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea) is frustrating

That being said I am deeply enjoying this game. I don't know if I'd go back and play older rf games but if another comes out I'll have my eye on it. Not sure though but I might read up on which older games people enjoyed and why.

I've played most Rune Factory games and I think this is the best one. While this fixes many of my issues with the prior games, it introduces new ones. Mainly, the plot and combat are barely integrated with the farming and community.

I beat all dungeons, including the post game, by Autumn of year 1. I still hadn't dated anyone, despite talking and gifting every day to the character I wanted to date, and I had barely done any farming because money isn't that useful. You can easily beat all the combat challenges by just using what you find in dungeons, either by using dropped weapons or crafting. Ally monsters are so powerful that you don't need your party to be community members, so their affinity doesn't matter either.

If you want a game where you farm in the morning, talk to villages in the afternoon, and go to dungeons in the evening, this isn't it. You're encouraged to just go to dungeons non-stop for two in game months, and after that you're left with a regular Story of Seasons game with no combat challenges left. I still like Story of Seasons game so I still enjoy farming for the sake of it. Otherwise, while issues from 4 are fixed, like the random heart event system being fixed, or the re-balancing of enemies to have less sudden difficultly spikes, you'll overall just be done with the game much sooner than other games in its genre. This was short and sweet. Barely any reason to play into year two, but what's here is fun.

keeping in the player character's super slidey movement even though they upgraded to 3d and then implementing the most drift-sensitive controls i've ever experienced was,,, a choice

it pains me to say that though i didn't particularly hate my time on this game, i didn't find it all that enjoyable either. i think my problem is the leap to 3d in and of itself, especially with how undercooked it all is. there's something snappier and faster paced about the 2d format of the previous entries (in the main series, anyway - sadly i've not played any of the side games so i have no reference for how well the 3d mechanics work in those), which allows for shorter days than rf5, and consequently, a more engaging and addictive time playing. it was so easy to get swept away and forget all about the concept of time with the previous games, whereas with rf5, the longer days often felt like a slog and the routine of it all felt so much more noticeable, and not in a good way. you could say the wonky, unrefined controls added a bit of spice, but, uh. the wrong ones. the wrong spices. so the game remains v unseasoned and this metaphor is a disaster. ultimately, i can't help but wonder if simply sticking to 2d would've made for a better overall experience.

i will say that what i played of the plot was intriguing, and the characters were vaguely interesting and thankfully still held some of that quintessential rune factory charm, and also WOO YEAH a win for the gays!!! ryker is a delightful weirdo and maybe one day i'll pick up the game again and actually date him and figure out what the hell he's all about, but for the most part, my attempts to get to know him mostly just made me miss leon :c

i wish this game had a little more time to bake. it's not bad by any means, and i had a lot of fun with it, but it's just a little disappointing that it feels so close to something, but never quite reaches it. i found that after i finished the main story, i didn't really open the game again afterwards, because i didn't really feel compelled to. i felt like i had seen pretty much everything the game had to offer me. (and i hadn't even been married, because i realized far too late the "only one romance chance per heart lv" thing and by that point i was at a high enough heart lv it was just tiring to try and get to the next just so i could reload and try again however many times.) it lacked what it was about rf4 that kept me coming back to it, over and over for years on different playthroughs, making it my most played 3ds game.

however. However. like i said, it's not bad by any means. i found myself extremely grateful for some improvements, and very disappointed by others. in other words, this feels like a title that has the seemingly natural clunky-ness of a series' first foray into 3d (despite not technically being so.) while i may be disappointed, i don't dislike it whatsoever, and i actually found myself very hopeful for what rf6 may look like - if it ever comes. i feel that this game provided much-needed experience, and that, hopefully, the lessons learned will transfer over into a much more refined game in the future.

why'd they lock important story/character development elements behind marriage :(

oh no :(

You know, I never actually got far into the game. And I don't think I ever will. There seems to be little point playing it when there are... better experiences in the same genre. The impression I had is that it feels very souless compared to RF4, and actually other games in the series as well. Something so cool about RF is that even the games with simpler writing such as Frontier and RF3 still manage to brim with charisma and character. Now, granted, I'm judging this having played very little of it. But the comforting atmosphere of RF is something felt early on by all of its good titles. This game's art direction has no character, and it's a pretty big downgrade from RF4 for the villagers to have the same conversations everyday. Also, the combat seems to have downgraded from the last 3d game in the series (TOD, which had pretty nice combat).

I must also mention it's disappointing because RF4 is one of my absolute favorite games, if not my number 1. And obviously I was out of myself when this one was announced. Nevertheless I'm VERY glad the series seems to have been reborn, and I genuinely hope it keeps getting better.