Rune Factory 3 is a game that practically started it all, acting as a base for the future Rune Factory installments. The overall pacing and speed has been significantly increased. You’re constantly improving in-game skills, even by simply walking and sleeping. The combat has been overhauled to be far more action packed than before, making it more satisfying. The NPCs are now dynamic, making the town feel more alive. Speaking of NPCs, the game features a wacky cast of characters with unique personalities and dynamics, though perhaps too over the top, and future games will tone down the quirkiness, but they’re still fun in their own right. Overall, Rune Factory 3 feels like a different game compared to Rune Factory 2, bringing a lot of innovation. And that’s a good thing! Rune Factory 2 was fun in it’s own right, but Rune Factory 3 cranked fun factor even further, and that meant the series could keep on growing and refining the mechanics, which is what Rune Factory 4, and to an extent 5 and Tides of Destiny do. That being said, even if future entries would massage and improve upon this third installment, it still remains a solid entry not completely obsoleted by the successors, that’s how solid the underlying mechanics are. So you’ll likely enjoy Rune Factory 3 if you played 4 or 5 or even Tides of Destiny.
The game still has the same core mechanics of farming, combat, interacting with NPCs and doing quests, but it’s the way the game iterates and improves upon them that makes this game stand out. Farming is now quick and painless so you can get into action faster, and you don’t lose your seeds when you try to plant something and miss the field. Items won’t disappear into nothingness when you try to put them down, they’ll actually lie on the ground, and you can throw items, be it at NPCs, enemies or throwing away unneeded items. Item stacks now show how many items are in the same stack while you’re holding them, instead of always showing 1 item in previous games, and you can run around with these towers in your hands which is kinda silly. As I mentioned the combat is faster paced and more satisfying than in predecessors, with a variety of skills and spells to utilize. The game also introduces a new wooly transformation that you’ll obtain after beating the first boss, which unlocks brawling skill, which adds another playstyle. It’s a hand-to-hand. One unique aspect is that you can pick up enemies and throw them at other enemies, and do a slam against the ground if you pick them when they’re in the air. It’s a fun addition to the series, which is kept in future entries in a form of fist weapons. Speaking of skills, the game has increased the number of skills significantly, including some for the most mundane of activities, such as simply moving around, sleeping, eating, and eating damage. You can now invite other people to aid you in combat if you so choose (and invite girls on dates that way) although I admit I haven’t really used this in either this game or RF4, only in 5. Maybe it’s because RF5 introduces a new OP link attack move that can wreck bosses, and your partners actually feel more competent in that game or because raising friendship in that game is pretty slow, or simply because I enjoy fighting enemies solo without the need to worry about companions in 3 or 4. It’s still a neat addition that can make adventures more exiting. There’s no game over state in this game, at least not that I’m aware of. Any time you get knocked out, you’ll respawn at the apothecary with a money cost. The trusty L Pocket is now much more convenient. Simply press L, and that’s it. No need to hold A or B or X or Y to bring it. Crafting system is handled slightly differently. Instead of going to school and playing a little mini-game, you have to eat magical recipe bread to learn, well, recipes based on your corresponding crafting level, which makes learning more straightforward. Moreover, you don’t have to actually learn a recipe, if you meta game, you can craft something without the main character having learned about it. The crafting itself is still chance based however, the lower your skill the lower percentage is, with each missing level deducting 10%. With the exception of cooking that gives you failed dishes, there’s no real punishment for failing to craft something, aside from losing RP, which isn’t very difficult to recover later in the game. You still gain a little bit of experience per failure, so I found myself bruteforcing low chance recipes, and they have the same RP cost of a certain percentage from your max RP. You can also enhance your weapons and stuff with materials that give stat boosts or some other effect, such as being able to seal or poison your foes. Overall, the amount of little and major improvements to the gameplay is kinda impressive, and those improvements make this game a major leap forward for the Rune Factory series.
The writing of Rune Factory 3 deserves a special mention. I think Rune Factory 3 is the funniest entry in the series, and my god I forgot how funny it is. While Rune Factory 4 and 5 have their share of funny moments, events and humorous text, Rune Factory 3’s comedy is absolute gold thanks to the characters’ quirky personalities and them bouncing off each other well, there were a number times were I laughed out loud (LOLed). There are absurd jokes, a few fourth wall breaks, even the main character gets confused about what townsfolk say. There’s even an innuendo joke that caught me off-guard. There are also a few lines about Micah’s girly side, which managed to spawn a “Lesbian Weresheep Edition” ROM hack that turns Micah into a proper female character. I’m not making this up, it’s a real thing that exists, and you now too know that it exists. There are a few humorous lines in Rune Factory 2, but RF3 simply has a higher density of jokes and gags. I think this is the right direction to take the series in, making the adventure more silly and less generic. That being said, I do think toning down the quirky aspect for Rune Factory Tides of Destiny onwards is perhaps for the best. The characters still have quirky personality, but aren’t over the top, making them feel more like actual relatable people. I think it’s good for Rune Factory 3 to stay the way it is to make it perhaps the most unique entry in the series. That’s not to say there aren’t serious moments or even emotional moments, but in my opinion the emotional moments aren’t quite strong in this game, and I think Rune Factory 4 (and especially 5) would improve in that regard, not only thanks to the more heart-hitting writing, but also music that evokes more emotion. I think it isn’t just about of writing being less serious, I think the dramatic element hasn’t quite developed yet, and I don’t remember RF2 being particularly dramatic either. Except I guess the ending after you defeat the final boss is emotional, but I’d argue it still doesn’t hit that hard and it’s the only moment that I would call emotionally impactful. One thing I like is how you can affect the characters in the game by doing the requests. For example, Monica stops biting and turns into a nice little girl, Rusk becomes a little more tolerable to vegetables, Karina becomes more enthusiastic about running the shop, and using appropriate voice clips when browsing the inventory. It really feels like your character has influence over others with your actions, I think this is something that is sorely missing from the future games, that extra bit of character development. The main story is kinda decent, but does have its flaws, mainly, you’re required to romance and eventually marry a girl to progress, which is a holdover from Rune Factory 2. Your fiancée is locked behind the final dungeon, which itself is locked by proposal. At least it’s not half or even 2/3 of the content locked behind marriage, but this still isn’t amazing. Although it is rather easy to raise friendship levels if you’re like me and actually interact with NPCs, like talking to them every day and doing their requests, which makes sense, because of said requirement for beating the game. If not, there’s always a love potion speedrun strat you can learn. And for putting much emphasis on romance and marriage, there’s not much to the marriage. The girl you married moves in your house, and provides you with a daily snack and gives a birth to a child. And that’s it. Really. The kid in this game isn’t even a proper character. He or She always stays in the house, you can’t invite them out on an adventure, they have limited dialogue and they don’t even go to bed at night. Poor soul. Future games would make the kid feel more like a character, rather than an asset, so it’s more justifiable to get excited for getting a child.
Onto the graphics and audio. I think the graphics were never really Rune Factory’s particularly strong suit, even when the series transitioned to 3D for the 3rd time with Rune Factory 5. However, I don’t think the graphics need to be a strong aspect as long as the game is actually enjoyable. I’m not the type of people who focuses on graphics or framerates, for me, the most important aspect is how fun the game is. I consider good graphics a nice bonus, and I won’t really judge the graphics, unless they hinder my enjoyability. That being said however, I do want to say something about the presentation so my reviews feel more complete, even if it’s usually not very constructive. I think Rune Factory 3 is a decent looking game. The 2D art in general looks pretty good, with backgrounds offering a great amount of detail and variety. The 3D models look decent, all characters and monsters are well animated, and while human characters don’t look particularly amazing, the monster designs are distinct and fairly detailed and varied. If The Models Resource is to be trusted, the textures on models are improved, and it’s slightly easier for me to make out details on the character models. The soundtrack, in my opinion, is probably the best in the series, offering most memorable music tracks of all games, from peaceful town theme, to jazzy night in-doors theme, to epic Skelefang boss fight theme, and the final dungeon with the final boss, the soundtrack offers a nice variety of hummable tunes that have stuck to me even after having not played the game for years.
That being said, there are a few flaws in this game that I want to address. First, the movement. I’m not just talking about the D-Pad, which was there from the first game, and it can’t be helped being on DS, I’m talking about how slippery it felt at times. The protagonist doesn’t immediately stop once you stop holding the direction, making precise positioning difficult, which can hinder farming or picking up items, and I found myself accidently throwing away items in my hands fairly frequently. It was especially noticeable to me during a particular mini-game, the bean throwing festival, where you have to get hit by the beans, and they’re pretty tiny, so precision positioning is vital. The movement made it much harder than it should’ve been. The game introduces a double tap dashing. I’m not a huge fan of double tap dashing, because of how it’s usually implemented, it can be easy to accidently dash when you didn’t mean to if it’s too sensitive, like in Monster House GBA. But, if it isn’t, it can be difficult to trigger when you want to. Rune Factory 3 falls into the latter category. To double tap, I really need to mash the d-pad’s direction to get my character to dash. Except in aforementioned bean throwing festival where I accidently dashed for seemingly no reason, and I’m not sure why. Regardless, it can be hard to find the right sensitivity for double tap dashes, which is why I always prefer it to be a dedicated button, which is where RF Tides of Destiny onward improve. While the game can run at 60FPS, it can be easy to throw off. If there are multiple characters in the same area, the game can lag quite a bit. It’s especially noticeable during unity festival, where there are so many characters, even the dialogue box slows down. It’s a minor issue for me personally, but I know it bothers some people, so here you go. I have to wonder how much of processing power goes into touch screen functionality. You can move main character with a stylus and interact with objects just like in previous games on the same system, offering an analog movement, but it doesn’t feel amazing in this game to be honest. I think I prefer touch screen controls in Rune Factory 2 because its a simpler game and isn't as action packed. Lastly, the game is pretty short. I thought it’s more content packed than I remember, but that’s mostly because I’m going for 100% shipment which artificially extends my play time (because I’m enjoying the game that much). In reality, there are only 5 unique dungeons, and the story is fairly short, and there’s not that much to do. It’s easier to run into repeating dialogue from NPCs because there aren’t many unique lines, thanks to the space restrictions of a mere DS cart. Needless to say, Rune Factory 4 smashes those restrictions, filling the game with much more content, more dungeons, unique dialogue and so on.
Overall, Rune Factory 3 is still a really good game, featuring massive gameplay improvements over its predecessors that will be refined even further in the future games, the game has unique characters and the setting and offers lot of good comedy, and while it’s not very content rich, its gameplay manages to hook me in and continue playing the game. It’s good in any way you slice it, be it as a sequel, as a prequel, or on its own right, and I can highly recommend it, be it the original DS release, or (currently upcoming) Special rerelease, it’s simply a quality game.
The game still has the same core mechanics of farming, combat, interacting with NPCs and doing quests, but it’s the way the game iterates and improves upon them that makes this game stand out. Farming is now quick and painless so you can get into action faster, and you don’t lose your seeds when you try to plant something and miss the field. Items won’t disappear into nothingness when you try to put them down, they’ll actually lie on the ground, and you can throw items, be it at NPCs, enemies or throwing away unneeded items. Item stacks now show how many items are in the same stack while you’re holding them, instead of always showing 1 item in previous games, and you can run around with these towers in your hands which is kinda silly. As I mentioned the combat is faster paced and more satisfying than in predecessors, with a variety of skills and spells to utilize. The game also introduces a new wooly transformation that you’ll obtain after beating the first boss, which unlocks brawling skill, which adds another playstyle. It’s a hand-to-hand. One unique aspect is that you can pick up enemies and throw them at other enemies, and do a slam against the ground if you pick them when they’re in the air. It’s a fun addition to the series, which is kept in future entries in a form of fist weapons. Speaking of skills, the game has increased the number of skills significantly, including some for the most mundane of activities, such as simply moving around, sleeping, eating, and eating damage. You can now invite other people to aid you in combat if you so choose (and invite girls on dates that way) although I admit I haven’t really used this in either this game or RF4, only in 5. Maybe it’s because RF5 introduces a new OP link attack move that can wreck bosses, and your partners actually feel more competent in that game or because raising friendship in that game is pretty slow, or simply because I enjoy fighting enemies solo without the need to worry about companions in 3 or 4. It’s still a neat addition that can make adventures more exiting. There’s no game over state in this game, at least not that I’m aware of. Any time you get knocked out, you’ll respawn at the apothecary with a money cost. The trusty L Pocket is now much more convenient. Simply press L, and that’s it. No need to hold A or B or X or Y to bring it. Crafting system is handled slightly differently. Instead of going to school and playing a little mini-game, you have to eat magical recipe bread to learn, well, recipes based on your corresponding crafting level, which makes learning more straightforward. Moreover, you don’t have to actually learn a recipe, if you meta game, you can craft something without the main character having learned about it. The crafting itself is still chance based however, the lower your skill the lower percentage is, with each missing level deducting 10%. With the exception of cooking that gives you failed dishes, there’s no real punishment for failing to craft something, aside from losing RP, which isn’t very difficult to recover later in the game. You still gain a little bit of experience per failure, so I found myself bruteforcing low chance recipes, and they have the same RP cost of a certain percentage from your max RP. You can also enhance your weapons and stuff with materials that give stat boosts or some other effect, such as being able to seal or poison your foes. Overall, the amount of little and major improvements to the gameplay is kinda impressive, and those improvements make this game a major leap forward for the Rune Factory series.
The writing of Rune Factory 3 deserves a special mention. I think Rune Factory 3 is the funniest entry in the series, and my god I forgot how funny it is. While Rune Factory 4 and 5 have their share of funny moments, events and humorous text, Rune Factory 3’s comedy is absolute gold thanks to the characters’ quirky personalities and them bouncing off each other well, there were a number times were I laughed out loud (LOLed). There are absurd jokes, a few fourth wall breaks, even the main character gets confused about what townsfolk say. There’s even an innuendo joke that caught me off-guard. There are also a few lines about Micah’s girly side, which managed to spawn a “Lesbian Weresheep Edition” ROM hack that turns Micah into a proper female character. I’m not making this up, it’s a real thing that exists, and you now too know that it exists. There are a few humorous lines in Rune Factory 2, but RF3 simply has a higher density of jokes and gags. I think this is the right direction to take the series in, making the adventure more silly and less generic. That being said, I do think toning down the quirky aspect for Rune Factory Tides of Destiny onwards is perhaps for the best. The characters still have quirky personality, but aren’t over the top, making them feel more like actual relatable people. I think it’s good for Rune Factory 3 to stay the way it is to make it perhaps the most unique entry in the series. That’s not to say there aren’t serious moments or even emotional moments, but in my opinion the emotional moments aren’t quite strong in this game, and I think Rune Factory 4 (and especially 5) would improve in that regard, not only thanks to the more heart-hitting writing, but also music that evokes more emotion. I think it isn’t just about of writing being less serious, I think the dramatic element hasn’t quite developed yet, and I don’t remember RF2 being particularly dramatic either. Except I guess the ending after you defeat the final boss is emotional, but I’d argue it still doesn’t hit that hard and it’s the only moment that I would call emotionally impactful. One thing I like is how you can affect the characters in the game by doing the requests. For example, Monica stops biting and turns into a nice little girl, Rusk becomes a little more tolerable to vegetables, Karina becomes more enthusiastic about running the shop, and using appropriate voice clips when browsing the inventory. It really feels like your character has influence over others with your actions, I think this is something that is sorely missing from the future games, that extra bit of character development. The main story is kinda decent, but does have its flaws, mainly, you’re required to romance and eventually marry a girl to progress, which is a holdover from Rune Factory 2. Your fiancée is locked behind the final dungeon, which itself is locked by proposal. At least it’s not half or even 2/3 of the content locked behind marriage, but this still isn’t amazing. Although it is rather easy to raise friendship levels if you’re like me and actually interact with NPCs, like talking to them every day and doing their requests, which makes sense, because of said requirement for beating the game. If not, there’s always a love potion speedrun strat you can learn. And for putting much emphasis on romance and marriage, there’s not much to the marriage. The girl you married moves in your house, and provides you with a daily snack and gives a birth to a child. And that’s it. Really. The kid in this game isn’t even a proper character. He or She always stays in the house, you can’t invite them out on an adventure, they have limited dialogue and they don’t even go to bed at night. Poor soul. Future games would make the kid feel more like a character, rather than an asset, so it’s more justifiable to get excited for getting a child.
Onto the graphics and audio. I think the graphics were never really Rune Factory’s particularly strong suit, even when the series transitioned to 3D for the 3rd time with Rune Factory 5. However, I don’t think the graphics need to be a strong aspect as long as the game is actually enjoyable. I’m not the type of people who focuses on graphics or framerates, for me, the most important aspect is how fun the game is. I consider good graphics a nice bonus, and I won’t really judge the graphics, unless they hinder my enjoyability. That being said however, I do want to say something about the presentation so my reviews feel more complete, even if it’s usually not very constructive. I think Rune Factory 3 is a decent looking game. The 2D art in general looks pretty good, with backgrounds offering a great amount of detail and variety. The 3D models look decent, all characters and monsters are well animated, and while human characters don’t look particularly amazing, the monster designs are distinct and fairly detailed and varied. If The Models Resource is to be trusted, the textures on models are improved, and it’s slightly easier for me to make out details on the character models. The soundtrack, in my opinion, is probably the best in the series, offering most memorable music tracks of all games, from peaceful town theme, to jazzy night in-doors theme, to epic Skelefang boss fight theme, and the final dungeon with the final boss, the soundtrack offers a nice variety of hummable tunes that have stuck to me even after having not played the game for years.
That being said, there are a few flaws in this game that I want to address. First, the movement. I’m not just talking about the D-Pad, which was there from the first game, and it can’t be helped being on DS, I’m talking about how slippery it felt at times. The protagonist doesn’t immediately stop once you stop holding the direction, making precise positioning difficult, which can hinder farming or picking up items, and I found myself accidently throwing away items in my hands fairly frequently. It was especially noticeable to me during a particular mini-game, the bean throwing festival, where you have to get hit by the beans, and they’re pretty tiny, so precision positioning is vital. The movement made it much harder than it should’ve been. The game introduces a double tap dashing. I’m not a huge fan of double tap dashing, because of how it’s usually implemented, it can be easy to accidently dash when you didn’t mean to if it’s too sensitive, like in Monster House GBA. But, if it isn’t, it can be difficult to trigger when you want to. Rune Factory 3 falls into the latter category. To double tap, I really need to mash the d-pad’s direction to get my character to dash. Except in aforementioned bean throwing festival where I accidently dashed for seemingly no reason, and I’m not sure why. Regardless, it can be hard to find the right sensitivity for double tap dashes, which is why I always prefer it to be a dedicated button, which is where RF Tides of Destiny onward improve. While the game can run at 60FPS, it can be easy to throw off. If there are multiple characters in the same area, the game can lag quite a bit. It’s especially noticeable during unity festival, where there are so many characters, even the dialogue box slows down. It’s a minor issue for me personally, but I know it bothers some people, so here you go. I have to wonder how much of processing power goes into touch screen functionality. You can move main character with a stylus and interact with objects just like in previous games on the same system, offering an analog movement, but it doesn’t feel amazing in this game to be honest. I think I prefer touch screen controls in Rune Factory 2 because its a simpler game and isn't as action packed. Lastly, the game is pretty short. I thought it’s more content packed than I remember, but that’s mostly because I’m going for 100% shipment which artificially extends my play time (because I’m enjoying the game that much). In reality, there are only 5 unique dungeons, and the story is fairly short, and there’s not that much to do. It’s easier to run into repeating dialogue from NPCs because there aren’t many unique lines, thanks to the space restrictions of a mere DS cart. Needless to say, Rune Factory 4 smashes those restrictions, filling the game with much more content, more dungeons, unique dialogue and so on.
Overall, Rune Factory 3 is still a really good game, featuring massive gameplay improvements over its predecessors that will be refined even further in the future games, the game has unique characters and the setting and offers lot of good comedy, and while it’s not very content rich, its gameplay manages to hook me in and continue playing the game. It’s good in any way you slice it, be it as a sequel, as a prequel, or on its own right, and I can highly recommend it, be it the original DS release, or (currently upcoming) Special rerelease, it’s simply a quality game.