Rune Factory 4 Special Nintendo Switch ~ First Impressions

Here’s all I knew about Rune Factory 4 before I started playing - it was previously a Nintendo 3DS title, and that you could farm, fight monsters, and develop relationships with other characters. I’ve never played any of the Rune Factory titles before, so this was my very first game, and I deliberately made sure not to read too much about it. When I did see little clips from the trailer, it reminded me of games that I have played and enjoyed in the past like Harvest Moon and most recently my new addiction - Stardew Valley. The reason I love these games so much is that they are a perfect little getaway from reality - cute music, adorable farm animals, and quests from interesting townspeople I can form relationships with. 

I should point out by saying Rune Factory 4 is my first Japanese RPG game, so I was initially taken aback by its dramatic opening music. I couldn’t help but smile because the song was so energetic as it showcased the many different characters of the town of Selphia.  Your journey begins travelling to Selphia, where you are to deliver a special gift to a god. On the way, two random soldiers overrun the airship and your first taste of combat begins. With a swift hit to the head, your character develops amnesia and gets literally kicked off the ship and lands into the claws of a dragon god in Selphia.  You become mistaken for a member of royalty who is supposed to arrive in the town, which causes much confusion as the real prince arrives. He decides to step down from his role to appoint you with a royal title instead.

I had quite a giggle watching this all unfold as my poor character (who was still trying to recover from her memory loss) was trying to tell the townspeople and Ventuswill (the dragon) that she wasn’t who they said she was, but still took on the responsibilities of a princess regardless. From here, your character is told that being a member of royalty includes tasks such as farming, cooking and crafting. You’re introduced to the request box from which you receive quests from the townspeople. This system in the game is great because these quests are especially helpful at the beginning of the game as it teaches you the basics of growing and selling different crops.

There’s not too much skill involved when it came to learning the basics of combat. You press ‘B’ to attack, hold it down for a slightly varied but stronger attack, and spam the button to do an even more powerful move. I picked up a spear early in the game which felt way too overpowered, so there wasn’t much of a challenge when going up against new monsters.

I found that when I started obtaining different runes abilities for spells that I could cast, that’s when it became more interesting. Fireballs and water lasers were fun to use for long distance attacks but became a bit of a novelty because I felt like the abilities I had obtained so far didn’t have a massive impact on enemies. Overall, even though it was a fun addition to the game-play, it wasn’t as satisfying or rewarding as I wanted it to be.

Even though I didn’t care too much for combat, I put my focus elsewhere. I couldn’t stop farming and growing crops to earn more gold. Once I had completed a request to build my own Monster Barn, I couldn’t leave my farm any faster after learning that I could go out to befriend the monsters and take them with me on adventures and into combat! Once I did start focusing on exploring more with my monsters, I cared about cooking and crafting even more because of how beneficial it was not only to my character’s health, but also the health of my new companions. This was not just any farming game - it was a game full of monsters, fantastical creatures and magic. 

The progression system is interesting, and admittedly something I didn’t pay a lot of attention to when I first sat down with the game. I was fully aware of my character just generally ‘leveling up’ as I started playing, but I was also noticing that whenever I was going about farming, or even just running around, I would ‘Skill Up’ randomly. It was a cute animation and sound but I didn’t really understand at first what was happening until I explored the character menu more.

In the menu, there’s a log of all the skills you can increase such as ‘farming’, ‘running’, ‘throwing’ and even ‘sleeping’. The more you engage with these skills and increase them, it benefits your character in a variety of ways like increasing your HP and vitality and increasing stats such as defence and magic. I found this is great way of visually reminding me of what my character has to offer and redirecting my focus on playing different parts of the game, rather than just be focused on one skill. 

As I previously mentioned, this was my first JRPG, so I was excited to see what this story had to offer. While I caught myself rolling my eyes once or twice at some cheesy scenes and characters, I started to fall in love with the characters a bit - but it’s not going to be for everyone. Some of the characters play a lot to their stereotypes and the writing and dialogue are at times cheesy and would make me cringe at times. I’m not sure whether this was intentional, but it was definitely something that stood out to me. There are some other characters who are written more interestingly who show different sides to their personality, but I hope the other townspeople reveal more of themselves to me as the story progresses.  

I’m looking forward to discovering how much I can keep customising and upgrading my character and farm before maxing everything out - I haven’t started, or even picked who I’m going to romance yet! There’s definitely so much you can spend your time doing in the game apart from just the main story, and every ‘side’ quest you do or skill you want to improve will help your character greatly later on when it comes to things like combat.  Farming becomes a lot less tedious when you can assign tasks to your pet monsters, like watering your crops and clearing your area of rocks. Combat becomes much more interesting when you take those pet monsters with you to assist taking down tougher enemies.  It’s such a clever way the game keeps things interesting and fresh. 

The score is catchy and changes with the seasons as you play, and the sound effects are so satisfying as you build your character and give out orders. I know I have mentioned the opening title music already, but I cannot get the song out of my head - it’s just so much fun to listen to! It's so good, that I'd leave the title screen idle so I can hear the song in it's entirety.

I’m almost upset I never got into this game when I used to have my 3DS years ago - how did I not know about it?! As much as I love my other farming-style games, I think what’s made me fall in love with Rune Factory 4 is not only its cute but bizarre story line and characters, but also knowing there’s still so many more skills and crafts to unlock to help guide me through it!  Stardew Valley is going to have to take a backseat while I continue my time in the town of Selphia.

A digital code of the Nintendo Switch version of the game was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this article.