From Marvelous AQL and Neverland, Rune Factory 4 Special brings to the table a fantastic combination of farm sim, dungeon crawler, RPG, and of course, dating and marriage game styles. If that sounds like a lot, it is! Rune Factory 4 originally released on Nintendo 3DS in North America in the fall of 2013. Now, in February of 2020, the game has gotten an HD remake to the Nintendo Switch worldwide. The “Special” in Rune Factory 4 Special is referring to new illustrations and cut-scenes, a new difficulty level, and a Newlywed Mode that are fresh on this version. I’m a pretty “casual” gamer with a good amount of the Harvest Moon franchise under my belt, and honestly, I was unsure what this game would hold for me. I knew there would be no in-between; I would either be turned off or find a brand new world to pour hundreds of hours in.  It took some time to find out, but it turned out to be the latter!

Story

The game begins with a choice of dialogue that results in your gender. You’re on an airship traveling to a distant land to bring something important to someone important, but that’s about all we get to know about the situation at hand. Some troublemakers attempt to sabotage you, and you end up over the edge and falling from the sky! You land on a dragon, who discovers you’ve lost your memory and makes the assumption that you are the prince(ss) that was coming to visit her. Together, you decide that you will take on this role since you don’t know of anything else you should be doing anyway! And, as it turns out, the town could really use you.

Gameplay

After your skirmish on the airship, the action does start slow. When I’d played through about a week of in-game time, I wasn’t quite sold and wondered what I was missing. Did I miss a trigger for an event? An unlock of skills? Luckily it’s pretty clear there’s plenty of untapped potential, and so I pressed on. Somewhere around the process of clearing the second dungeon (and the middle of the first season for me), it clicked. Suddenly I had so much to do that I was excited for every moment of gameplay, and at the same time, I didn’t feel rushed or like the in-game day was ending too soon (which I am very grateful for).

With so much to do, menus and inventories and utilization of tools is absolutely key to this game. There’s not much tutorial content, but also not much you can ruin by trial and error at the beginning anyway. Navigating your held inventory and storage is somewhat intuitive; I’m about 20 hours in and still occasionally press a button that doesn’t do what I think it does. Maybe that’s leftover from many, many hours of Pokemon. You’ll often end up pressing a few different buttons (even the correct ones) to, say, switch between equipped items, but you can get a lot done with those tools in a short period of time. Farming and fighting are both satisfyingly fast-paced. Even fishing doesn’t make you sit still for long!

The RPG aspect of this game is evident by tracking just about EVERYTHING. Not only do you level up, but every single individual tool and weapon skill also has a level, as well as cooking, forging, etc. You can also see the friendships you have with the townspeople as they progress!  As you and the story grow, so does the world, and there are massive amounts of areas to explore in a Metroidvania-esque style.

I haven’t done a lot of romancing yet, but I enjoy that the villagers are easy to access but also not in your face. Triggering events is very random, and easier done for the story than dating. Eligible bachelors and bachelorettes will show a quick cartoon sequence of them the first time you talk to them. All the villagers have voices, with quite a few of their comments actually being spoken instead of just grunts or exclamations to show emotion. You can also take some of the villagers with you on your expeditions, to provide some company and help with the enemies you may encounter!

Visuals

The game plays from a top-down perspective, with characters, enemies, and certain structures being more 3D than some of the basic outdoor areas. Even the flat art of some of the maps is beautiful, though. When speaking with someone, a cartoon image of them appears with their text, and they each have many different expressions as well. Those add great depth since the 3D models aren’t really ever seen up close. Magic attacks (at least the ones I’ve seen so far) are kept pretty basic but certainly get the job done. The biggest thing you want out of a game like this is to feel immersed, and that definitely happens! The third dungeon is a spooky mansion, and I expected it to be pretty gimmicky, but there were details there that honestly had me eager to leave!

Audio

As mentioned before, voicework is rather thorough in Rune Factory 4 Special, considering the genre. All the sound effects are satisfyingly exactly what you’d expect. There are great little tunes in the areas you most frequent that, while not extravagant, are pleasant and catchy. I even got a short melody stuck in my head! In dungeons, the soundtrack does a wonderful job of adding atmosphere, even if that’s just the sound of thunder.

Replayability

“Replayability” is a funny term to use in this case, as you’ll likely spend so many hours in ONE playthrough that replayability is less necessary! For the most part, I think the biggest motivators for a new save file would be changing your gender or romantic partner (you can date many people, but only marry one). Newlywed mode offers new experiences with those specific romantic partners, but it is mostly some fun “extras”. From what I understand, just about everything else would be accessible in a single playthrough with your own customizable pacing. You can change your focus from farming to dungeon crawling to other skills so effortlessly, that you may unlock a lot in a certain area before another (or not at all; there are some things I’ve specifically chosen not to unlock yet).

What It Could Have Done Better

After the sluggish beginning, you will be so busy enjoying everything there is to do in this game, you won’t have time to think about any flaws this game has. Honestly, the only thing that I thought might be missing was more options for character customization as far as your appearance goes, but the cartoon images when you speak tell you the obvious reason why that was left out. That being said, for casual gamers who just want to get through things, looking up a guide for certain unlocks will be a lot more effective than trial and error or straight-up random chance.

The only other thing that feels limited is the requests available; I don’t know why we can only take one from the board at a time or a certain amount in a day (maybe more unlock later), but three small tasks a day is really not that much. It’s also a bummer if you accept a task to ship something, but can’t until the next morning, and then potentially miss out on other tasks for that day. Luckily the tasks mostly just give you little bonus items or princess points, so they’re not going to slow you down much.

Verdict

With very little not-to-like and an overabundance of possibilities, it’s hard not to fall in love with this game! As a newbie to this franchise, I was worried the farming and dungeon crawling would feel too at-odds with each other, but that’s not the case. Who doesn’t love some quick beating on enemies and finding new treasures? Despite its deceptively slow beginning, once you’re past that point you’ll have so much freedom to customize your experience and enjoy new places, you won’t want to put the game down! One of my favorite things about it is that it doesn’t feel rushed. I don’t feel like I missed out on things I left undone when my character gets some sleep at night; that will all be available the next day, or the next, depending on what I decide to focus on. The game difficulty also makes this approachable from many different types of gamers; you can play on easy and progress smoothly, or go up to hard and force yourself to develop some upgraded weapons (and all the steps it takes to be able to forge your own weapons) to really add some sweat to your battles. If even a portion of the game’s features appeals to you, you’ve found your new adventure!