Retrospective - Rune Factory 4 Special - The Pinnacle Of A Saga

 

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Hello dear community, this time we will review a game with a lot of heart and personality, this is one of those games that let's you be at your own phase and you say "one more day" and continue playing all the way to middle night.

Honestly first, I never played the original 3ds release or Rune Factory 3 before, the last one I played was Tides Of Destiny and I had an absolutely blast with it.

My point it's that I will review the game as a sole entry as I won't talk about the differences between 4 and 4 Special because I didn't experimented them on first hand.

I don't think the graphics are bad , they have this unique charisma but takes time to get into it.

For anyone who don't know this franchise, it's a Farming Rpg, a game when in a form or another you have to take care of a farm and grow crops , in this particular game , you grow crops for more than money but I won't spoil anything.

I won't do a story section because the structure feels very straight forward and I don't want to spoil anything, the charm of the game is mixing on a good routine between your chores on the farm, your social life and the exploration of the story and dungeons.

The gameplay:

You have to sleep and eat on a daily basis , a traditional gameplay of farming simulators, you will get some help from diverse Npcs but you have to produce your personal food and products to make money for upgrades of your gear 

You will be developing a daily routine, divided into the farm occupations like planting and watering crops, setting up store to sell your products or buy seeds or tools for helping your daily life.

At a first glance this is pretty basic but with the days passing, events and your skill improvements will unlock new crafting recipes, things as a kitchen to cook different dishes depending on the type of stove that you have, or grills, ovens, etc...

This also plays a part on the artesanal items, more complex recipes that require diverse crops and other ingredients mixed and/or a special device like a specific oven or a grill of only bricks, this plays the aspect of a shop.

You can sell these more elaborated products for more profit or storage them for your use on the dungeon exploration because the most important  and prominent healing items are the ones that you make 

Typical on this genre , the farm starts being an absolute chaos that you have to sort

Other segment are the story of the game , the Rpg aspect , things like fighting monsters , doing missions and uncovering a secret while you explore dungeons and kill bosses.

Your character levels up in the traditional way of gaining xp and you get more stamina for your daily occupations.

Also every action of the game has a hidden meter that when full can level up the action , things like watering the crops with on a 2x2 range instead of doing it 1x1.

Exploring the town and starting to get along with the population goes a long way on immersion.

The final aspect are the social parts , you can do friends and have romances , the Npcs have different routines , unique personalities and looks.

They have different occupations that match to some extent the personality , things they like and their fighting style.

Technically you have a party

You can form your own party to your liking , up to two persons can travel with you and help you on your battles , you must befriend them first and after that ask for their help.

You can talk to them , give them gifts , doing chores for them , in general bonding with a Npc consists of making them a part of your daily routine.

The combat:

The combat is not the half of the game , it's like a 30% of the experience , you must fight a lot on the story but you probably will spent twice or more time on the town and it's diverse events.

You have a classic Rpg system , you can equip different weapons and gear , also special items  with unique abilities as spells or movements that only you can do with specific items.

This is your inventory screen, you have another section but I trimmed it for you to see the symbols in each square

The weapons and spells level up too, hitting a bit more hard, the interesting part are the movements.

You will unlock a lot of different moves with each weapon that make the combat a little more diverse, also your way of getting healed are your party help and the same crops or dishes that you make, that's the plan of getting your farm to a top level.

Rolls with attacks, special dashes, sprints with your weapons at front to do damage on everything on your way.

The enemies are diverse and the majority can be tamed

This is a small review but the game is explained in all the important aspects.

I know that I left out things like the side quests or the shop that you can open but these events are story and socially related and I don't really want to show you the characters looks or some dialogue that spoils something.

The side content is very straight forward, the Npcs will naturally write quests for you or the missions posts and that's all that I will say.

The game let's us do the cycle of hero and farmer, the transition between planting crops and start killing monsters feels well crafted, also you can tame the beasts to help you on the farm or fights but you need to progress in the story first.

To some people maybe the daily routines will be not that engaging, but hold on, the town events, competitions and seasons make for a change every few days, in general the game is fun.

The social and town events does wonders to show you that the Npcs are more complex that at first glance 

Newlywed mode:

This is an "extra" mode that unlocks after marriage with a character, you have an special episode for every candidate but you must marry one by one on your normal playthroughs to unlock all episodes.

These are like Visual Novels with certain playable parts with your companion being your husband or wife, personally not my cup of tea but maybe the perfect "epilogue" to the principal game.

In Conclusion:

If you're seeking for a calm game with some Rpg touches and a healthy pool of characters, this is your game, recently was launched on Xbox but I personally played and reviewed the switch version.

Both versions runs without a problem and to this day is on gamepass, also this type of game wins a lot with the portable capability, but that's a more personal opinion.

A great recommendation for a lover of the simulations of farming with a little touch of Rpg and nothing pushing you forward, all at your own time.

You have cycles of days and nights plus dungeons to explore but that only means that on nights you have to sleep and than eventually you will have to explore the dungeons, nothing pushes you forward

Thanks for reading to the end , see you on the next one!

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