Rune Factory 5 (Nintendo Switch) Review

What better way to spend time as an amnesiac who finds themselves in a decent sized town of Rigbarth. Here SEED, an organisation that takes care of the monsters surrounding the town takes in the protagonist and, after a while, lets them become a SEED member and help locals with questions. This involves taking on various tasks including item finding, crop growing, and monster taming, for in time monsters that are tamed can help on the farm. However, all is not as it seems in the mostly friendly town powerful runes that help keep the world harmonious are becoming unbalanced, and the source of the problem needs investigating.

Rune Factory games always start with the player having amnesia and this title is no different. The reason behind the memory loss is an integral part of the story which, once revealed, makes perfect sense. Until then, starting afresh with getting to know all the residents and increasing friendship with them to experience interesting scenes is a small fraction of the story. Marriage is available for both genders, although reaching a high enough companion level takes a lot of gift-giving and interactions, something not reached in time for this review. From the start, in theory, most places on the wide map can be explored but in practice, a lot of levelling up is required in both character and equipment before all areas can truly be explored. As some regions come with a risk of near instant death in the early game. Although, for a time, players will not find much need to venture much outside Rigbarth as there is lots to do inside it.

First of all, there is the farm, arguably the most important part of the game. At first the preliminary farming area felt ridiculously small in scale but the farm expansion occurs naturally with story progression, because the other farms are on the backs of dragons! That was one of the coolest revelations and is not much of a story spoiler. All dragons, acquired in rather cool fashion can be accessed beside the really small farm, which is more of a garden compared to the dragon farms. Once cleared of debris, which are useful items in themselves, the fields are open for all important crop cultivation. The monster barns can be expanded to hold a decent number of creatures who can both lend a paw or claw on the farm itself or become a party companion. A variety of equipment can be purchased and placed on each dragon, as well as near the first farm area, to create usable items including weapons and armour. The amount of cooking and creative stations provides plenty of opportunity to improve skills and get stronger, aided by buying appropriate recipe bread and being a high enough level to learn new recipes.

From fishing and limited mining, to gift giving and farming, Rigbarth has even more to offer. There's the restaurant and inn which are central locations for character development as well as a place to learn recipes and restore health. The numerous shops become regular stops for restocking supplies. There is a range of quests, some provided by the detective agency, an outlet for a different style of quests from SEED ones. There is so much to do at times it did feel overwhelming to figure out what to do next, whether to focus on the main plot which involves a lot of dungeons to explore with simple puzzles to solve, or idle away many hours developing the farm whose items are needed for quests and is also simply a relaxing past time. The way the monsters help on the farm, once their friendship level is strong enough, is necessary to get all crops watered efficiently without using up character stamina and to save it for other pursuits. Maximum stamina is increased over time, can be restored through items both bought and created or by a dip in the local bath house.