Rune Factory 5 is the fifth numbered installment in the Rune Factory series, and the seventh installment overall. This series takes the farming and relationship-building of the Story of Seasons, once known as Harvest Moon, series and adds action RPG combat and dungeon exploration. As a result, the “farm animals” players obtain are changed into tamable monsters, although the crops players can grow remain grounded in reality.
The first Rune Factory game, with the subtitle A Fantasy Harvest Moon, was released for Nintendo DS in 2006 in Japan, with international releases spread out across the following years. The series’ developer Neverland filed for bankruptcy in 2013, but Marvelous hired many of its employees and continued the series with Rune Factory 5, which was originally released in Japan on May 20, 2021. Its international releases in 2022 span between March 22 for North America and March 25 for Europe.
Rune Factory 5 feels like a natural progression of the series in many ways. It keeps the farming, crafting, quest system, and animal taming from past titles while improving the relationship-building in subtle but very impactful ways. It’s not directly related to past Rune Factory titles; there are some references made, since the games all take place in the same universe, but prior knowledge of the series isn’t necessary to enjoy Rune Factory 5. The biggest changes to the series come in how the game approaches marriage and character events. Not only does Rune Factory 5’s inclusive approach to relationship-building offer a fantastic way for the series to appeal to a more diverse audience than ever before, but the fact that it stands alone also makes it a great entry point in the series for anyone interested in the farming and action RPG hybrid.
Rune Factory 5 Is The Most Inclusive Rune Factory Game Yet
The Rune Factory series has hit some rocky patches with inclusion in the past. While the first game released in 2006 in Japan only allowed players to play as a male character with female love interests, the Harvest Moon 2005 Japanese release Magical Melody on GameCube already gave players the choice to be a female or male protagonist. The first Rune Factory game to let players choose to play as a female character from the very start and for the entirety of the game was Rune Factory 4, originally released in 2012 on the Nintendo 3DS eShop as well as physically. Rune Factory 5 takes after 4 by giving players the choice of protagonist gender when the game begins.
Rune Factory 5 also takes things a step further than 4 by allowing players to marry any of the love interest characters regardless of the gender the player chooses for their protagonist. With six bachelors and six bachelorettes, this gives Rune Factory 5 the highest number of marriage candidates for a single character in the series along with Frontier, although Frontier is one of the games where it’s not possible to play as a woman or marry any men. Rune Factory 2 technically has 14 marriage candidates total, but they are unevenly split between three different playable characters, and seven of them are “pretend” marriage candidates for the male protagonist’s children after he leaves on an adventure - and two of these seven act as a single unit, to boot. Tides of Destiny is in a similar position, where its 14 marriage candidates are very unevenly split between two protagonists, and two of the marriage candidates are the opposing protagonists themselves.
Character Events Are More Involved (And Easier To Access) In Rune Factory 5
Like in the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series, characters in Rune Factory 5 have story events throughout the game. These events help flesh out not only the characters involved but the world itself and are a great way to get to know the inhabitants of Rigbarth on a deeper level. Rune Factory 5 implements these events a little differently compared to previous games by making the events longer and splitting them up into parts.
When starting a character’s romance event, players will have to complete it elsewhere, sometimes getting other characters involved in the process. Some events may take players all across the town to speak to other townsfolk, while other events may even involve venturing into the monster-infested plains or a dungeon. Rune Factory 5 players won’t have to worry about getting lost during these excursions, either, because the locations of these events are all clearly marked on the mini-map whenever they’re available.
Rune Factory 5 Lets Players Farm And Tame Monsters Like In Past Series Games
Rune Factory 5 keeps the series’ monster taming and farming intact, offering a unique gameplay loop: players tend to their farm and animals - or in this case, monsters - then explore the field and dungeons where they can pick up materials for crafting or farming, and they can even tame monsters to bring back with them to their farm. Players have to make use of monster taming to get the most out of their farming because the series’ equivalent of cows, chickens, and sheep are all monsters that can only be obtained by taming wild ones, rather than purchased the way livestock is bought in the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon series. This helps keep the disparate gameplay elements effectively linked together.
Besides the monster stand-ins for cows, chickens, and sheep, other monsters like the squirrel-like Chipsqueak and the bull-like Buffaloo can still produce “byproducts” like specialty fur and horns, which are also obtainable as drops when players defeat them in the wild. These materials can be used in crafting, giving players a reason to seek out and tame monsters that aren’t just the typical farm-like ones. Monsters who don’t produce any byproducts can still prove useful as they can help with watering and harvesting crops, and players can take any of their monster pals with them to battle. Some larger ones can even be ridden.
Players can also tame many boss monsters in Rune Factory 5 like in past titles. Taming boss monsters is a bit different from taming regular monsters, as players will need the boss monster’s favorite item or it won’t join them at all. Although it’s much tougher to tame bosses compared to regular monsters, the extra effort is worth it, since Rune Factory 5’s bosses have cool designs, including a nine-tailed fox, and they are especially powerful in battle, making them great allies to bring into tough dungeons.