I was going to hold this off until I finished the game but my save was lost in a freak formatting accident involving a windows 10 installation. For reference I had just finished
Anyway, oh wow this is probably the best Rune Factory game out there IMHO. De-emphasizing the farming aspects and instead focusing on the character interactions/story is probably the best thing that could happen to this series.

Gameplay
The battle system is simple but serviceable. I never felt challenged outside of boss fights and when enemies got hard it was just a matter of grinding up to their level by killing a few of them. The simplified farming system was good but honestly at this point it may have just been cut out completely I had basically no reason to keep animals or farm crops because almost all the money I needed could be got by dungeon crawling/doing missions.

Speaking of that the mission system was a great addition. With the exception of a few that were repeated by the same character they were all fairly unique, engaging, and was a great catalyst to opening up more of the map and getting more information about the characters and their motivations. The fact that completing a mission increased character relationships was also a great plus.

Leveling was interesting as you had your character level (exp from doing things/killing monsters leveled you) but there was another side to it basically everything ( I mean everything running, walking, sleeping, bathing, talking, eating, etc) has a level associated with it I was left scratching my head on what a large portion of them actually did. My jump skill was close to 100 but I didn't jump any higher or farther. However, seeing the bar go up was still satisfying.

Characters

The characters in this game really stand out to me because of the incredible range of dialogue. Everytime you talk to a character it varies what they say based on location, weather, current relationship, current or upcoming events, items equipped to your character, items in your inventory, and a whole lot of things I'm sure I am forgetting. Each character also has a very distinct personality that plays into their dialogue. Even when meeting the exact same conditions you cans till see dozens of unique dialogue by repeatedly talking to them. I was considering a number of the girls but I had yet to get sonja out of my body causing me to get stuck at a certain relationship progression.

Interactions were also great as there were a few more options to increase character relationships throught he mission system as opposed to just gift + talk + wait until tomorrow that older entries did.

Story
As I did not finish the game I can only comment on about half of the story but everything was interesting and left me wanting more. were all incredibly intriguing plot points.

Graphics
My play through was on dolphin at 2k + 4xAA and I have to say it's almost a crime this game was originally 480p (I'm aware of the PS3 version). There are so many small details and geometry in characters that the game just flat out blows up gorgeously. There are definitely some low res textures but honestly it looked great



There's a ton more I'm missing here but now I'll hand it over to you gaf have YOU played it? What did you think?

i didn't like how tedious they made farming (4 huge islands, good god) but everything else was super fun, i'm a sucker for water so the atmosphere was a huge plus and it has the best sense of community in any Rune Factory game

How is this if Frontier was your favorite and you didn't like the direction of 3 (and I guess the other handheld ones)? Mainly because of the lack of exploration, or rather handholding instead of finding mechanics out yourself, dungeons being miniscule and the village already being fully populated instead of discovering new people in the latter entry.

FWIW the PS3 version is just the Wii version running at a higher resolution.

In Rune Factory you don't necessarily farm for money, but for ingredients to make your own gear. More advanced food provides better buffs. So it's a good idea to get into the farming (nerfed as it may be).

I'm a fan of the characters, but while the near-elimination of farming upset a lot of fans. Which is sad because Rune Factory 4 is quite good.

Spieler Eins said:

How is this if Frontier was your favorite and you didn't like the direction of 3 (and I guess the other handheld ones)? Mainly because of the lack of exploration, or rather handholding instead of finding mechanics out yourself, dungeons being miniscule and the village already being fully populated instead of discovering new people in the latter entry.

Click to expand...

Tides of Destiny has a LOT of exploration, and the dungeons are generally larger, but everything else is the same, though i've never found handholding in any rune factory game

Spieler Eins said:

How is this if Frontier was your favorite and you didn't like the direction of 3 (and I guess the other handheld ones)? Mainly because of the lack of exploration, or rather handholding instead of finding mechanics out yourself, dungeons being small and the village already fully populated instead of discovering new people in the latter entry.

Click to expand...

Personally I consider this way better than Frontier.

For exploration the entire game is sectioned off into islands and you have to move between them on a large golem. Almost all new islands are tied to mission/story events that mark them on your map and require you to get to that place but the islands are usually largish self contained dungeons with free roaming exploration with major several floored dungeons with bosses at the end cropping up to progress the story. There are a TON of islands and some are fairly large. I would say there's more to find than in Frontier but you are a lot more directed when you find them.

The town is mostly populated when you start. I believe there are a minimum of 2 new characters that show up (from what I played) but most characters are already there.

The game is not hanholdy at all though when it comes down to it as I was left lost as to where to go/how to get certain things (in a good way!) at several points. The game is streamlined a lot though with the farming system happening automatically and you have the optional ability to find out 1 item that characters on the item like through a paid "wish" system. I found it useless though because it costs a lot of money and only gives you 1 usually hard to obtain item.

gblues said:

FWIW the PS3 version is just the Wii version running at a higher resolution.

In Rune Factory you don't necessarily farm for money, but for ingredients to make your own gear. More advanced food provides better buffs. So it's a good idea to get into the farming (nerfed as it may be).

I'm a fan of the characters, but while the near-elimination of farming upset a lot of fans. Which is sad because Rune Factory 4 is quite good.

Click to expand...

Does rune factory 4 also de-emphasize farming?

Yes I love it. I got the plat for both versions of the game.
10000 fish later.

bomblord1 said:

Does rune factory 4 also de-emphasize farming?

Click to expand...

I'm playing RF4 atm. I spend like 1 to 2 minutes per in game day on my farm. It's easy to get monsters to water your crops, and those monster are also easy source of income thanks to their daily drop. This comes from someone who didn't like/finish RF1&2 because of the farming.

Worst RF in my opinion.
The lack of pretty much any farming along with the half baked battle mechanics makes for a poor fit. The whole fighting giant monsters bit was super clunky too.

Frontiers blows this out of the water in terms of console RFs. Even with the horrendous runey system in place. I love this series to death but nothing about Oceans appeals to me.