Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is Marvelous‘ latest installment in the highly beloved Rune Factory series. The game features all the staple elements in the series but also includes several new elements that focus on combat. These new inclusions make the game more interesting, but not enough to make the new installment too different from its predecessors.
A Cohesive and Different Narrative
Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma follows your character, who is an Earth Dancer, who wakes up after a dream fighting another Earth Dancer on dragons. You awaken in the Spring Village with not many memories of your past. Nevertheless, they take you in, and you help out in the village until disaster strikes and a dark dragon brings ruin to the village. After a second dream, you then reunite with your dragon companion, who helps you cleanse the village of corruption and reawaken the gods that once helped the village. This action leads to you becoming the Chief of the Spring village, helping citizens and rebuilding structures in the process. This then leads to you visiting several villages, resolving issues, and rebuilding as much as you can along the way.
Guardians of Azuma’s story, while simple, is a refreshingly different direction not seen in other Rune Factory games. It doesn’t do much differently, and admittedly not grand in any way. However, it does enough to be engaging narratively, at least more so than other games so far.
Gameplay And Traditional Rune Factory Mechanics
Throughout their journey, players encounter various characters, rebuild structures, cultivate crops, recruit and rescue villagers, and battle monsters. Additionally, like previous installments, players have the option to romance any character they wish to and even marry them, and like Rune Factory 5, you can even romance same sex characters. While the romance isn’t as in-depth as in other romance games, it is still engaging enough and can even lead to marriage.
The farming element, while simple, is engaging due to its ease and simplicity. It allows players to fully focus on all the crops they wish to grow and immerse themselves in the experience, however they choose. While having more options, such as houses, larger buildings, and growing areas, would have made the experience better, it is still sufficient.
New Combat Mechanics
In terms of combat, players can hack and slash with swords as their primary and bows as their secondary. Combat is fast, fluid, and fun, but it is also noticeably simplistic, featuring a few heavy attacks and abilities, such as healing and buffing, which add variety in combat. While most bosses and enemies are admittedly easy to defeat, they do get more difficult as you progress, especially on the highest difficulty. Regardless of difficulty, enemies and bosses are intricately designed and adhere to classic Japanese folklore, such as Oni and Yokai. In fact, the overall visuals also adhere to this, as Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma boasts beautiful Japanese-inspired character designs and aesthetics, a stunning art direction, and attractive character models. The game also runs smoothly on PC with no framerate dips, glitches, or bugs.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, while not perfect, takes bold and engaging new steps in the Rune Factory series. It executes these changes well enough to be entertaining in a way that only a spinoff could.
The Review
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, while not perfect, takes bold and engaging new steps in the Rune Factory series. It executes these changes well enough to be entertaining in a way that only a spinoff could.
PROS
- Simple but fun combat
- Decent story
- Nice visuals and aesthetic
CONS
- Gameplay is too simple and easy
- Needs more building and farming mechanics
