Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

사랑한다 카나타야

好玩，爱玩

Huge jump in terms of story, fluidity in fighting, and ease of farming compared to the previous installments. It's still a general audience story, so while not groundbreaking and a bit corny at times, I didn't expect it to keep on giving arc after arc. Whenever I thought I was watching a finale, I would find out there's another arc. I liked it all because it hits a lot of anime tropes I enjoy. I love how the main character is voiced and has an actual personality, although a bit plain. And I appreciate this decision because I'm not too interested in self-insert silent protagonists. It must've been expensive given there's 2 options as protagonists. There are also a lot of tools to make farming more efficient and how you get these tools are really rewarding as they tie to the story and characters you meet. The only downside is that the final products from farming, fishing and cooking don't serve much purpose in the story, in battle or as means of earning money. You get the most money from passive income - just pressing a few buttons to assign your villagers to fish instead of you. I still enjoyed all these aspects though, even when I realise I barely earned anything after upgrading all my crops to the max level and selling a hundred of it. As for the fights, they are very fluid but also a little too easy. The power ups between dungeons is too big. There's no point in keeping or upgrading your current equipment because it gets replaced every two dungeons. Plus, it's very easy to spam the special attacks from the divide treasures. The only challenging part of the game for me is the last 4 trials post-game when it suddenly jumped in difficulty. That said, I bought this game for a cozy experience, so I don't actually mind too much. It also plays very well even with my 5 year old budget gaming laptop. Games don't need the latest graphics and most demanding specs to be enjoyable! *SPOILERS* *and some unnecessary rambling* However, I wish it had ended after saving the unchosen protagonist (Subaru, since I was playing as Kaguya), or at least given him a better story after his arc. He basically becomes invisible after joining the party, and his story gets overshadowed by Clarice, who has the same story beats as the unchosen protagonist. Subaru even joins what I think is the least interesting village out of the four, and he only interacts with side characters from that village. I was excited to see how he would've contributed to the final arc against Clarice, but instead he's busy selling flour and chocolate from a small vendor cart that already has a vendor and doesn't need him. He's a hunter, so it doesn't even fit his character profile. He could've joined Pilika and gone hunting with her. The other gods could've interacted with him more. They could have played into the fact that he could've been the Earth Dancer, or at least had the heart of one, if he hadn't been so unlucky. Even Kotaro, Pilika, Hina and Murasame had more contributions in the final arc than Subaru ever had. And they shouldn't have forced the romance either. Why mention them being betrothed if it barely impacts anything? Please let the bonding quests be interpreted as platonic until they reach the dating stage. Is it obvious I bought this game for Subaru? Lol. If I'd known he'd be downgraded to an invisible side character when not picked, I would've chosen him as my MC. I'd play this again as Subaru, but there's no New Game Plus and I'd hate to lose all my progress. Please give us a New Game Plus option! Also, Mauro and Watarase's accents are out of place. Maybe just don't next time. But I loved this game overall. As of time of writing, I've spent 100 hours in less than a month, maxed out all my villages to level 10, defeated the final post-game dungeon, married with 2 kids, and I'm currently just searching for more things to do.