Rune Factory 4 – Nintendo Switch

PRODUCT:The product arrived the same day I ordered it, much earlier than expected! They put it right at the front door and sent a photo of it, which was above and beyond service to me.As for the product itself, it came just as intended. Perfectly new and shrink-wrapped. The cover art is absolutely gorgeous as well as the fully-colored instruction manual.OVERALL:As for the game, I am addicted already and I've only had it for about a week. I play it every day! If you've played Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, then you'd probably like this game. It has a mixture of farming, cooking, fighting monsters, crafting, socializing, dating, fishing, and even marriage (which I haven't gotten to, yet)! On top of that, there is an overarching story that is separated into 3 arcs. Not to mention there are multiple side stories with the townsfolk. There's hundreds of hours of content in this game, it just amazes me. In my opinion, for $30, it has much more value than some $60 games I have bought.STORY:As I mentioned, there are three arcs to this game's story. Without spoilers, I'll just say that you begin as a character who lost their memory. After being mistaken for a prince/princess, you must live in a town called Selphia and get to know the townspeople and develop the town.There is no rush at all to complete the main story. You can go at your own pace and ignore the story just to farm and whatnot. I usually take breaks in between the story to do the other things and level my character up. As of now, I am in arc 2 and the story is pretty interesting so far! Nothing outstandingly inspiring, but interesting nonetheless. I love the concept of the world of Rune Factory. There are references to past games (some of which I probably missed since this is my first Rune Factory game). You don't have to know any of the other games to play this, as it's a completely new storyline.GAMEPLAY:The game allows you to choose between a male or female character (Lest or Frey). There are no options to customize your character, but that is fine with me. I kept the name of the main character the same and just enjoyed following their story.The story setup and beginning tutorial take a while. That is understandable since the game has a lot to offer, so to play the game smoothly, you have to know how everything works! Don't be overwhelmed in the beginning. You'll get used to it and start your routine!The gameplay shines when it comes to interacting with the other characters. There is so much dialogue in this game, it is crazy. That is one of the things I thought Stardew Valley lacked. I am already on Summer Year 2 in this game, and I am still getting new dialogue. It has repeated a few things, but if your friendship levels go up, if there's a festival, or if you progress the story, there will be a lot of new dialogue. There is even some hidden dialogue you could miss if you don't take along other characters on your mission because they will also react to what is happening.Farming and combat is not extremely in-depth or groundbreaking. I think they are fairly simple, but that doesn't mean it's not fun! It's very addicting to farm and fight monsters. However, if you are looking for in-depth fighting or farming mechanics, this game doesn't do much of that. It is very good at blending everything together into one game though. For combat, you can take up to 2 characters or monsters along with you to fight.All aspects of the game depend on one another so you'll have to do a little bit of everything to progress. You can get away with not farming or not crafting, but it would make progression more challenging.CHARACTERS:The characters are all so loveable! I didn't care for a couple of the characters' designs at first, but they grew on me with their interactions with me! They all open up to the main character as you grow your friendship and take care of the town. Some characters will tell you about other characters and sometimes you can drop in on the characters having conversations with each other.This game does romance very well in comparison with Stardew Valley (sorry, I'm comparing them but I've never played HM/SoS). The development of your relationships seem very natural and there are several times where I said "AWWW" out loud.ART/GRAPHICS:Keep in mind, this is a 9-year-old game and it was made for a weaker handheld system, the 3DS. The graphics are not the best, but it doesn't affect the gameplay. At least not for me. You can see the sharp edges on the 3D models and they are not smooth. The character art and anime cutscenes are stunning. The art looks HD for this version compared to the 3DS of course! One of the things that made me fall in love with Rune Factory was the art!MUSIC/SOUND:Not much to say here! The music is all very nice! Especially during the emotional parts of the story. There is only one track that I cannot stand and that is the festival day music. It is too repetitive and annoying, so sometimes on festival days, I go to bed much earlier than a normal day just because of the music.The Japanese voice acting is so good! I haven't tried the English voices yet, but I like hearing how the creators intended the voices to sound (I can also practice listening to Japanese). This is a feature they added in Rune Factory 4 Special.CONCLUSION:I have enjoyed every minute of this game and it made me feel relaxed during a stressful time in my life! I have something to look forward to each day. I definitely don't regret buying this game and I plan on pre-ordering Rune Factory 5 when it is released for North America!

Shipped quickly and in great condition

Bastante entretenido, perfecto para pasar el rato

Got everything in case. Fun game.

I may be a bit biased since Rune Factory 4 is one of my all-time favorite games, but Special on the Switch just took what was there and polished it so it runs completely smoothly without hiccup while being clean and simple to play even with just one screen on a TV. Upon receiving my Archival Edition I proceeded to play 67 hours in 6 days on the new Hell mode added (which I do not recommend to anyone except those who fully understand the inner workings of the game) which was an absolute blast. The core game is way too easy after you fully understand how it works, so being able to pump up the difficulty even more was like a dream come true to make my overpowered gear relevant.The Archival Edition comes with a Sound Selection CD with the game's music which is pretty much all fun and cheerful. It also comes with an art book with art from all the games in the series as well as fun additional information which was a blast to read through. I pre-ordered this product and could not be happier with what was delivered.I could probably type an entire essay, but I don't think anyone really cares about that. This game combines old-school Harvest Moon style farming with a more modern fast-paced environment and a surprising amount of depth to the farming (including soil health and quality) while also having an extremely customizable crafting system and smooth combat that just feels good to execute. The villagers are almost all enjoyable to be around and provide a fun environment to spend countless hours in as you do everything you find fun.Oh, and it's an RPG where you level up not only your character but also your skills. And there are a lot of skills. There's a skill for walking, eating, bathing, sleeping, throwing, each element of magic, each weapon type, farming, fishing, leadership, bartering, forging, crafting, cooking, every single resist, love (technically an element of magic but deserving of its own slot), and I believe a few others that are eluding me currently. One of my absolute favorite things about Rune Factory is the sheer diversity in skills to level up and approaches to gameplay. One of my friends once talked to me about things and my mind was blown by just how different he's able to play the game.The base game is more than worth 60 dollars, so 40 dollars is an absolute steal and the Archival Edition is also more than worth your money.