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| Title | Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma |
| Developer | Marvelous |
| Publisher | Marvelous USA |
| Release Date | June 5th, 2025 |
| Genre | RPG, Simulation |
| Platform | Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC |
| Age Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | |
It’s been a while since I’ve played a brand new Rune Factory. To be honest, just based mainly on the promotional footage and also seeing footage of how it performed on Switch in Japan, I didn’t at all have high hopes for Rune Factory 5, which is why I skipped out on that title. Actually, when I think about it, I’ve really only played Rune Factory 4 and a little bit of an older title on Wii. Anyway, my point is that I had much higher hopes for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. It seems like Marvelous has finally slowed down again and stopped trying to rush out new entries to their regular series on a yearly basis. Thus, I was much more looking forward to Azuma and hoped it would live up to the promotional hype.
Guardians of Azuma takes place in Azuma, where a large disaster occurred which has ravaged and broken apart the land. The gods of Azuma have also disappeared as well, leaving their villages to fall to ruin. You take on the role of an Earth Dancer, what they would call an Earthmate in the western half of this universe, who’s lost their memory and ends up in charge of restoring each village. You’ll be able to play as either the male Earth Dancer, Subaru, or the girl, Kaguya. Much like any other Rune Factory game, you’ll find yourself farming and crafting the tools and equipment you need, as well as go on adventures across the land, fighting monsters for both the story and material resources.
One thing that’s unique in this game, is the fact that there isn’t one main town where seasons change each month. Instead of one town with changing seasons, there are separated villages for each season, where the season doesn’t change no matter the date. I found this to be somewhat disappointing. At first I didn’t care too much, but eventually having to do the same stuff in every town and not having seasonal changes to look forward to, became boring. Yes, previous Rune Factory titles would have seasonal themed areas that let you plant certain crops all year round, so long as you were in the appropriate area. Still, you had a main hub town where the calendar actually mattered, beyond just when birthdays and festivals occur. I much prefer having one town with changing seasons.
Another unique feature in Guardians of Azuma, is the ability to decorate large areas of each town. There are small sections where you will grow your crops, but you can also place various decorations with different buffs that help out the town. Plus, you’re able to place various shops as well, and recruit random villagers who move to town to run these shops, in addition to taking care of your crops while you’re out. They even plant new crops for you in available plots. This was fun in the beginning in the Spring Village, I took my time and really enjoyed it. But once I unlocked other seasonal villages, it became a bit tiring having to redo this all the time in three other places.
I think the characters in RF:GoA have a lot of personality to them. You’ll end up with a ton of bond quests to get to know everyone and become closer to them. Some characters even show up during others’ events. You can also, of course, pick someone to eventually date and someday marry. However, very often these bond quests were halted and required extensive story progress. Depending on who you fancy, you may not be able to marry them until the very end of the game. I suppose you could see that as a reward, though, for beating the game and take the chance to relax back in town. Plus, not long after you marry a character, you can visit alternate realities and experience love with someone else and start a whole new family. I didn’t find the romance to be that deep, though. But maybe who I went after first, Murasame, simply ended up not being quite as charming as some other options I haven’t explored yet. It is nice, though, that as you get to know characters and invite them to festivals and whatnot, you’re able to unlock different outfits for them.
The atmosphere of this game was decent. But I didn’t find that the soundtrack stood out very much or was all that special. None of the music was annoying, though, so that’s good. It just didn’t stand out. Graphically, I was more disappointed with the game. It for sure looks much better than the previous Rune Factory and the game performed well, I never had issues with lag. However, I didn’t think it looked all that amazing overall, at least not the original Switch version I played. First of all, there was a lot of clipping. Not even other characters in my party were immune to the clipping. You can stand your main character right in the middle of them when you’re out and about in fields, outside of the villages. I had hoped everything in the game would feel more solid. Also, the art style doesn’t have a whole lot of shading either. Basic anime art styles without a lot of shading, I find make a game feel more cheap, especially when stuff clips. I imagine the Switch 2 and PC versions of the game look a ton better. Like I’m sure you won’t have as much stuff visually popping in and out as it does in this original Switch version. Regardless, I feel like back when these games were on DS and 3DS, a lot more work went into making things look great on systems with much less power. There was a lot more shading and life in older Rune Factory titles from that era. A lot of Switch games, it feels like not nearly as much energy went into making them look good. Rune Factory isn’t the only series that looked more beautiful visually on DS and/or 3DS, and now seems to have become more cheap looking on Switch.
Battles in GoA are a very basic hack and slash affair. It’s a lot of mashing one attack button and for most weapons you can also hold the button for a couple seconds to do a stronger attack. Bosses take a little more effort. They can be tough without an elemental weapon the boss is weak to, or the right type of weapon, i.e. a short sword, double knives, bow, et cetera. For example, there’s this large tree boss type you’ll see a few times, which has a target on its head you’ll need to target with a bow for dealing large damage numbers quickly. All bosses also have a gauge you can fill up by attacking, which will stun them and give you an opportunity to once again deal major damage.
Ultimately, I found Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma to be an okay game. I enjoyed it for the most part, mainly the story and getting to know the different characters. But as I’ve described above, it also has a lot of flaws which keep it from being a great game. Not to mention, it dragged on a bit too much in the latter half, constantly throwing you at multiple dungeons and bosses per one story issue. Nonetheless, I think existing fans of Rune Factory will find plenty of fun to be had here, I just wouldn’t say it’s nearly as good as older entries prior to the Switch era. I spent around 60 hours on Azuma, though I should mention, I did lower the difficulty to easy near the end after it started to overly drag on.
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