Having only been exposed to the first three Rune Factory games via my wonderful partner, I can say with confidence that the upcoming Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is shaping up to be one of, if not, the best title in the series to date! From its new concepts, to its seemingly stacked cast of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. The game is nothing short of exciting and massive in its scope!

If you happen to share an affinity for the series, with its origins having been a spin off of the original Harvest Moon (Story of Seasons), then you are in good company here! Each subsequent entry has followed the general formula as the last. You are a nondescript character who is brought to a town to help revitalize it and restore it to the former glory. However, unlike the original Harvest Moon games, this adds in the spice of combat! So if you happen to have a penchant for Stardew Valley then you may feel right at home with the series!

What’s this new entry brings that is drastically different is the city building mechanics! That is right my fellow town building obsessors! We are getting a town builder packaged in with our farming, creature slaying sim! You are tasked with helping restore Azuma both in the traditional sense, as well as the foundation sense. Not only do you get to lay the town out to your liking, but you also get to assign villagers to do various jobs around town! Talk about a refreshing prospect for the series!

Now this isn’t necessarily a new feature, BUT the eligible characters you get to date feels like the most diverse set of characters yet! From the bubbly and youthful, to the seemingly more mature female characters, there’s a lot to be excited for here! From rumored options to freely date the characters you personally like, instead of being locked into a choice you found you you don’t like, to doing cute and intimate actions like holding hands or going on a tea date. The romance system seems to have received a bit of an uplift since the release of Rune Factory 5. That being said I can’t say that we have a personal favorite yet for our future waifu, we just have to wait and see when it releases!

Speaking of improvements can we just take a second to appreciate just how incredible the game looks? It really does look great running on the Nintendo Switch, yet with its release date of May 30th, 2025, one can’t help but speculate; switch 2?! Still, even if it is running on original Switch hardware, I can’t say that I am confident in appreciating just how well the games has been seeming to look. It just goes to show that with proper development time and optimization, you can make any game look good on the delightful system! Let’s just hope it can win us over on performance versus the release of Rune Factory 5. Still a game with a ton of issues to this day, even on steam!

With the game still a few months out on release, there still plenty of time for the team to work on polish. It’s not just me thinking that this game is the most ambitious title yet! Even the core development team has stated this is probably the biggest Rune Factory ever made! As far as system availability the game is of course releasing for Nintendo Switch and PC this coming May 30th. Sadly there is not current information regarding a prospective PS5 release anytime soon. I hope you all are excited for this new, groundbreaking entry into a beloved series as well!

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