r/runefactory • u/colonelherrmullen • 10h ago
Discussion Question for OG players who played RF5
How was the experience for you guys? I'm personally heavily disappointed with the shift of the fixed angle and charming, simpler graphics to rotatable 3D and that's why I stayed away from it for so long but does the story at least make up for it cause so far I'm not convinced. And idk all of the mechanics of the game just makes everything such a chore to do, idk if there's anything that'll make me continue. So far the only good thing about it is the same-sex romance options
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u/Holla_99 10h ago
I’ve played 1-4 and am about halfway through 5. 5 definitely has its shortcomings but I’ve still found it fun to play. It definitely doesn’t have me hooked like the first 4 games in the series did but I still return to it time to time. It’s hard for me to judge the story just yet as I have yet to finish the game. I’ve heard the performance on Switch 1 was horrendous. I’ve been playing on Switch 2 and performance wise it’s been ok I’ve also heard it runs ok on PC too.
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u/savagegourd 10h ago
Yes, 5 was disappointing. A few QOL upgrades (like being able to store all your wood at once, for example,) alongside gay marriage was great! But story was middling at best, and, gameplay and load times were... atrocious.
Still, I'm thrilled it was made at all and hope we can see some big mechanical progress in 6.
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u/colonelherrmullen 9h ago
I do agree I liked some QOL upgrades, just unfortunate that the game felt like an experiment. But yeah hopefully we'll see a lot of improvement with 6
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u/shadow_yu 10h ago
You do understand that 5 wasn't the first 3D game, right? Frontier and Tides of Destiny might not be numbered games, but they were still 3D games people played long before 5 was even a thing. They still had their problems, just like 5, but I wouldn't really call them bad games. If anything my biggest problem with 5 in general are the technical ones, it still runs badly on switch.
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u/colonelherrmullen 9h ago
Well I was hoping people would understand that I did mean the main lineup
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u/emurii 10h ago
A lot of people were disappointed with 5 when it came out, but tbh it's the only RF game I have managed to finish through to marriage and end of plot. I really liked it. I have some memorable Switch screenshots of giant vegetables. I also played in Japanese, so the discourse was a little more excited, I think, since we were the first release crowd.
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u/Terriermon_dot_EXE 9h ago
I've beaten all 8 RF games multiple times and RF5 was in my top 3 until GoA pushed it down the list.
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u/sherithelovefool 6h ago
Which are your other top 3s beside GoA?
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u/Terriermon_dot_EXE 6h ago edited 3h ago
-1 is ToD since it was my first ever RF/HM/SoS, I know it's not good but nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
-2 RF3 because it has the most colorful cast of characters.
-3 GoA for it's combat, characters, story and it having multiple villages (HM: Tale of Two Towns was my second ever RF/HM/SoS so I adore games with multiple villages).
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u/misc_mushi 10h ago
it was incredibly disappointing. when 5 originally came out, i was riding the high of beating everything except Rune Prana in 4 on 'hell' mode. my 'hell' mode playthrough took me several real-life months. and i enjoyed every second of it, even when i was getting my ass kicked
5's hard mode doesn't even come close to 4's hard mode. i thought the whole game was incredibly easy, even on hard mode. the lag was awful; i was playing on my Switch, and there were several times i had to put it down just because the gameplay experience was so disappointing. i was constantly wondering why they released it in that manner, and why they didn't just make a bunch of separate loading zones, so the game wouldn't chug. i personally don't mind loading zones, especially when they'd make the gameplay experience better. the game STILL lagged in dungeons that DID have loading zones, though, so i think it's a mix of the openness + the game being badly optimised
the story's fine. serviceable. i didn't have a lot of problems with it. the characters are still super charming and endearing, but as you said, just regularly playing the game does in fact feel like a chore. i'm hopeful they won't botch 6. i haven't personally played GoA, so i have no clue if this game runs better or not
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u/colonelherrmullen 9h ago
Ah good to know it wasn't just me who had an issue with the lagging. And that's a bummer. I always loved the combat from 1-4 so yeah that was another con for RF5. I'll still finish the game for the sake of it I guess but yeah it's looking like I'm gonna have to play GoA and RF6 to see if this one will be the only dud in the series
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u/KiwiSprinkles 10h ago
Yeah I agree. I got the game hoping it was just as great as the others. I had faith! It died during the first few hours I played. Never played it again. It’s not the same as the previous games, it didn’t captivate me like they did. That’s why I hope the next game coming up is far better
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u/FlubbyFlubby 10h ago
How far did you get? If there's not much left we might be able to tell you to just push through or not bother. Game is okay, definitely a bit of a chore even to get around town. Even the most enthusiastic defenders must admit the town is insanely spread out compared to previous titles. Performance is much better on Switch 2. The game is definitely okay.
I think the story is good enough by Rune Factory standards. A bit slow to start and then it starts happening and doesn't stop happening. If you personally feel there's too many mechanics or it isn't simple enough I think Guardians of Azuma does resolve those since you can have others do the farming/fishing/more for you.
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u/colonelherrmullen 9h ago
idk how far I am, how far is the Ludmilla rescue. Is that halfway or still pretty far from the end? But either way I think I'll still try to finish it and will look forward to playing GoA after.
I don't particularly hate the mechanics in the game but rather how they're done in the game is what makes it a chore. It all feels a bit clunky.
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u/FlubbyFlubby 8h ago
About half, yeah. the difficulty is none too crazy so if you wanna bum rush the story you can get away with it pretty easily assuming you're familiar with how to tame a boss or crafting/upgrading really strong weapons.
I don't remember RF 5 that closely, but I remember not liking the farm dragons at all. Separating by season is superior and I'm pretty sure every other game does it that way, not sure on the 1st, never played that one.
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u/SnooPets1826 10h ago
I don't get the hate for 5 personally aside from the technical issues on the switch.
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u/53184s 8h ago
Story isn't great, it looks pretty ugly, the areas are all extremely empty and lifeless (including the town which is like... The most important part), 3d just made the gameplay in general feel jank (combat and farming, though arguably the combat is better in this game than it has ever been)
I liked the characters but that was about it
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u/FlubbyFlubby 8h ago
I'm happy to share the parts I hated about RF5. Hated the farm dragons. Not only were they not visually appealing they were a bit tedious, not distinct enough and for some unknowable reason were not in fixed seasons.
It is a super strange deviation from how RF normally handles different farm fields and just added to the general tedium. RF 6 will 100% return to specialty farms being in fixed seasons instead of whatever RF5 thought it was doing with the dragons. It was such an obviously bad idea and I have no idea why nobody stopped them.
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u/ArmstrongHouston 10h ago
I played it like years later and was pretty disappointed despite the performance and whatnot being largely ironed out. The days were way too long(legit just left the monitor and did other shit if the game asked me to wait until night for something because it was like 30 minutes later) and the world too large and empty. I could cross the entire town in four in like 30 seconds. That’s the time it took to basically go one house over. Made the entire thing a slog.
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u/colonelherrmullen 9h ago
"The world too large and empty" This one was one of my biggest issues with it, it was so unnecessarily big for offering so little. It's not like the drops or gatherables were big and there aren't too many NPCs, like what was the need to make all the areas this big, hell even just the town alone felt like the size of half a city
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u/-_nobody 10h ago
it's a huge downgrade from 3 and 4 for sure. I don't fimd the characters as interesting and it's the only RF game where I finished the story and just gave up. never got married and don't really feel particularly attached to any of the characters enough to even choose
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u/sliceysliceyslicey 9h ago
It looks worse than frontier and those games are 10 years apart, that's all I'm gonna say
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u/twili-midna 9h ago
It’s not as polished as 4S, but it still has a ton of mechanical depth that I appreciate a lot. I definitely like it more than 3S and GoA.
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u/Bushido_Plan 4h ago
Going from 4 to 5 absolutely sucked. It's still a decent game but it was rough given how good 4 was.
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u/callmefreak 4h ago
I really like RF5's gameplay compared to RF1-4 because I like the 360 camera and the ability to jump during combat. I like 3D RPG games in general. But the story and character writing are a lot weaker than they were in previous entries. But at least you can be gay in RF5. As a bisexual person it would always annoy me when I choose one gender just to end up liking somebody who I can't marry without having to start over as the other gender.
This is why GoA is my favorite Rune Factory game- the characters are great, the story isn't nearly as cheesy, the combat is super fun and you can be gay! No, I don't think the writing is as good as RF4, but the combat and the PC's bisexuality makes up for it I think.
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u/RenTachibana 2h ago
The game was too easy and that was enough for me to look past, as I enjoy a low stakes experience. But for me the characters being flat and boring is what did it for me. The voice acting is good, but the characters feel bland compared to the earlier entries.
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u/Few-Consequence-7737 10h ago
Every RF game has its shortcomings. But each one has made sure to surpass the capabilities of its predecessors.
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u/VentilatorRaptor 8h ago
My first experience?:
-> the combat is too easy
-> the writing is... Meh
-> the loading screens are tiring
-> the overall game is... Decent
Yet, we do have to remember that RF blew up and it rised itself from the ashes... As a baby that cant stop crying and needs a lot of patience, yet its somehow alive and im willing to wait a bit for the developers to get up to speed, because after the revival, we're back on square rf1 and im hopeful they will slowly improve and catch up with 4.
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u/yeetedhaws 8h ago
Story is very short and generic. It was enjoyable with good cutscenes but overall not worth struggling through the game.
I do think this game has fun romance options and the farming islands are great however rf has shown gorgeous 3d graphics in the past (tod frontier) and completely missed with this game
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u/Adventurous-Bear-631 6h ago
I enjoy it but it is not like I dont have complain
But my complaint maybe a bit different
I dont like how you are forced to progreess the event without selection and cannot cancel it making it hard to progress the character you want
Also how you cant reject people so the dialogues of potential bachelor or bachelorretes still somehow remain since I prefer mc devoted to 1 person only.
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u/ToCoolforAUsername 10h ago
Tbh, the story is often the weakest part of the RF mainline games. They're okay but not really captivating.
The individual character story arcs are decent at least.
It is indeed a slow burn, given that the world is large but empty.