Video: Here's Eight Minutes Of Brand New Rune Factory 3 Special Gameplay

People seemed really disappointed about the jump to full 3D with Rune Factory 5, so bringing it back to the old school was probably a smart move.

As for me, I like 4 and 5 very much, despite their differences.

@Astral-Grain RF5 is one of my definitive Switch games and a second top fave in the franchise to date. But RF3, as even the devs themselves lampshaded once, is pretty much what paved the laid the foundation for 4 and 5. Now they're reportedly trying to evolve the series further yet and it makes sense to revisit the arguable cornerstone of its legacy before that. And it's making Switch all the more of a Rune Factory machine which is never not awesome.

@nhSnork Ah, that's a good bit of info, thank you!

See, I felt that RF5 brought the mechanics of 3/4 to the 3D world pretty well. It felt pretty much like a 3D version of RF4 in my opinion, but people were still pretty upset about it. Maybe it had to do with performance, but that never bothered me on Switch or PC.

I'm not sure what they would need to do for RF6 to make both the old school and new school fans happy.

What would be included in your ideal Rune Factory 6? Also, was there anything about RF5 that was lacking compared to previous titles?

@nhSnork Which game would you recommend: 3 or 4?

Grabbing day 1

So special, so non inclusive, it hurts 👎

@Friscobay I'm curious, what are you talking about?

Some parts look like a poorly-made mobile game, while others (such as the interiors) wonderful. I’m curious to see what they bring new to the table, because the switch is overflowed with quality farming games.

al. ready. pre. ordered. the. special. edition!!!

Hmm. This is the game with the politically correct waifus, I think? The combat looks interesting but it seems to be just button mashing. Can anyone confirm this?

No handsome husband candidates, no buy.

Wow, what a beautiful looking game!

Missed opportunity not having a girl mc option. I'll wait for the pc versions inevitable mod. Dialogue, character portraits and pc model are easy to change.

The vibes are so pleasant. Really loving the artstyle and music.

Now that this is being released, I seriously need help! I wasn’t sure if I should play one of the RF games, or Harvestella. I want some fun combat, and I can live with very general farming. I played Stardew, and although fun, not really combat-y. I played Kitaria Fables and it was just ok overall.

@geo-shifter I think Harvestella is more focused on the combat than the farming, compared to Rune Factory.

Definitely more combat focused. But in terms of fun, cozy combat (it doesn’t have to be deep) I wasn’t sure if Harvestella would still be recommended for me. I was reading up on the magic in RF 4/5 too, and it could be a bit fun.

@Astral-Grain so far, there's nothing I can claim to particularly miss in RF5, especially with all the QoL pieces it continued to add like a concurrent loadout of a tool and a weapon to easily alternate between. And almost everything I could ever fancy in the series (items you don't lose by dropping on the ground, original audio without the need to seek out undubbed roms, a female protagonist and then still being able to woo bachelorettes with one) has happened over the course of it. But come to think of it, there's one cool thing it has yet to revisit (RF2's multiple generations), and I would certainly welcome RF6 reprising and expanding that aspect.

@Quarth I may not be far enough in either to recommend, but besides my own bias towards RF3, this franchise is relatively harder to binge backwards (while still encouraging older entry playthroughs for their own memorable events, mechanics and casts) due to all the improvements and polishing from game to game. So I'd go for 3, then 4 and 5, assuming you don't plan to try the earlier games anyway.

@nhSnork Thanks! I already own 4, but haven't played it that much, so was thinking if I should play 3 instead