Round Up: The Rune Factory 5 Reviews Are In

Its a wait for sale game for me.
I'll pick it up below 20.

After watching several videos and seeing how the framerate chugs several times throughout, I think I'll pass. My sis bought the collector's edition though, which goes to show that the average person probably won't even care if it means they can marry their virtual wife/husband.

I think 7s and 8s are about as good as one can expect for any given entry in the farming/dating sim/arpg genre. ^_^

I'll take it!

Skip for me. RF4 was better.

This was were I thought the reviews would be. I bet I'll have a good time with it just I'll be waiting for a sale.

Also from what I seen online the technical issues are input lag, pop in, shuttering frame rate when multiple things on the screen. Surprised that seemed to be IGN's major problem with the game and it took it down to a 6 when they just gave Elden Ring a 10/10 which had far worse versions of those exact same problems. When I was reading the review their technical issues part was right next to an Elden Ring ad highlighting their 10/10. Oh well here is me thinking there should be some sort of consistency from publications.

Shame. My wife had been really looking forward to this after I got her 4 on a whim. Seems similar to how I feel about Disgaea 6. They must know by now what the fans want and they must have known they were delivering a sub part experience. Hopefully next time they buck their ideas up.

@Specters Which version of Elden Ring were they reviewing? I played over 100 hours and didn’t have a single noticeable frame rate issue. I can’t speak for Rune Factory yet but it seems there are consistent frame issues at key moments.

I hate framerate issues, so I'm afraid I will pass (until they fix it, if they ever do). I can't believe that it came to the West with the same problems as when it was originally launched...

@Moonsorrow999 They actually never mention any technical issues until they updated their review on March 3rd, 8 days after posting their review they did a separate article about the performance differences between platforms. Also in the review does not say which versions they played, but Digital Foundry showed that every version of the game cannot hold a stable frame rate usually in the 40s-50s. The most stable version is playing the PS4 version on PS5. I find it hard to believe you never had a noticeable frame rate issue when it has been so widely reported that has been the main focus of From's post launch patches and Valve went as far as to fixed the main issue for Steam Deck (shader compiling and creating thousands of instances without caching).
I 100%ed it on the PC at 140 hours and I was having frame rate and hitching issues right up to the end even after the 2 post release patches. My PC is higher specs than a PS5 and should run the game on paper with zero issue.
What platform did you play on?

FWIW, Destructoid gave it a 6 and Siliconera gave it a 5.

@Specters I was mostly lucky as I didn't have any real noticieable problems at launch with Elden Ring. I had a couple of issues of pop-in and maybe two stutters upon loading from a Site of Grace, but only in certain areas. Obviously, it was poorly optimised at launch & those with different hardware combinations and specs are going to have a myriad of different results. It could of course be I didn't sink enough hours in, but I had done a lot of exploring of Limgrave & Caelid in the intial 12 hours.
Maybe RF5 will eventually get ported to PC. Would be interested to see how it runs on an emulator compared to switch.

I really wish there will be another games like Rune Factory by different company with better character design as I never like the character design from Rune Factory franchise, even until the fifth installment, I still do not like the character design looking.
They looked very disturbing for me especially their eye design and eye color schemes, i'm not crazy with their outfits style too. The bachelors design looked too bishounen for me, doesn't look appealing at all. I'm not crazy with the girls over there so I will not try to woohoo the girls.
In my opinion, the character design of Monster Hunter Stories 2 looked way much better than Rune Factory games, from their eye design, hair style, outfits design, color schemes, etc. And the things i still never like from Rune Factory games, the Visual novel character style prompted during conversation so I couldn't even see the real interaction between characters from the right angle as the conversation delivered with Visual novel style. For me it was like lazy attempt. The previous Harvest Moon games on Wii have better interaction scene as you can see their gesture and their emotion naturally during conversation without Visual novel style prompted when the characters have conversation.
I want to like kind of this game but still hard to do with the unappealing character design and Visual novel style conversation.

my wife has been looking forward to this game for most of our 11 yr relationship. she will be getting it, enjoying it, and beating it, never knowing that it got "mixed reviews," or ever letting "technical issues" spoil her experience.

i envy her.

@Anti-Matter maybe Rune Factory just isn't for you.

I picked it up physical on release, after being so disappointed in PoOT.

I'm really enjoying it. Could some things be better? Oh, yes. Graphics wise it looks unfinished. There are some stutters. Neither reach game breaking levels, imho. Do turn off the auto camera which is nausea inducing.

The characters are varied and interesting. Though why Terry isn't court-able is a mystery and a crime, heheh. Perhaps Rune Factory fans set our bars too low. But it's not the mess it was when released in Japan. After the decade wait from RF4 it should be better. And for the gods' sake: why can't furniture be placed against a wall? That is maddening.

In the end, however, if I'm enjoying a game that's enough for me.

Yep seems like a pretty average to slightly above average game.

@Specters IGN always sticks high marks on every overhyped game. Same as NL gives anything official a 8 before even starting the review and then decide on adding a point or two after actually playing it.

Game is good but had performance issue and lacking contents, it's running at 30fps but unlike Kirby the framerate kept stuttering and are not smooth which makes the whole game feel annoying. I say wait for a price dropped or sale for this.

I'll wait for a deep discount myself.

I think it's also metacriticing in the "mid 60 percents" at the moment for a sort of guage. That's not good for a RF game.

Definitely going to give it a go, just with all the games I have on my plate atm I’m going to hold off for a bit. Outside of the performance issues it seems like a fun game.

My limited edition arrived just now. Will be playing it later this evening. Could the performance be better, 100%. But I have been looking forward to this game since they announced the localisation.

EDIT: I opened it and I am disappointed that when watching unboxings of the US version they got a little manual in their game case but for the EU version there isn't one.

Been playing since last Thursday after stumbling across a shop selling early. Game has been amazing. Perfect? Not by a long shot but the framrrate issues are pretty negligible as far as i’m concerned. Characters and story have been fun. Currently in the the first Summer and easily getting sidetracked with the farming and getting to know the bachelors/bachelorettes better. I foresee many hours going into this game (currently at 70+)

The reviews seem totally fair and the beaten to death performance issues are a real thing that definitely take a lot away from the experience. Despite the loading stutters and lag and sub-30fps choppiness, I still get immersed in the gameplay loop of goals and levelling and asking myself "what was I even doing?" because I got distracted. After an hour each session it becomes less noticeable. The core game itself is really great, it just runs poorly and if you're at all sensitive to framerates it WILL drive you nuts.

@Moonsorrow999 I've put 120 hours into the PS5 version of Elden Ring, and it has severe frame rate issues. It's constantly dropping frames throughout, which is very distracting.

That said, from what I've seen of Rune Factory 5, it's waaayy worse in that game.

69% on metacritic. This is really low for a video game considering the average is 76% for all video game critics on metacritic. I guess I'll wait for a big discount.

@SilentHunter382
I was so surprised to see the booklet when I opened the game case! Felt like the old days.

Still waiting on mine to come in. Saturday feels so far away.

I absolutely love it! It's a wonderful game, even if the fps does stutter a little here and there. I think games in this genre never get the scores they deserve, but I think they're worth trying. I've loved this genre since I was a kid, and rune factory is one of my very favorites. I can't recommend it enough for a comfy gaming experience.

I've only played for a few hours so far but I'm liking it. It could definitely be prettier and smoother, but that's not what's important in these games. I don't watch Bruce Lee movies expecting brilliant cinematography and I don't play these games for a technical showcase. I want to farm and craft and meet mysterious strangers and discover their tragic, romantic backstories. To build a pleasing homestead and find love and a little bit of danger.

The jury's still out, but so far I'm feeling it.

The Farming Sim genre (by which I mean Harvest Moon & Rune Factory) had decades to perfect themselves, and instead always took a step forward and one back. Now that Stardew Valley has released, none of these comparatively seem worth it.

I'd love to see another game step up to the plate, but so far nothing has gotten close to reaching that bar.

Do let us know if they patch the frame-rate issues, won't you?

@Geonjaha I mean Stardew is pretty much as comprehensive a farming sim as you could get. The art could be better and the fighting could be better, but those two aspects arent actually bad (anymore. I hated the portraits for the first few updates). There's really no way to improve upon Stardew except offer a different artstyle and more interaction with each character and different flavors and archetypes.of characters. Which I feel like rune factory 4 special kinda hit. If Rune factory 5 is rune factory 4 but worse because of the 3d change then everyone should just save 40 bucks and get rf 4

I've never played a RF game, but the combination of different genres I do find really appealing. I was a huge fan of Fantasy Life, which did a similar thing and struck a very good balance.

@Xansies Yeah, Stardew is almost perfect in that regard — my only slight bugbear with it is the item type sorting/stacking. It would be nice to be able to have one gigantic store of all my items and resources that I can use to cook/manufacture, rather than being limited to 30-slot chests and fridges.

@Xansies Stardew Valley is a great game, but it's hardly the last word in farm/life sims. There are a lot of ways the genre could evolve. Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin already showed one new path these games could take, even though farming is just one part of the game it's handled more in depth than anything in HM/SOS or Rune Factory or Stardew. The classic farming system in these games is childishly simplistic.

Atelier has another thing that farming sims could use, a much more interesting crafting system that is the game's backbone. That alchemy system could be adapted to farming, add in a little more relationship sim and it could be an amazing new approach for farm games.

The limitation here is not that Stardew is perfect, but that those games probably wouldn't have the same kind of widespread appeal.

(I'm not knocking Stardew, it's a certified masterpiece. But there is always something new that can be done, if people want to try. Stardew itself didn't have a lot of new ideas, it's just a very good iteration of the Harvest Moon formula.)