Rune Factory: Guardians Of Azuma Latest Update Now Live, Here's What's Included

Bug fixes are all fine and dandy, but I so wish developers would stop adding new features to already published games. Either take longer dev time, or save it for a sequel or something.

Added a new development zone to Summer Village which you can access after reaching Village Level 8.

This is much appreciated. The space for all your stores, buildings, fields, etc. in Summer Village is ridiculously small compared to the other three villages.

@Daniel36 I'm pretty sure at least some of those new elements in this update were done after Marvelous received player feedback on them. As someone who's been a bit frustrated with a couple of the things this update fixes, I'm glad they've listened to feedback. And while I think Guardians of Azuma is lovely game, it's true that the postgame after the main quest is not particularly exciting, especially when it comes to battles and social links. So I think it's great they've added some new content to ameliorate this instead of saving it for the sequel.

@Daniel36 That time has long since passed, I'm afraid. I agree with your sentiment, but at the same time free extra content is always a nice bonus and updates are this are welcome.

@Polvasti I appreciate the listening, but... one day all we have left is the cartridge, with no way to re-download any post-release updates, and that is sad.

Sure, by then there will be rom sites, and probably definitive editions on newer platforms, but it just doesn't feel right, the way things are organised these days.

These tweaks make a great game even better. As @Polvasti says, the Summer Village expansion is particularly welcome. Reaching some of the requirements for the higher village levels was like playing Tetris with how cramped the buildings and decorations got.

@Daniel36 How dare they react to customer suggestions and feedback. What jerks they are, supporting a game post-launch.

I'm glad I put this one on hold until after Metroid Prime 4 and cleaning up some of my back log. All the updates and changes are most welcome.
Always gets a big thumbs up from me when a developer does a lot of post-launch support and listens to feedback.

Also, one strange benefit of having a massive backlog is that by the time you get to a game, it most likely has received multiple updates and/or DLC for you to go through in one go ^_^

I really enjoyed Rune Factory 4, but lost all my 3ds saves when my system was stolen last year. I haven't decided yet if I should start over in 4 Special, jump to 5, or check out Azuma first. If they keep improving the game, they're going to make it harder for me to decide, haha!

Seems like some storage shuffling will be in order sooner than I estimated. And I already pried almost 700 Mb from the two recently finished games only for a Guardian Tales update to gobble it all up.😆

Looks like a nice update, but this has become yet another game that if I get this game I'll be getting it digitally instead of physically unless they do a cartridge revision, because I refuse to have a physical copy with actual game content locked behind updates (a few small bug fix updates and improvements on Switch 2 are fine).

I really need to jump back into Guardians of Azuma at some point. I played pretty far into it (past what I shall refer to as the game's "half-way point"), but then life happened, and my focus shifted to other things.

It's nice that there's been a fair amount of QoL updates between when I stopped and now! So it will be an even smoother experience when I jump back in. This isn't a situation where the game felt incomplete to begin with (something that can't be said about a lot of games, so I fully understand the general sentiment some people have in such post-launch update matters), so I'm not bothered about free updates/adjustments being made post-launch in response to user feedback, in this particular case, despite having purchased the game physically.

@Daniel36 Bug fixes and patches are fine and all, but adding extra content and features does discourage me from picking games up on launch. If I'd already finished the game by that point, I'm unlikely to revisit/replay the game that soon.

I was really hoping they'd add a way to buy soil, or the materials to craft it. You need massive quantities of it to create farming tiles, and the slow drip-feed of resources needed for this is really bringin down the post game for me.

@ShieldHero
These fixes/changes are nice (the Summer Village extra zone in particular,) but honestly you don't need them to enjoy a playthrough or two of the game.

Just buy the cart and don't update it - everything is on there, and it's a spectacular game.

@dskatter Feel free to be snarky with me, but read along and see I am far from the only one feeling this way. It's obviously good they listen, but it devaluates the cartridge. I can certainly name a game where I wished the dev HAD listened to feedback, but that wasn't a cartridge game.

@Andee Same. With this game, I bought it for my kid, she loves it, so it's not that big of a deal, but I guess I am glad I didn't start it myself yet. I just don't like this practice.

I don't understand why people hate extra content all of sudden, if you have problem with patching physical games, go full digital.

That being said the level 100 bond cap seems absurd to me, it will take an eternity of grind to get there.

@Daniel36 I’ll absolutely be snarky here! I’m a physical only guy and abhor GKC like the horribleness it is. But complaining about added content after release is just silly.

The original game is still on the card, perfectly playable and you can just…not update it if you want the orginal experience without the new stuff the devs added after the fact.

Worst case scenario, your save 20 years from now won’t be compatible with the original version on the card after Nintendo’s patch servers go offline.

Maybe a few years from now they can release a version with all the added stuff on the card and it’ll make you happy. Heck, it’d make ME happy from a preservation standpoint. But somehow feeling slighted that the devs are continuing to add things…it really is silly.

@dskatter Fair enough, but in my defence... you were a bit too snarky. I am a very sensitive boy.

I bought the physical switch 2 version to conserve space on the console, since the microsd express cards are still fairly pricey. Here comes the latest update and brings the total game data stored on my system to over 12gb. The digital version is 18gb, according to the eshop product page. Rather than make an effort to create some efficient updates, the developer has opted to simply replace 2/3 of the game data, pushing a large install on us, despite advertising physical all on the cart. Get the eff outta here with that, this ain't PC.

Yes I know, I can turn off auto updates and simply not update, but the devs can make an effort to minimize update data as well.

@cdubbed
It is rubbish yes, but it isn't actually Marvelous at fault, or well entirely, it's Nintendo due to the way they decide to do the updates. While yes it does seem silly that if downloading X amount it cant just take the Y amount it needs of the download because the rest is in on the cartridge then delete the rest. Instead it seems to take all the updates/builds and just install them despite X amount not being needed.

I suppose there is a question as to why the orginal day 1 update file was so big, why there needed to be a day 1 one update (although that may have been to stop games being able to be played before release date of S2, I seem to recall Cyberpunk done similar, terrible idea though, not consumer friendly what so ever). Or maybe its something to do with it being a Switch 2 edition.
Or instead the update is a new build, which if it is, why do that as Marvelous?

So yeah, it's a bit of both, it is definitely a complete cart, but the day one update completely borks it.

Found this---
Hello Boris,

I had seen mentions of the large day 1 patch and asked our production team about it, and they responded that the "patch" contains the entire Switch 2 version that is already on the game card, hence why it is so much larger than it needs to be.

This is just the way the NSW/NSW2 enhanced games are set up to work right now, and though we've confirmed every future patch will not also need to include the full Switch 2 game again and again, we do not know if this same process will apply for the first day 1 patch on future new releases or not (always a lot of things need to be ironed out post-launch with new hardware launches).

Many users have already confirmed that the game plays just fine out of the box without internet connection so the day 1 patch does not appear to address any game-breaking issues or be necessary to start enjoying the game. Go ahead and give it a try with your Nintendo Switch 2 wi-fi turned off, the game should boot up fine with no internet.

I hope this helps, and thank you for your support.

Ken @ Marvelous USA