Rune Factory 5 Reviews
Lacking in innovation and technical prowness, Rune Factory 5 compensates with a solid and faceted experience that could eat a good chunk of your spare time if you get entangled in its intricate web of different mechanics.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Rune Factory 5 can be a very lasting and deep entertainment if you overlook its insufficient graphics, made worse by very questionable artistic design decisions. Their country life may not be so idyllic, and the combat system is very basic in nondescript dungeons. It is not translated into Spanish.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The occasionally enjoyable combat cannot make up for the unreliable farming controls, repetitive music, poor performance, ugly visuals, and lifeless world. One or two of these shortcomings could have been forgiven if Rigbarth was a world worth soaking in, but it's simply not. The mountain of issues amounts to Rune Factory 5 being lesser than the sum of its faults and one of the year's biggest disappointments so far.
If you need a farming-and-fighting fix, Rune Factory 5 is an option. It just isn’t the best one out there. It’s living in the shadow of its far superior siblings. Even if patches fix all of the technical issues, it would still feel uneven.
Rune Factory 5 has one of the best casts and writing in the series, but a batch of performance and presentation issues spoil the crop.
Rune Factory 5 should satisfy fans and cozy game enthusiasts, but its not quite as friendly for newcomers.
Rune Factory 5 delivers everything you would expect from a Rune Factory game, though it does so without adding anything new. It moves from a rather rough start into an enjoyable experience which combines quirky characters, a story wrapped in a bit of mystery, farming, fighting and taming monsters, crafting, and consuming unhealthy amounts of Recipe Bread. Fans of the series will enjoy their time in Rigbarth, though the series and its formula are starting to show their age.
Rune Factory 5 has been a lot of fun and has a ton to offer regardless of how you plan to tackle the game. Hopefully it doesn’t take Xseed another eight years to make the next game in the series, or maybe we get some big updates or DLC, but if it does, then I’m more than certain that this game has enough to do to keep people coming back and tackling more and more, even if it’s just exploring different love interests, or only wanting to be a potato farmer.
Look, I feel like I’ve been spending a lot of time here bashing Rune Factory 5, and maybe I have. But let me emphasize that I still had a lot of fun with it, and I think other players will too. I might be even a bit addicted to it, honestly. There’s just too much here to not like on many levels. But it’s just missing some finish to its technical aspects, especially the visuals and menus. And it needs some follow-through on all its great ideas to make it coalesce into one great experience. Yes, Rune Factory 5 is many games in one, for better or worse. And if you’re ok with that, you’ll have a lot of fun with it. Now, let’s just hope they fix that menu.
All in all, this was actually a very bittersweet review for me. I am a huge Rune Factory fan and have been excitedly waiting for this new entry in the series. Unfortunately, I can’t say that it met my expectations. The good news is Rune Factory 5 is a familiar experience for those who are used to the genre. The love interests are a bit cringy, and it has god-awful graphics, but if you have a bit of patience and don’t nitpick as much as I do, it will be a mostly enjoyable experience.
While not wholly deviod of quality, that Marvelous released Rune Factory 5 in it's current state, is pretty shameful.
Aside from the new additions to gameplay, I feel the title still played it too safe as there wasn’t too much to separate its overall experience from past titles. The familiarity and reuse of certain gaming mechanics may be fully welcomed by fans who have waited so long but I feel more is needed to differentiate the overall experience.
Rune Factory 5 manages to deliver a lot of content, offering a barrage of classic elements, but delivering them along with a collection of mistakes and oversights. Performance issues, structural game design flaws and lack of politeness end up ruining the potential of this long-awaited continuation of the classic franchise.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Rune Factory 5 doesn’t break the mould but it's still definitely worth your time, for returning fans and potential new ones.
Overall, Rune Factory 5 plays things pretty conservatively, and it’s the better for it. It’s a comfort food kind of experience, and while this might cost it on store shelves given that it has been released at the tail end of so many excellent, intelligent, innovative, and big RPGs, it’s a game of simple delights and pleasant experiences. Sometimes, that’s enough.
Slightly above average or simply inoffensive. Fans of the genre should enjoy them a bit, but a fair few will be left unfulfilled.
When comparing it to its predecessors, the game feels like a sorely needed update. Yes, it treads old ground, with the same crops, monsters, items, and mechanics to deal with, but you can’t really mess with a winning formula, and the game has plenty of worthwhile additions of its own. To sum it up, playing Rune Factory 5 is a compelling, joyous experience that its fans will devour heartily as if it were a plate full of Supreme Curry.
A solid continuation of the agricultural-jRPG series of games, this time in 3D, but without major changes in the gameplay system and for a limited group of players. However, if in the morning you like to sow turnips, and in the evening pick up maidens (or bachelors), Rune Factory 5 properly dosed brings quite a lot of fun, especially since you can still have them at hand.
Review in Polish | Read full review
I can imagine somebody else looking at this game and considering it middling, subpar even. Action mechanics that are lower than top of the line, the graphics are outdated, and those allergic to anything remotely “Anime” would scoff. But Rune Factory isn’t trying to be anything it’s not. It’s a game where you can grow a radish, forge that radish into a long sword, and use it to murder sheep monsters while calling your gay partner affectionate nicknames. And do I personally want anything else from a video game? Not without becoming greedy. After a long slumber, the reawakening of this sub-franchise is much beloved, and I sincerely hope to see a Rune Factory 6 sooner than nine years from now.