Stardew Valley Fans Need to Try This Top-Notch Farming RPG (2024)

Stardew Valley's unprecedented success caused a boom in games about farming life, and now it feels like everyone's releasing a game about the player in a small town growing crops/building machines/making potions/etc. Potion Permit requires the player to harvest materials to make medicine for townsfolk. The My Time series is an indie hit now with its building mechanics on top of farming options. Animal Crossing: New Horizons added farming in a free update.

But before all of those, and before Stardew Valley itself, was a Story of Seasons spinoff so good that it evolved into its own franchise: Rune Factory. Combining farming, fighting, and fantasy way back in 2006, the series is currently at seven entries, not counting rereleases. The best of Rune Factory, so far, is Rune Factory 4 Special.

Why Rune Factory Matters

The First Fantasy Farming Fighter

The appeal of Story of Seasons comes from the small-town, self-made-man fantasy where the player works from the ground up to make a living for themselves. Despite that, the games were no stranger to the fantastical. Most entries involved a "Harvest Goddess," along with "Harvest Sprites" who served her. Harvest Moon DS introduced the Witch Princess, who became a recurring character in her own right. Story of Seasons is a lovably weird series, but it was missing something for some people. That something: action.

Rune Factory for the Nintendo DS came with the tagline "A Fantasy Harvest Moon," which was the name of the Story of Seasons franchise in the West at the time. And if farming fairies and agriculture goddesses weren't enough for Story of Seasons to already be considered "fantasy," Rune Factory went all-in on creating a Tolkienesque world of monsters, magic, and tending the soil. Instead of cows and sheep, the player raised Buffamoos and Woolies.

While they could still run around town to find love, possible spouses across the series included royalty, elves, and even vampires. And above all, there was now combat. Rune Factory is an action JRPG in each game, where the player can fight with anything from swords to axes to watering cans. The heavier focus on plot brought dungeon crawling with it, but the games never forgot their origin: no matter what dragon was ready to cause a world-ending crisis, there were always turnips to harvest.

Combat grew more robust as the series progressed, adding different weapon types, different monsters to use as party members, and allowing armor and weapon crafting to go above and beyond many other RPGs. The amount of love and time put into what was originally a spinoff of a niche series converted many players into outright leaving Story of Seasons for Rune Factory. The Rune Factory series had deeper storylines, voice acting, protagonists who could actually speak, action, and did all of these very smoothly (except for Rune Factory 5, but nobody wants to talk about Rune Factory 5).

While Story of Seasons eventually bounced back by focusing more on different aspects of farm life than Rune Factory does, Rune Factory became a strong enough name to be able to drop the "A Fantasy Harvest Moon" tagline in Japan as early as the second game. But those are all reasons why the series in general is so good. Why is Rune Factory 4 in particular the best one?

Rune Factory 4 Was a Passion Project Through and Through

The Developers Went Bankrupt On a High Note

Rune Factory 4 is the culmination of the series' best features up to that point, and its 2020 rerelease Rune Factory 4 Special even moreso. Besides some quality-of-life features and the ability to play as a girl the whole time, the game admittedly isn't too innovative when compared to its mainline predecessor, Rune Factory 3. But there's no need to reinvent the wheel, so instead of overhauling the Rune Factory formula, Rune Factory 4 polishes it to a shine. So a lot of what's listed here about the game can also be found in 3, which is also worth farming fans' time, but 4 just executed these things so well.

Starting with farming, soil has its own stats. The soil's stats affect the crops grown on it, which means that minmaxers can't just plant a field of Golden Pumpkins and call it a day — it's a delicate balance between using chemicals like Greenifier, keeping the soil's health up, and not planting too many crops that are too hard on the dirt. That being said, 4's economy is forgiving enough to still make farming lucrative for anyone who ignores the soil system. But for the most efficient and profitable farm possible, there are many hidden stats that make plotting out the crops very engaging.

From the farming comes the crafting and cooking. There are four types of crafting in Rune Factory 4: forging, crafting, chemistry, and cooking. Crops aren't just useful for that last one — enhancing armor and weapons with pumpkins can pack a surprising punch in the midgame. That goes double for large and golden crops, and quadruple for large crops that are also golden! The game's combat depends way more on equipment quality than it does on character levels, so farming is equally important for earning money, cooking, and even making weapons and armor.

Each item has a "base" recipe that requires certain items, but there are always six spaces total that can go into a recipe. If the item requires fewer than six "ingredients," the player can add other items to the remaining spaces to give some extra boosts to whatever armor or weapon they make. These extra ingredients can range from mystical ores to horns of monsters to crops grown in the back garden. There's also a further layer to crafting that lets the player increase their equipment's individual levels by further upgrading them, and the math behind that system would make EV training Pokémon fans blush.

Combat and Courtship

Fighting, Dungeon Crawling, and Romance Are Better Than Ever in Rune Factory 4

The real strengths that put 4 over the other Rune Factory games are its combat and writing. 12 years after its original release, 4 is still the most expansive Rune Factory yet. Just like the other games, players can use both standard weapon classes and their own farm equipment to fight monsters. There are eight weapon classes and six types of tools, giving a lot of freedom in how to approach combat. And if the player ever gets tired of one class, they can always make a weapon from another.

Just as in the first 3 Rune Factory games, 4 is a top-down dungeon crawler where the player has to navigate puzzles and hordes of enemies to make it through the maze of each level. The dungeons are all visually distinct, with some clever obstacles to navigate. And because it's an action RPG, the transition from roaming the dungeon to fighting enemies is nonexistent — items, crops, enemies, characters, etc. are all on the same plane.

Cutting down a minotaur feels no different from sickling corn back on the fields — it's so smooth. With a hefty three separate arcs of the game and a postgame bonus challenge dungeon on top of that, players will be dungeon crawling for a long time. Players can even make their own adventuring parties with both the monsters they've tamed and the townsfolk themselves. Non-monster party members will even have unique things to say at certain story events when they're in the party.

Marriage Candidates in Rune Factory 4:

While many of 4's core mechanics can be found in 3, the main area the developers really went to the effort to change was the romance system. In some ways, it's even better than 3: potential spouses now have to be dated before they can be married, making the relationship feel more natural. Some events are also exclusive to the dating stage, making it feel like that stage of the relationship has real weight. Events aren't tied to requests anymore, making it a pleasant surprise whenever the player triggers a romantic scene by accident.

And, of course, the ability to play as a girl and marry the bachelors can't be ignored; fans had been begging for this for years. The marriageable cast all have their own charms, but some of them have special ties to the greater plot that really make them more intriguing. It's a great cast that's balanced by drama and comedy, and the amount of dialogue in the game keeps them feeling dynamic.

Rune Factory 4 is the best the Rune Factory series has to offer, even if it didn't innovate as much as 3 did. Some may prefer 3 due to its wackier tone and more colorful cast, but it's all a matter of opinion — and the fact there's a debate at all over which one is better just goes to show how good both games really are.

For those who weren't satisfied with Stardew Valley's combat in the mines or thought that everyone in town was a little too gloomy, Rune Factory 4 is a really fun change of pace. For those who did like Stardew's combat and cast, there's more fun writing and fighting in the Rune Factory series. When it comes to sheer customizability, economy, and grounded vibes, Stardew Valley is something special. But for those looking for something similar with its own extra dose of fantasy and adventure, Rune Factory 4 is too good to pass up on.

Rune Factory 4 is currently available as Rune Factory 4 Special on Nintendo Switch, Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

5 Images

5 Images

Rune Factory 4 Special

Welcome to Selphia, a region ruled by the Native Dragon Ventuswill...and you!After falling from the sky and landing on the back of a friendly dragon, the young hero or heroine is invited to live in the local castle and, as a newly designated ruler, begins their life anew while developing the town, exploring nearby dungeons, and cultivating the soil.

Action RPG

JRPG

Simulation

Systems

OpenCritic Reviews

Top Critic Rating:82/100 Critics Recommend:88%

Franchise

Rune Factory

Platform(s)

Nintendo Switch , PC , PlayStation 4 , Xbox One

Released

February 25, 2020

Developer(s)

Marvelous

Publisher(s)

XSEED Games , Marvelous

ESRB

T For Teen Due To Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol

How Long To Beat

38 Hours

PS Plus Availability

Extra & Premium

Steam Deck Compatibility

Playable

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

See at Xbox Games Store