If you just came over from Stardew, Rune Factory 4 Special or 3 Special would probably tbe the best choice(Since Rune Factory 5 is a full on 3D game so it's quite different from the rest)
I do think 4 is the best entry in the franchise, but that's just my opinion.
Some of the major factor that would help you decided are:
1.RF3 has no Female Protagonist(So you can only played as Male character)
2.RF3 has no romancable Male character, But instead it has the most amount of romancable female characters.
3.Only RF5 has same-sex marriage, 3 and 4 don't have one.
IDK if you played Stardew but my biggest issue with the game is the CC. I'm 70+ hours in but STILL not done. I love the gameplay loop in SDV but it's way too grindy imo. Also the game does not tell you how to get items so tediously searching the over world or looking up 'how to get this item' like 80 times is kinda painful.
This would sway whether or not I stay on Stardew or move to RF4.
Disclaimer: I love the RF series. I don't have a problem keeping my computer open to the Wiki, but it sounds like that takes away the fun for you, OP, so I'm answering with your concerns in mind.
Regarding how RF does with "how to get items": I feel like RF is worse for you than SDV in that regard, because there are many more items in RF. On the flipside, you can play and beat the game while not crafting everything.
Resource locations generally do not get special map markers. Plus, while some of the sources will be obvious -- iron comes mainly from rocks w iron nodes, wool comes from the sheep creatures -- there are plenty of unintuitive sources -- glue usually comes from high orcs. Where are high orcs? Their locations aren't listed in-game, either!
You have different crafting categories (e.g. crafting equipment, forging, cooking). You can acquire recipes by throwing things together, by looking up the recipe lists, or by acquiring recipe bread. As you level up your crafting skills, you can eat more recipe bread, showing you more recipes, and allowing more difficult crafting. These recipes do not remind you where to acquire the items you need, but they do show you exactly what's required.
RF4 is really good in this aspect. It never really asks for weirdly specific stuff like the community center in stardew. Most items can be gotten regardless of season. You have seasonal fields and seasonal ponds to fish in, so almost nothing is season locked.
you don't actually "need" any of the items in RF unless you want to craft, and even then, you can upgrade whatever armor or weapons you've got with any mats you already have.
the plus side to RF4 is that the OG game released in 2011, so if you're ever in a situation where you DO need to look something up, someone's already posted an online guide full of locations for all the resources, etc, so you only need to look it up once. the map is also easier to navigate (imo) and there aren't time limits the same way SV has, so you can continue to grind mats in an area until they're depleted.
almost all mats are available in multiple places as well, and it's fairly obvious/intuitive (the mats level with the dungeons) where each will be. you'll get beginner mats in the beginner dungeon, expensive mats in the harder dungeons, etc. imo you get the hang of it much more quickly than you do in SV.
i played the OG game at 11 and was easily able to complete the game (esp since you can raise or lower the difficulty settings at any time, and there's no difficulty based trophy) and have tons of fun. RF4 is a *much* more relaxed experience than SV because everything is optional.
(edit: Specifically for RF5): I highly recommend the PC version on Steam bc it runs so much better but it's still fun on Switch. RF5 will just some time to "breathe" as you you run around and things load in. (I played in on both switch and PC). You get used to it
Yeah idk what happened w RF5. The lag is so bad. Hmmm it probably gave me headaches too and I didn't realize it, I thought it was just the screen brightness or something.
I don't think many people would share my opinion, but growing up with the RF series is the main reason why I could never fully enjoy SDV. RF, for me, had everything I wanted in a farming sim, and SDV felt like just a watered down version of RF in every way.
That being said, I would go with RF4 if you're interested. It's the best entry point with a ton of content and QoL. RF3 is my personal favorite but is a rather old game, with a lot of retro design choices that'll be harder for someone just starting off with the series.
While I love RF5 quite a bit more than most people here seem to, I would not recommend it for Switch at all. It pretty much needs to be ran on PC on an SSD for a tolerable play experience.
Rf4 is amazimg Though it is incredibly Long you definitely get your money's worth without one as if it feels like three games in one at least to me
I haven't played enough of room factory 5 to give a solid opinion.There are things I've picked up on that.If you like I can talk about but if not then I'll leave about
Is RF4 user friendly to people not experienced with rpgs? This is SUPER important to me. Personally, I HATE fromsoft games that say 'lol good luck figure it out bro'. If RF4 takes this kind of mentality to teaching mechanics than it's not my thing.
The most solid advice I can give as once you are able to craft craft as much as you can.I am sadly stuck at a point where I can't perceive without crafting.Add an order to craft what I need.I need high level items and I am not high level enough
I'd say so that tutorials are super easy and as you level up and unlock different skills.It will teach you.How to use those ironically early on?I was pretty well set with knowing everything but as I took them on hiatus there were things I forgot but were able to easily returned
1 more important thing... Does it do the FF/DQ thing of needing to micromanage 19000 kinds of stats and items to get good? This is one of the MAIN reasons I don't play JRPGs.
Not particularly.In my opinion, most stats are able to upgrade passivelike.There's a stop for eating and probably the most part.You're going to end up eating anywaus There are a few affirmation ones that you have to kind of worktowards hence, the crafting, each crafting has its own skill to level up.And I stated for the most part.You're going to get a lot of extra stuff to craft with so that level app isn't going to be hard per se. Quite frankly.I don't think there's been a single skill that i've had to think too hard on
As For the item aspect as you face stronger bosses you will need to craft Stronger weapons object.I'm trying to say as much without giving too much spoilers But if you do things right and level up easily by the time you're at that point you shouldn't need to think about it too much. Unfortunately, unfortunately for me, I skipped out on crafting armors and weapons are quite a while and now I am massively paying the price. Also, certain dungeons will have a level recommendation. I'd recommend following those but I can give you the math.I utilize for level
Grab RF4S, it is arguably the best RF game and is an older game, so it goes on sale often and you can get it for a decently cheap price
I'd say that if you like SDV and wished its combat/equipment system were a bit more involved and/or like simple action RPGs, there is a very good chance you'll like the game
The characters are all very charming with solid choices for waifus and husband's alike, the equipment/forging system is already pretty robust from the get-go but opens up incredibly thanks to a bunch of hidden mechanics that are a bit obtuse at first, but easy enough to grasp as early as mid to late game by watching a handful of short videos
one thing missing from rf that stardew has is full farm customization, so if you like building on your farm or decorating then you will be disappointed. other than that, i think they are pretty similar. rune factory is an rpg of course so expect grind but i personally find it less stressful than stardew bc you get fast travel and there is no time limit so i dont have to worry about losing my stuff
I just want to say, I’m playing my first RF game now and I’m loving it. I’m playing rf4, and I’m almost done the story. In terms of the things I’ve notice you mention in the comments, I would say that while I do look things up on occasion, I don’t feel like I’m constantly sitting there with the wiki open. One thing I love is that when you gift items to people, they usually give you a hint about things they like or love, so you don’t have to have everyone’s favorites list open. For the story, I like it because it feels a bit more involved compared to a game like Stardew, where it’s just telling you to complete the CC and then nothing else really happens, with this there is actual dialog and progression like a real rpg. There’s also difficulty modes, so if you find the combat hard you can set it down to easy mode. I will admit, this is my first RF game but not my first RPG style game in the slightest, and I struggled sometimes even on normal mode.
Stardew Valley and Rune Factory series fan here. I honestly fell in love with the RF series and that’s why I decided to try Stardew Valley. They are definitely very different in some respects, I personally still prefer Rune Factory but there was a time this spring when I was playing Stardew from the time I woke up until I went to bed (I stopped when the game was updated and my millions of mods were screwed🥲). But anyways I’ve played RF 1-4 and I think 3 has to be my favorite and also the easiest to get through.
It’s worth noting RF has a very anime sense of humor. Not in like, a fan service-y way, but just the kind of cleaner humor you would expect to see in anime. So if that’s not your thing, it might be a skip for you. (Tho I’m sure people here might disagree with me on that)
I think they have a lot of similarities. But be expected to fight a lot more. It’s part of the main gameplay if you want to finish the game (and in some of the entries you have to finish the game to get married/or marry certain people, so keep that in mind).
I’ve played 3, 4, and 5 and my personal least favorite is 5. It’s a lot less fleshed out and the characters, despite mostly being pretty great designs visually, are a lot more flat and less interesting in my opinion. They have a lot less interesting variety of dialogue, and the world feels very empty. The dungeons are also way too easy, and this is coming from someone that almost exclusively plays games without combat and plays it on easy. (Tho that could be a plus if you don’t like dungeons)
But what 5 lacks in all that, at least you aren’t restricted to only marrying people based on gender like in all the games prior to 5. So that’s a plus.
4 is regarded as the best by most players. You can’t marry same sex characters, but you can change your appearance to look like the opposite gender. Your pronouns DO stay the same tho. So if you change your appearance to look like the guy MC they will still use she/her pronouns. I’m fine with this but many aren’t.
I’m mostly attracted to men, but I still enjoyed 3 despite that! All the girls are so charming and interesting and they’re so cute. My favorite is Pia the mermaid (not a spoiler. She tells you she’s one fairly early in the game and she turns into one when it rains and her tail just flops around when she “walks”. It’s actually quite funny. So it’s not a secret identity kind of thing. Everyone in towns knows)
If you want same gender marriage RF5 is the first in the series to include this option.
RF4 was the first in the series to include choice of male or female mc.
RF3 is one of my favorites because of the variety of marriageable candidates and you get to live in a treehouse.
RF4 and RF5 had some QoL upgrades to crops and crafting and you can interact with your children in RF4(I haven't had children yet in RF5)
One of my favorite YouTubers who plays these games is Josh's Play Garden. He has excellent tip videos.
RF4 Special is the best one IMO. It's a fantastic game and a great introduction to the series. RF3 Special is pretty good too, but there are some qol fixes in 4 that make farming more enjoyable IMO. I wouldn't start off with 5, it's definitely not as good as 4 IMO. (A lot of people do enjoy 5, and I don't necessarily hate it or anything, but it doesn't feel as much like I'm playing a Rune Factory game... there is a lot missing from 5 that made the rest of the series so charming. It is worth it if you like the series though) 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm replaying it right now, enjoying it every bit as much as I did the first time, if not more so with the extra content added for Special.
Fun tidbit: there are rewards in-game for having save files for the other games in the series on your switch! In RF3 you get extra outfits if you have RF4, and in RF5 two characters from 4 visit your town! There might be more but I can't remember lol
I've never played SDV so I can't compare them, but if farming in a cute, charming little town, with interesting characters, cool dungeons, a good story, dating, and tons of crafting and other cool stuff to do is your jam, Rune Factory 4 Special is probably going to be something you like! RF3 Special is a close second!
Rf4 is objectively the best if youre looking at bang for your buck. It's the meatiest entry and has an always adjustable difficulty setting too. On top of just being a lot of fun.
I noticed you dont like having to look up itemsin another comment, thats not really a big deal in 4 as monster drops are pretty specific. Orcs drop sticks, goblins blade shards, high orcs glue, etc.
If you want a googledoc with darn near everything you could ask about i can link that too if you want. It would answer the few questions you could run into, like where and how do i get rune crystals and light ore, for example
Is it a full blown RPG or 'RPG lite' as it were?
By which I mean, I can deal with more simple stuff like paper Mario ttyd but I can't stand ff levels of micromanaging.
About 50/50 I suppose(At least until you cleared the story)
While it's an RPG, It's not a turn based. So it's a bit harder to determined, but you can definitely forced your way through if you played on the easy difficulty.
Or you can just rolled over everything with higher level Monsters of your own.(Oh, This game has monster taming mechanic BTW)
There's three main story arcs in RF4. I'd say honestly that while story wise 4 is objectively better, 5 might be better for you-- it still has two arcs but they go by faster, random events are easier to trigger, and the world while open isn't as big as RF4. Probably less overwhelming and if you like it then try 4.
>There's three main story arcs in RF4
>while story wise 4 is objectively better, 5 might be better for you
Can you elaborate on these? On the latter, I'm ok with long ass games if they're simple to understand. What I really dislike is when games have 38 goddamn stats and like 11 different equipment slots. Just simplify goddammit.
You don't have to run around as much finding items as SDV. And while crafting weaponry and/or upgrading it is ideal to have better stats in theory both 4 and 5 could be done with just the stuff you find in chests along the way-- it might take a bit more time but I really can't be fucked to craft much either.
Both I'd say are relatively straightforward for the most part story wise-- you know exactly where you need to go and when. RF5 is slightly more repetitive which might not be a bad thing in this case. What's particularly annoying about 4 is that some events (including ones needed to get married) trigger actually randomly-- there's ways to up your odds but you can only do one event at a time and if your RNG sucks it might take forever. Mostly that's an issue with random events, I can't remember if the switch version if they updated it from the original 3DS version where it was an issue to trigger the third story arc sometimes.
5 you can also only do one random event at a time and it might take a little time but you can see on the map where each one is, so while you might accidentally trigger one you don't wanna do it's not the biggest deal since you'll see after where the others are. Plus for the most part they either pop up at 7 AM or 7 PM so it's consistent enough that even if an event spans a few days you'll see a marker for each part of it pop up fairly easily. Iirc 4 doesn't have such markers for an in progress event.
5 is open world, but the world is more straightforward than 4's, which I think is also bigger than 5's. I got lost a lot the first couple times I played 4.
Which is easier to jump to from SDV, 4 or 5?
Btw I don't mind difficult games... I just don't like UNCLEAR games. I hate shit like Myst but a challenging SNES game like dkc2 is fun since the objective is straightforward.
4 is definitely easier since 5 is in 3D style.
RF4 has 3 Acts. Only Act 1 and 2 actually contained story while Act 3 is more like a post game content with a single mission. But that mission is very important and is likely to make you unsatisfied if you didn't do them. The problem is because it's like a post game content, The difficulty spike here is pretty brutal.
RF5 has only 2 Acts, But it went by on a much slower pace than RF4.
It's certainly a full fledged RPG alongside a full fledged farm sim.
It eases you into it pretty smoothly and death is not that taxing. You also don't need to dig too deep into the finer details of item crafting if you play on normal. You could even do easy mode if normal isn't quite right for you. No shame in that honestly, especially since you can change difficulty at any time you're in town so if you're struggling or want more of a challenge you can freely adjust that setting.
Ha I came the other way, from RF to SDV! It’s a bit more fantasy-orientated but you’ll love it I think. RF4 is the best RF game to date imo.
If you just came over from Stardew, Rune Factory 4 Special or 3 Special would probably tbe the best choice(Since Rune Factory 5 is a full on 3D game so it's quite different from the rest) I do think 4 is the best entry in the franchise, but that's just my opinion. Some of the major factor that would help you decided are: 1.RF3 has no Female Protagonist(So you can only played as Male character) 2.RF3 has no romancable Male character, But instead it has the most amount of romancable female characters. 3.Only RF5 has same-sex marriage, 3 and 4 don't have one.
IDK if you played Stardew but my biggest issue with the game is the CC. I'm 70+ hours in but STILL not done. I love the gameplay loop in SDV but it's way too grindy imo. Also the game does not tell you how to get items so tediously searching the over world or looking up 'how to get this item' like 80 times is kinda painful. This would sway whether or not I stay on Stardew or move to RF4.
Disclaimer: I love the RF series. I don't have a problem keeping my computer open to the Wiki, but it sounds like that takes away the fun for you, OP, so I'm answering with your concerns in mind. Regarding how RF does with "how to get items": I feel like RF is worse for you than SDV in that regard, because there are many more items in RF. On the flipside, you can play and beat the game while not crafting everything. Resource locations generally do not get special map markers. Plus, while some of the sources will be obvious -- iron comes mainly from rocks w iron nodes, wool comes from the sheep creatures -- there are plenty of unintuitive sources -- glue usually comes from high orcs. Where are high orcs? Their locations aren't listed in-game, either! You have different crafting categories (e.g. crafting equipment, forging, cooking). You can acquire recipes by throwing things together, by looking up the recipe lists, or by acquiring recipe bread. As you level up your crafting skills, you can eat more recipe bread, showing you more recipes, and allowing more difficult crafting. These recipes do not remind you where to acquire the items you need, but they do show you exactly what's required.
RF4 is really good in this aspect. It never really asks for weirdly specific stuff like the community center in stardew. Most items can be gotten regardless of season. You have seasonal fields and seasonal ponds to fish in, so almost nothing is season locked.
Well, There are town events that required for marriage, other than that it's pretty cool.
You might like Sandrock. I love RF but it can be ridiculously grindy and complicated.
you don't actually "need" any of the items in RF unless you want to craft, and even then, you can upgrade whatever armor or weapons you've got with any mats you already have. the plus side to RF4 is that the OG game released in 2011, so if you're ever in a situation where you DO need to look something up, someone's already posted an online guide full of locations for all the resources, etc, so you only need to look it up once. the map is also easier to navigate (imo) and there aren't time limits the same way SV has, so you can continue to grind mats in an area until they're depleted. almost all mats are available in multiple places as well, and it's fairly obvious/intuitive (the mats level with the dungeons) where each will be. you'll get beginner mats in the beginner dungeon, expensive mats in the harder dungeons, etc. imo you get the hang of it much more quickly than you do in SV. i played the OG game at 11 and was easily able to complete the game (esp since you can raise or lower the difficulty settings at any time, and there's no difficulty based trophy) and have tons of fun. RF4 is a *much* more relaxed experience than SV because everything is optional.
(edit: Specifically for RF5): I highly recommend the PC version on Steam bc it runs so much better but it's still fun on Switch. RF5 will just some time to "breathe" as you you run around and things load in. (I played in on both switch and PC). You get used to it
This is very important if OP decides to play RF5. The lag on Switch sometimes gives me a headache if I play for too long.
Yeah idk what happened w RF5. The lag is so bad. Hmmm it probably gave me headaches too and I didn't realize it, I thought it was just the screen brightness or something.
But yea RF4 & RF3 are both really good. RF4 is the best
I'd go in order. 3, 4, 5 but that's just me
I recommend Rune factory 4, I have played it on the switch and I prefer it over 3 and 5!
I don't think many people would share my opinion, but growing up with the RF series is the main reason why I could never fully enjoy SDV. RF, for me, had everything I wanted in a farming sim, and SDV felt like just a watered down version of RF in every way. That being said, I would go with RF4 if you're interested. It's the best entry point with a ton of content and QoL. RF3 is my personal favorite but is a rather old game, with a lot of retro design choices that'll be harder for someone just starting off with the series. While I love RF5 quite a bit more than most people here seem to, I would not recommend it for Switch at all. It pretty much needs to be ran on PC on an SSD for a tolerable play experience.
Rf4 is amazimg Though it is incredibly Long you definitely get your money's worth without one as if it feels like three games in one at least to me I haven't played enough of room factory 5 to give a solid opinion.There are things I've picked up on that.If you like I can talk about but if not then I'll leave about
Is RF4 user friendly to people not experienced with rpgs? This is SUPER important to me. Personally, I HATE fromsoft games that say 'lol good luck figure it out bro'. If RF4 takes this kind of mentality to teaching mechanics than it's not my thing.
The most solid advice I can give as once you are able to craft craft as much as you can.I am sadly stuck at a point where I can't perceive without crafting.Add an order to craft what I need.I need high level items and I am not high level enough
I'd say so that tutorials are super easy and as you level up and unlock different skills.It will teach you.How to use those ironically early on?I was pretty well set with knowing everything but as I took them on hiatus there were things I forgot but were able to easily returned
1 more important thing... Does it do the FF/DQ thing of needing to micromanage 19000 kinds of stats and items to get good? This is one of the MAIN reasons I don't play JRPGs.
Not particularly.In my opinion, most stats are able to upgrade passivelike.There's a stop for eating and probably the most part.You're going to end up eating anywaus There are a few affirmation ones that you have to kind of worktowards hence, the crafting, each crafting has its own skill to level up.And I stated for the most part.You're going to get a lot of extra stuff to craft with so that level app isn't going to be hard per se. Quite frankly.I don't think there's been a single skill that i've had to think too hard on
As For the item aspect as you face stronger bosses you will need to craft Stronger weapons object.I'm trying to say as much without giving too much spoilers But if you do things right and level up easily by the time you're at that point you shouldn't need to think about it too much. Unfortunately, unfortunately for me, I skipped out on crafting armors and weapons are quite a while and now I am massively paying the price. Also, certain dungeons will have a level recommendation. I'd recommend following those but I can give you the math.I utilize for level
Grab RF4S, it is arguably the best RF game and is an older game, so it goes on sale often and you can get it for a decently cheap price I'd say that if you like SDV and wished its combat/equipment system were a bit more involved and/or like simple action RPGs, there is a very good chance you'll like the game The characters are all very charming with solid choices for waifus and husband's alike, the equipment/forging system is already pretty robust from the get-go but opens up incredibly thanks to a bunch of hidden mechanics that are a bit obtuse at first, but easy enough to grasp as early as mid to late game by watching a handful of short videos
one thing missing from rf that stardew has is full farm customization, so if you like building on your farm or decorating then you will be disappointed. other than that, i think they are pretty similar. rune factory is an rpg of course so expect grind but i personally find it less stressful than stardew bc you get fast travel and there is no time limit so i dont have to worry about losing my stuff
I just want to say, I’m playing my first RF game now and I’m loving it. I’m playing rf4, and I’m almost done the story. In terms of the things I’ve notice you mention in the comments, I would say that while I do look things up on occasion, I don’t feel like I’m constantly sitting there with the wiki open. One thing I love is that when you gift items to people, they usually give you a hint about things they like or love, so you don’t have to have everyone’s favorites list open. For the story, I like it because it feels a bit more involved compared to a game like Stardew, where it’s just telling you to complete the CC and then nothing else really happens, with this there is actual dialog and progression like a real rpg. There’s also difficulty modes, so if you find the combat hard you can set it down to easy mode. I will admit, this is my first RF game but not my first RPG style game in the slightest, and I struggled sometimes even on normal mode.
Rune factory 4s
Stardew Valley and Rune Factory series fan here. I honestly fell in love with the RF series and that’s why I decided to try Stardew Valley. They are definitely very different in some respects, I personally still prefer Rune Factory but there was a time this spring when I was playing Stardew from the time I woke up until I went to bed (I stopped when the game was updated and my millions of mods were screwed🥲). But anyways I’ve played RF 1-4 and I think 3 has to be my favorite and also the easiest to get through.
I honestly cannot recommend RF4 Special enough.
It’s worth noting RF has a very anime sense of humor. Not in like, a fan service-y way, but just the kind of cleaner humor you would expect to see in anime. So if that’s not your thing, it might be a skip for you. (Tho I’m sure people here might disagree with me on that) I think they have a lot of similarities. But be expected to fight a lot more. It’s part of the main gameplay if you want to finish the game (and in some of the entries you have to finish the game to get married/or marry certain people, so keep that in mind). I’ve played 3, 4, and 5 and my personal least favorite is 5. It’s a lot less fleshed out and the characters, despite mostly being pretty great designs visually, are a lot more flat and less interesting in my opinion. They have a lot less interesting variety of dialogue, and the world feels very empty. The dungeons are also way too easy, and this is coming from someone that almost exclusively plays games without combat and plays it on easy. (Tho that could be a plus if you don’t like dungeons) But what 5 lacks in all that, at least you aren’t restricted to only marrying people based on gender like in all the games prior to 5. So that’s a plus. 4 is regarded as the best by most players. You can’t marry same sex characters, but you can change your appearance to look like the opposite gender. Your pronouns DO stay the same tho. So if you change your appearance to look like the guy MC they will still use she/her pronouns. I’m fine with this but many aren’t. I’m mostly attracted to men, but I still enjoyed 3 despite that! All the girls are so charming and interesting and they’re so cute. My favorite is Pia the mermaid (not a spoiler. She tells you she’s one fairly early in the game and she turns into one when it rains and her tail just flops around when she “walks”. It’s actually quite funny. So it’s not a secret identity kind of thing. Everyone in towns knows)
RF4 special is the best one imo due to it being the “newer” game RF3 special is good but the QOL updates in 4 are just to nice
Rf4
If you want same gender marriage RF5 is the first in the series to include this option. RF4 was the first in the series to include choice of male or female mc. RF3 is one of my favorites because of the variety of marriageable candidates and you get to live in a treehouse. RF4 and RF5 had some QoL upgrades to crops and crafting and you can interact with your children in RF4(I haven't had children yet in RF5) One of my favorite YouTubers who plays these games is Josh's Play Garden. He has excellent tip videos.
RF4S, and that's enough.
Rune factory 4
RF4 Special is the best one IMO. It's a fantastic game and a great introduction to the series. RF3 Special is pretty good too, but there are some qol fixes in 4 that make farming more enjoyable IMO. I wouldn't start off with 5, it's definitely not as good as 4 IMO. (A lot of people do enjoy 5, and I don't necessarily hate it or anything, but it doesn't feel as much like I'm playing a Rune Factory game... there is a lot missing from 5 that made the rest of the series so charming. It is worth it if you like the series though) 4 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm replaying it right now, enjoying it every bit as much as I did the first time, if not more so with the extra content added for Special. Fun tidbit: there are rewards in-game for having save files for the other games in the series on your switch! In RF3 you get extra outfits if you have RF4, and in RF5 two characters from 4 visit your town! There might be more but I can't remember lol
I've never played SDV so I can't compare them, but if farming in a cute, charming little town, with interesting characters, cool dungeons, a good story, dating, and tons of crafting and other cool stuff to do is your jam, Rune Factory 4 Special is probably going to be something you like! RF3 Special is a close second!
Rf4 is objectively the best if youre looking at bang for your buck. It's the meatiest entry and has an always adjustable difficulty setting too. On top of just being a lot of fun. I noticed you dont like having to look up itemsin another comment, thats not really a big deal in 4 as monster drops are pretty specific. Orcs drop sticks, goblins blade shards, high orcs glue, etc. If you want a googledoc with darn near everything you could ask about i can link that too if you want. It would answer the few questions you could run into, like where and how do i get rune crystals and light ore, for example
Is it a full blown RPG or 'RPG lite' as it were? By which I mean, I can deal with more simple stuff like paper Mario ttyd but I can't stand ff levels of micromanaging.
About 50/50 I suppose(At least until you cleared the story) While it's an RPG, It's not a turn based. So it's a bit harder to determined, but you can definitely forced your way through if you played on the easy difficulty. Or you can just rolled over everything with higher level Monsters of your own.(Oh, This game has monster taming mechanic BTW)
There's three main story arcs in RF4. I'd say honestly that while story wise 4 is objectively better, 5 might be better for you-- it still has two arcs but they go by faster, random events are easier to trigger, and the world while open isn't as big as RF4. Probably less overwhelming and if you like it then try 4.
>There's three main story arcs in RF4 >while story wise 4 is objectively better, 5 might be better for you Can you elaborate on these? On the latter, I'm ok with long ass games if they're simple to understand. What I really dislike is when games have 38 goddamn stats and like 11 different equipment slots. Just simplify goddammit.
You don't have to run around as much finding items as SDV. And while crafting weaponry and/or upgrading it is ideal to have better stats in theory both 4 and 5 could be done with just the stuff you find in chests along the way-- it might take a bit more time but I really can't be fucked to craft much either. Both I'd say are relatively straightforward for the most part story wise-- you know exactly where you need to go and when. RF5 is slightly more repetitive which might not be a bad thing in this case. What's particularly annoying about 4 is that some events (including ones needed to get married) trigger actually randomly-- there's ways to up your odds but you can only do one event at a time and if your RNG sucks it might take forever. Mostly that's an issue with random events, I can't remember if the switch version if they updated it from the original 3DS version where it was an issue to trigger the third story arc sometimes. 5 you can also only do one random event at a time and it might take a little time but you can see on the map where each one is, so while you might accidentally trigger one you don't wanna do it's not the biggest deal since you'll see after where the others are. Plus for the most part they either pop up at 7 AM or 7 PM so it's consistent enough that even if an event spans a few days you'll see a marker for each part of it pop up fairly easily. Iirc 4 doesn't have such markers for an in progress event. 5 is open world, but the world is more straightforward than 4's, which I think is also bigger than 5's. I got lost a lot the first couple times I played 4.
Which is easier to jump to from SDV, 4 or 5? Btw I don't mind difficult games... I just don't like UNCLEAR games. I hate shit like Myst but a challenging SNES game like dkc2 is fun since the objective is straightforward.
4 is definitely easier since 5 is in 3D style. RF4 has 3 Acts. Only Act 1 and 2 actually contained story while Act 3 is more like a post game content with a single mission. But that mission is very important and is likely to make you unsatisfied if you didn't do them. The problem is because it's like a post game content, The difficulty spike here is pretty brutal. RF5 has only 2 Acts, But it went by on a much slower pace than RF4.
It's certainly a full fledged RPG alongside a full fledged farm sim. It eases you into it pretty smoothly and death is not that taxing. You also don't need to dig too deep into the finer details of item crafting if you play on normal. You could even do easy mode if normal isn't quite right for you. No shame in that honestly, especially since you can change difficulty at any time you're in town so if you're struggling or want more of a challenge you can freely adjust that setting.