Alright, time for the second disappointment I’ve played this year. To be fair my first Rune Factory game was 4/special for the 3DS. This and Fantasy Life’s sequel have been very hard for me to recommend. There is a lot in this game, but most of it is hard to say whether it adds anything useful to the series. My biggest problem with this game is that residents of the towns and shops are always forgettable no matter what. Yes, there are important npcs who have differences and aren’t as forgettable, but it is just different when in previous games the characters always played central roles and if not they played major roles in the events. In Guardians of Azuma the most any of these guys do is run stores or help on the farm. While the new base building is nice it feels like it costs the game compared to older entries. The game at least looks nice and runs pretty well so the nicer graphics and decent for the Switch framerate is good. Gameplay outside of town is near dedicated to gathering materials sometimes you need to use a specific tool that is given to you to make things produce resources. I also don’t like the way main missions are handled in previous games you could do missions early or whenever you felt like it. Here the missions often feel like objectives in a mobile game do this task then this one and the next mission unlocks.

I didn’t hate this game just got bored of it. Games need to have things that standout and this one didn’t. Gameplay was boring, graphics while pretty don’t stand out or do anything, and I’d actually just stick with special/4. I feel the biggest thing holding this game back is that so much from the developers have released or are being worked on and even though a majority is remakes (Mineral Town, Wonderful Life, 2 other Rune Factory games, and the upcoming Grand Bazaar) it feels like not everything is going into games like Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma and Rune Factory 5, but now that this game is done and released does that mean more will go to Grand Bazaar or will we finally get a new Story of Seasons after Pioneers of Olive Town.