izigame.me

I haven't finished this particular rendition on PC, but I've played the OG 3DS version back in 2014.
And boi, that was a hella ride,
This is my first Rune Factory game I've ever played at that time, and I noticed that it seems to bear many similarities to Harvest Moon games, it turns out it's a "spin-off" from Bokujou Monogatari series, known as Harvest Moon back before this game is released, now it's Story of Seasons, it was dubbed "Rune Factory X : A Fantasy Harvest Moon" in previous installments.
However, this blows up my experience of farming games, as I grew up I grew bored of my Harvest Moon FOMT GBA save so I eventually stopped playing, however this game has sooooo many expanded contents inside, for free! instead of a paid DLC.
The only thing lacking is online play, which was a thing in previous NDS installments.
The lore, although "loosely connected" to each other games, but it doesn't mean it'll reduce your enjoyment if you only play this one and skip the previous titles. But if you're really curious, it's worth trying, however I'd warn that especially the first game on NDS, the mechanics is janky as hell. It progressively becomes better in 2, then in 3 the mechanics was greatly improved that it lays the foundation to this game's mechanics.
Storyline, mechanics, and length, this game wins against any other Rune Factory games (sans 5 which isn't released yet in NA region when I write this review, so I can't compare against it yet), only loses to 3 in terms of waifus (arguable, and it's not a heavy loss still, RF4 waifus have great personalities while RF3 have great personalities with some of them also having great "personalities", but sadly in RF3 everything related to storyline ends after you get married, unlike this game, once you unlock your waifu/husbando by finishing the necessary storyline parts then dating/marriage is totally separate to storyline, you can get married before/after the full story ends ), and lack of online play (but even without online play, this is still a very entertaining Single-Player game).
What I love outta this game compared to other farming sims I've played (includes previous Rune Factory games) is, the town feels "alive", there are always different dialogues everyday and the devs formulated it so it doesn't feel "repetitive" at all for me, I remember I used to continue playing for a while before I dropped it after I finished the very last storyline arc in this game (arc 3, there are 3 story arcs so if you got a credit message ending for the first time, it is NOT the end of the game story). Also, since Selphia is situated as a "tourist spot" city, you'll see that there are visitors visiting the town regularly, so you don't feel lonely over there.
And last praise, is the winter theme, other Harvest Moon/SoS/Rune Factory games I've played has depressing af winter theme song, this one goes "yaaay santa!" which is nice.
However, this PC version still needs a bit of work, particularly on naming interface, I got confused when I think I couldn't change the character's name from Lest, the trick is to press Esc then you'll see the mouse pointer, use your mouse and keyboard to change the name accordingly, yeah even with a controller you have to do this. If you already created a savefile, find a tourist named "Mistress Trupin" and she'll help you change your chara's, your farm's, and your barn's name, and poof it's changed as if it's been the name from the beginning.
FOR :
-Choice to play as a female (lacking in previous games)
-Decent waifus and husbandos, I'd say equally for both genders. Not RF3 quality and numbers (for each gender available) but still very decent, and also, no "canon" choice so you're free to choose one without any guilt.
-"Alive" town with each townspeople having their own character depths and stories, which are so memorable
-Changable chara names
-Long play storyline
-Not-so-hard grind if you choose "Easy" or "Normal" difficulty, even on "Hard" I think "studying" efforts needed is way less than say, Disgaea or Pokemon
-Anime-style characters, HD-ready-ish graphics though not 3D
-No rush to finish the storyline immediately, you can do other things, some things are tied to storyline such as marrying some characters like Amber, Dolce, Dylas, and Leon which needs you to progress in Arc 1 to unlock them, or Doug whose heart level won't go past 3 unless you finish Arc 2 iirc however after you progress up to the point you "desired" you can stop chasing the story and focus on farming, friendship, requests, dating, and festivals for a while.
-Your child will actually be a useful character that you can bring in combat instead of being an eternal 2 year old, they'll be an eternal 6 year old tho, but with abilities and levels that may chase their parents'.
-Unlike Harvest Moon/SoS games, your livestock is basically eternal until you "release" them, more like Pokemon. So no need to fear them getting a disease, or dying (I'm talking about dying as in stop being your livestock, instead of having 0 HP in battles).
AGAINST
-Price (for me, personally, but I love this game so much I don't mind shelling the ca$h)
-Lack of online play
-No ability of same-sex marriage (there is a gender-swap option later in the game, but for some people it is "not enough" since it's basically your chara having swapped sprites, so the game mechanics and maybe the pronouns too will have no difference, it will be a thing in upcoming RF5 though, and for this one, since it's a PC game there may be a mod in the future, not a problem for me personally since I'm a hetero but maybe a problem for someone else)
-(For now) bugs, may be solved by updating graphics card drivers, or wait for a future patch, still very much playable for me personally though, even in Windows 11.
-I personally couldn't adapt to keyboard+mouse controls, too janky, so I end up using a controller, which fits perfectly.
-The speed and clock timing of the game is tied to the FPS, so if you have overkill specs, activate VSync or limit the FPS to 60, if you have sub-par specs though, this will run in literal slow-motion.