Why I Stopped Playing Rune Factory 5 

Completely agree. It lost the soul it had in 4. I stopped after a month

I 100% agree with you. I beat the main quest and haven't picked it up again. I was so hyped for this game, and I am honestly really disappointed. RF4 is one of my favorite games of all time. one of my main issues is the main quest is really, really short compared to 4. it always felt like there was more to do in 4 and in 5 it feels like there's not much after the main quest. I really hope Harvestella is good.

the lack of dialogue crushed me, i couldn't get attached to any of the npcs the way i did in 4 because of it. the main story also felt very basic and i was never invested, while with 4 i remember tearing up and even crying multiple times

RF5 definitely needed 2 or 3 more years of development. So so many things were lacking, and I think it's the only RF game I put down for a few months because I was.. bored. BEFORE finishing the main quest. BUT, now that I finished the main story I can say that there were many moments that made me gasp because I could see the idea they had, the passion and hints to things they wanted to integrate but couldn't. And that made me sad. This game deserved more time, it could have been amazing. Oh well. I think many of us put the game down and stopped playing because they took out a lot of things that previously gave us a certain feeling of accomplishment. You don't have to save up and make your house bigger for the forge or kitchen anymore, you can just go and buy it super early and also pretty cheap. You don't even really have to do any farming to progress, it's almost only there to be a time killer. No side quests from the characters that would have made me want to go out and beat up some monsters. Everything was a "yeah, do what you want, whenever you want, you don't need to do anything to get anywhere tho". I had fun with the game at the end, but I wish I could spend hundreds of hours in it like I could in RF4 and RF3.

EDIT: I played this game for over 100 hours and am still being sucked into it to this day. Just goes to show that even a “mediocre” RF game is still so charming and fun. As hard as I was on it at first, the charm outweighs the flaws immensely and makes this one of my favorite games of all time! As someone who has been a RF fan since the original RF came out, RF5 was sadly a disappointment. If you look at the 3D games, Frontier and Tides of Destiny, even on the Wii the towns and dungeons are beautiful, filled with stuff, and have their own unique look. Frontier especially. My biggest problem with RF5 is the world. Rigbarth is empty, too big, and the houses all face the same way which is just unrealistic. The dungeons look the same with a different color palette, and like you said, some have interesting parts but overall were bland. I can get over the graphics and frame rate of RF5, and even that the characters aren’t as developed as RF4, but I truly can’t get over the world. Rune Factory has had beautiful towns ever since Kardia and this just was a shame. Also, the music in RF5 is hands down the worst. Frontier and RF3 had amazing music and then they make this? Ugh. Rune Factory is my favorite series of all time and it is so disappointing that after waiting so long for 5, I put it down in a few short months.

Rune Factory 5 was a very fun but also unfortunate experience. I definitely don't hate the game and I'm still die hard fan of the series but it just sucks that i couldn't love it as much as i wanted to. I'll always go back to it and have fun with it but I wish it was more cared for and polished than it was. Rune Factory 4 will always be there though and I can always go back to it so I'm not too sad about it honestly

Biggest issue i had with the game is how lackluster the cast was unless you fully dated them. Having so much story locked behind dating them was really offputting, even worse because their stories were actually good. Doesn't help I think the love intrests in this title were the worst to date, no one jumped out at me in my first playthrough. Next was the gimmick, the catch mechanic was kinda boring, I don't think I ever even bothered to use it to "Tame" a monster. Another was the fact Green wasn't in the game but the other 3 were. Finally the farm dragons, the farm dragons were great but the fact they didn't have set seasons was kinda lame.

I finished the story and stopped playing--what sucks is like...i blew through all the events and content already. There wasn't anything to do. There wasn't a point waiting for marriage and then the kids. I got married, but the story was over. There was nothing left to do. Farming gets boring. There is no more goals, nothing else to do, so why play?

I also think that the characters were very separated in the town. People had people they were friends with and really only talked about them and nobody else I missed a ton of birthdays cause people weren’t talking about it I only heard about lucys birthday from Pricilla and vice versa I mean this is a very small village I think everyone should be somewhat connected and engaged with each other.

I think I stopped after the 2nd dungeon, it just didn't have that special charm RF4 had. There's already certain little details that are missing from RF5 that are in RF4. Such as: - less townsfolk interactions amongst each other - Animations (mc tired animation, townsfolk animations) - Less townsfolk interactions outside, holding items, etc - Dialogue: repeated dialogue, no special dialogue when attempting to sleep in someone else’s bed - Little to no variety in female marriage candidates, they all generally have the same body type :/ - Head icons for buildings (who’s in what building) - Warp points in woodlands? - Rp & Health usage indicator when cooking, crafting, etc - Title screen voice lines (mcs don’t say it together anymore, special dialogue though) I haven't gotten super far into the game so if some of these are missing due to that, oops, but it's a shame they weren't there from the start. It's sad that a lot of newcomers to the series have RF5 as their first experience, if they like it enough that they wanna try the other games that's great, but there could be a lot of people who didn't enjoy it and decided that the series isn't amazing (even though it is). It certainly doesn't help the already not super popular series, but we can only hope if there is an RF6, that it will be way better than RF5.

I think it is important to remember this is the first rune factory game after the original company went bankrupt so it’s possible either 1. Not all the of team returned and the current team was mostly comprised of people who haven’t made a rune factory game or 2. The devs were out of practice Hopefully the devs will take criticism and make rune factory 6 better

The dealbreaker for me was when the firefly festival had no fireflies. I waited all night! Maybe there's a cutscene if you're dating someone but everyone just sat and stared at a dark sky. All night

I'd be alright with the basic visuals because it's the first step from 2D, but the mechanics (like placing furniture a full FOOT from the wall) or the lackluster story/dialogue really bummed me out.

I think RF5’s biggest problem was that it followed RF4 which perfected the RF formula with really engaging characters and a huge multi-part story . The RF5 characters are endearing in there own way, but they don’t feel as fully dimensional as the ones in RF4. In RF5 I didn’t even finish the main story because I just didn’t care . In RF4 i just had to know what was gonna happen next.

It's same to the story of season pioneers of olive town. I just reached year 10 and stop playing it because it's getting boring and nothing much to do. I had fun playing it especially decorating and designing my farm, collecting trophies and etc, and wooing all the candidates and seeing all the events. But after that, nothing much to do. Nothing beats the story of seasons and trio of towns, animal parade. I had so much playing it before compared to the SOS:PooT :'))

I hate to say it, but I completely agree with you. I was so excited to get this game on my hands, and after over five years here we are and I really have trouble going back to the game despite having so much more to do. Even playing the game on Steam Deck which completely removes the massive performance issues from the Switch version and loads way faster, I still can't bring myself to finish it. This game unfortunately just reeks of being stuck from the mid 2010s and being left shelved, then having to be ported to a brand new console with modern day expectations. I do think Rune Factory 6 could be a possibility (knock on wood) and will come out a lot sooner than 5, as the sales from both 4 Remastered and this game show that the desire and interest is still here! They will not have the same baggage that came with all the internal struggles after 4 was released initially and hopefully that will let the devs focus exclusively on what Rune Factory is and hopefully not fall down the same path as Pioneers of Oak Town and pretend to be a game that it is not!

It didn’t take me too long to just completely drop this game. I really did try and love it but I just never could get into it. I liked the 3d but I think it wasn’t worth all the lag that I got in my game. I’d much prefer 2d with an actual running game that doesn’t lag every time I go to visit my own farm or do any farming or fighting than pretty 3d graphics. I don’t know maybe one day I’ll try and play it again but I don’t think I’d be missing anything if I decided to never go back to it.

5 fell off with me really quick... I hated the farm dragons the most and the frame rate drops were awful at times. Imo characters felt boring for the most part... I miss how good 3 was for me and how much I got sucked into it, I didn't even get married and that's a first for me in one of these types of games. It felt like a downgrade in content even with the more open world. That's my 2 cents on the game anyway. Edit: I also wish we had our own farm and not just some small patch of land and a room.

I too felt it lacking. I totally understand where you're coming from. I just hope Harvest Stella has marriage or it'll be a deal breaker for me. For now RF4 is king 👑

I feel bored quickly playing RF5 and find myself forcing to like it. The truth is that it is lacking in a lot of ways especially the characters I didn't find myself wanting to know much about it, even with my sweetheart Martin, love events are just not doing it for me. The characters feel flat, the story boring, even the farming doesn't even have much seed to grow but somehow the game you so much space for 15+ seeds? meh Same with your house, after upgrading you have so much space but nothing to decor it with. The town is not lively even after you got children they are not even interacting with they siblings or the two others children (Julian and Hina) but their dialogues is really cute. I can go on and on about why this game feel flat but overall I really want to like it, I like it but not as much as story of seasons or RF3 or RF4

Completely agree! Been a fan of Rune Factory since 1 and was so excited when they announced 5, totally thought the series was dead. It feels like it was there to be there. Hopefully they continue the series and learn from this one. Looking forward to Harvestella as well!

This might be because there was a possibility that there was not going to be another. So they put their all in it. And 5 is them getting the rust off

Making marriage an endgame thing was a bad design choice. I got to the end of the story and now that every day is the same, I can’t be bothered to have max kids. Which is a shame because dating is one of the main reasons I play the RF series; I could’ve experienced that all along side the plot instead of having to clear 70% of the game to even unlock my partner.

Yes! The dialogue in RF5 made me soo sad. I loved the characters and wanted badly to learn more and see them interact together. I grew to adore Lucy's character and opted to pursue her, but it frustrated me to only get one piece of dialogue out her everyday 😫RF 4 nailed it so amazingly. I dropped it about three weeks of playing. It was similar to your experience, I just didn't pick it up one day. I keep telling myself I want to go back, finish the story, marry Lucy etc. I just don't get sucked in. I'd love for them to mesh the new and old elements together, softer graphics, more dialogue, and so on. I do really want to go back, because I was having fun, I just wish it had more to it.

I usually like to take my sweet time with the main story in Rune Factory games. I would be romancing characters and completing sidequests along the way. With 5, I found myself beating this one way too fast. I was done by summer of year 1. I told myself I would at least try and get married in the game before I really put it down for good but gosh it takes a lot of motivation that I often don't have to pick up the game and get that done. Not only was the story pretty short, but the townsfolk are just not interesting enough. Sure I'm glad that I played the game, but it's disappointing that it didn't live up to the hype for me. I put around 500 hours into Rune Factory 4 when I'm pretty much ready to quit 5 with nowhere near that many hours. Also, I hated fishing in this one. Those darn fish shadows are so hard to see

I stopped when in one dungeon the ghosts had an instand death attack. That plus the lacking, clunky controls and the for me boring story and world made me decide i am not gonna waste anymore time with it. I liked the characters a lot but the game was just so frustrating a times. It is really sad that i was disappointed with three game series i really like in a short amount of time. Animal Crossing, Story of seasons and Rune Factory. I really hope they learn from it. There is no excuse for the bad performance. The switch is capable of so much more. Monolith Soft proved that recently again.

i was obsessed with it but also frustrated with performance and lack dialogue/other details that were not as refined as rf4. I fel like half the time I was playing for enjoyment, and the other half I was playing to finally get it out of the way. Once I started approaching the end of my journey with it (finishing the main game & marrying all the characters) I lost steam and stopped playing for almost 2 months. I only picked it back up again bc I was going to start a new game and wanted to properly finish rf5 before starting it. Since completing it I havent felt the need or want to pick it back up once. With rf4 I still always want to revisit it even though I've done the main game and married everyone, I find myself wanting to 100% complete rf4, don't really feel the need to do the same with rf5. That said though, I just really hope we can get a rf6 and it'll be better than rf5, but I still had fun with rf5, just wish it could have been polished more.

I completely agree. While I do think it's a good game and I had a ton of fun playing it, I think the reason why I stopped is because the gameplay loop is very monotonous and repetitive. Beyond wanting to figure out what was going on in the story, and even that wasn't too interesting, that game didn't have much to keep me going after awhile. It only takes a few hours of farming and combat to more or less see everything and became more a chore to slog through the plot. I think I missed a day about the third week it came out, and just never felt the need or desire to pick it up again.

I hate to admit but… I sold my physical copy of RF5. I stopped playing once I unlocked the succubus. She was who I was going to marry, was excited and was rushing through the game to get to faster, but once I simply unlocked her and knew I didn’t care about the rest of the game now that I had her, even though I hadn’t even married her yet. It just didn’t immerse me right, and the camera angle was a big part of that. All the previous installments had a big emphasis on how gorgeous the areas were from a top down view. In this game I feel I don’t see anything! Which is sad because it is really gorgeous! I wasn’t super crazy about the music either, it just didn’t enchantment me. Lastly, the whole gameplay experience felt incredibly hand hold-y and almost bland. I’ll likely purchase the title again in digital form to support the series, but I’m not sure if I’d play it even then.

I have been playing Rune Factory since the first one on the DS, and by far, the third one on the DS has been the best out of them all, with RF4 on 3DS and Switch being the second best and Frontier on the Wii being the third best. After I got Rune Factory 5, I immediately saw the flaws. While the framerate issue wasn't that bad, the entire world was bland. And it bothered me that some characters that looked really interesting were unmarriable, which is such a shame. I miss the third game, being able to marry Raven, Daria, and Kuruna, three characters with real good backstories (And Daria constantly yelling 'Rainbow!' was just funny lol). I also married Shara, and having a 'I'm the Prince for you for one day' for Monica was just too cute. And I pretty much stopped playing a week after buying RF5. I didn't see a reason investing my time into a game I just found no joy in. It feels like a game made for the sake to release another Rune Factory game. It doesn't have the RF soul we know and love. I didn't get a refund on it because I want to support the team behind the game in hopes that they'll end up making a better game. Or fix the current game with patches. Which is very unlikely since the Steam Release of this game is not looking that good. They fixed the framerate issue but that's about it. And that patch hasn't been applied to the Switch version, even though the Switch runs more demanding games at 60 FPS just fine.

The boss item drops felt less than 4 too. I didn’t have to infuse luck into items to get what I needed to make most of the weapons in 4, but it’s required in 5 and still have low percentage

Although Rune Factory 5 wasn't what i was expecting I'm more than happy to continue on with the series because the developers proved that at the end of the day they can still make a fun game! I agree with a lot of what you said but at the same time I'm excited to see how they move on from this

Wilder we need more content from you bro

Me, I stopped playing after beating the main quest.. Sad but, it just wasn't satisfying enough. 😭 I played RF3 and RF4. In RF5, dialogues was truly lacking compared to the said previous 2. RF3 AND RF4 was able to make me stay and play some more even after beating the main quest. The interesting interaction between the NPC's and your character (especially the bachelors and bachelorettes) just weren't there. It's like, the one who made/wrote the script was a person who is totally emotionless and clueless of romance. I also miss it when NPC's bring out random items out of nowhere (i. e., Cake, Onigiri, etc.) In RF3 and RF4 they carried items while walking or talking to you or just they were idle. To me, the game was more lively and interesting like that. Sometimes I see them bring out stuff I couldn't even craft yet. The life in the game was just suddenly gone, if you know what I'm saying. I liked playing RF5, yes. But there is a lot that is missing. I hope, if ever they make RF6, it won't be like this again. Also, what's up with furnitures not having grid?? Very OCD triggering. 😭.. Sad..

I thought I was the only one 😭 … I stopped playing after finishing the main quest.. I felt like the main quest was too quick and easy but trying to romance took too long (I still didn’t marry anyone!!) I just remember rf4 was a bit better with the story

It's my first RF game and I am in love with it. Truthfully, I only stopped playing it because more games *AhemFireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopesAhem* have been coming out so now I have more stuff I want to play as well.

I personally stopped because i finally got the giant crop seeds, planted them towards the end of that season, and then realized they were going to wither immidiately the next few days before fully growing. Couldn’t cope 😂

I stopped playing after trying beating it entirely 😊 I wanted to raise the friendship level of all my characters to maximum level. So it would be easier to marry them all in a quick save file. I wanted it to actually be more like Rune Factory 2. Where all the marriage candidates got married and had children around the same time the main character did. Then a new season of Rune Factory 2 opens up where you play as the child. This made me play it more so than all the other games combined. I loved Rune Factory 4 and 5 too btws! The rest…not so much 😂

I'm actually fairly interested and excited for Harvestella. It looks very pretty and the artstyle is beautiful. If RF5 was similar in that respect, I'm sure many would be gripped by its atmosphere. I'm yet to experience RF5, but when the time comes, I'll be looking forward to it.

I didn’t even finish the main story sadly… i was soo excited about this game but I really couldn’t ignore how lifeless everything felt…

Wanna hear somethin REAL sad? My switch got ruined the other day from water damage. Won’t charge at all. As I grieved for the games I’d lost (until I buy a new switch at least) RF5 didn’t cross my mind ONCE. I haven’t even finished RF5, and yet I was more upset about losing BotW, which I’ve beaten _many_ times. I was going to romance… the blonde girl who likes fishing, can’t even remember her name now, but I utterly lost interest before I even confessed to her. The story, environments, and characters failed to engage me, and failed HARD. I’m actually upset, cause it made me question if RF was EVER a good series to begin with. Of course it IS, one replay of RF4 assured me of that, but RF5 made me doubt my own enjoyment of the series as a whole. A good game should NEVER make you feel like that.

You took the words right out of my mouth, down to being excited about Harvestella-which looks and sounds like everything I think we had hoped RF5 would be. I was overjoyed when RF5 was announced. But I just couldn’t find myself getting lost like I could with RF4. I stopped one day and when I got that “Rune Factory itch”, I ended up playing through RF4 again. I’m trying to get back into RF5 now, but it feels like I’m forcing myself to overlook all of the flaws/letdowns.

Rune Factory 5 was my first in the series. I liked it a lot. I shelved it before finishing the story but I do see myself picking it back up as I really enjoyed the gameplay.

I had so much fun with it! I did fall off of it after about 2 months of hardcore playing, but the time i did spend on it was extremely enjoyable. I also tend to do this for many farming sims. I play for 40-60 hours and then once I've gotten far enough or things get to a point I don't have much to unlock, I stop being hyperfocused on it. I still really reccomend rune factory 5 for people that love the genre though!

So, I'm still playing Rune Factory 5. I won't be done until I grow a whole bunch of level ten Emery Flowers and make some gold juice to sell!. However, I do agree that it does feel slightly less than RF4. ANyway, I super love Rune factory Five and though it isn't my favorite in the series I am very glad that it exists and that I can play it.

I didn't ever think about this. I picked it up and played through like 4 or 5 hours of the story and I set it down and have yet to pick it back up. I really loved 4 and 4 Special, I was so excited for RF 5 but it didn't drag me in and it's so strange because I loved RF 3 a lot as well. This makes me a feel a lot better that I wasn't the only one who just sort of stopped playing suddenly.

I had so much fun playing rune factory 5, and I dont really have anything to compare it to since I havent played the other Rune factory games but I completely dropped it after I beat the main quest and had a kid. That doesnt seem like a bad amount of time to play it but to me it just didnt have much replay value or any specific things I wanted to do after I beat it. Its a good game Id reccomend it but I agree with you it was lacking in different factors.

When I saw the trailer for RF5 with the bosses, the 3d combat, the fishing, crafting and even the renaissance music it seriously reminded me of Dark Cloud 2. And after playing a bit I realized these features just weren't quite as fleshed out as I expected and not quite as much fun as I wanted. So I went back and played through Dark Cloud 2 again and it just drove home how much difference that extra polish can make, even considering it's age it is still to this day a seriously enjoyable experience.

I stopped playing because it's SOOOO laggy on my switch that I was getting nauseated. 😅 I barely touched the main story. Still have characters that haven't come to town.

I got RF4S but haven’t played it yet and felt bad when RF5 got released. I feel better now.

Hm, I fully completed the story and the postgame dungeon, and was gonna do the achievements but I stopped playing shortly after. I think part of it is that drop rates for the unique materials from the final boss are absolutely abysmal and you need so so many to forge all the weapons for the shipping box. I absolutely love the game though, I think I just binged it so hard I burned out. I did the same with RF4S even so I'm not surprised.

In Rf4 i had a real hard time choosing who to marry because they were all good choices. However in Rf5 I had a hard choosing who to marry because all of the characters were so bland. The lack of dialogue was the cause of that. I remember the town in Rf4 had so much detail. You could go through peoples' houses and interact with different objects to learn more about them. Rf5 had barely any of that. I want to like Rf5 but I stopped playing after I beat the main story, which is really lackluster in my opinion. After watching this video though, I think I'll pick it up again.

Agreed. I didn't even finish a whole year in the game or start a family. I married Ludmila, beat the game, grinded the end game content a bit, and quit. I'm only just now playing again because I think the game lends itself better to challenge runs or speed runs than rf4 with events having set triggers instead of being random.

I never stop playing it it’s so fun it has me hooked I’m actually playing at three more time

Yeah, I sort of hit my end with it without really acknowledging it. For me, it came down to two things. The first, is yeah, just that sluggishness with each new area loading. The ability to put things anywhere is a blessing in originality, and a curse in that the game needs to render all these things. Stiffling in limitations, despite being more than it's ever been. The second, I felt stunted on progress. Things like Radea's friendship being capped until post-game, meaning because I was juggling things and not focusing doing all the learning side quests exclusively, there was never a point I got everyone's friendship to 5 before the end game. And by then, with it just being Radea stuck at 2, I didn't care anymore, because there was no game left to explore. That same social limitation was also why I never got married, which is one of my favorite parts of the games going as far back as RF1. It's not that I don't like the characters, they're lovely. The story was fine. The gameplay is acceptable. The side quests though, when they started getting into the extremes like "tame 50 animals" and I'm like: "Kay... so, I need to basically max all the barns, which are progressively more expensive and use a resource I can't really get quickly in any capacity... And then actually find 50 monsters I want in a sea or re-colours. And monster chores, while sort of useful, are just kind of... meh. They only focus the field area, not the around, and they don't actually get rid of big logs and such." It was just all sorts of little things that led to "I sort of like this, but why am I doing it when it doesn't accomplish anything, doesn't make anything easier?" Better tools being a matter of doing larger areas, not more swings against large logs, and they didn't save time because charging took forever, and they didn't save energy because it used just as much if not more. Everything just felt like "Why?" Why do I want to hunt down these incredibly rare materials I don't know where they are to get something that's not functionally better than what I have? Why do I want monsters when their only function is taking more time out of my day to make sure they're fed? Lots of things that are here because they're series staples, but not... good. The only other RF game I didn't finish was 2 (ignoring Frontier, which I might try to take another go at at some point, but at that point I was very much for portable, not sitting down in front of my Wii), and that was because of the restart going into the second generation. It felt like my progress meant nothing up until that point. And I think in 3 I didn't get married just because nobody appealed to me. RF5 was just... the little things. I like it, I still do have the desire to go back and marry a girl, but then there's the other part of me like "Do I have time to be waiting through all the loading screens to do one day of farming?"

To answer the question of why this game doesn't "feel" like RF4, I think it's important to examine the scope increase when the team made the jump to full 3D. When you have to model every detail from every angle, and texture it, and you can look off into the distance and see the horizon, everything explodes in development effort compared to the top down view of the past games. This is also combined with the more detailed characters and facial animations. So the game increased in scope a bunch, but the team behind it hasn't grown, so it's difficult for them to reach the same level of fidelity that they did previously.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I have so many hours on RF4 3DS and RF4 Special on switch. I got the Earthmate Edition for RF5 and probably played 20 hours and quit. I am excited for Harvestella from Square Enix and hoping it will curb this itch I have. Re:Legend finally launched and out of early access on steam a week ago but I'm still waiting for console release and plan to check that out.

@Wilder Long time no chitchat! You are 100% on point about RF5 but hopefully RF6 will be good or even great. Glad to see you are still making good videos! 🐷

Something that I wish Run Factory 5 had more of as soon as I started playing it was animated cutscenes like the wedding 💒 one. It could had made the game more entertaining and also nostalgic for me.

I did the exact same thing as you. I put the game down one day and never picked it back up, despite the fact that I love it. It's just a little too annoying, a little too taxing. Things like having to constantly clear wood and stone away from my main field to satisfy my need for neatness, to having to constantly search for and hoarde weeds/grass to keep my fertilizer bin stocked, and how jumping to 3D made running around the town to talk to everyone feel like a chore, it just made playing the game feel a little too taxing.

I got so obsessed with it, played it literally up to the last boss of the WHOLE GAME, put it down two months after it came out and forgot about it. I think i was in Winter Year 1 too. I think i was more disappointed how i could finish the game so fast and just dropped it at a bad spot. I played all the other Rune Factory games but this one didn't really give me the feelings it did when I played 3 and 4.

After about 40 hours was when I put it down 😭 I also really loved it and had fun with it and it was the same with me where I put it down and just didn't pick it up again man, I did make a new game the other day but haven't touched it since 😅

Never watched your channel before but the RU-vid gods must have decided to show me this right after I reached a similar point. The first time I stopped playing was actually very early on, there were enough irritations/disappointments that it made me want to take a break. The first rune factory I ever played was tides of destiny, so that may have colored my opinion a bit, but rune factory 4 got my attention in spite of its top-down style and kept it enough that I bought the special edition on the switch years later. I had high hopes for this one, but in spite of beating it and getting married, I'm not sure when I'll go back to it after this second time. I think a lot of what you said rings true for me as well, but I also have some personal quibbles about the relationship options that I won't get into here.

I totally agree with you 100% with everything you said. I've almost all the same issues with the Game then you have and some more. You asked if we put down RF5 and when, so let me answer this first: I finished the Story and then concentrated on marrying Ryker. I made it to the first days of my first Winter, had seen the 3rd Heart Event for Ryker and then I just stopped. I didn't play it for a few days and suddenly realized I don't feel like picking it up again. Just like you. I actually didn't care that I hadn't managed to marry, or have Kids. I realized how much RF5 just didn't move me. And unlike you, I'll never pick it up again. That is for sure. There's to many other promising looking Farm-Life-Sims on the way or already out and in Early Access (Sun Haven, Coral Island, One Lonely Outpost, Roots of Pacha, Kynseed, Harvestella, Puffpalls: Island Skies, SunnySide) that I rather focus on those then "waste" my time with RF5. Now for the things I didn't like about the Game. As a note here: My favorite is RF4. Spent a lot of time with the original, spent even more time with Special because it just made me glee and be giddy to play this Masterpiece of a Farm-Life-Sim on a big Screen. I love everything about it. It has also my favorite Bachelor of all the Farm-Life-Sims I've played so far in my whole life (and I'm turning 40 soon and started out with Harvest Moon in 1998 on the SNES, so I played a few): Dylas! He's just perfect in so many aspects. So perfect actually that even though I've always wanted to give Leon a go too I never was able to be unfaithful to Dylas. ♥ So as for RF5, what I disliked about it: - The dialogue compared to RF4 is just bland and to repetitive, soon you don't really care for the dialogue anymore and just smash A to speed through it - The detail of the world is just baffling, Rigbarth feels empty and without a soul, some areas look outright unfinished with just having 1 Rock and 1 Tree as "decoration" - The performance issues on the Switch - Don't know what they did there, should've settled for a different Style if the current one was to heavy on the hardware - Many Hart Events felt bland too and didn't pull me in as much as many of the Character and Heart Events in RF4 did - I was sad that the Game has no reverse-proposal like in RF4 (even though that was only for the Bachelor's) - I found the colors to oversaturated in RF5, they've toned it down a bit since the first Trailer but I've always preferred the softer Pastel Colors (favorite style was that of RF Frontier, that one felt so magical! And Harvestella heavily reminds me of RFF and I wish RF5 would've looked like that too) - Farming Dragons: While I LOVED the idea of Farming Dragons. I mean... HELLO?!? DRAGONS!!!! it was sooo inconvenient to have to teleport between them and having to deal with a long loading screen every time - OUR FRICKING LIVING SPACE! Urgh... who the heck thought it's a good idea to have me living on the 1st floor of a very busy Headquarter with no door separating my space from the ground floor and my bed, and that of my spouse later, being like in the open room right above the stairs? Yeah yeah, don't put to much realism into your Games but I certainly wouldn't be able to have a relaxed intimate night with my partner there to expand our family. Just give me my own house like in Frontier please! That was such a nice place... - How did they manage to make placing furniture even worse than in RF4? - And ugh the Story... I know the Story somewhat concluded in RF4 and I was wondering how they now will continue it... but the writing of the Game, in general, was just so so so bad. Like in one second I'm suddenly unsure about my role as a Seed and start helping out Terry, 10min later I'm back with Seed, hurray... like wtf? And that supposedly super emotional scene at the end of the Game where the whole town sends me some Genkidama Energy, the bad writing, voice acting combined with the performance issues of the switch, really made me feel cringe instead of emotionally touched. If I remember the selfsame scene from RF4, where every Guardian pitches and the Villagers pitching in to make me able to defeat the Emporer, that still makes me get goosebumps when I remember it. And many other scenes too. RF5? Couldn't care less. Not RF5s fault but I also really missed my little Shop. Dang did I love playing the Shopping Game and rake in tons of money like that and sell stuff to the Townspeople and NPCs. I probably have forgotten about a few issues I had with the Game but that's what I can remember at the top of my hat. Maybe it's because RF5 was made by a brand new studio, maybe they didn't have many funds and were under pressure. But if they make a RF6 I hope they take all the criticism of the Fans into Account (I know Japan also wasn't to happy with RF5) and return the Game to its old glory from 2012.

I got it on sale recently but haven't started it yet. It is sitting behind some other indie games at the moment. But the reason I dropped Rune Factory 4 was I confused as to marry my bachelorette of choice, then read online that it is entirely RNG, I just couldn't find the motivation to finish the story or continue on. Hearing about the dialogue of the RF 5 does leave me a bit anxious though.

Fully agree with everything you have said about RF5. I've been playing the Rune Factory series since the very first games and I have to say that this entry was definitely a disappointment. However, I still had some fun playing it and managed to play until the main quest was complete. Afterwards I felt like there was nothing really compelling me toward playing it again. The cast were not as interesting as previous entries so I didn't spend nearly as much time trying to pursue it. (I have heard their stories become much more interesting toward the end of dating them but I never made it that far.) The interactions feel superficial compared to previous games. Interactions between villagers are few and far between. Even the layout of the town promotes isolation between the residents (which is the last thing you want in a RF game). I tried picking it up a few times after completing the main quest but very quickly put it back down again. I feel like this game needed a lot more TLC to become full fleshed as it definitely had the potential to be a solid entry but just came short. I don't want to be too critical however as any RF knows how hard they had to work to even get this game out. I definitely appreciate the work they have done thus far and hope they use RF5 as a lesson for future games.

I stopped for 2 reasons. Another game got a big update I needed to play with my group on. The 2nd is I burnt myself out. After completing the 2 story arcs at the start of Summer it was just all grind. Now I'm at the end of Autumn, rich, powerful, maxed skills, and all bachelor an bachelorettes can be asked out to dates. It took probably around 30 hours of reloading over a course of a week to get Ryker to accept my confession but that's not what even burnt me out. Each of them needs 3 dates each with events to experience along the way. There are 12 candidates and 36 dates with events don't sound too bad. The kicker for me is you can't consecutively date. Process being ask them out, date next day, unable to ask anyone else to date that same day, wait for next day to ask out again, and then wait some more. So that'll be 36 dates over 72 days. I hate wasted days an utilize each day to the max so it's just me making it tedious an long. Playing as a bi character an being a RF completionist sure is a lot of work. So that was months back an just today I put the game back in and saw this vid soon after. Time to get back in it but a little tip from me for those who've read this far. You can give 3 gifts a day. Liked gift giving 3%, loved gift giving 5%, and a love potion giving 9%. Adding on talking to them for the day giving 1% with using the the greeting spell giving another 1%. You'll gain 19% friendship for the day. Don't forget to add people you especially want to raise friendship levels with into your party early on in the day for a bit more. Love potion drops from the monster Fairy btw. I liked to farm them in Rigbarth Maze 11F, running down the path to a cluster of elemental fairies an back to respawn the normal ones on top.

bro I didn't even realize how I just put the game down one day and never played it again until dis video

I have similar sentiments. I enjoyed the game, it was good. However I think RF4 gave me huge expectations for 5. The repeated dialogue and lack of villager interaction between themselves just made the world feel a bit lifelessness. Some of the characters just didn't seem that interesting. (I married Ludmilla because she just stood out a lot compared to the rest of the girls.) One thing I didn't like is that events just teleport the characters. In 4 you could see them walk to the event from wherever they were, especially on dates. Dungeons and gameplay is really good, probably my favorite, but it did let me down on the social aspects of the game. I still do play it on and off, mostly to just get the babies, but I wish Ludmilla was in 4 now because I literally only play 5 just to hear all her hilarious dialogue every day.

Despite the game having a rough launch I really ended up enjoying this game alot it gave me alot of what I liked about 4 and improved on certain things.The one thing that prevents this from being a 10 are the loading times and framerate dips still that didn't stop me from putting 100s of hours into it and im still playing. I wish we had more dungeon and story content though. I eventually want to get this on the steam deck so I can enjoy better loading times and framerate. It was there first game after so long and im glad the series got revived,but 6 will need to be much bigger step up or I may drop the series and I don't want to do that.

I definitely agree. Like I've tried multiple times to go back to this game and I love reinhardt, but it just keeps losing my attention. Me and a friend were talking and compared to the older rune factory games it honestly just feels more empty? From the dialogue options to the overall 3d world design, it just feels like things are missing and it really isn't grabbing my attention the way the older games would.

I left the game after completing Sharance Maze. I wanted to craft the strongest gear but when I saw the drop rates for general insignia, rune sphere shard and so on so forth I got demotivated. The quests kept me for a little while, but then I got bored. Plus in general, I feel like the drop rates are awfully low. I remember needing some claws from the blood panthers of the last arc (in the dungeon that is practically a hall) and it took me SO long just for two...... I can't imagine getting many copies of an item that has >1%.... Didn't get married or even close to it, I bet the NPCs are lovely, but...... I just wasn't invested enough to interact to them...?

I kinda dropped it for awhile too. Probably not for the same reason most people did but Warhammer 3's new immortal empires update came out and I haven't logged any time in anything else since. XD

I played the game almost obsessively for a few weeks but stopped soon after I had my first in-game child because the day before he was due, I planted 5 Starfall seeds. I didn't know the game would literally skip FIVE IN-GAME YEARS. Nearly all my crops had reduced crop number by one because according to the game, I hadn't watered them in 5 years, which was devastating because I had planted half a Terra Dragon Farm field of continuously producing crops like pumpkins and melons. Needless to say my Starfall seeds also went to waste. They were nothing more than weeds. I was so angry. This is the first game that's ever actually punished me for having a child. I did have fun, however. Otherwise, I wouldn't have played for a little while even after that vein-popping moment. However, the gameplay cycle had started to dry and each in-game day became a list of the same tasks in the same order over and over. This on top of the other nagging problems I had with the game such as the baffling decision to let NPC wear hats whenever THEY FELT LIKE IT and the lack of personality of the town (it's so large but feels so empty. There's an inn, suggesting tourists but there's literally nothing to do or see besides a giant tree), just exhausted me, so I stopped.

I got 10+ hours in and I just stopped. Crashes were an issue. After losing progress, when I was thinking about what I had to do to get it back, it occurred to me the spark just wasn't there. As was said, I needed more life. More details. More threads connecting things together. I agree it wasn't bad, per se, and one day I will go back to it, but I didn't have nearly the same motivation as with prior titles.

Harvestella is developed by a giant company Square Enix of course RF5 couldn't even compete. I've also stopped when I had my children in the game with Martin. I'm hoping Harvestella (and DioField Chronicles) not disappointing.

My fading on RF5 was largely two-pronged: the lack of a new game + that ended up taking all my plans for how to handle the game after the main story was done, and the disconnect between the character events and the main story events that really showed the seams of the game development, as it were. 4 didn't really have the latter problem because the character events and the main story didn't have a whole lot of overlap, but with 5, both sides of the storytelling have to do with you being a SEED ranger, so to see the character development that happens in the main story just kind of be disregarded in a lot of the town events was rather disappointing

I had a similar experience. I stopped shortly after I confessed to Fuuka. Which storywise, was after losing my ability to snare monsters. I just got bored.

RF5 is what got me into the series hardcore overall, despite owning 4 and 4 Special (archival edition) It's actually my favorite game on the Switch.

I agree with you. I liked 4 a lot more than 5 on everything but graphics. I put down Rune Factory 5 very soon after I finished the main story. With 4, I enjoyed the world enough to play a couple more in game years. I was hoping for 5 to improve upon several mechanics that weren't improved on.

I have only a few goals for my playing of Rune Factory 5, finish main quest, get married and have kids, complete all bounties, master all skills, win every contest, experience all events. Once I have all that done I'll be happy. Right now I completed all bounties, I'm mostly done with the main quest, but I have a ton of contests to win still and events to experience, master skills, plus I got to get married and have kids. I'm thinking I got a while till I finish.

Same. I stopped caring after I got married because that was right around the time when the main story ended. There just... Didn't feel like there was anything left. It felt like there were less character events and thing happening to have fun with the characters and WAY less dioluge to make me care about the characters or town. There were more days where I would just wake up, farm, and go to bed because there was literally nothing left to do. I couldn't even pass the time with the recipes because the crafting system was so clunky compared to the past games. It was so hard to find new recipes almost as if there were... Less things to make or find. A lot of the instructions for things were unclear and I had a hard time unlocking things that would be much easier to access in other games. It felt harder to access the content of 5 in addition to the fact there seemed to be way less material. It felt like... Well, padding to make the game longer by making thing slower instead of adding more stuff. It seemed like all the other games had multiple goals to achieve. A mainlime, a post game, and then more stuff even after that. But with 5 the post game felt like it just should've been apart of the mainline as if there was no post game at all. And then afterwards there wasn't much else to do. There wasn't a long secret dungen to explore with rare items in chests if you made it far enough like the other games had. Also, gaining cool max level weapons and whatnot was kind pointless because by the time you can even unlock them, the game was over.

I stopped after final boss and even before marrying Beabea.. What stopped me from playing were: 1. Clunky tool using and farming mechanics. I have to be extra careful not to accidentally chop or knock off my crops. And what's worse, we have 6 farms! 2. I have to finish every event occuring before going on to the next one. I feel this is very tedious. 3. Loading time for warping from one place to another is long 4. Fps down for every location changing What i love about RF5: 1. Combat is awesome! 2. Boss monsters look so cool! 3. The characters are really eye catching. Misasagi love foorevah!

I remember when I was flipping out about the initial RF4s and RF5 reveal, and how happy I was that the series I thought was dead came back. RF4s was nothing mind blowing, but it was a competent rerelease that brought the game to many more platforms so that was nice to see. But by the time RF5 came out I was already preoccupied with other announcements and games I was more excited for (Xenoblade 3, was playing through Xenogears at the time) so I wasn't anticipating RF5 as much as I thought I would, especially with being unimpressed with the trailers shown at that point. So when it came to release, I played it along some friends, and none of us finished it. I only finished Dungeon 3, and dropped it. I liked the game, the combat was fun (bit too easy though) and the characters and farming seemed solid, I just could not look past the framerate and the mediocre visuals. Especially with how much empty space there is like you mentioned. Unfortunately because I am a bit of a framerate snob (prefer a MININUM of 60fps on PC games, can tolerate a stable and consistent 30fps on switch games) I just hated how often the fps dropped, especially when leaving buildings, and how it seemed to barely be able to keep up with 30fps, it just looked awful to me. I want to get the PC release so I can enjoy the game at a much better framerate and better graphics, but I am awaiting a big sale cause I already double dipped with a digital purchase and the earthmate edition. I know I am going to have to eventually do a full playthrough of the game as I need to for my review series, but I'm not sure when that'll be. It's a shame really.

I sum up RF5 in on word, Soulless. The town and characters don’t feel real. Everyone feels like they’re soulless and empty with potential to be better but lack personality and charm. I thought it was also just me but the textures and world having little to no charm compared to Frontier or Tides of Destiny really makes the game feel boring. I wish they broke the town into little sections at a time to save fps rather than making it one big world and added more details to every house. Also, I really miss having my own house and private farm.

I agree with all your points. I stopped around the point in the story where the character isn't in the corps anymore. I hated all the different skills I had to level. It felt grindy, and absolutely killed my desire to play. Plus the world felt empty, and the graphic style felt dated to me

I think I'm currently at the beginning of my second year in RF5 but.. I feel like I've mentally accepted the game is over halfway through the first year. Because the game feels so unfinished and incomplete, different parts of the game feel like they're playing "on a different time scale". In Rune Factory 4, relationships, story, exploration, farming.. were all progressing side by side. I constantly had something to do in every part of the game. With RF5, however, I started running the Maze lv 15-20 daily halfway through the first year - because that's how darn short the story was. When it ended it felt more like RF4's "first arc". Meanwhile I still had open quests that told me to befriend everyone to lv 10, harvest this and that insanely slowly growing plant, and I only got married towards the end of the first year, so having *up to 3 kids* would take more than another 3 years of gameplay with absolutely nothing else left to do. In RF4, those really slowly growing crops didn't bother me at all because I was constantly busy with other stuff anyway. I basically never had a reason to just do farm stuff, go to bed, rise and repeat. In RF5, I ran out of "new stuff" so quickly that any long-term goal feels excruciating and I don't know why I'm still playing it, honestly. I feel like the moment I turn it off on my Switch is the day I'll never turn it on again - and if I ever do, I'll get it on Steam, where the performance is actually good. I should add that I obviously still enjoyed the game and especially when the pace picked up, I constantly had new places to explore while still making progress with relationships and on my farm, the game felt good. But it didn't even get close to RF4 for me - and while I appreciate having some more mature characters, I think some of the character design were.. waaaay too fan-servicy and didn't fit the universe at all.

My 1st RF game was actually Rune Factory tides of destiny. After the Frontiers game that came out on wii, I find that the tides of destiny made the proper jump to 3D open world. When I bought and played RF5, it felt more of a step down in quality. There is less life in the town, and the dungeons aren't that different in style. The islands in tides of destiny have so much variety that I play that game over RF5. I hope that the next game think more about the liveliness and the variety in areas.

Played for about a month, did everything in the game pretty quickly, marrying and having kids with Ludmila took the longest. Overall the game was fun but I agree that it just felt like it lacked a lot. When you brought up the dialogue, I never really thought about it till now but I did notice I was skipping everything cause it was just repeating over and over and was just going through the game mindlessly. After I dropped it I just never picked it up again, only thinking about it when I saw it on steam.

Okay, thank you! I'm not the only disappointed by the festival group conversations.

I stopped playing because I had almost 300+ hours or more of the game, and even with the PC release I just played a bit and then stopped to play. I started playing Rune Factory 3, but even having a lot of fun I stopped too. I guess it's just mood, because the grind was so hard that we have to stop sometime to change pace, and do other things. Not the problem of Rune Factory 5 or any other Rune Factory.

I stopped playing after giving an NPC a “loved” gift moved her friendship meter 9% at level 5 when it gave over 30% on level 4. It’s just unreasonable slow especially for how expensive these gifts can be

I stopped playing RF 5 after about 95 hours sometime within Fall 8th, my whole playtime was done on Hard mode. I finished the main story around Mid-Summer and didn't do any dating events. The last big thing I did was beat the Maze. The biggest downfall I can generally say about RF 5 is that it was a 3D Rune Factory game. I went into it expecting it to have weird systems like RF: Frontier did with the Runeys, or what RF: Tides of Destiny did where you didn’t actually choose what crops you grew, your monsters did. Randomly from a set list of up to 4. But RF 5 didn’t have any of those goofy systems. At its Core it was mostly just a 3D RF 4. But, it’s still a 3D Rune Factory game. The biggest difference between a 3D Rune Factory and a ‘traditional’ Rune Factory is one thing; Speed of Play. Think about it. How fast can you harvest a field in RF 4? Pretty much as fast as you can press the A and Y buttons. But in RF 5, it’s how fast does your character play their animations. Which is the same across Frontier, and Tides of Destiny. Whenever Rune Factory transitioned to a 3D space everything took longer because the character models had to commit to more in depth animations. Crouch down → pick up → stand up → Put item in Pocket. In RF 4, all the model had to do was a quick pick up → Put away. Also take a look at RF 4 combat versus RF 5 combat. RF 5 is flashier, but once again it is slower. Was anyone else surprised that after casting a magic rune ability the character left their hand outstretched for 5 seconds after the damage had already happened? In RF 4 every attack, spell, or rune ability was quick, speedy, and spamable. In RF 5 it feels like you over commit to actions. If anyone chooses to go back and play RF: Frontier for the Game Cube or RF: Tides of Destiny for the Wii they’ll feel similar differences between how fast combat is versus RF 4 or RF 3. It's not age that's making it slow, it's the style of game. It doesn’t feel very good to play a slow game most of the time. Especially if it was a continuation of a series that was already pretty fast. There's more small grips I can nit pick about the game but for me at least, this difference in play speed is really what sealed the coffin shut. It may not have closed the lid but it made sure I didn't want to go through the effort of opening it again.

about 150+ hours into the game as a huge diehard RF fan and still going very strong-- RF5 as a base does need help and, especially on the switch, has HUGE issues. But if you play it on PC with all the WONDERFUL community mods, the game quickly goes from mediocre to one of the most engaging in the franchise, with wonderful graphics, fantastic gameplay tinkers, and flawless performance! I think the community surrounding this game putting care into adjusting the elements of the game makes it feel like a swan song to what the series has always been. Let's just hope it doesn't take the love of the community for rf6 and onwards to be something special! Definitely give RF5 a shot modded on PC if you are questioning playing it.

I stopped after finishing the story and marrying a couple characters (branching saves). Though for me, marriage is usually the end point for a run in a farming game since the only other long term goal is "earn money." I've started playing again now that it's on pc and I know quite a few exploits. Edit: spelling error.

Biggest issue for me is that placing furniture down is a nightmare. Everything is so off centered. I find it to be too easy to just progress the main story. Not even done with Spring year one and I’ve already unlocked 4 dragons, don’t know if there are more. But my RP and income can’t keep up with the amount of things I’ve unlocked. I’m not even rushing it. I just see that something unlocked go do the dungeon after all the crops and daily routine is done

I temporarily stopped playing at about 50-60 hours in, just to take a break and play something else for a while, after that many hours in such a short time after release I figured I'd better move onto something else before I reached burnout on it. I need to rotate back to it, but I just have so many games. It's still installed (bought the digital version) so it'll be easy to jump back in without a wait when I decide to.

I have to agree with you sadly 100%, I did put in over 200hrs but with rf4 just with special I've done almost 500hours because I love it so much. So I got plenty of play time with rf5 but it was lacking

you hit the nail on the head with every point here... I LOVED 5, when I played it. But I found myself in a slog around winter and never actually even finished my first year BECAUSE of it. my save file is STILL on the toy day/christmas holiday because I just have nothing to do...

I only started play two days ago but ive been having a blast playing. I will agree with what youve said about game, it does have some issues but i still love playing the game.