

You can also have certain villagers accompany you on adventures, but their assistance is limited, as they have to return home at a certain time of day (usually around 9 PM.) In addition to typical Harvest Moon mainstays, like befriending villagers and romancing them, you can also tame monsters who will either assist on your farm, or accompany you on adventures.

Some crops grow better (or worse) in certain seasons, but you have no fear of losing your crops on the first day of a new season. It is also important to know that unlike most Harvest Moon games, in Rune Factory 4, crops don’t wither from season to season. Otherwise, you can get yourself into a variety of problems and issues.

You have to make sure you are growing crops, cooking food, using your time wisely, and monitoring your RP and health. Resource management is at the forefront of this game, much like any title in the franchise. The good part about this system though, is that as you raise those skills, they take less RP, so after a while, your tools don’t take much stamina to use at all. RP is required to do everything, from mining, to farming, to even fishing. This is important, because these levels improve your base stats, particularly your HP and RP, known as Rune Points, which classify similarly to your stamina. By doing any number of actions, from farming, mining, fighting with different weapon types, and even things like eating and sleeping, you gain levels in different skills. For example, Rune Factory has a progression system that involves leveling up. Aside from the farming mechanics, which are mostly what you’d expect from a Harvest Moon-esque title, there are some differences that you might want to make note of. The game seems simple at first glance, but it is actually fairly complex. So, you are given the duties of the local prince/princess, and are in charge of developing the town, running your own farm, and dealing with people’s requests. They are attacked on the way, and fall off the airship, landing in Selphia, but losing their memory (and the item they were carrying) in the process. Your protagonist (male or female) is on an airship to deliver something to the town of Selphia. The premise of Rune Factory 4 is deceptively simple. It is a step forward from Stardew Valley, which contained combat in the mines, but doesn’t include dungeon-crawling per se. For those that are uninitiated, the idea of Rune Factory is a marriage of the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons franchises, and RPG concepts such as leveling systems, skills, combat, and dungeon exploration.
