Rune Factory 5 Earthmate Edition - Nintendo Switch

I'd never in a million years recommend this game itself to anyone who's new to the series since you can pay less for a better game in Rune Factory 4 Special; however, for avid fans of the series this game will (despite many, MANY frustrations and poor design choices) satisfy the itch to play something new. As for the Earthmate Edition, it's got a nice little soundtrack CD in it (although the Japanese edition came with a nice jeweled case instead of a cardboard one), a cool artbook, and a steelbook case for the game with a little "Ranger's Pocket Guide" inside. I was a little miffed by the fact that you only get a Steelbook case with this and no regular one, but I have a regular case from the Japanese edition so I can just use that if needed. The steelbook is a nice case, but feels more like a display piece than a case to just throw about. I read some reviews other people wrote, and honestly I'm convinced that the people who "played" 4 never actually played it so take what they say with a grain of salt. Farming takes at least 2 times as long as it does in 4, pushing toward 3x or longer for some tasks unless you purely farm with monsters and by buying crystals at 50k a pop in which case it's still slightly slower than in 4. Movement is floaty as can be and is made much worse by the speed boosting boots you can make, and heaven forbid riding a monster having any proper physics since you'll constantly get caught on things or get off in areas you apparently can't move. The camera is extremely annoying since you need to constantly have your right thumb on the right analogue stick to move the camera which is frustrating since you need to use the ABXY buttons to actually do anything, and if you want to straighten the view you need to press R3. Skills are far, FAR grindier to level up and have much dumber methods that need to be employed if you want to have a remotely tolerable time hitting 99s. Grinding items? Hah, if you don't intimately understand the mechanics of the game and/or use the internet to figure stuff out, you'll likely never get some items since there are items that can only be obtained from the last or second to last boss at a 1% base drop rate. Oh, and you need multiple of them to be able to be a completionist. I could go on about other things and write an essay about performance issues and crashes, but I'll cut it off at this. The game does have some nice improvements from 4, but they're vastly overshadowed by a multitude of inconsistencies and poorly made design choices. My 5 star review is as an avid fan of the series and moreso based on the Earthmate Edition, although the costumes you get from the Earthmate Edition are pretty bad (at least the male options).

The Earthmate Editions box is much more durably made than Rune Factory 4 Special-Archival Edtion I had no damage to my box what so ever, absolute perfect condition. Lovely design as well The art book ( Although less pages than RF4 Special's) Is made in the same style and is beautiful to look at. Music Cd looked great, The disc art was a nice and the cd holder felt sturdy and well made. Steel case is So Gorgeous! Beautifully designed very happy with that. It does not come with the regular case ofcourse However it still comes with the Official SEED Ranger Handbook ( Mini Manuel basically which is about 28 pages ) Very cool Game play so far- I will update my review as I continue to play So far colors are beautiful very saturated and the characters are likeable. Moving around and stuff feels natural We all love RF4 but Please don't go into this game expecting a RF4 clone, this game is different and won't feel exactly the same but embrace it with fresh eyes and welcome what it offers as it's own game.

I haven't played it yet. (Though I had played previous installments before.) Just got it. I was surprised the box fit inside my mailbox, and it came earlier then planned. As seen in photos, the box have a holographic finish. The quality is OK. The art book have anything between the character art/information, to a game artwork. The paper itself feels a bit like craft paper. Gives off a rustic-like feel. Though personally I like magazine-like quality paper. It feels like the print would of been sharper, and would last better. P.s. my pages were all printed properly in order. I've seen someone getting it with messed up order. Unfortunate dud. The steel book is good. It includes the basic colored manual, which is rare with European games these days. Overall, I wanted to play this game, and for what you get, I felt like it was a steal. 7 years ago or so, the steelbook would cost $10, the soundtrack $15 and art books would go for $15-$25. At least that's how I remember it to be on average if you buy it separately. But it always depends on the game. Even if you take a $60 game and digital content away, I think it's still worth more then just those extra $20 you pay. But I know not everyone puts value in the small things and collectables. And you don't have to. Unless you really want it, or you can afford throwing extra $20 away, I think it's worth buying games that comes with so much. Especially if you're thinking about buying it as a present.

The Rune Factory series in itself is my favorite within its sub-genre. There's so much to enjoy here, and I love the freedom present to focus on game elements that are most enjoyable to the player. It's fun to play something where no matter what you do, you are progressing, and so many elements of a fantasy world are brought to light here. There is a lot of fun, clever depth to the crafting systems, enjoyable mini-games, dungeons that are fun to tackle with your in-game NPC friends (even if they don't do much, lol), and tons of text to make the worldbuilding experience something that you want to invest in. That said, even with very low expectations from what I saw in the trailers, the gameplay still managed to be clunkier and jankier than even what I was braced for. It is so jarring for an entire mountain to disappear in the background or to see NPCs pop into existence only when you're practically on top of them even when you can see their position data displayed right next to you on the mini-map. The battle mechanics are also rough, with an incredible amount of delay between my inputs and the corresponding movements being performed on-screen. It is nothing like the sleek fighting I experienced in RF4. I found myself spamming inputs hoping my character would move and react as enemies would leisurely approach and attack my character. Even with the lock-on controls I frequently found that enemies could close the gap on me very quickly before I could react if I was busy finishing up a spell cast or swing of the sword. Similarly, the farming mechanics and sloggy response made it feel more like a chore than ever to work on the fields. I really want to give this 5 stars, but I feel like I'm playing an unfinished game, like it is still in alpha playtesting. I was hoping for a *little* better than this! That said, I am still overjoyed that a new release in the series happened period, and they brought over and kept a lot of the elements that I loved about Rune Factory 4. I am still looking forward to playing this game to near-100% completion. The Earthmate Edition in particular felt like a lot of love was put into it, and I really enjoy the bonus goodies that came with it. Definitely worth it if a fan of the series, but I'd skip it and not spend the extra $30 unless you're sure you're gonna put a number of hours into it. If you do put down the $80, be advised of the issues I mentioned in this review. Happy farming, fellow Earthmates. :)

This game is light and enjoyable with farming, monster raising, cooking, crafting, a good battle system, and nice character relationships and designs. It’s the kind of game you can keep coming back to to play in small sessions even after finishing the main story. It’s cute and I like it and I normally don’t even like “cute.” If you liked previous Rune Factory games, you’ll definitely like this game. Great new edition. My only cons are that it would be better if the camera was more accurate when farming, if pets would stop moving when I’m trying to give them stat boosting treats, and if typhoons could be completely blocked from ever happening. Boulders falling on my trees put a hiccup in the happy vibe this game gives me.

The game itself it extremely fun, lots to do and see. Spend a lot of hours on it, you can go at your own pace as well. Reminds me of Rune Factory Tides of Destiny (aka Oceans) which is also my favorite. As for the Special Edition part it's a bit pricy for me personally, but I think it's worth it :D You get in-game outfits, the art book comes with character info and wonderful illustrations, a CD with the background music and opening song from the game, and of course the game itself with a player's guide which also has game tips. If your love the game series or this gameplay style, it's worth getting with the Earthmate Edition!

Worth the purchase just for the full color manual. Really nice opening a game and having a physical instruction manual on the side as they used to. In color too! A lot of depth and non linear. Combat is easy and quick, no drama like other games. Only issue is the framerate. Just no excuse for the jankiness but does not deter from the immersion and fun.

I've been playing the Harvest Moon games since I was 5, and the Rune Factory games since they first came out. I was so bummed when it was announced there would be no new Rune Factory games. The hype was real when Rune Factory 5 was announced and even though it doesn't live up to its former titles, I am so thrilled to see it back again. I do have a lot of heavy critiques, and I'll be aiming it at the developers even though they likely won't see this (but I kind of hope they do somehow!). I'm not trying to be mean or malicious, I am seriously happy with Rune Factory being back out again, but it has a lot of room for growth. Here are my thoughts on this game: [Things I loved] - The same sex marriages!!! FINALLY. FINALLY!!! The amount of times I weeped over liking a character who was the same sex of my character but not being able to court them was unreal! So, this is just awesome! I actually wanted to deliberately take advantage of this feature, so when I realised I didn't like any of the bachelorettes, I started over, made a male character, and now I'm courting the boys. ;) I love it so much! Thank you to those who implemented it into the game. - Those event markers on the mini map and big map are a HUGE help of finding and triggering events, my gods. It’s such a big game changer and I hope more games like this one will use a similar feature. - Seeing the NPC locations on the map is also very handy. - That lane with the Sakura trees – even in summer – is so beautiful with the lances of light piercing through them. Very nice attention to detail in that location. - The skies and how the environment looks as time changes gradually through the day is breath taking. - Love having a main story and main story quests as always. - Some of the characters make my day. Some are flat, but some are just… great. Palmo is just an energetic, optimistic ball of joy, Ryker’s duplicitous life is intriguing and daring for a game of this nature (very cool), Martin is a dorky sweetheart, Misasagi is a great example of a doting mum I think, and the list just goes on. [Things I’d like to see as a Patch Update or DLC] ---Making the farm debris (logs, boulders, branches, stones, weeds, grasses) less intense for a patch update. It’s very intense. I can just finish cleaning up my farm, and a boulder will appear right behind me. If you leave it for a couple hours in game, the farm becomes a mess again. If you leave it for a few days, it looks as though it’s been neglected for years. I have so much stones & logs materials after just a season, that I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do with them, so the spawning rate is totally unnecessary. It’s not fun. It’s a bit anxiety-inducing and kind of burning me out. I understand why they did it, but it’s not good design. I’d actually prefer it if there were dedicated places outside of our farms (like mines or forests) where we could gather materials, and/or if this sort of debris happened after nasty storms like typhoons, but on a daily basis… it’s bad. Totally overhauling the system wouldn’t be practical, so I hope they patch in a less severe spawn rate and maybe not do this again for RF6 (may there be one!). ---Making the older single NPCs – Misasagi (having a step daughter would be cool), Terry, Elsja, Darroch (who is surprisingly adorable), and Gideon (if he's single) – marriageable for a DLC for us older players. One thing that drives me nuts is that the older bachelors have female equivalents who are /not/ marriageable: Murakumo - a bachelor - has his sister, Misasagi (she has a daughter, but step kids are a thing). And Martin, who looks like an older teen or early 20’s maybe, has a little brother (who’s a bachelor…) that he’s raising and taking care of, and his female equivalent is Elsja, who’s his age and also has a little sister (a bachelorette) who’s Martin’s little brother’s age. There’s really no reason for those two not to be “older female” bachelorettes. It’s probably me reading too much into it, but knowing that “spinster” still exists in Japan and in some parts of the US, it gives a spinster vibe, which I am not here for. If they give a broader age range for bachelors, they should give a broader range for bachelorettes. (And tbh, the bachelorettes are all too young for an older player like me anyway, so catering to both their younger audiences and their older audiences would be ideal.) On another note, I didn't understand why Martin's brother (I forget his name) is a bachelor when he's basically like a 15-year-old kid or something, while Terry isn't? But that's from my "older player" perspective. So, I think there just needs to be catering to both ends of the player base spectrum between kid and not kid. While I hope they include more older bachelors and bachelorettes for a future title (if they make one) and not resort to making older candidates DLC for every game, I am 100% willing to pay for a DLC this time around to get Misasagi, Darroch, Elsja, and Terry as marriage candidates (and any others who are single and not able to mingle whom I have not yet met). [Things I’d like to see for future Rune Factory Titles] ---Perhaps not make the town and buildings so big and spacious I think this point is one of the biggest factors for me. Part of Rune Factory’s charm VS Harvest Moon & Story of Seasons 1 is that the towns are crammed pack with loads of character! They’re beautiful, they feel lived in… But in RF5, it feels very empty. You go in a building, and it’s HUGE! But it’s also empty and not very lived in. You walk through town, and it feels very large and empty just like the buildings (especially the bath house). I suspect a lot of this is due to the Switch’s limitations as it’s not a very impressive console, but if that’s the case, just downscale it a lot. A great example of a small, quaint, and lived in village on the Switch is Kakariko Village from BotW. It's small, but it feels tight-knit and lived in. Rito village, though possibly too small, is also a great example of a small switch-friendly village that feels lived in. ---Character customization I thought this might be too much with us having portraits, but then I realised: if Fire Emblem allows customisable characters while having character portraits, so could Rune Factory. In Fire Emblem, you can give your character a slimmer or broader body, different hair colours, hair styles, face accents like moles or scars, face types, hair colours, et cetera, and it be portrayed in the portraits. It’s not the best customization, but it’s better than no customization. I’d rather be able to play a striking character like Ryker or Leon (RF4) than… the dopey, cutesy protag who just looks very annoying and... plain... (Yeah, I'm shallow, lol.) Drives me nuts that our characters never look as good as the character we want ours to marry. ---Easier home customization Rune Factory usually has little-to-no customization, so I appreciate when it does have customization, but placing furniture is unbelievably difficult to do, and we can’t place them “anywhere.” There’s a massive hit box along walls and objects. At the moment, it almost seems pointless to decorate... it's pretty bad... For idea home customization, I’d say look at Stardew Valley, because that was super easy, super fun, and I spent hours and hours just making my farm and house look the way I wanted it to look. ---Maybe town customization/building upon if we want the town upgrade route again So, when I first started playing RF5, it felt very empty and not as impressive as a typical RF game does as aforementioned. When I saw the upgrade options, I thought “oh, wow, so that’s why the town looks empty/unimpressive.” I upgraded a few places and nope, they visually look the same inside and out. There are some vacant houses, but it’s just… If we’re going to have the option to expand upon places and it look as…. Plain…? As it does right now, then maybe give it some visual differences, so we can feel like our efforts are being rewarded. Items in a shop? Eeeh. A lot of time and work goes into each upgrade for just a few additions. At the same time, upgrading isn’t necessary in my opinion, but if we do have it, I’d like there to be some visual impact so I feel rewarded. ---Perhaps not have so many villagers be vacant from the start On top of the environment being too big and spacious in general, we’re missing a lot of characters to start off with. I’m not sure if this was the best idea, but it might’ve been okay if the village was handled better. ---The days almost seem too long This might just be me, but so far on normal mode, I’ve finished each dungeon, top of my farming duties, on top of courting the people I want to court… in a single day. In fact, usually fairly early in a day. If I’m not doing a dungeon, I find myself regularly going to bed early (way early) or needing to find things to do while I wait for the day to pass… which… tends… to me being standing around and waiting. ---Make some lasting appeal I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting burnt out on dealing with the farm debris, or the mindless grinding in the OK “dungeons,” but there are a lot of times so far where I just am not really in the mood to spend the day. So, I do my farm work, I might do a little crafting while I wait for the time to pass, I court the people I want to court, and then I go to bed… and it’s like… 9AM, haha. So, I think there could be more things to do. I think a dungeon dedicated to mining and a dungeon dedicated to lumber would be great – we kind of have this already, but it’s not that good as they don’t have tons of XYZ to farm as mines in older Harvest Moon games do, and so on. I remember mines being really great to have for the winter seasons, too. ---If we have Farming Dragons again, make them easier to get to and from Warping in this game is kind of tedious in general. You have to press the – button to pull up a map, find the location you want, press other button, blahblahblah. Same if you want to go home: - button to pull up map, then X button to go home. In Tides of Destiny, you just needed to push a single button and that was that. I liked that quite a bit. I also think it was a bit easier to get to and from your different golem farms in Tides of Destiny (which were also more creative and fun than these farm dragons). ---Festivals are a bit boring I have only played into Summer so far, and I’ve only unlocked a few festivals, but so far I’ve found them very disappointing. I think Harvest Moon: Back to Nature had the best and most memorable festivals of all the games, and none of the Harvest Moon type games have ever really lived up to that title since as far as festivals go in my opinion. Animal Parade SoS: Trio of Towns were probably a little better than the typical HM game as well. ---Please… let me move out of SEED’s outpost. This is one thing I like about Tides of Destiny that I didn't like so much in Rune Factory 4 and Rune Factory 5, thouh admittedly I haven’t gotten that far in the Rune Factory 5. I just made my first expansion of the Seed Outpost and was like “oh no… I’m going to live and start a family here???” I also don’t understand why the first expansion blew out the room when I expected the back room to get cleaned up (which is why I got that expansion, as otherwise… I wouldn’t have…). This was a nice example changing the building in some visual way, though it was a bit unwanted. Anyway, if we don’t move out of this place after we marry and have kids, I’m gonna be majorly bummed. When I first saw the vacant houses, I thought maybe we would get to choose one of those locations to live in. Seems like I’m wrong so far, though… … … (Please let us have the brick house that’s not listed as vacant /cross fingers) Thanks for reading if you did! And if you didn't well... I don't blame you, haha.

Incluye todo lo que vienen anunciado en la publicación. Sobre los atuendos especiales de los personajes de RF4, estos en cuanto empiezas a jugar te sale un pequeño aviso indicando que los encontrarás en tu closet. Lo mejor de todo es que llegó mucho antes de la fecha indicada y está en excelentes condiciones.

Un paquete ideal para coleccionistas los libros son bastante interesantes y el juego es bueno. Es bueno que cada objeto de regalo esta bien protegido y la carcasa metaliza muy útil.

Material de excelente calidad, incluye el libro de arte, disco soundtrack y Steelbook con el juego, todo perfecto, especialmente para coleccionistas.

If you like the other Rune factory games you will like this one as well. If you know nothing about it, in basic terms: farming, forging, fighting monsters, crafting, cooking, fishing, relationships/dating. It has a storyline but one that you can take at your own pacing and set your own difficulty level.

This is a love it or hate it game, so I admit I am biased. Let's start with the bad. Graphically, it's not impressive, but it's cute enough. Performance, well, it tends to lag. This mainy happens when going through doors, and when running too fast. Both instances you usually have to wait a second or two, and then you're good to go. I have also experienced a few crashes. They were caused by using team attacks in succession too quickly. With all that, why 4 stars? Because of how fun and charming the game is if you look past the rest. It's hard to describe what makes it so much fun. I will say this though. If this is your first rune factory game, don't get this, or get it on sale if it is. I recommend starting with 4. As I think that game leaves a better first impression, where as with this game, I feel like you need to stick with it to really start enjoying it.