Rune Factory 4 is my favorite game of all time. It has been for close to a decade. I am 100% the target audience for this game. So why do I have a combined ~3 hours playtime in this between the switch and PC releases, and why do I recommend you stay FAR away despite my low playtime?

I was beyond giddy when RF5 was announced bringing my favorite franchise back from the dead and I bought it on release date, expecting the reviews mentioning performance issues to just be the usual griping from games media. I refunded RF5 less than three hours later, heartbroken.

'Performance issues' does not even begin to describe how unforgivably poorly this game ran on switch. It crawled. It limped. I promise I am genuinely not the type to be put off by the occasional stutter here or there (I have put up with a heavily modded Sims 4 on a low end gaming laptop for reference) but the game looked and felt so bad I literally could not bring myself to keep playing and see more no matter how much I want to.

If the game had visuals or gameplay worth the jank then I am absolutely sure I could power through it but it just does not feel good to play. Animations, including attack animations and other actions, feel very weightless and limp. Hair animations look godawful and the little that I interacted with the farming it did not feel good or intuitive. I would say that Rune Factory 4 has a unique art style, or at least that it doesn't come off as generic. Rune Factory 5 abandoned that art style and it just looks like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with a better shader. There just isn't enough substance there to justify the performance issues.

So I closed the game and went to return it and thought that was that. I came out of those three hours jaded about a game I and so many others hoped against hope for for a decade may happen being an unfinished sloppy mess.

The PC release fell onto my radar about a week ago so I looked up some reviews and most of them mentioned a real improvement of the performance issues. As if I wasn't fooled by this exact review trick last time, I bought the game on steam, chose some lower end settings to give the game a shot, and booted up.

RF5 on PC literally stutters in the pre-rendered 2d animated title cutscene. Multiple times. These are not quick stutters, the game essentially freezes for a second or longer. When I got into the gameplay this continued repeatedly. The game is literally rendering a single forest clearing and one enemy at this point. I'm not playing on a college laptop here, this is unacceptable. Marvelous should feel completely ashamed of themselves for choosing to release this game TWICE in this state. They SHOULD go bankrupt after this one. And I am the most gullible idiot on the planet for getting my hopes up for this game a second time. Please just play Rune Factory 4 Special instead.

This game? I love it. You know what I don't love? DLC locked away with no option but to purchase the digital deluxe edition to get it. It's a dirty tactic that blemishes a good game and a company I want to like for giving us said good game. Locking DLC is why people pirate and you encourage pirating with practices like DLC-locking. I do encourage people to get this but unless you have OCD that triggers because you can't get the costumes, buy the standard copy. In fact get it during a sale so profits are even less and thus you are making a statement. Or better yet, pirate if you can find a safe copy and don't give them your money as revenge for locking us out of content.

I loved Rune Factory series. I played 1-4 on DS and 3DS. Recommended this one for Rune Factory fans with 3D graphics. However, the game may not be for those who have OCD as the furniture cannot be placed next to walls