Discovering an excellent entry level for a collection like Rune Manufacturing facility isn’t simple. Whereas every sport is usually self-contained, there’s a complete world of lore to atone for and, being a farming/life-sim collection, quite a lot of advanced mechanics to wrap your mind round. That is what makes Guardians of Azuma the proper sport for newcomers. It simplifies a few of the farming and crafting mechanics, however makes up for it with an even bigger emphasis on motion and exploration, and a complete town-building system to sink your tooth into.
It additionally separates itself from the remainder of the collection by being set on a model new land, distant from the settings of the opposite video games, that means coming into it understanding nothing in regards to the lore is the whole level this time round – and the story may be structured round that assumption – making for higher pacing and fewer of a hurdle for first-time gamers.
We awaken in a village, and simply in case you weren’t already conscious this can be a JRPG, our protagonist is an amnesiac who wants each element of the world defined to them. After a quick intro, we discover the god of Spring come to us in our dream, and our quest for the sport shortly turns into clear: Use our newfound powers because the Earth Dancer to awaken the 4 seasonal gods and restore their powers by planting Cabbages, and from there you’re off to the races
The gameplay loop will see you balancing your time between tending to your fields, constructing bonds together with your villagers (a lot of whom are romancable), and exploring the skin world to realize new sources, recipes, and advance the primary story.
The farming aspect of the sport is simplified from the primary Rune Manufacturing facility collection. You don’t want to fret about issues like soil composition on this sport; as a substitute, you simply must preserve your crops watered and take note of what season they develop greatest in, as every of the 4 villages you unlock is completely in a special one.
Nonetheless, you may’t deplete all of your area on crops, as the event zones the place you may plant stuff are additionally the locations the place it’s important to construct the villages. You may craft varied buildings like outlets, cafes, and bathhouses, in addition to an enormous number of decorations to reinforce the place, each progressing your villages’ degree and growing your character’s stats.
As your villages develop, you’ll unlock extra recipes, extra villagers, and new quests, whereas every of the buildings will increase both your character’s fight stats or the villages’ yields, starting from growing the variety of crops you harvest to the quantity of ore you may mine from nodes. This technique is extremely satisfying, and with 4 totally different villages to construct, you may flex your inventive muscular tissues in quite a lot of methods, particularly as the sport rewards you for putting comparable gadgets and buildings shut collectively or on paths, that means it’s mechanically optimum to make nice-looking areas.
This all feeds properly into the exploration aspect of the sport, too. Every village is connected to a a lot bigger space the place you’ll be combating critters, discovering treasure, and utilizing your energy to cleanse the land of Blight. Whereas doing this, you’ll be always discovering new recipes for dishes, decorations, gear, and buildings, which in flip will enhance your efficiency within the subject. It stops the town-building from being a “set it and neglect it” system, as you’ll at all times come again from an journey with new stuff so as to add that encourages you to rethink your designs.
The fight isn’t advanced, however I don’t need it to be on this form of sport. You may have quite a lot of totally different weapons to select from – of which you’ll be able to equip two without delay – and from there you’ll principally be mashing the assault button and sometimes hitting a dodge. Boss battles are a little bit deeper, as your assaults barely do any injury, as a substitute having to construct up a stun bar to make them susceptible. Plus, the god’s relics unlock a handful of particular assaults you may pull out, however that’s it.
That isn’t a nasty factor, although. With fight being only one facet of what can moderately be described as a comfortable sport, making it too in-depth would overwhelm the expertise. As a substitute of a troublesome problem, heading out on an journey is extra of a pleasant change of tempo, with the main focus being extra on the exploration than the battles, typically with the promise of story development together with it.
The identical god relics that can be utilized in battle are way more efficient in cleaning the progression-blocking obstacles out on the planet, each within the sense of clearing sure varieties of Blight limitations and as mobility instruments, like a parasol that acts as a glider.
That brings us to a very powerful a part of any life-sim sport, although: the various bachelors and bachelorettes you may woo.
Whereas enhancing your city will simply entice non-descript NPC villagers, every location has a handful of distinct characters who mill in regards to the place, and you’ll work together with. Every day, you may spend a while hanging out with them, deciding on from quite a lot of actions that all of them like and dislike to various levels, which I discover to be a extra fulfilling system than simply throwing an countless provide of their favorite reward at them till they love you.
All of them get an opportunity to let their personalities shine too, as each romancable character has their very own questline that lets them take the highlight. They don’t stray too far out of your ordinary array of JRPG archetypes, however all of them handle to convey a novel attraction to the desk. Plus, in contrast to so many life-sims, beginning a relationship isn’t the tip level, and also you get to dive deeper into who they’re when you’ve confessed your emotions for one another.
For instance, I began courting the god of Spring and bought a storyline about how that’s type of bizarre for everybody concerned. It truly addresses the truth that courting an ageless being with duties and powers past your comprehension goes to trigger a couple of issues within the relationship, which is a surprisingly novel take given how most video games like this deal with it as completely regular.
It even provides you a option to expertise all of those tales with out feeling unhealthy, as you’ll finally unlock a option to hop between alternate, an identical realities the place you may be in a monogamous relationship with a special particular person. Though it’s not that huge a deal, contemplating you may date a number of individuals in a single actuality with minimal penalties anyway. Nonetheless, it reveals that quite a lot of care has been put into these private tales, and it’s price experiencing all of them.
The sport does fall into a few of the frequent traps of farming sims, although. The entire level of the non-descript NPC villagers you may entice is to carry out jobs for you within the village, however in relation to a very powerful job, farming, they only aren’t as much as the duty. It’s essential make a certain quantity of revenue daily to feed everybody in your villages, and farming is the first manner of doing that. Whereas leaving it to the NPCs will earn you sufficient to get by, they do a particularly sub-optimal job in comparison with what you are able to do, which is irritating.
Ultimately, I discovered them interfering in my layouts extra of an annoyance than something, which led to me doing all 4 villages’ farms fully manually, and whereas it doesn’t take that a lot time, doing it firstly of each in-game day does get tiresome. It could be so much higher if the sport gave you extra choices to direct the NPCs when it comes to what seeds they need to plant the place and what they need to prioritize to earn you XP in direction of upgrading your village.
Nonetheless, Rune Manufacturing facility: Guardians of Azuma stands as one of many higher life-sims on the market, hanging an excellent stability between the village, its individuals, and the skin world you may discover. The town-building components make it actually really feel such as you’re regrowing these locations into affluent societies, and it’s quite a lot of enjoyable attending to know all the vibrant personalities that reside there. Mix that with easier farming and a stable fundamental narrative, and you’ve got the proper place for Rune Manufacturing facility newcomers to begin.
Rune Manufacturing facility: Guardians of Azuma. Rune Manufacturing facility: Guardians of Azuma. 8. Life-Sim RPG. Nintendo Swap 2
