Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma – Not Your Typical Rune Factory

Rune Factory has never been my favourite cozy / farming / RPG experience for a variety of reasons, but mostly I found all the different systems involved a bit too much for my liking. I know others LOVE the Rune Factory franchise, and I readily admit that it’s one of the larger and more loved franchises available on console. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma just felt different, and while my time with other Rune Factory games is pretty limited, this feels much closer to a Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons, than a Rune Factory.

The systems at play here seem overwhelming at first, but you quickly realize how shallow – in the best possible way! – they really are. You’ll have a number of different villages that you will “save” and have access to, allowing you to grow crops and trees, meet new friends, get new items, and more. After you get full access to each village, villagers will move into the village and begin taking on a variety of tasks for you, which include: farming, tending monsters you have captured, mining, logging, fishing, and running shops. Having a good balance of villagers is pretty important, and staying on top of your villagers is equally as important.

There is a daily cost to running each village, and certain villagers are better than others. Evicting lazy or expensive villagers can help keep a healthy balance of productivity and positive cash flow. Early on, this felt like it really mattered as my income was rather modest. But by the end of Summer Year 1, I was racking in over 50,000 per day, which is pretty good when my daily expenses for all my villages was under 8,000! The tension felt really good early on, but became a bit less of an issue as I became more productive. Plus, the better you do in each village, the more that village will level up, providing more options for buildings, crops, and more.

Running the villages, though, is a lot of fun. You’ll place houses for people to live in, shops for them to work in, and so much more. All of this contributes to the financial stability of each and every village you have access to. Interacting with the key villagers in each area is also a lot of fun, trying to raise friendship levels and even potentially starting real relationships with some of the residents! There is also a pretty deep crop system here where you can use a special treasure you receive to harvest seeds from grown crops to hopefully earn a higher level seed, taking crops up to the maximum of Level 9. I’ve created vast fields for the sole purpose of leveling up crops, and while it’s been quite a bit of work, I’m thoroughly enjoying it!

All of this is driven by a pretty basic story. You are here as an Earth Dancer to save Azuma from the growing blight, and you’ll move from region to region, attempting to resurrect the God’s there and removing the blight that harms the land. You’ll meet an interesting crop of characters at each village, and while there are a few twists and turns in the story, there is nothing earth shattering here. It’s not a bad story, mind you, and it serves the purpose of moving each village forward. It’s just not particularly strong!

Each God you save will give you an additional Treasure you can use, which often serve as both an elemental weapon for fighting, and a tool for farming. A fire sword, for example, is great for cutting down foes, but also serves as the tool to harvest crops to obtain seeds! A parasol is not only good for fighting enemies with water, but also allows players to glide through the air and water crops more efficiently! Each time you get one of these Treasures, quite a bit of stuff opens up to you across Azume, so returning to previous areas to unlock new stuff is a great way to keep you moving between areas, and keeping things feeling fresh!

One thing I do love about Guardians of Azuma is that it utilizes the Nintendo Switch 2 mouse controls brilliantly when farming and placing buildings. I’ve written about this at length, so check that out here, but it’s such a great use of Ninendo’s brand new Joy-Con 2 functionality that really highlights how good this can be in the future. Outside of Civilization 7, this is the best use of the mouse functionality on Nintendo Switch 2! 

Overall, I’m quite impressed with Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. It runs brilliantly on the Nintendo Switch 2, and the mouse controls are fantastic. While the story is a bit lacking in my opinion, it serves the greater purpose of providing players with a really strong cozy game that should keep you occupied for dozens of hours!