Rune Factory is a long-running series that primarily deals with farm simulation life, constructing towns, and interacting with the residents of those towns. I was excited to see everything about Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma and how it was going to add more to the formula.
Game Name: Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 (Reviewed), PC
Developer(s): Marvelous Inc.
Publisher(s): XSeed Games, Marvelous USA
Release Date: June 6th, 2025
Price: $59.99
You play as the Earth Dancer, who is aiding a descendant of a god. The goal is to bring life into the four main villages of the land you reside in. The main character is chosen by you to become either a male or female protagonist. You will work on grabbing sacred relics from the gods that help you cleanse the land of various impurities.
Building Up Villages
You get the tiller in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma pretty early on in the game. This lets you build on designated areas in the villages. You can create fields, plant seeds, water them, place constructed buildings, and more with this tiller. Creating decorations and setting them up in villages helps your scenic score, which increases villagers’ morale and attracts more villagers to want to stay in your village. One thing I loved about the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game is that when you are in Build mode, you can take the Joy-Cons off to enable mouse mode. This lets you place buildings and fields using the Joy-Con mouse. It’s a perfect example of using the mouse without it just being a gimmick. Especially with how clunky the build mode can seem, just using Joy-Cons as controllers.
When you are favored by the gods in these villages, they will give you sacred relics. These relics can be used to remove purple poisonous mists or grow shriveled and dying trees. Just like other Rune Factory games, you are on a time constraint, though. Each day lets you go until midnight as you enhance your village and grow closer to your villagers. If you go further than midnight, your character has a chance to get exhausted and fall asleep. Each minute brings you closer and closer to just falling asleep with your HP decreasing. You also lose a portion of your All Around Experience if you don’t go to sleep on time.
Each activity you do gives you experience in that aspect. Socializing with villagers give you social experience. Using your sacred relics gives you experience with that relic. And combat gives you experience with the weapon you are using for combat. You can use your All Around experience on anything, but it is recommended to use it on your personal skill tree. You can’t get experience points for the personal skill tree so it can only be upgraded with All Around Experience.
Protecting Azuma
There is a good variety of weapons in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. You start with a short sword that you can use to chain combos. The speed of combat is fast with this short sword, and it can deal some good damage if you forge stronger swords. You will soon get a bow you can use, which can be used from a distance. With the bow, you can quickshot combos or do a charged attack by aiming with it. Later on, you will get even more weapons, such as daggers, large swords, talismans, and even axes.
Normal mobs show their level on top of their lifebar. If it is significantly higher than your level, the names will be in red or yellow, depending on how much stronger the enemy is than you. Mobs will be on the minimap on the top right of the screen as red dots. There are normal enemies and large enemies that have a big health pool. It is dangerous to get hit so dodging and fighting defensively is a sound strategy. You can unlock a node on the skill tree that lets you counterattack and stun enemies if you dodge and attack at the same time; otherwise, doing a perfect dodge slows down the enemies around you and lets you dish out damage freely before they get their bearings.
Boss fights in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma can be a puzzle. You can try every boss fight like a bigger enemy, but there is generally more to each encounter than just dishing out combos and breaking the boss’s guard. You can see strategies that can hurt the boss significantly based on a weapon they are weak against. Some have literal targets to show you can use a charged bow attack to attack their vulnerability. Some can be weak against magic attacks or the sacred relic abilities you learn in the game.
Getting Close To Villagers
A staple in all Rune Factory games is building bonds and developing your relationship with the villagers in town. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is no different. You can chat with your villagers and learn about them, or spend time with them. Spending time with them using the interactive menu has a number that will pass your time during the day. Longer activities have the possibility of a bigger gain in your relationship. Though sometimes villagers don’t want to do certain things, and that can be a detriment to the bond you share with them. If they don’t like swimming, taking them to the beach to swim will not make them like you more.
Building your bond with a special villager will give you access to special requests from them, too. These requests can include finding resources, weapons, or even defeating certain enemies. Do enough requests and build their bond, and they will give you special quests. These special quests will be unique and will give you a whole new level of bond with these villagers, and are required if you want to romance them.
Guardians Of Azuma
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a solid direction for the Rune Factory series. It is a bit more narrative-driven with a little less emphasis on the village building in the main story, but it is still there if you want to focus on that. I do wish there was a bit more depth to the weapon combo system, but I can forgive that thanks to the variety of weapons you can choose to use.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is available on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
Review Disclosure Statement: Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma was provided to us by Marvelous USA for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.
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Summary
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a solid direction for the series to make the already deep building elements as set dressing for a more narrative-focused Rune Factory experience. It can be jarring for long-time players of the series, though.
Pros
- Aesthetics are immaculate
- Deep village building mechanics
- Action combat feels good to play
- A narrative-focused story makes it easier than ever to finish the game.
Cons
- Not all unique NPCs are romanceable.
- Village building plays a back seat to the main story
