Ventuswill is the dragon’s name (though she prefers Venti) and due to a case of very serious miscommunication, she believes that you are the member of royalty sent to take over some important duties around the town. Despite your amnesia, the player character insists that this can’t be right, to no avail. Eventually accepting your new role as resident royal, the player begins their journey in earnest. First, your main job is going to be taking care of the overgrown plot of land behind the palace, pulling weeds, chopping wood and growing new crops on the land. Eventually though, you’ll venture out into the world beyond the town limits and uncover mysteries hidden within the dungeons that can be found out there.

Now it’s time to get into the meat of the game, first up, the farming. At the start of Rune Factory 4, Venti will instruct the player to maintain the small plot of land behind the palace. It’s not very large, but it does take quite some time before you’ll be able to buy enough crops to fill the plot anyway. Farming mechanic-wise is the same as you would find in Stardew Valley or any Harvest Moon game. Plant your crops, water them everyday and then harvest them. My favourite part of farming is that you can pick up a stack of up to nine items and carry them around above your head. It’s a really cute edition and it means you don’t need to go into your inventory as often.

Where Rune Factory is different from other farming simulators is the animals that you can raise in your barns. These animals are not just your regular cows, pigs and chickens. Any monsters that you find out in the world can be tamed and then brought back to the farm. Some of these monsters will produce eggs or wool that can be sold for profit or used in crafting. When a monster has a high enough friendship level with the player, they can be asked to perform tasks around the farm. They can water and harvest plants, and if you give them some money and seeds they can even plant new crops for you. It’s a really interesting mechanic and means you have time to get other things done throughout the day. Though it does make me uncomfortable that brushing your monsters is recommended because I have a goblin in my barn that walks on two legs like a human man and brushing him feels weird and gross.

The main part of the gameplay is the RPG portion. Initially I assumed the farming would be what I spent most of my time doing, but mostly I would water my plants and then immediately head out to a dungeon. Once I got some monsters maintaining the farm for me, I didn’t even need to water. The combat isn’t especially robust, though it definitely had a little more meat to it then the combat in the mines of Stardew Valley. There’s a large selection of weapons to choose from, my personal favourite being staves, because they provide a bonus to magic damage and I was throwing spells all over the place. You can equip abilities or spells to the X and Y buttons and use those in combat along with whatever your main weapon is, whacking enemies until they fall over.

A small addition I really like is the escape button. Hitting ZR at any point out in the world will teleport you back to the start of the dungeon and hitting it again will take you back to the town of Selphia. It can be very useful when you head into a dungeon and find that you weren’t prepared for it, because passing out can often cost a lot in medical bills when you wake up at the doctor’s. 

You can also take a party of two with you out into the world, either one of the citizens of Selphia or one of the monsters you’ve tamed. Bringing a monster with you is very cool, because you can also use them as a mount, which is hilarious because some monsters look like you really shouldn’t be able to ride on them. 

All of the game’s story beats are activated by making progress in the dungeons. While the game is pretty linear, there is a little bit of exploring you can do in the land beyond the town. There will be areas that are locked until the plot progresses further, but otherwise players are free to explore the land as much as they want. This does also mean you might find areas that you aren’t ready for yet, after taking a few wrong turns on the way to the next dungeon. I found a giant mushroom that punched me in the face once, killing me instantly. So don’t get too comfortable wandering the lands.