• Price: $39.99 USD (digital & physical); $49.99 for the Digital Deluxe Version with exclusive DLC
  • Another Episode Pack DLC & Ryker’s Outfit: Free
  • Dylas, Doug, Leon, & Martin Outfits $1.99 each or $5.97 for all
• Developer: Marvelous
• Publisher: XSEED Games
• Release Date: September 5, 2023

A review code was kindly provided by ONE PR Studio on behalf of Marvelous and XSEED Games. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

The original Rune Factory 3 was released on the DS over a decade ago. (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) I’m so excited that they decided to bring the game to Switch now. I remember Raven being my favorite marriage candidate back then, and my sister and I always bring up Daria’s “RAINBOW!” catchphrase whenever we discuss the game. With such fond memories of the original RF3, I’m looking forward to meeting the characters again in the Switch version, which includes the new “Hell” difficulty level.

The story begins with main character Micah falling from the sky in his Wooly form on a dark, rainy night. A young woman named Shara sees him and decides to take him inside to help him. In the morning, Micah wakes up in his human form and leaves without saying anything. He then runs into Shara and tells her he has amnesia, so naturally she decides to give him a place to stay inside of the Sharance Tree.

The Sharance Tree is no mere sapling; it actually contains a decent amount of living space, with a bed, kitchen area, and a basement in the beginning. At the base of the tree there are fields where you can grow some crops to make money. You’ll need to go into town to purchase crop seeds and other supplies, and that’s where you’ll meet the townspeople!

The town is full of unique individuals, including people who always say the opposite of what they mean, a rainbow-obsessed artist, and a bath-obsessed mermaid. You get to know them better by giving them gifts to increase their affection and also by completing their requests. Everyone has gifts that they love, like, or hate, and they generally make their preferences known.

Befriending everyone and maxing out their friendship levels can be a lengthy yet worthwhile process. You can deepen your relationships even further with eleven potential marriage candidates. And they’re all pretty likable; Raven will always be my favorite, but for the sake of variety I went with Pia this time.

I will say that I was a little disappointed that we still couldn’t marry Evelyn. I love her look, and she’s definitely got some interesting ideas about fashion. It also would have been nice to have Carlos and/or Ondorus added as marriage candidates. Even just having one additional option could have made for some nice bonus content for the new Switch version.

Of course I was still quite happy with the existing options. I felt that the localization team did a great job of making the characters’ personalities stand out. The localization blog indicated that they actually retranslated ~1,000,000 Japanese characters worth of text from the original game – “without [even] referencing the original translation”!!! That’s really impressive. I particularly enjoyed Sherman and Sofia’s amusing conversational quirk, and another blog post discusses the way they handled that as well.

In between making the rounds to socialize, there’s exploring to do. The townspeople mention that recently some monsters have become increasingly violent, which you’ll experience for yourself as you make your way through each of the four seasonal dungeons. (Eventually, you can enter a special dungeon in the basement and an end game sort of dungeon as well.)

Something I’ve always appreciated is the way that the Rune Factory series allows us to decide the way we fight (to a certain extent). There are multiple weapon types for you to choose from, as well as a vast array of spells for you to use in the action-based combat. You can also ask one of the townspeople to fight by your side, or you can bring one of the monsters you befriended. The way you arrange your equipment, spells, and team can impact your chances of success in battle.

I do not tend to do well with action combat, so I’ve always preferred turn-based games. The Rune Factory series is one of my favorite exceptions. Now, while I had a great time with the combat again, I will say that there are some features from the other Switch games I would have wanted included in this one.

I’ll preface this by saying that I admittedly have no idea how hard these functions would be to implement in a remaster. That being said, I was sad that we could only bring one character or monster with us here. Both Rune Factory 4 Special and Rune Factory 5 let you bring multiple party members with you, so it was something of a letdown to go back to one.

In 4S and 5, you could give your (human) companions a full set of equipment, but in 3S you can only give them a weapon and accessory. A larger issue for me was only having two slots for quickly using spells. It’s true that you can swap out your magic skills mid-battle, but 4S included four slots and 5 had a staggering six slots for immediate use. These factors don’t make 3S a bad experience by any means, but updating them would have improved the quality of life features for players’ convenience.

Putting aside my issues there, the game does benefit from the standard Rune Factory skill-leveling and crafting, which certainly deepen the experience. The RF Wiki indicates that the max level is an astounding 10,000! Your skills, however, max out at 99. There are skills for almost everything: walking, sleeping, eating, weapons and magic, and crafting. Increasing each of these skills has the added bonus of increasing some of your stats.

Once you’ve unlocked the second floor in the Sharance Tree, you’ll also unlock the Crafting Table, Forge, and Chemistry Set. You can make new weapons and defensive equipment, and upgrade them to increase their stats or add special effects. The Chemistry Set can be used to synthesize medications or stat-boosting items. Finally, the main floor has a kitchen, and your culinary creations can act as gifts for the townspeople or as healing items.

It’s very rewarding – both personally and socially – to level up the crafting skills and learn new recipes by eating recipe bread. You can get away with giving people the easier gifts, such as different colored grasses for Daria, but the harder it is to make or find something, the higher the affection boost seems to be.

After giving Pia the extremely romantic gift of a freshly caught squid every day, I eventually managed to max out her affection and propose. Some additional story events occur at this point, and once you get married, it’s time for kids! (Yes, you get multiple children in this game!)

You get to choose the gender of each child when your wife tells you she’s pregnant. (Since Pia is a mermaid, I named my kids Ariel, Melody, and Ursula. 🧜‍♀️) 3 is better than 4S in terms of the amount of kids you can have (three). However, the kids sadly remain kind of pointless here.

Each child pretty much just stands in one place in your house and stays there. They never leave the house. There aren’t any beds for them or anything. No one talks about them; even your wife just gives them a cursory mention on their birthday and that’s it. You can talk to them, but you can’t give them any gifts. I really wish they hadn’t kept this the same, based on what I remember from playing the original.

While my dream of virtual kids didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, they did add a Newlywed Mode to give you more insight into married life with each bachelorette. You don’t need to copy your save and marry each girl in the main game in order to view their story in Newlywed Mode.

The Newlywed Mode stories have separate save files from the main game. Your level is set back down to 80 in each storyline, and you’re given preset equipment. Each girl’s story involves you completing a few tasks related to whatever’s going on.

It usually took me about 2 in-game days to finish each story. They’re all fairly brief and easy, but the character interactions are adorable, silly, and/or sweet. I loved Newlywed Mode’s animated character portraits and short animated scenes.

Overall, I think that Rune Factory 3 Special is a pleasant trip down memory lane for players like me, and newcomers will more than likely enjoy it as well. It does lack some more “modern” features that exist in the other Switch games, but it still plays well. (The loading times felt nonexistent to me.)

The plot – and child-rearing – aren’t the strongest, but they make up for it with the zany cast and well-localized dialogue. This really reinforced how much I love this series. I hope to see remasters for the first and second games as well at some point, and I look forward to eventually playing Rune Factory 6 and the spin-off game, PROJECT DRAGON.

8/10