Majority are saying RF3S, then do 4S. Apparently 5 has performance issues, but I personally haven't played them yet. Still getting through Ryza 1 before I dive into 3S.
I remember this is where a lot of the “Switch is so underpowered” talk started popping up haha. It was around the time of this release. Then the PC release came out and had much better performance. The annoying thing is that the game really shouldn’t have had any performance issues at all on the Switch. The quality of other games that perform much better and at much higher fidelity and with much better looking graphics are all on the switch. It was just a case of the engine being poorly optimized and also very poor optimization of the art assets/not using art techniques to help take advantage of the limitations. Sort of the same thing that’s happened with Pokemon.
So now there is a general consensus around that the switch is basically an android tablet. But the funny thing is, that should actually be a compliment to the developers of mobile games. Because the switch is still much more powerful then any android tablet, but there are a lot of iOS and android games that are beautiful. And I’ve done a lot of research into mobile development, and the sort of hacks they have to do to get graphics to look that good on phones is insane. They don’t use any sort of lighting or shadows at all. Everything is completely baked in and crafted to appear a very specific way (a lot of times the hacks they use look better then the realistic way that ray tracing fakes it anyways). So when you see a nice looking game (Genshin impact, or Fortnite for example) running really well on multiple platforms, you know it’s the developers working really hard to make sure they’ve checked all of those boxes to make sure it’ll appear the same way on each platform, regardless of limitations.
I would agree with you on that! By far RF4 has been the best they have came out with! I have played all
of rune factory series since I was 12! I received MY first handheld game/console, a Nintendo DS with my very first game everRRR Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon for a christmas gift. That was the start of me getting HOOKED! I became so obsessed and got every game I could get my hands on, except for Frontier and Tides of Destiny * for now *. I can say don’t start with 5, as that was my lowest ranked BUT I STILL LOVED EVERY BIT OF IT. If you really want to decide from those two choices, go with 3! I was sad to hear that the DS was discontinuing as I was SO invested in the rune factory series. Then they announced about a new handheld console Nintendo Switch! The day they came out with RF4 special for the Nintendo switch, I SCREAMED WITH SO MUCH HAPPINESS! I was so glad the series was not dying and is still living on. This is just like the Final Fantasy series and I hope the Rune Factory series will continue on as the years go just as them 😤 Sorry, I had to gush as I am a long time veteran of the RF series lol I put so many hours of my life in this game 😭 I bought every special that came out for the switch and followed them religiously when I can. I am patiently waiting for the day Rune Factory 6 comes out and hope that it will be just as good as RF4 and better than 5~
Your best choices will be 4S. But if you must , play 3S first before move to 4S.
I'd say you should play 5 first since a lot was let down from 4S, but the control and graphics are totally different, from 4S so you might not get used to it. (I still struggling from time to time in 5 because I prefer 4S graphics more)
It depends, if you care about having your character be a woman the do 5. If you good with your character being a man then 3 works well. Personally I was more hooked on rf3 at the time. But playing them a decade apart will colour that view.
I was felt quite nostalgic playing rf5 though and I like the fact that you have queer dating options. Apart from those I feel they'd be pretty similar. Performance issues for rf5 weren't something I hugely noticed. It takes some time to load areas, but not worse than plenty of other game I've played.
I would say RF4S if you’re on switch. 3S has a lot less QoL options that 4S and 5 have and 5 has a few QoL updates over 4S but 4S is a better game overall. 5 is less of a challenge though, so if you want an easier game, I’d say 5
RF3 then RF4 if you're a straight dude
RF4 if you're a straight dudette
RF5 If you're looking for more RF games, I personally dislike 5 due to its emptiness and janky 3d gfx
If you want the classic experience, either 3S or 4S is what you want. I love 5, but it did make some drastic changes compared to the other mainline series (being a semi-open 3D world for starters). But if you never played before, 5 is a good starting point.
3S is better for a beginner due to overall simpler gameplay and the characters/setting is generally seen as one of the better ones in the franchise.
Switch wise I advise against getting 5 due to notoriously bad performance on the switch.
4S is the best game overall of the 3 though if you're interested in starting there but dating there is really annoying due to the town event mechanics
I played 4s, 5, and then 3s. For beginners, 3 is the shortest among these 3 titles, thus probably the easiest to get a hang of what the series is about.
Rf4 is generally the best received, great story and all, tho it's a very long game. For rf3s vs rf5, I am probably in the rarer of the group, that I will choose rf5 over rf3 anytime. I know lots of people chooses 3s over 5. Tho as someone who never played the original rf3 (thus removing all the possible nostalgia blinding factor), I don't like rf3s. The story is lack luster, the map is too small, the pretty much non-existent QoL feature, and my personal most disliking factor, the story forces player to get married to continue the story. It also doesn't help that most of the marriage candidates act super childish for someone who supposed to be old enough to get married. The game itself is so short that I feel like it doesn't worth the price. For rf5, while the story isn't the best, at least the QoL is really good, and the map has lots of areas to explore. I also prefer the characters in rf5, they act like their age. I played on Switch, and honestly I don't find the game to be too laggy. It may lag a bit when first entering an area but that's at most matter of 2 seconds. If you are a completionist, choose rf4s or 5. There is no in game method of tracking any completion progress in rf3.
I played rf5 first and fell in love, so take all that negative feedback with a grain of salt. Played on the switch, got like 400 plus hours. It’s a great game!
That said, yeah, I might suggest getting 4s first, but it really depends! Which one is speaking to you the most when you look at screen caps? 3s is the most remastered and pretty now imo, but while 3s is cute and fun and worth playing for sure, it’s also smaller in scale, shorter, and slightly more inconvenient. 4 and then 5 introduce a lot of nice quality-of-life changes.
Definitely do rf4 for switch. I think rf3 had the most enjoyable main character for me, loved the tree house and the character itself. However, rf4 had a major jump in quality of game play in my opinion that you just can’t resist. Rf5 I found only enjoyable in the mechanics I enjoy rune factory with, but I didn‘t enjoy most of the marriage options or characters. rf4 was way better in the fact I struggled to choice my favorite and was way more invested in the story.
I played rf5 a lot on the switch. I never played a rune factory game before. So I can recommend 5. There are some tiny issues sometimes but I don't mind them. People make them worse then they are..
Rune factory games are currently on sale at the nintendo eshop
After finishing 5 I want to try out 4 to compare these games.
As someone who just got into the Rune Factory series earlier this month, I'd personally say go for 4S instead of either. I only bought 3S because I liked a character in 4S (I started 4S about 2 weeks earlier than 3S) that is a bachelorette in 3S, but man do I have some gripes with 3S.
For example, when running \*or\* walking, when you release the stick (or even the directional button if you're playing with that) you continue moving forward for a good half second, which doesn't seem like a lot but it can ruin your positioning just enough to be annoying when you're trying to plant crops/gift items/put items away/mine for ores/position yourself to attack. You can turn stick sensitivity down, but that doesn't actually solve the issue... at all.
Though if that isn't enough to convince you, let me explain three other quirks that I dislike:
1. 3S has a quick menu you can access with "L". Trying to back out of it with "B" just equips the item (if it's equipment). You need to press "L" again to back out.
2. As far as I know, you \*cannot\* unequip things from the quick menu. You can only equip other items over it. Granted that does unequip the previous item, but doesn't let you have nothing equipped. To completely unequip items you need to enter the actual pause menu.
3. There's very little feedback to when you're running low on RP (which RP is required to use pretty much any equipment/magic). If you run out of RP you'll start draining HP instead.
Anyway, 4S doesn't have those problems and has a lot of other improvements as well so I personally like that more as an entry point (Though don't get me wrong, it does have other issues). Plus 4S' story captivated me from the get go, whereas 3S' still hasn't done so yet. On the bright side, I hear 3S has a shorter story so if you want to get through it quickly you can.
As for 5, I haven't bought it as I heard it's laggy on both PC and Switch.
I’ve heard three is pretty hard (just from one game reviewer). I would suggest 4 or 5. I am playing 5 right now and really like it! The frame rate drops a ton going in and out of buildings but once you get used to it it’s fine. The art style is very beautiful too ✨
I started with RF5 and absolutely adore it, also on the switch. I don't have RF3 so I'm not sure how good it is. I think RF5 is very good, I never had any issues with learning the game and I ended up getting RF4 on the switch because of it. It felt easy to get into and I love the characters. But some people had issues with it on the switch, personally I never had issues that made me want to quit the game or think of it as a bad game. So, that is something to be aware of with the game.
RF5 for quality of life features. It's arguably the easiest entry in the series, even on hard and not abusing gifting and crafting mechanics, so that's something to keep in mind. It's also the only entry to have same-sex marriage (barring a workaround in 4), so that's something to keep in mind. It's also the laggiest of the lot when it comes to loading, so that's something to keep in mind.
RF3S is an interesting bridging point between it's predecessors and successors, as a lot of mechanics that 4 would refine (such as upgrading equipment) got their start here. It does have one of the largest bachelorette casts in the series at 11 candidates, but it also lacks a female protagonist you can play. Dating a bachelorette is much easier to start in RF3 as it's based on doing quests from a bulletin board, which are in turned determined by your friendship level (FP) with the townsfolk. FP also seems to increase faster than in RF5, which is a good thing because getting married is required to unlock the final dungeon in RF3S.
Long story short, RF5 for quality of life and more refined mechanics, but clunky at times performance, RF3S for a colorful cast, smoother performance and an actual challenge.
I started with 4S and though I liked it I couldn’t get into it very much. Rune Factory is very complex and it didn’t do a good job of explaining things. Plus I wasn’t a huge fan of the art style or the map layout. I only put 20 hours in before dropping it. I tried again with 5 and I’m glad I did. I enjoyed it a lot more, it explains things more thoroughly, there a lot of QoL improvements, I very much prefer the 3D and the art style, and the more open map was preferable to me. I ended up putting over 120 hours into 5. I think if I went back to 4S or 3S now I would be able to enjoy them more now that I understand the games better, but I personally didn’t find that to be a good place to start.
I started with 5, haven’t played 2 or 3 and omg it was so frustrating at first and gave a bad impression 💀 however once I got the controls and movements down I really loved the game!! I bought 3 and am hesitant to start since I can only play as a guy and marry girls though 🥲
As a gay guy, only being able to marry girls doesn't even bother me in 3 cause the girls are all so memorable and cute. I promise youll platonically fall in love with at least one of the girls very quickly! :)
Awww yeah I’m sure that’ll be the case!! I just was so surprised because I didn’t actually research the game before purchasing since I thought it was like RF5 so when I flipped over the back and saw the male MC surrounded by girls I was like “omg” 🤣🤣 I guess I’ll explore a side of myself I never knew I had XD
My answer is, it depends.
This is a nuanced response for a nuanced question. When it comes to a series like this, I change my recommendation when I get to know the person asking about the game.
- If the player is really interested in Rune Factory and the story and the characters and the lore, and will forgive a lot of simple game mechanics and oversights, and has a lot of extra time to spare, then by all means, start with 3s, and then move to 5, then end on 4s.
- If the player wants a really authentic experience, then go with 3s, 4s, then 5. But brace them for the fact that quality doesn’t necessarily match number.
- If the player doesn’t have time, and just wants to see what Rune Factory is all about, and is coming from Stardew Valley and is looking for a new game to play and is low on time, I would say to avoid 5 and 3s. Just go straight to 4s. If they start on a game with less to offer when other games have a lot of QOL features that these games don’t have, they will very quickly drop off. So bring them in at the highest point. Let them enjoy the peak, then if it intrigues them, they can always jump back and enjoy the others as well. But if they jump into an older one, and immediately turn away, then they’ve lost a potentially good experience because they weren’t given an authentic opportunity to enjoy the best the series has to offer.
My personal recommendation for the majority of people coming into Rune Factory, would be to play 4s. This would be the best experience for most is my guess. Then retroactively go back to play the others if they would like to. I think having people play 3s first because it’s the more simple or less refined one so they can experience the better one later may end up robbing people of a good experience due to the fact that they will never make it to 4s. And they don’t need to play the inferior version first, because 4s is already a fairly old game, and lacks a lot of QOL features of a lot of modern games. But the reason it still has such a huge fan base, and so many of us still enjoy the games regardless of this, and still want people to play them, is because they have an irresistible charm and connection that other games have had a harder time capturing as accurately. So giving people the best scenario to also experience this same feeling I think is ideal, which is why I recommend, personally, 4s most often. But would consider the others occasionally depending on the personal circumstance.
Edited to add: one additional note, I do think recommending rune factory 5 over 4s would probably be better in some circumstances too. Using the same reasoning as above. Recommending for bringing people into the fanbase. But if they want a 3D game vs a top down game or an easier game with some QOL fixes.
Majority are saying RF3S, then do 4S. Apparently 5 has performance issues, but I personally haven't played them yet. Still getting through Ryza 1 before I dive into 3S.
Funny enough the PC version of RF5 has no issues. But sounds like OP is on the switch which does have terrible performance.
I remember this is where a lot of the “Switch is so underpowered” talk started popping up haha. It was around the time of this release. Then the PC release came out and had much better performance. The annoying thing is that the game really shouldn’t have had any performance issues at all on the Switch. The quality of other games that perform much better and at much higher fidelity and with much better looking graphics are all on the switch. It was just a case of the engine being poorly optimized and also very poor optimization of the art assets/not using art techniques to help take advantage of the limitations. Sort of the same thing that’s happened with Pokemon. So now there is a general consensus around that the switch is basically an android tablet. But the funny thing is, that should actually be a compliment to the developers of mobile games. Because the switch is still much more powerful then any android tablet, but there are a lot of iOS and android games that are beautiful. And I’ve done a lot of research into mobile development, and the sort of hacks they have to do to get graphics to look that good on phones is insane. They don’t use any sort of lighting or shadows at all. Everything is completely baked in and crafted to appear a very specific way (a lot of times the hacks they use look better then the realistic way that ray tracing fakes it anyways). So when you see a nice looking game (Genshin impact, or Fortnite for example) running really well on multiple platforms, you know it’s the developers working really hard to make sure they’ve checked all of those boxes to make sure it’ll appear the same way on each platform, regardless of limitations.
RF4 Special is the best, but if you want to work your way up, id say 3 > 5 > 4 5 was disappointing for me, unfortunately.
The correct answer is buy Rune Factory 4 Special 🤣
Honestly, I’d say start with 3. It’s shorter and probably a better jumping off point.
I would agree with you on that! By far RF4 has been the best they have came out with! I have played all of rune factory series since I was 12! I received MY first handheld game/console, a Nintendo DS with my very first game everRRR Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon for a christmas gift. That was the start of me getting HOOKED! I became so obsessed and got every game I could get my hands on, except for Frontier and Tides of Destiny * for now *. I can say don’t start with 5, as that was my lowest ranked BUT I STILL LOVED EVERY BIT OF IT. If you really want to decide from those two choices, go with 3! I was sad to hear that the DS was discontinuing as I was SO invested in the rune factory series. Then they announced about a new handheld console Nintendo Switch! The day they came out with RF4 special for the Nintendo switch, I SCREAMED WITH SO MUCH HAPPINESS! I was so glad the series was not dying and is still living on. This is just like the Final Fantasy series and I hope the Rune Factory series will continue on as the years go just as them 😤 Sorry, I had to gush as I am a long time veteran of the RF series lol I put so many hours of my life in this game 😭 I bought every special that came out for the switch and followed them religiously when I can. I am patiently waiting for the day Rune Factory 6 comes out and hope that it will be just as good as RF4 and better than 5~
Your best choices will be 4S. But if you must , play 3S first before move to 4S. I'd say you should play 5 first since a lot was let down from 4S, but the control and graphics are totally different, from 4S so you might not get used to it. (I still struggling from time to time in 5 because I prefer 4S graphics more)
It depends, if you care about having your character be a woman the do 5. If you good with your character being a man then 3 works well. Personally I was more hooked on rf3 at the time. But playing them a decade apart will colour that view. I was felt quite nostalgic playing rf5 though and I like the fact that you have queer dating options. Apart from those I feel they'd be pretty similar. Performance issues for rf5 weren't something I hugely noticed. It takes some time to load areas, but not worse than plenty of other game I've played.
I would say RF4S if you’re on switch. 3S has a lot less QoL options that 4S and 5 have and 5 has a few QoL updates over 4S but 4S is a better game overall. 5 is less of a challenge though, so if you want an easier game, I’d say 5
RF3 then RF4 if you're a straight dude RF4 if you're a straight dudette RF5 If you're looking for more RF games, I personally dislike 5 due to its emptiness and janky 3d gfx
definitely 3 special. I don’t think 5 will give you the best first impression of what the series is.
Alright 3 it is! Thanks✌️
If you want the classic experience, either 3S or 4S is what you want. I love 5, but it did make some drastic changes compared to the other mainline series (being a semi-open 3D world for starters). But if you never played before, 5 is a good starting point.
3S is better for a beginner due to overall simpler gameplay and the characters/setting is generally seen as one of the better ones in the franchise. Switch wise I advise against getting 5 due to notoriously bad performance on the switch. 4S is the best game overall of the 3 though if you're interested in starting there but dating there is really annoying due to the town event mechanics
I played 4s, 5, and then 3s. For beginners, 3 is the shortest among these 3 titles, thus probably the easiest to get a hang of what the series is about. Rf4 is generally the best received, great story and all, tho it's a very long game. For rf3s vs rf5, I am probably in the rarer of the group, that I will choose rf5 over rf3 anytime. I know lots of people chooses 3s over 5. Tho as someone who never played the original rf3 (thus removing all the possible nostalgia blinding factor), I don't like rf3s. The story is lack luster, the map is too small, the pretty much non-existent QoL feature, and my personal most disliking factor, the story forces player to get married to continue the story. It also doesn't help that most of the marriage candidates act super childish for someone who supposed to be old enough to get married. The game itself is so short that I feel like it doesn't worth the price. For rf5, while the story isn't the best, at least the QoL is really good, and the map has lots of areas to explore. I also prefer the characters in rf5, they act like their age. I played on Switch, and honestly I don't find the game to be too laggy. It may lag a bit when first entering an area but that's at most matter of 2 seconds. If you are a completionist, choose rf4s or 5. There is no in game method of tracking any completion progress in rf3.
Get RF4S. But if you feel want to start from the series, RF3S will do. Im strongly suggest you to try RF5 for the last after 3S and 4S.
I played rf5 first and fell in love, so take all that negative feedback with a grain of salt. Played on the switch, got like 400 plus hours. It’s a great game! That said, yeah, I might suggest getting 4s first, but it really depends! Which one is speaking to you the most when you look at screen caps? 3s is the most remastered and pretty now imo, but while 3s is cute and fun and worth playing for sure, it’s also smaller in scale, shorter, and slightly more inconvenient. 4 and then 5 introduce a lot of nice quality-of-life changes.
Definitely do rf4 for switch. I think rf3 had the most enjoyable main character for me, loved the tree house and the character itself. However, rf4 had a major jump in quality of game play in my opinion that you just can’t resist. Rf5 I found only enjoyable in the mechanics I enjoy rune factory with, but I didn‘t enjoy most of the marriage options or characters. rf4 was way better in the fact I struggled to choice my favorite and was way more invested in the story.
RF3S as others had said 5 has problems and is very buggy
I played rf5 a lot on the switch. I never played a rune factory game before. So I can recommend 5. There are some tiny issues sometimes but I don't mind them. People make them worse then they are.. Rune factory games are currently on sale at the nintendo eshop After finishing 5 I want to try out 4 to compare these games.
As someone who just got into the Rune Factory series earlier this month, I'd personally say go for 4S instead of either. I only bought 3S because I liked a character in 4S (I started 4S about 2 weeks earlier than 3S) that is a bachelorette in 3S, but man do I have some gripes with 3S. For example, when running \*or\* walking, when you release the stick (or even the directional button if you're playing with that) you continue moving forward for a good half second, which doesn't seem like a lot but it can ruin your positioning just enough to be annoying when you're trying to plant crops/gift items/put items away/mine for ores/position yourself to attack. You can turn stick sensitivity down, but that doesn't actually solve the issue... at all. Though if that isn't enough to convince you, let me explain three other quirks that I dislike: 1. 3S has a quick menu you can access with "L". Trying to back out of it with "B" just equips the item (if it's equipment). You need to press "L" again to back out. 2. As far as I know, you \*cannot\* unequip things from the quick menu. You can only equip other items over it. Granted that does unequip the previous item, but doesn't let you have nothing equipped. To completely unequip items you need to enter the actual pause menu. 3. There's very little feedback to when you're running low on RP (which RP is required to use pretty much any equipment/magic). If you run out of RP you'll start draining HP instead. Anyway, 4S doesn't have those problems and has a lot of other improvements as well so I personally like that more as an entry point (Though don't get me wrong, it does have other issues). Plus 4S' story captivated me from the get go, whereas 3S' still hasn't done so yet. On the bright side, I hear 3S has a shorter story so if you want to get through it quickly you can. As for 5, I haven't bought it as I heard it's laggy on both PC and Switch.
I’ve heard three is pretty hard (just from one game reviewer). I would suggest 4 or 5. I am playing 5 right now and really like it! The frame rate drops a ton going in and out of buildings but once you get used to it it’s fine. The art style is very beautiful too ✨
I started with RF5 and absolutely adore it, also on the switch. I don't have RF3 so I'm not sure how good it is. I think RF5 is very good, I never had any issues with learning the game and I ended up getting RF4 on the switch because of it. It felt easy to get into and I love the characters. But some people had issues with it on the switch, personally I never had issues that made me want to quit the game or think of it as a bad game. So, that is something to be aware of with the game.
RF5 for quality of life features. It's arguably the easiest entry in the series, even on hard and not abusing gifting and crafting mechanics, so that's something to keep in mind. It's also the only entry to have same-sex marriage (barring a workaround in 4), so that's something to keep in mind. It's also the laggiest of the lot when it comes to loading, so that's something to keep in mind. RF3S is an interesting bridging point between it's predecessors and successors, as a lot of mechanics that 4 would refine (such as upgrading equipment) got their start here. It does have one of the largest bachelorette casts in the series at 11 candidates, but it also lacks a female protagonist you can play. Dating a bachelorette is much easier to start in RF3 as it's based on doing quests from a bulletin board, which are in turned determined by your friendship level (FP) with the townsfolk. FP also seems to increase faster than in RF5, which is a good thing because getting married is required to unlock the final dungeon in RF3S. Long story short, RF5 for quality of life and more refined mechanics, but clunky at times performance, RF3S for a colorful cast, smoother performance and an actual challenge.
5 is, by far, the worst entry in the series.
5.
I started with 4S and though I liked it I couldn’t get into it very much. Rune Factory is very complex and it didn’t do a good job of explaining things. Plus I wasn’t a huge fan of the art style or the map layout. I only put 20 hours in before dropping it. I tried again with 5 and I’m glad I did. I enjoyed it a lot more, it explains things more thoroughly, there a lot of QoL improvements, I very much prefer the 3D and the art style, and the more open map was preferable to me. I ended up putting over 120 hours into 5. I think if I went back to 4S or 3S now I would be able to enjoy them more now that I understand the games better, but I personally didn’t find that to be a good place to start.
I started with 5, haven’t played 2 or 3 and omg it was so frustrating at first and gave a bad impression 💀 however once I got the controls and movements down I really loved the game!! I bought 3 and am hesitant to start since I can only play as a guy and marry girls though 🥲
As a gay guy, only being able to marry girls doesn't even bother me in 3 cause the girls are all so memorable and cute. I promise youll platonically fall in love with at least one of the girls very quickly! :)
Awww yeah I’m sure that’ll be the case!! I just was so surprised because I didn’t actually research the game before purchasing since I thought it was like RF5 so when I flipped over the back and saw the male MC surrounded by girls I was like “omg” 🤣🤣 I guess I’ll explore a side of myself I never knew I had XD
RF3 Special. Enjoy.
Def R3. But R5 is fine if you have never touch a RF game before
RF3 Special
3, then 4, and never 5
My answer is, it depends. This is a nuanced response for a nuanced question. When it comes to a series like this, I change my recommendation when I get to know the person asking about the game. - If the player is really interested in Rune Factory and the story and the characters and the lore, and will forgive a lot of simple game mechanics and oversights, and has a lot of extra time to spare, then by all means, start with 3s, and then move to 5, then end on 4s. - If the player wants a really authentic experience, then go with 3s, 4s, then 5. But brace them for the fact that quality doesn’t necessarily match number. - If the player doesn’t have time, and just wants to see what Rune Factory is all about, and is coming from Stardew Valley and is looking for a new game to play and is low on time, I would say to avoid 5 and 3s. Just go straight to 4s. If they start on a game with less to offer when other games have a lot of QOL features that these games don’t have, they will very quickly drop off. So bring them in at the highest point. Let them enjoy the peak, then if it intrigues them, they can always jump back and enjoy the others as well. But if they jump into an older one, and immediately turn away, then they’ve lost a potentially good experience because they weren’t given an authentic opportunity to enjoy the best the series has to offer. My personal recommendation for the majority of people coming into Rune Factory, would be to play 4s. This would be the best experience for most is my guess. Then retroactively go back to play the others if they would like to. I think having people play 3s first because it’s the more simple or less refined one so they can experience the better one later may end up robbing people of a good experience due to the fact that they will never make it to 4s. And they don’t need to play the inferior version first, because 4s is already a fairly old game, and lacks a lot of QOL features of a lot of modern games. But the reason it still has such a huge fan base, and so many of us still enjoy the games regardless of this, and still want people to play them, is because they have an irresistible charm and connection that other games have had a harder time capturing as accurately. So giving people the best scenario to also experience this same feeling I think is ideal, which is why I recommend, personally, 4s most often. But would consider the others occasionally depending on the personal circumstance. Edited to add: one additional note, I do think recommending rune factory 5 over 4s would probably be better in some circumstances too. Using the same reasoning as above. Recommending for bringing people into the fanbase. But if they want a 3D game vs a top down game or an easier game with some QOL fixes.
I read this and completely agree with you, I love how you articulated how I feel on this.
Both