STORY OF SEASONS: Grand Bazaar
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Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Welcome to the eastern nation of Azuma! In this fresh take on Rune Factory, use your powers as an Earth Dancer to restore the land, its people, and even its gods. Along the way, battle corrupted monsters, rebuild seasonal farms and villages, and form bonds with the colorful locals.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a jrpg, life sim and dating sim game
developed by Marvelous Inc.
and published by XSEED Games, Marvelous USA, Inc. and Marvelous Europe.
Released on June 04th 2025 is available only on Windows
in 8 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean.
It has received 3,672 reviews of which 3,249 were positive and 423 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 32.99€ on Steam with a 45% discount, but you can find it for 23.16€ on K4G.
The Steam community has classified Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma into these genres:
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System requirements
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Windows
- OS: Windows 10 and 11
- Processor: Intel Core i5-10400
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 20 GB available space
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User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This review was made after obtaining all achievements. Rune Factory Guardians, what can i say about this? Compared to the previous game, RF5, its a "half-step up", it does some things alright, and others that really ruined my mood for the game. I'm going to start with the bad points first, since people tend to post the good and people skim that text and move on without getting the full info. Note that these are my opinions on the matter, and can vary from player to player. CONS; Locked Romance routes: There is a good choice of men and women to date, all of which have their own reasons in life, to get better and to overcome. HOWEVER, there are 2 partners around midway in the story (one male and one female) that you cannot date unless you hand over more money for their dlc. This leaves a huge sour taste in my mouth, even more so when normal conversations with them are like normal npcs you can have normal relationships with, yet when you do partner cooking with them, they give off the hearts that clearly show they ARE datable. This clearly shows they were to be partners in the game from the very beginning, and they decided to lock them behind a paywall. THIS IS JUST FLAT OUT GREED AND SHOULD NOT BE ACCEPTED IN THIS STYLE OF GAME!!! Have everyone that can be a romance route be there from the very start, not locked behind peoples wallets/purses. Village Building: The main meat of the game is restoring the villages, so clearing fields of corruption, building homes for villagers, and producing food to use for cooking or selling. My main gripe however is when every piece has a stat tied to it. Each piece you put down can give you stats (limited to one of said item) towards your avatar, so when it eventually comes close to the endgame, and you get some of the better decorations, they are big and take up alot of space. So it makes sense to flood an entire field where you can find space with the best decorations that give the most stats possible, and takes away the farming part of the game. I liked it more where your stats were tied to your actions you did alot of, and your own gear you make or find in the fields. The Villagers: Never have i been frustrated with dealing with villagers. Each individual villager has pros and cons tied to them, so they can be good at one thing, and bad at others. When it comes to farming mostly however, they can help grow more crops or even give you better quality foods/seeds. What they are terrible at however, is their job at farmers. It takes them forever to plant any seed, which you have no control over what they plant, and those seeds can be planted in awkward places like in the middle of the field rather than end to end. They take forever to harvest, they take forever to water, at best, they are only best if they are in small fields, and i mean REALLY small farming fields. Honestly, you are better off doing the farming yourself rather than let the villagers take control of it. Giant crops: Naturally, getting a giant crop can net you alot of money to go towards upgrades and crafts, the only thing i don't like however, is when you gather a giant crop, you do not gain any seeds in return. This can be irritating if you only had for example one seed, hoping to get a refund of it after harvesting, and its all going to waste over a giant crop that is slightly worth more money than a normal version. COULD BE BETTER; Skill Trees: For a first, Guardians uses skill trees rather than earning stats through repeated actions. It was an interesting choice, and i decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, til i realised you get two different types of EXP. One for the job/action you do, and another which is all tallied up at the end of a day. The former is used only in that specific action/job, while the other can be used in all the skill trees. I could see what they was aiming for, but i feel like it could get abused so much that you could level one skill tree without the need of doing such actions that its for. If they decide to bring skill trees back in Rune Factory 6, i would hope they remove the all-purpose EXP, so they make players engage with the activity more to level it up. Additionally, i would also prefer that people can pick and mix what skills they could obtain, rather than having to follow a skill route just to reach a skill people would make most use of. PROS: Sacred Treasures: I actually enjoyed using the tools they give you in the game, as it came with multiple effects. It served not only as a attacking tool to fight monsters, but they also had added benefits both for exploring and tending to your farms. I highly doubt such tools/skills would make a return in later Rune Factory games, but it was a fun and interesting experience. Looking back at this, it felt like more negatives than positives, so why did i recommend this game? Honestly, for what troubles it brings, its your standard pen on paper Rune Factory story. The people are interesting, farming and combat is decent, overall, its very mid, is the best way i can describe it. To the point where i miss the old Rune Factory games, that i might just return to, i had more fun with the past games than this. This recommendation in my opinion would be more middle of the world, not a yes, but not a no either. It does a few things that are interesting that i could get behind, but it does many that i flat out do not like or agree with. To the devs that made this game, use this game as a lesson and a stepping stone, learn from mistakes, and DO NOT lock romance routes under a paywall. Do better. Make Rune Factory the game that we know and love, and not a form of greed.
ONE OF THE BEST GAMES I EVER PLAYED. I just 100% it today, like couple of minutes ago and now I am crying because what am I supposed to do with my life now?! I enjoyed every moment of this game. Characters? Perfection! Story? Amazing! Gameplay? Refreshing and enjoyable. And the romance? ADORABLE!! I am a fanfic lover and a heavy shipper and this game melted my heart (Subaru x Fubuki are my OTP now). You don´t have to be an old Rune Factory player to enjoy this game. Before this I only tried Rune Factory 5 and dropped it after 2 hours as it was boring (I just couldn´t get into it) but this one won my heart within the first 5 minutes of playing. Like BAM!!! I was hooked. Couldn´t stop playing. Couldn´t stop thinking about it. Got obsessed. 10/10 game. If you´re unsure because yeah, this game IS expensive + all the DLCs, just wishlist it and wait for sales. This game is worth it.
As someone who played through 4 Special and 5 from the main series, I quite like this game. For those unfamiliar with Rune Factory, it's basically like a life-sim with a stronger focus on being an rpg. You can level up, have skills, various weapons, can form parties, but you still have villagers to talk to, crops to sell, etc. Though the life-sim part of this game is more of a village builder than a farming simulator. You place buildings, decorations, and crops for the purpose of boosting stats and having a steady source of income and get villagers to manage most of it for you. Though time freezes while you do this, so most of your in-game time is meant to spent on exploring, fishing, or burning time with villagers in exchange for strengthening your bond with them. As for how I feel about all this, I actually welcomed a lot of the changes. I liked having skill trees to sink points into, the divine relics are fun to use in combat, the interface is pretty good, and I honestly feel pretty good about recommending this game to newcomers to the series. It also just feels like Rune Factory. No dungeon feels like it overstays its welcome, the combat is nice and simple, you have plenty of various things to do, so I never really felt like gameplay got stale. This all said, I do wish you would have one big village to manage instead of 4 partially cause it's a bit of a chore to talk to all the villagers daily and I did get a tad tired of doing everyone's bonding quests one after the other, still that could have just been how I decided to play the game. Overall though, would recommend.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma takes a western fantasy-inspired series eastwards in this new spinoff game. And since it’s a spinoff and not a proper numbered entry, that means the game gets to try things of its own. How does it fare? The farming has been simplified, going for the bare minimum. That means there’s no health or levels for soil among others. It’s clear the focus is not on farming on its own, but on the new village building mechanics. You can build houses and other establishments and have generic villagers do various jobs – tending to crops, working at shops, chopping wood, mining, etc. You also have to decorate the village to increase village level and gain various bonuses like stat boosts or improving areas of proficiency for villagers. You can make the villages autonomous, generating cash, so you don’t have to engage with it too deeply either. As a “city builder” type of game, it is competent, but that’s it. One problem is that you either want to make “aesthetic” villages or “functional” villages, since there’s just not enough space to have lots of décor and buildings and make it look adequate, most notably in summer and winter villages (it used to be worse for the former before the patch!!). The combat has a better feel than that of Rune Factory 5 , thanks in part to more open level design, but mechanically also simplified. In previous games, you could customize weapons during crafting or with upgrading, giving special properties or exploiting stat ailments, and there was consideration for trading off defense and offense for different weapon types, and you can’t throw bad stuff at enemies like Object X or failed dishes. That means the combat of this game boils down to choosing bigger numbers and abusing sacred treasures. The visuals are very nice. I praised Rune Factory 5 for having a bright and colorful aesthetic, but this game triple downs on that, the visuals are even more vibrant and stylish. The modeling is great. There’s no 2D sprites for conversations, but the characters are expressive and well animated. The graphics are definitely one of the highlights of this game, especially since arguably none of the previous games were particularly impressive in this department. I noted in my review of Rune Factory 5 that it lacked a jumping mechanic, which could’ve elevated the world exploration and combat. Look at that! Jumping! There’s now an element of platforming and verticality, and the traversal is more enjoyable with jumping, and you can attack in air as well. The world design in general is VASTLY improved, the exploration is much more enjoyable and detailed. I hope they’ll bring the jumping mechanic and these world design sensibilities into Rune Factory 6 . The music is different, this time handled by Noriyuki Asakura, notable for contributing to the soundtrack of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice . All previous games’ music was handled by Tomoko Morita, this time credited for sound design, with some similar jingles like sleeping and levelling up, but easternized. I think the soundtrack is okay, but I prefer the music of previous games. There aren’t many memorable and fun tunes, mostly atmospheric. It probably doesn’t help that with all sound settings being at max, the music is quiet relative to everything else. While not a big deal in villages, the sound effects and voice lines drown it during combat, which means you can barely hear combat or boss battle themes. The story is good. I’ll admit, I wasn’t very invested in it initially, but it does become more interesting later on. First, you go rescue the 4 gods of seasons and their respective villages, and then some shenanigans happen. I like how both gender characters are present at the same time, instead of being a simple binary choice, and you duke it out in the intro. And there’s even one choice with actual consequences and some pretty good emotional moments. The voice acting also helps. Speaking of, the production values are improved substantially, the main story is almost fully voiced, as well as bond stories, and the cutscenes aren’t as stilted. For a game that otherwise has some solid writing, it is disappointing to see the “Let’s Chat” option result in characters saying generic stuff, the chats were more enjoyable in previous games, it reminds me of those generic NPCs of Rune Factory 5 in a bad way. Rune Factory 4 is still the king in this regard. The addition of hanging out is a positive and I would like to have it in future games. Sure, the options are generic and typically result in a short cutscene, but it’s better than nothing. Bond is easier and more enjoyable to level up, with characters having preferences for different activities. I also like the bond stories, though they are only available for romance candidates, they do a decent job of fleshing out the characters and giving interesting stories to chew on. I also like dialogue when outside of villages, with some NPC combinations bouncing off each other. Same-sex marriage integration has been improved. No longer is there confusion about how to get a child for couples of the same gender. Not only is it better mechanically, even lore-wise I like it more. For how hyped the feature was for Rune Factory 5 , the way you get a kid was actually a let down. You pray to the tree and it just gives you babies. In this game you pray to the shrine, and plant a turnip and it grows into a kid. It feels more unique and natural for the series. There are a few changes that make the game lose a little bit of Rune Factory identity in my eyes. RP is now a generic mana pool. In previous games, RP was both mana and your stamina, pretty much everything you did required RP, combat, farming, crafting, you name it. In this game, it’s only used for Sacred Treasures (expect for Plum Branch). While in combat, they act as powerful attacks or healing in case of Sacred Drum, which can be pretty useful. As for farming, only Sacred Drum and Sacred Sword are worthwhile, which is half of sacred treasures that can be used for farming. They even renamed some items like flowers from unique names like Toyherb -> Daisy or Charm Blue -> Bluebell Flower, which makes the game (and the series if you haven’t played previous games) appear more generic. Feels like they didn’t have the creative juices to make up some new fantasy flowers/crops exclusive to Azuma. The skill progression has been gamified. You gain All-Purpose EXP for doing general activities like farming, combat, shopping, etc, and then there’s specific EXP for stuff like different weapons or sacred treasures, crafting or social activities. All-Purpose EXP can be a substitute to specific EXP in case you don’t have enough. You use EXP to unlock stat boosts and some perks in various skill trees, like making sell prices better or unlocking new combat moves. This system feels a bit more generic in comparison to how your character growth was handled before. Also, it’s funny to imagine that you can unlock an ability to share a kiss with your loved one by fishing days long (that is a real unlock by the way). Overall, while I am positive about Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma , and it might be a better game than Rune Factory 5 if we take into account production values and polish... I prefer the gameplay of mainline entries. Some of the streamlined, simplified and removed elements mean there’s less engaging mechanics to occupy yourself with, there’s little satisfaction in doing general activities on their own, and there’s not as much stuff to do. I do think this game is a worthy addition, though maybe not $60. There’s some fun to be had, it has an interesting story, lovable characters, pretty visuals, and some elements worth bringing into future entries. I like to think of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma as a distraction, a vacation of sorts. And everyone deserves a vacation.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is currently priced at 32.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is currently available at a 45% discount. You can purchase it for 32.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma received 3,249 positive votes out of a total of 3,672 achieving a rating of 8.52.
😎
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma was developed by Marvelous Inc. and published by XSEED Games, Marvelous USA, Inc. and Marvelous Europe.
Yes, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is playable and fully supported on Windows.
No, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is not playable on MacOS.
No, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is not playable on Linux.
This information about Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is not available yet.
This information about Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is not available yet.
No, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma does not support VR.
Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a single-player game.
Yes, there are 5 DLCs available for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. Explore additional content available for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma on Steam.
No, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 30 August 2026 17:04 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 11 September 2026 13:00 UTC |
| Steam price | 12 September 2026 02:53 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 09 September 2026 20:05 UTC |
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Game modes
Features
Online players
268
Developer
Marvelous Inc.
Publisher
XSEED Games,
Marvelous USA, Inc.,
Marvelous Europe
Release
04 Jun 2025
Platforms
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