Had it not been one of the few new/cross-gen games available at the Switch 2’s launch, I’m not sure I would have given Guardians of Azuma a second look. I dropped Rune Factory 4 before getting very far in and have generally felt indifferent toward the big wave of life/village-sim games. Luckily, I was drawn in enough by the setting to give this a try, and I’m glad I did since I was rewarded with a vibrant and consistently engaging RPG experience.

While none of the game’s main gameplay or narrative ingredients is necessarily amazing on its own, they’re all fun to engage with and usually well-balanced in its daily time-based loop. Combat and related character progression things manage to be relatively chill but still engaging, with many options at your disposal and with enough of it to make up a significant part of the game without growing repetitive until the last couple hours. Village management and farming is very convenient to deal with after an initial learning curve for all the menus and control options.

I liked how different mechanics and progression systems for villages and characters are tied in with the storytelling and tangibly reward and require engagement with one other. In another game, I would totally skip a lot of the side quests and stuff that I did here, but here it all feels like it means something and naturally fits into the daily routine. There’s maybe a little too much going on in here for me in terms of breadth of stuff to do and create, but the game is flexible enough that you don’t need to go all in to do well. I do think everything wore out its welcome a bit by a couple hours before the end of the story, but your mileage will vary based on how you yourself pace it out and your tolerance for everything.

The historical Japanese fantasy setting here is well-realized and integrated into everything from architecture to enemy designs. Basing the four main villages/regions on the four seasons at their peaks gives the world a perfect visual balance and vibrancy. (Makes sense for farming variety too.) The main narrative and side stories seem to take a lot from those Japanese cultural elements and manage to be pretty decently engaging. Dialogue can feel relatively modern and pretty anime-ish, but it usually avoids feeling like too much of a clash and can be funny.

I appreciate how much effort was put into things like making all these many characters interact with each other in different contexts, all getting to shine in the main story and continuing their individual story for some time after beginning a romance. Later parts of the main questline did feel like they were losing the appeal a bit, as they bring in more and more characters whose dramatic moments don’t quite land, and send you on some additional world-saving quests that wore me out on the combat and don’t really align with the fun community growth part of the game anymore.

There’s definitely a place for something like this, neither a “cozy” game nor a straightforward JRPG, which offers a lot to do but to a large extent lets the player control what they do and when. It hit at the right time for me and is a game I can easily recommend as a very solid time.

I played the original. Really loved it. Married the elf girl and saved her from being a servant. Then beat the game.

I started 2 and couldn't figure out why my happily married character would be in a strange town with amnesia. AGAIN. This time without wife and child I had worked so hard for. Put it down nearly immediately.

Got Tides of Fate. Tried. Did not like. Stopped.

I think I skipped 3 somehow but have the switch version waiting in the wings.

I've played 4 to the end of story twice (3ds and switch). She never marries. Might actually still need to unlock marriage candidates.

I finished 5 sometime in the last 12 months. She never marries and may actually have marriage candidates that I didn't unlock.

Azuma... man. Turned the formula on its head. The broad strokes are the same but the execution wildly different. Most rune factory games are beautiful but this one outdoes them all. Thanks new & fancy hardware!!

Ignore the shady politics of being [spoiler?] mayor [/spoiler] of every town you go to, I felt a great deal more invested in clearing the blight affecting these towns and their people than the more obviously dungeon styled offerings in prior RF games. It makes sense, even. Why would there be a series of dangerous and terrifying dungeons next door to the one and only town?

The field reclamation project kept me engaged for a very long time. The available materials limiting expansion somehow made the farming more addictive. I was really building something!!

The way the game levels up crops was chef's kiss perfect for me. I'd never bothered in the other games. Buy this thing and that thing and apply it and pray... Or however they had it set up. This was more straightforward to me so all of my crops were maxed before I pushed to the complete story.

Your mileage may vary but if you like this type of game I see no reason you wouldn't love it as much as I did.

p.s. She got married. I believe she is so happy! And she did it before the end of the story, which is obviously a big deal for me.