After playing Rune Factory 4 on every possible platform throughtout the decade, i have many things to say about this game, I'll try my best to answer your possible questions about this game while giving my honest thoughts. I owe this game a honest review.

Oh boy, i never thought i would fall in love with a game that looks like an unseasoned chicken breast, RF4 may be one of the most unexciting looking game, but dear god its a fricking "VIDEOGAME"
I couldn't ever guess that Rune Factory 4 was the game i always imagined as the ideal "perfect video game", it wasn't yet still to this date its the closest thing to my imagination.
Im not talking about you can be fishing, foraging, farming, fighting, romancing, crafting, forging, cooking (In a lot of various types) petting etc. the most important thing ,even the current developers are skipping, is you want to put dedication on them! Yes, in Rune Factory 4 there are absurd amount of content and none of them feels useless, at some point you always see yourself dealing with one of them yet the game doesn't force you, and it knows how to reward you for those.

Farming in this game is the best in its genre if you ask me, changed the system from - till the space / plant the seed / water it everyday till it turns to the crop form - giving those tillable lands actual life, you need to check its health, its situation, its quality and etc. If you use a space continously without giving it enough time to rest your crops will get longer and longer to give you its product, if you don't care enough of your soil the quality will be dreadful, if you don't give it enough materials to keep its health at max, even a slight bad weather condition will ground your entire field costing you irreversible damage.
With this exact systems the automizations of fields won't remove 1 mechanic from the game like other entries, most on other games when you put sprinklers the entire farming system goes to garbage, you just plant and collect. The automization on rune factory works with the animals and creatures from your barn that you managed to pet, they will help with your daily chores like planting collecting and watering, you always need to show enough interest to both your soil and animals, because they are not machines like sprinklers, entire game is set on this, you give mechanics life and complexity so the gameplay will never get bland, do you know how much i appreciate this? Basically it has soo many layers that it will give you seizures and headaches if you put too many time in it, but if you don't put any time it punishes you HARSH. you can consider this good or bad.


There are 50+ progressable skills, all of them is needed for your progression, because of attributions are much needed to survive if you want to end the game.
For the combat, its nothing special but fricking lovely to get into, its awesome. close combat tools aren't that various like today titles but i wouldn't say the same for abilities, they are so cool and enough for build variations. Forging and crafting are the 2 most important skills since this game is %50 dungeon crawling, even in easy mode you never find yourself overleveled/overgeared ((but oh boy this game is one of the best on power fantasy)) yet you can easily become undergeared and it will be a true nightmare. Don't forget everyboss can oneshot you if you lose your focus on battles. Generally game isn't balanced because the normal mobs can't even answer your swings yet some bosses makes you feel like an ant.

Characters are lively and well-written easily make you want to live on this world forever but don't forget this game is in a bit generic jrpg format, you won't find unforgetable npcs or scenarios, bachelorettes have few good choices but bachelors are a bit lacking if you ask me, im not a girl so i can't decide it at best but on the specific character arc aspects bachelorettes on this game is shining as a diamond.

Lastly, is "Special" version really that special? I don't think so, it added two new extra content called "Newlymed Mode" and "Another Episode" to be honest i never found myself dipping in both of them, i tried them, they are short and wholesome yet pretty useless, also i didn't like the portrait motions on newlymed mode, its a bit disturbing, scares me i guess? It fixed a lot of older 3ds version bugs, unfortunately some non existent sound bugs appeared in this version, but the ultimately best things is the buffed drop rates and making the game easier (added a new difficulty mode just in case), saving you dozens of time and pretty polished if you ask me, but when i saw this project for the first time i thought they would add extra content.
If you try to view "Special" as hd port of a game that was stuck in old generation consoles instead of a content adder it will no longer be a problem, this is the best version for now.

Slight update : 10 years and im still playing this game everymonth if possible, getting my mind blown on every playthrough, because even now im learning new things i didn't even know exist, this game is madness not with just its mechanics and content but how much it hides its side contents on a level of crypticism that even outlevels dark souls 2, im dead serious about this.
Low playerbase doesn't really help about this issue as well yet i witnessed the Wiki slowly getting better and better through out the years, never ever i felt like i was playing this game optimal, funny enough the game was never build on playing optimal this is why everytime i think about playing this game, i can never get bored because i can always findmyself doing other things preventing me from getting bored, more than 1000 hours i still don't think i've seen everything.

Imagine playing and forging the best close combat weapon you couldn't dream of at the beginning, but you finally understood the forge system and made a weapon that can break the game, yet you still feel like you are missing, because as i said the game is not too good on explaining itself and doesn't try that much, but maybe my dedication came from this fact, i always wanted to add diffrent things to my equipments and i was always happy about the results, turning back at my first moment realising every ability the normal mobs and bosses used against me (EVERY SINGLE ONE) could also be performable by me, yes, me, with the correct items and forge paths you can turn your staffs into wands that can use everysingle boss skill, never ever i had this much fun exploring a system in game, but i will always be furious on how hard this game gatekeeped itself and its systems, can't even imagine how many players look at Rune Factory 4 trailers and screenshots and immediately skipped the game because they thought its another farming/life sim slop and its not even their mistake, failed marketization if you ask me, trying their best to gatekeep this game you players don't even need to try it, but if you manage to overcome those barriers all you see is an endless loop of content and mechanics that can easily give you seizure.

Whatever i type, i always feel like i can't describe this game enough, maybe because of language barrier i thought at first but nah, its just my words are not enough to show my love, my happiness, because this game was infused with love, with passion, ideas, dreams, tears and sweat, in everycorner of this game i see the dedication, goal of achieving the best on limited sources on a limited console, but they did it, managed to show me their goals and dreams find its target, no matter what age i turned, i appreciate this game.

Rune Factory 4 showed me with enough love and imagination you don't need million dollars to make a good game, yet, you can make the BEST game.

Thank you for this experience, thank you for everything..