4.5/5 ★ – JayTheCh1cken's review of Rune Factory 3 Special.

Perhaps the most 'Rune Factory' Rune Factory game, if that makes any sense. I can see why this game is the fan favorite among the series, with how nice and speedy everything is. You're thrown into Sharance with the familiar four seasonal dungeons (which quite scared me after just playing through RF2 and all the troubles THOSE dungeons brough me), but they aren't long or difficult to get through as long as you have up to date equipment (which isn't hard to get and DOESN'T require you to grind your smithing skill to a crazy degree). No, the dungeons aren't really the main focus as much as raising your relationship levels with the girls in town, finding gifts for them every day to keep unlocking more and more quests. Speaking of, while the townsfolk in this game weren't all that appealing to me starting out, most grew on me the further I got into the game, kind of like a reverse of my RF2 playthrough? Having marriage almost be a game-long sidequest really forced me to focus on getting to know the bachelorettes but still able to take a break from grinding gifts for them whenever I'd get tired, a happy medium from RF2 (Okay I don't mean to keep bringing this game up but its very good to compare to) where marriage is required before you can even really start the game, and RF4 where you can ignore it entirely. Honestly, the game might've give you TOO much marriage candidates though, and only being able to do 2 quests a day makes things a little hard to stay on top of if you are trying to romance multiple girls. This also leads to some girls getting lost in the shuffle when you just can't keep up with them, Daria and Kuruna asking to be forgotten with how they live outside of town. I don't have any smooth way to transition into talking about being able to punch people as a sheep, but I like punching people as a sheep. Too bad the sheep combat gets outclassed extremely quickly with no way to increase your damage other than grinding and raising your stats the old fashioned way. That's about it, really. My only major criticism is the end of the game becomes a slog after you beat the 4th dungeon, as you have to wait multiple days to set up the Amity Fair to get your bouquet and then you have to wait many MORE days for the Amity Fair to even happen and blah blah blah I just want stuff to happen. Other than that, this is a great 'finale' for classic Rune Factory before RF4 came out and blew everything before it out of the water. Yay for 2nd place, I guess?