When a game draws from a mix of genres, there’s always an element of risk; games that spread themselves too thin can end up with something of an identity crisis, leaving you feeling both burnt out on too much content and hollow from none of the game’s ambitions having been realised to their full potential. Having not played a game in the Rune Factory series previously, but having always been curious about a franchise promising action, adventure, RPG, life sim, and resource management elements all in one, I was certain that Guardians of Azuma had the potential, at least, to be incredible.
Set in the east of the Rune Factory world, Azuma has been beset by tragedy. 50 years ago, a catastrophic event called the Celestial Collapse saw a meteor-like object crash into the land, shattering the earth and causing the power from the land’s life-giving runes to drain steadily away. The game begins in Spring Village where your protagonist has been living for the last six months, unable to remember the events of their life before that time. After a night dreaming of a battle with a black dragon and her rider, that very same black dragon comes to attack Spring Village, setting off the series of events that will see your protagonist travel the land on a quest to purify the earth, restore power to Azuma’s vanished gods, and breathe new life into the nation’s grief-stricken villages.
The story is grand and compelling, taking you on a mythology-infused hero’s journey through a realm that’s varied, pleasant, and pretty in its vistas, even if the landscapes never quite reach the level of aesthetic beauty that would take one’s breath away. The narrative has a lot more depth than the characters’ exaggerated personalities might suggest from the outset, and although there are a couple of early jokes that don’t quite land, there are plenty more that do, with the end product being a humorous adventure that’s easy to become invested in.
Restore life to Azuma’s villages along your journey
In the first part of the game, the development of the main quest storyline is a little on the slower side, but the game keeps you busy with the introduction of central mechanics such as village construction, relationship building, and combat, which are all indispensable to your success. Relationship building also lends extra depth to the narrative, and romanceable characters have their own bonding quests which help you to get to know them better. I’m not fond of simpler, gift-focused relationship systems that lean toward the transactional, and, thanks to the bonding quests and the many social activities that you can do with NPCs to grow closer, Guardians of Azuma largely never makes you feel like you’re buying your friends’ and partner’s affection. Reaching a high bond level with your party members also boosts their utility in combat, so even if you’re not keen on wooing one of Azuma’s many eligible singles, it’s well worth spending at least some time with everyone over the course of your adventures.
Some bonding quests and romance development are dependent on your progress in the main quest, and this helps to ensure a degree of synchronisation of the game’s many narrative threads, but it is nevertheless imperfectly executed. There were a few occasions where my main quest progress was a little ahead of where it seemed some of the bonding quests were supposed to be at those points, and characters would often refer to things during bonding quest cutscenes using information that was wholly outdated in the context of what they otherwise should know from the main narrative. Given how many characters there are in the game, this was easy to accidentally accomplish and it was jarring to encounter every time.
Over the course of your adventure, you also become responsible for revitalising Azuma’s villages. While at first your construction options are limited, many of the game’s quests will reward you with construction blueprints for an impressive range of craftable objects inspired by traditional Japanese culture. With the ability to place hills and waterways in addition to buildings and decorations, you can easily spend hours customising your villages to be both beautiful and functional places, and this is undoubtedly where the game’s aesthetics shine the most. I’d recommend using overhead mode for construction as much as possible, though; the default mode is a standard third-person view which makes manipulating bulky objects awkward and slow.
Social activities help to boost your bond level with NPCs
Although it may seem that you’re required to be something of a human Swiss Army Knife, taking on everyone’s miscellaneous problems and solving them single-handedly, the distinct responsibilities you have in the game do end up being remarkably synergistic. You can take a break from the main quest while building up your villages, and when you head off on your next adventure, your villages will turn an income and generate resources which you can use for further expansions and upgrades on your return. It makes for a very moreish rhythm to life in Azuma, and you will never be without something interesting to do.
The third-person, party-based combat in Guardians of Azuma is a bit more of a mixed bag. Your party members’ intelligence is sometimes lacking, especially in boss fights, and there’s no way to instruct their actions, so a lot of it comes down to crafting them decent gear and making sure they are levelled up enough to withstand enemy attacks. As for weaponry, with a choice of short and long swords, dual blades, bows, talismans, and the Sacred Treasures of the gods, there’s enough variation in the weapons available to find a loadout that works for most play styles. However, even on hard mode, some of the weapons you can access toward the end of the campaign are so independently powerful that you’ll breeze through certain encounters without breaking a sweat.
Incidental enemy encounters are satisfactory, adding some flavour and challenge to your odyssey, but by far the most satisfying aspect of combat is the boss fights. Despite some repeated foes, the game does not skimp on bosses, and it always feels awesome to pull off a couple of chained dodges, follow up with targeted attacks, and rain down heaven’s fury while your opponent is stunned and incapacitated. Mastering the dodge is essential for getting the most out of combat, as it allows you to follow up your near misses with a satisfying flurry of attacks, but it’s not without its limitations; when fighting in close quarters, you can easily dodge yourself into the water, off a cliff, or into an awkward corner, and there are many zone-locked encounters which simply do not give you enough room to make the most of your abilities.
Design your villages with homes, shops, farmland, and decorations
For an RPG that otherwise does a very good job of explaining its mechanics, there are also a surprising number of combat-relevant features which, as far as I could tell, don’t get adequately explained. For example, I could not find anywhere that the game explained my party members’ unique abilities, and while some of these (such as Cure) are self-explanatory, others (such as Summer’s Sheen: Solstice) are anyone’s guess. You can also increase your character stats, but to an extent this feels like it’s been thrown in for the sake of having it. I couldn’t find anywhere where the game explained how some of the more ambiguous stats like INT (presumably for intelligence) translated to your gameplay, and this feels like a notable omission for an RPG that lets you directly upgrade your stats’ values.
A more significant issue relating to combat, though, is that the game will often swap out the characters in your party for narrative reasons, and most of the time, it does this without clearly indicating that it has done so. This is very annoying, and it makes for a terrible surprise if you’re in the middle of a particularly tough boss fight and you realise that your strongest healer is nowhere to be found.
There are also plenty of smaller issues which in isolation may not have amounted to much, but collectively take a decent amount of polish off the game. There are glitches, such as floor tiles sometimes disappearing entirely when building on hills, some plain odd design choices, such as forcing you to sit through a series of unskippable reward animations when registering a set of completed quests at the request boards, and other issues, such as the game sometimes changing your active quest without asking for confirmation, where I simply couldn’t tell if they were intentional or not. There were noticeable frame rate drops and some occasional choppy animations as well, although I should highlight that I reviewed Guardians of Azuma on a Nintendo Switch and this issue at least is likely to be less prominent on the more powerful Switch 2 or on PC.
Follow up a dodge with a flurry of attacks to emerge victorious from enemy encounters
Final Thoughts
Despite the game’s issues, many of which I haven’t the space to detail, I could not help but keep playing. Although it feels like Guardians of Azuma would have benefited from a bit more development time, there was enough satisfaction and enjoyment in the steady cadence of explore-build-socialise-rinse-repeat that I simply didn’t want it to end. In good news for anyone sharing these sentiments, to a certain extent it doesn’t end; you can continue to explore, expand your villages, and develop your relationships in the post-game. The main gameplay components fit together like jigsaw pieces, and, if you can look past the issues, on the whole it’s a bit of an unpolished gem – multifaceted, perhaps a little scratched up, but ultimately with some value under those surface imperfections.
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch // Review code supplied by publisher
- Marvelous Inc.
- XSEED Games / Marvelous Inc.
- Switch / Switch 2 / PC
- June 5, 2026
