Rune Factory 3 Special: Digital Deluxe Edition

The real draw here is simply the ability to play Rune Factory 3 on a console that doesn't have 'DS' in its name-about 90% of the experience is exactly the same as the original, and that remaining 10% doesn't exactly cover a whole lot. Luckily, Rune Factory 3 is and always was a great farm sim/RPG hybrid, and it's something that we can still easily recommend to new and returning players alike. That said, if you fall into the latter group, we'd encourage you to consider carefully how much you want to shell out to replay this on modern hardware. It's a great game, but it's effectively the same thing as your DS copy. Still, it's good to see a return to form after the rather uneven Rune Factory 5. If you're looking for another very solid farm sim to add to your Switch library-and you haven't played it before-this is definitely one to consider.

Rune Factory 3 Special brings a fan favourite entry into the modern era relatively untouched, for better or worse.

Rune Factory 3 Special is a great preservation of the original, but would have benefitted from a lot more fine-tuning.

While it may not have all the whistles and bells of Rune Factory 4 or 5, this delightful remaster of 3 is a welcome addition to the continued trend of bringing back older enjoyable titles for more to get their hands on.

Marvelous have absolutely succeeded in making Rune Factory 3 Special endearing to newer fans despite some obvious differences compared with the newer Rune Factory titles. It remains a great blend of RPG farming and fighting, the latter can be focused on for farming aficionados, holding off main story progression until it is desired. The comprehensive post-game content that is not conditional on various requirements only adds to the experience. Let's hope Rune Factory 1 and 2 receive similar treatments in the future!

If you love the entire package of story, farming, combat, exploration, and characters, you could spend 50 to 70 hours playing the main game before even getting to the 11 Newlywed Mode chapters.

Rune Factory 3 Special is a solid remaster of an older Rune Factory title from the Nintendo DS years. It’s been modernized and the core gameplay loop of farming, crafting and dungeon crawling holds up very well. In fact, this same core gameplay look features in a lot of games these days with Cult of the Lamb springing to mind immediately.

I love my casual little farming games, and Rune Factory always scratches the itch for me. Even though numerically we’re going backwards from the other games already on the Nintendo Switch, Rune Factory 3 Special is a very welcome addition to the platform and a healthy return for the Nintendo DS game. With less emphasis on combat, although there is plenty of it there should you want to make it a focus, it feels a lot more casual and focused on relationship building.

We're not sure if this is the best Rune Factory game available on Switch, but what we're definitely sure of is that the changes to the DS version are all for the better and that the game is still as enjoyable and relaxing as it was some 14 years ago.

At its core, Rune Factory 3 Special maintains the elements of the original fans know and love, but doesn't do a lot to innovate beyond its graphics.