5 Beginner Tips for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma Guide

The latest entry in the Rune Factory series is finally here, providing players with satisfying hack-and-slash action, deep crafting and building mechanics, as well as a dash of dating sim, as a little treat.

Guardians of Azuma puts players in the shoes of an earth dancer, prophesized to be the one who will finally save the lands and restore the world after the earth was shattered and the gods of nature vanished.

Being put into such an important position can be a little daunting at first, which is why we compiled some beginner tips to make your life as an earth dancer a little easier. Below you can find our top five tips for those starting out in Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma.

Forging bonds

The bond system in Guardians of Azuma allows players to forge relationships and get to know the village’s residents better. Every major NPC has a bond level that can be increased, some of which even resulting in romance events.

Increasing your bond with a character unlocks combat skills and more info about them, such as their likes and dislikes, which makes it easier to give them gifts. A character’s birthday is an especially good time to buy them a gift, as you’ll get an even bigger increase to your bond, so make sure to check the calendar often.

When running out of quests, the “Let’s hang out” option also provides a substantial increase to your bond, and can be performed once a day with every character. This is really useful to increase your bond in the early game, alongside using the Dance of Bonds skill enabled by the Plum Branch artifact.

Experience is shared

If combat is a little too difficult for you, consider putting in the time to solve some of your village quests and local requests for experience. A percentage of experience gains, including those that come from farming and gathering, can be used to increase your combat skills, or vice-versa.

By going to sleep every day, your daily actions are tallied, including combat, walking, fishing, harvesting and more, with each action contributing to your all-purpose experience. All-purpose experience can be used to upgrade any node on your skill tree, and is separate from the experience you gain by using weapons or sacred treasures.

Rune Factory lets you take your time, as you can simply go to sleep and continue farming for the next day if you don’t feel like moving forward through the main quests just yet, so there’s no need to rush things if you don’t feel prepared.

Elemental damage matters

All enemies encountered in the lands of Azuma have an elemental association, meaning they can take either increased or reduced damage depending on the element you use to attack them.

The easiest way to check if an enemy is weak to the element you are using is to pay attention to the color of your damage numbers. If they are grey, that means you are doing reduced damage, if they are white, that means you are doing regular damage, and if they are orange, that means you are doing critical damage.

Your elemental damage can change depending on which sacred treasure you are holding, so it’s important to always pay attention to what you have equipped and how it can either help or hinder you during combat.

Daily routines are important

Guardians of Azuma has light elements of automation thanks to the worker system, allowing you to assign each villager with a job so they can harvest, mine and chop wood for you, however, they aren’t as talented as an earth dancer.

It’s important to not neglect your village, as there are daily tasks that require you to be present, as well as activities that go smoother if you perform them. By using the Terra Tiller tool, it’s possible to enter an overhead view mode, which allows you to quickly plant, water and harvest your crops without time passing, something you should definitely do once a day to ensure maximum profit.

It’s definitely not difficult to profit in Guardians of Azuma, as the game is reasonably forgiving when it comes to the micro-managing of each village, but paying attention to its systems closely definitely makes it so you can avoid grinding later on, as you’ll have a surplus of important materials and gold already stocked when quests require them.

All sacred treasures can be used during combat

It might seem like some of your sacred treasures are only there to increase your bond with certain characters or speed up your crop production, but they actually have incredibly useful skills during combat, which can be upgraded through the talent tree.

Guardians of Azuma turns into a party-based RPG as you take out characters that you bonded with into the combat areas, and every instrument has multiple skills that can either buff your allies or deal massive damage to enemies as you build up spirit by fighting.

A lot of the higher level enemies you see roaming around can also have their attacks interrupted by the Drum Dance skill, letting you knock them down and keep them stunned for much longer while performing combos. This allows you to defeat enemies you probably shouldn’t even be fighting early in the game, like the giant axe-wielding red oni outside of spring village.

And that’s about it, we hope you get a lot of use out of these tips and make the best out of your position as Azuma’s newest earth dancer. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a surprisingly deep JRPG with a lot of charm and a colorful cast of characters, so it’s definitely worth giving it a try.

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is available on Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows (through Steam). If you want to know more about the game, consider taking a look at our review.

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Fan of skeletons, plays too many video games, MMO addict, souls-like and character action enthusiast.


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