Fifty years ago, the land of Azuma shattered into dozens of floating islands during the Celestial Collapse. Worse still, the "runes" which sustain the world are draining away. As the Earthdancer, it's your job to revive the gods, renew the runes, and reverse this ecological disaster.

Quite the mess for a hero to clean up, eh?

To crudely mash concepts together, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma feels a bit like Breath of the Wild blended with Stardew Valley. At its core, this game is an action RPG about exploring regions and defeating boss monsters while on a quest to save the world.

This gooey center is coated in layers of town management, catching monsters, and a dating simulator. (Plus discovering a lot of food recipes.) Each ingredient has its quirks, but baked together the result is quite palatable.

Guardians of Azuma's in-game clock drives an addictive "one more day" gameplay. Running in real-time, this necessitates juggling activities based on when monsters come out, NPC travel cycles, and in-game events.

Further, each aspect of the game rewards you for getting involved in other activities. Adventuring isn't much of a money-maker, but the collect-a-thon objectives unlock new recipes for buildings and gear. Building up a town rewards you with bonus stats for adventuring. The dating sim does a bit of both, boosting a party member's stats and providing useful recipes.

This cyclical feedback loop feels fantastic. Nearly everything you do in Guardians of Azuma boosts a different gameplay element. Even if one piece feels tedious, at least your favorite bit gets a reciprocal reward.

In addition to leveling up from killing monsters, you also gain skill XP. Each weapon and each "practical activity" has a tree of perks to purchase with this XP.

Interestingly, herding monsters doesn't have its own skill tree, despite being a distinctive feature of the Rune Factory series. This may be because befriending monsters is unlocked in the Autumn Region, a bit over 10 hours into the game.

This is supplemented by "all-purpose XP" generated by your daily activities, which you can spend anywhere. This contributes to the overall gameplay loop by catching up unused and new abilities. Or, you can bank the all-purpose XP to buy powerful perks more quickly.

This flexible XP is a lovely bit of design. It invites players to make meaningful choices, but also reduces grinding. Paced at a slow—but steady—rate, all-purpose XP helps each day feel satisfying.

Azuma's islands are designed for free-roaming exploration. The areas vary in size, with a strong focus on the four large "regions" connected to your quest to revive the seasonal gods. Each is open-ended, and features at least one more linear sub-area—your standard boss dungeons.

Guardians of Azuma encourages exploration with a variety of collectibles. Similar to Zelda games or a Metroidvania, you'll often return to an earlier area and use new tools to pick up the last few objectives.

However, this strong exploration focus is deeply marred by the game's map. Almost everything you'll want to hunt down is marked on the map, allowing you to just jog on by and pick it up.

While I'm not sure that we need the frustrating hunts of the 90s—looking at you, Gold Skulltulas—this map definitely spoils some of the fun. On the upside, in later regions, getting to a collectible is often a challenge.

In full honesty, the platforming is a bit jank. Jumps rarely feel wholly impossible, but some can be pretty vexing. For example, sometimes you have to guesstimate your angle because the camera is in the middle of a bush.

On the upside, you can absolutely Skyrim around some obstacles. Some of the most satisfying moments I've had in Guardians of Azuma are landing jumps where I clearly was supposed to come back after unlocking gliding.

In contrast, the combat in Guardians of Azuma is pretty tame. Since the game offers Easy, Balanced, and Hard, I initially played "Balanced" to get a feel for the game's intended experience.

After playing for about 20 hours, I had used exactly two consumables during boss fights. So I bumped it up to "Hard," and … it's fine? I'm no Soulsborne gamer, but playing on Hard at least I have to pay attention to my party's health.

That said, should Guardians of Azuma be difficult? In an environment where FromSoft clones and rogue-likes continue to thrive, it's easy to assume "yeah, good games are challenging."

I disagree. Hard feels good in this game because the added difficulty makes you use consumables produced by your town. That contributes to the overall loop. While this game's Hard setting ought to be the default, Guardians of Azuma wouldn't benefit from being any harder.

A more substantial flaw is the combat's simplicity. Your main weapon is described as having a "combo" of clicking Left Mouse four times (or the respective controller's input). You can hold down to charge up an attack, and can gain an "ultimate" attack which deals extra damage on a fifth click. You avoid attacks by tapping Shift to dodge which, if timed correctly, gives a window of "bullet time" for reprisals.

As you progress, you gain elemental "Sacred Treasures" which activate on Right Click (and "combo" in a similar fashion). Sacred Treasures deal a ton of damage, but also cost rune points (RP) to activate.

Fighting builds up a Spirit bar, which can be used to activate a Sacred Treasure's spells. These are so cool and awesome that I … often forget they exist. I accidentally one-shot the first boss with the Earth Drum's Flower Storm, but the spells haven't done much ever since.

In combination, each fight feels pretty much the same. Bosses forecast AOE attacks and have a Stun gauge. When the gauge is full, the boss freezes and takes extra damage. Consequently, the only combat tactic in Guardians of Azuma is "spam Left Click until the boss is stunned, then run in and spam Right Click."

On the higher difficulty, the enemies' extra HP and damage make combat more satisfying because you can't blindly tank damage. Dodging feels relevant. Even if it isn't awful, combat in Guardians of Azuma lacks dynamism or variety.

Guardians of Azuma's story and setting are unashamedly Japanese. If you like anime tropes and Shinto themes, this game is your comfort food. If you don't love Japanese culture, this game is probably a hard sell.

Put politely, the story's opening is … rough. Eight major NPCs are introduced in less than an hour—and they can all be party members. A large cast can be great, but this rapid pace blurs the line between stereotype and caricature.

After completing the Spring Region (around the five-hour mark), I had a rather sour opinion of the game's writing. Perhaps it's some version of Stockholm Syndrome, but I do feel the characterization and dialogue improved the further I played.

Rough intro aside, the large cast works well once all four regions are unlocked. NPCs travel to other villages frequently, establish relationships, meet for events, and follow their own schedules. It takes awhile, but the world comes alive as the cast expands.

"Bonding quests" strengthen the characterization of romanceable NPCs. These are basically comedic or dramatic skits featuring a brief narrative punctuated with a fetch quest or boss fight. While the characters mostly remain stereotypes, these quests successfully enrich them with motive and emotion.

To be fair, I find it hard not to compare Guardians of Azuma's dating-sim elements to the dating-sim in Persona 5. And that's a high bar.

Guardians of Azuma's storytelling is occasionally mediocre—especially in the beginning—but it's easily on par with the typical shonen anime. The writing is often better, and it's certainly less cringey.

The English voice actors deserve some serious kudos. Their performances utilize the whole spectrum of emotion, adding humor, gravitas, and affection throughout the game. Guardians of Azuma's excellent voice acting strengthens the whole game.

Although the separate gameplay elements have notable flaws, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma deftly weaves them together into an addictively fun loop. This game is so, so close to being a spectacular RPG. It's a truly impressive example of "the whole is greater than its parts." For me, it's a brilliant weekend RPG—a laid-back game that will keep you playing "just one more day" for hours. If Zelda plus Stardew Valley sounds fun, I recommend Guardians of Azuma. If that combo doesn't excite you, give it a pass.