Hallie

so.... at what point do i accept that a meta just Isn't Going To Happen?

//gestures vaguely at progress made thus far

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brought to you by: 'i just wanted to have a traditional fairytale romance otp but the deeper i got into it the more sense it made and now i'm emotional'—and other fangirl problems.

i was just thinking about rune factory 4 again, and just realized that it's a perfect foil to persona 5 (and vice versa). hear me out:

they're both the golden child of a series that's a spinoff from an established broader game series (harvest moon and shin megami tensei, respectively). they both merge daily life and dungeon crawling. they both feature dating/social sims. they both operate on a timed day/night cycle. they're both utterly fantastic too, jsyk.

the main difference is that rune factory 4 is far lighter and more forgiving than persona 5.

i'm not saying this to put persona 5 down; persona 5 has a waaaay deeper/richer story that greatly benefits from being heavy and unforgiving. in persona 5, all your actions have consequences—big, small, revocable and irrevocable. your time is harshly limited—two time consuming actions per day, no more, no less, over the course of about eight months—and wasting time or managing it badly means that you won't be able to get 100% on any given run. dating more than one person will blow up in your face. it's turn-based in almost every sense, with the game reminding you to slow down and think things through at nearly every, well... turn because your actions have consequences.

the whole theme of the game is 'actions have consequences.' your given objective is to punish adults whose 'actions' have had unforgivable 'consequences.' almost, if not all of your friends are victims of someone or other, even if only of their past selves. you yourself are in tokyo because you're under probation for playing hero and pissing off an influential politician. it gets dark and heavy, and it's fascinating for it.

in contrast, rune factory 4 forgives... pretty much everything.

you can date all six bachelors or bachelorettes at once, and the worst you'll get is a mild jealousy dialogue once in a while. you operate on a clock, it's true, but you have 24 hours in a day and you can divvy those up however you want. there are no time limits on anything—even your crops won't wither once they're out of season like they will in other harvest moon/rune factory games. you can only kill your crops through neglect (not watering them for 2-3 days in a row, depending), and even if you do? you can easily buy more seeds and try again. if you're out of money, you can scavenge things to sell. if you 'die' scavenging, you'll wake up in the clinic and have to pay the doctor a few G (currency) for saving you (and even then not always; if the doctor's wife is the one you wake up to, she'll waive the fees). debt isn't a thing. the very worst you can do to your game is set yourself back at zero, and there are no deadlines on building yourself back up again. i'm not even sure it's possible to get a game over outside of plot-important boss battles.

you can't make enemies out of your friends, only friends out of your enemies. if you say, 'fuck man, i just wanna water my turnips for a few weeks,' the game says, 'oh sweet, u go water those turnips bro.' if you want to grind for 72 hours straight, it's got your back on that too. (like, it won't help you much if you're not advancing the story because the level stat gains are pathetic, but you can do it, so.) nothing is missable, nothing is lost forever, and the only way to go is up.

i'm not sure i can pin down the message exactly (maybe 'the only way to go is up' works?), but it's very loving, very quiet, and very gentle. even without being turn-based, rune factory 4 encourages you to take your time—in the sense of, 'take your time, because you've got all the time in the world.'

the cost is, of course, style and flair and drama and tension. rune factory 4 will never, ever hold a candle to the sheer classiness of persona 5. delicate flowery fantasy aesthetic is pretty nice too, though.

long story short:
if you want a warm hug and a blanket and some cookies, pick up rune factory 4.
if you want a high-flying adventure with swagger and heartbreak, pick up persona 5.
if you want both... try the paper mario games. :D

((note: this post will be reviewed for better wording when i'm awake again))