Aspect Analysis – Rune Factory 4 and My Issues With The Games Themes of Acceptance

To start, I will be spoiling the hell out of this game. Though I will open with while I have some issues with how the game's themes are presented, all talk of this was left out of my full review of the game. This is because while there is certainly a degree of subjectivity in all reviews, this is getting into the territory where I don't feel entirely comfortable putting something like this in there because of just how different a person could view the same things. In short, even despite the issue I'll be talking about here the game is great, and something worth playing if my review made you at all interested.

Now on to the article proper, Rune Factory 4 has a story surrounding the guardians. Throughout the life of Native Dragon Ventaswill, she had gained close friends who chose to sacrifice themselves to prolong the Dragons' life. The cycle is eventually supposed to be broken by Lest (Or whatever the female protagonists name is, I forget), when he shows up with the 'Rune Spheres' which are capable of outputting an incredible amount of Runeys, allowing for the seal of the Guardians to be broken and freeing them.

Here is where things get a bit... odd. The Native Dragons are not Immortal, they simply live a long life. One day, like all other living creatures, they will die, and eventually, a new dragon will be born to take their place. The second arc of the story, after the Rune Spheres are gathered, sees the Sechs empire steal them in order to use their power for world domination. The whole reveal at the end of the arc is basically Ventaswill realizing she was using the Rune Spheres to selfishly become immortal not unlike their foe within the Sechs Empire. She decides it is best to return to the natural cycle of life, and her body fades and turns into Runeys to rejuvenate the land once again. It feels that, up until now, the theme of the story revolved around being able to accept one's death or the death of another.

Even the Guardians are made to realize what it is they put Venti through by becoming guardians to extend her life. The creation of the Rune Spheres to save Venti and subvert nature itself only saw even more devastation caused because of people like Sechs getting a hold of their power. We see a final goodbye between Venti and Lest before Venti returns to the Forest of Beginnings.

But then all of the third story arc sees everyone doing everything they can to revive Venti so they can all be together again and it's like nothing was learned from this whole thing. I ended up not feeling like some touching reunion took place, like someone who was unfairly taken from the world got another chance at life. Venti wasn't taken away unfairly, she was here purely because of the unnatural sacrifice of others to keep her here. It feels like you are part of an entire town of people who were simply unable to learn how to accept the passing of a dear friend, so they just..... didn't.

It's a situation where I think the game had themes that perhaps the creators didn't intend for it to have. I can't help but feel that being able to accept death was never the intention here, but when you look at the premise that Venti was kept alive so long because of sacrifices, that she was not taken away unfairly, and the abuse of the power created to keep her alive at all by Sechs, it's a theme that I don't think can be ignored regardless of how intentional.

So to see the game end like this feels kind of wrong, and it doesn't paint the happy ending for me the game seemed to want to have. I want to be clear again, it's a great game and worth playing. But it's an ending that just does not sit well with me at all.