I'd say 3.5 stars, really. It's a solid little adventure game in many ways: it has great art and style, some decent characters and plot, and some okay puzzles. But it's also pretty short, and generally easy -- aside from a few out-of-left-field solutions. The plot gets a little zany, and the relationship between the main character and her roommate/helper never makes any sense. If there were more in the series, I'd certainly give them a try, but this isn't an amazing game on its own.
I'm a big fan of tight, spatial tactical combat games (X-Com, the old Incubation, Banner Saga, even some RPGs) and this scratches that itch very nicely. It's a challenge, but can be learned: I started out losing hard, and then got the hang of it. The tactics are interesting and enjoyable to figure out. There's a puzzle element in some missions, but this really come from the mechanics of the basic game, not gimicks. Replaying with different squads is fun as well -- not something I typically say.
This is a perfectly respectable, old-school point-and-click adventure game, with character death. Puzzles are typical of the genre in style, and fairly decent -- not obscure but not too easy either -- but also pretty few. It's just not a long game, and I felt the story suffered a lot of that. Generally, story is stock sci-fi stuff, as are the characters. The art is fine, depending on taste. The humor is a bit goofy, tending to the adolescent. In the end, I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's fine; a bit dated; a little bit charming. Nostalgia may make some bump up their scores, but that doesn't to it for me. It's not that deep; and kind of zany. Just fine, really.
Unique/Good: This has a pleasant look and feel, and I appreciated the world-building. I appreciated some writing/situations/choices that were more sophisticated than typical RPG fare. I had some interest in how the characters might develop in future installments. Boring/Bad: My decisions never had any apparent impact on the plot or world. The stock JRPG elements dragged it down: combat is pretty tedious, and there's a lot of wandering around mostly empty locations in a very linear way. The main story is largely all you'll attend to. Replayability: There is theoretically promise for repeat play-throughs, as you take the lead with each of the characters and they face different decisions. But the tediousness of the basic game loops will probably stop me from doing that (whereas I was happy to play through PIllars of Eternity a couple of times, despite it being much longer). Most of the combat, etc. is not going to change. Assessment: If you like JRPGs and indie titles, it might be worth a look on sale -- as long as you don't mind some tedium. I'm at a point in my life where my patience for grinding up XP is very thin though, and it suffers for that.
Vambrace: Cold Soul takes an interesting approach, trying to meld a few gaem genres in different ways. There is exploration, some tactical combat ala JRPGs, and some basic storytelling and quest-filling, along with crafting and looting. Each of these elements if pretty light however, so players looking for a deep, gamer's RPG may be disappointed. It's also fairly hard, and fairly random. The lack of depth is a problem mostly in the combat. What many people miss initially is how the core of combat is not really character attacks and abilities, but turn character position and sequence. Unfortunately, that's not quite enough to hang a whole combat system on, and there just aren't enough decision to make. Each character has on attack and one special ability, and items can't be used in combat. It's just a little too simple. Beyond that, the game is also fairly hard, largely due to randomness -- hend the "rogue-like" designation. Some patches have eased up on this, but you may still need to retreat regularly, and restart a quest from scratch multiple times before getting through it. At least you don't have to frustratingly restart the game each time, as in some games (I'm looking at you, FTL!). Those are the downsides. The good in this game comes largely from its beautiful art, and the atmosphere and charm this creates -- the world feels fun to explore, and reading about the lore is compelling to me. It's certainly not taking itself too seriously thugh. It plays around with stock fantasy elements, blended with a pretty modern-seeming culture. There's a certain amount of cheese-cake in its art, which I have mixed feelings about: a lot of cleavage and high-heels, and even school-girl uniforms on the cat-like race. If you can forgive that, it's a great game to look at. There's also something of a story to get through, which is more than a lot of rogue-like's can boast. Those two plusses have kept me going so far, despite the random number gods' hating me.
