I really wanted to like this game but, with a broken heart, must give it a pass. There is a lot of squandered potential here, and the word of the day is "clunky." [b][u]Combat[/u][/b] feels awkward and bland. The main character feels "heavy" to control, the animations don't feel like they land right, and the range of attacks isn't clear. Getting swarmed by more than 3 enemies is frustrating. [b][u]Interface,[/u][/b] likewise, is extremely unpolished in many subtle ways that quickly add up. The default button mapping feels weird. The lack of feedback is haunting ("wait, did my button press actually do anything?"). You can't rotate the camera. There is no setting screen; only a main menu button which instantly takes you back to main menu (with no prompt) making you lose all progress. But the worst issue is the [b][u]humor[/u][/b]. It simply isn't very funny. The comedy is over-delivered, as if the writers were not confident in their jokes, so instead of a neat punch-line they over-explain the whole joke with walls of text. The F-bombs are too frequent - instead of accentuating a punchline, they come off juvenile. The "pop references" are less of a satire than just that, a reference to a trope. For example, I just met a few Final Fantasy characters and their lines basically boil down to "You know how I'm famous for doing X? Well, look at me doing X! Haha, isn't that trope funny!" It's the writing equivalent of pointing and laughing at RPGs, rather than coming up with clever ways of poking fun at them. Similarly, the [b][u]visual gags[/u][/b] are spoiled by equally clunky cutscenes. Awkward animations, pauses between movements, generic camera angles, text that's sometimes too small to read, etc. All those things make the gags come off flat. Yes, there were a few points that made me chuckle, but overall, the experience is frustrating and underwhelming. Bummer :/
I'm some ~5 hours in and finding the game really boring. There is no arch or story as of yet, the protagonists are new Guild recruits just running around completing quests to earn higher rank. And even those are just mediocre RPG fair - rescue kids lost in a tower, exterminate monsters on a farm, deliver a package from a mine (which invariably gets swarmed with monsters). There's hints of something looming on horizon and character past, but nothing to drive the story forward. The writing/dialogue also falls into the overly long and cutesy JRPG fare, so I see myself quickly skipping through chunks of it. Shame, since the Orb/Quarts character customization and battle mechanics seem to have potential later on. Although right now the battles are tedious, fighting similar generic monsters that are just tad too difficult (having to use rest stops or healing items after nearly every battle). Lastly, the game is buggy - sometimes the item descriptions will not show up, and the game launches with no audio at random times until you restart. I will give it a bit more time (I am completing the last guild quest now so hopefully SOMETHING happens after), but so far not too impressed.
