I was super excited for this game. I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, it has a lot of of 'roguelike' problems. And unfortunately this game also has problems from the 'looter shooter' variety. The battle mechachanisms are also really dull, so you end up basically doing the same thing for every fight. It feels like they didn't have enough to make a full game so instead, they padded it out with grind-based looting mechanics, that really you don't even need that much. In a game where I was expecting things to feel slow, it feels like you're just going through the motions and the whole thing feels like a slog. Mechanically, and storywise I'm sold more. If the battle systems were fleshed out a lot more it wouldn't be so middling. Not being able to automate at least a little bit of buying/selling stuff for ages also is kind of a problem. Again it feels like it's so late, just to make the game feel longer, and the game needed to feel shorter.
I really enjoyed most of my time with this game, but it is a huge mess. Localization is terrible, Text doesn't match audio, buggy, some bad boss design in particular 2 where you can be almost screwed by just blindly having the wrong team members. I really hoped this game was good, and I'm glad I at least enjoyed it. There's a lot of cool ideas, one of the better implementations of Time Nonsense, which I usually hate. A lot of the NPC's actually look cooler than main characters which is interesting. Unfortunately there's not enough reason and skills to justify making use of a lot of the cooler ideas. Really, this game needed 6 months more of QA fixing and like a year more of fleshing out the systems. I'd be interested if they did a remake at some point or something, but considering how many good RPG's there are its kind of hard to recommend this one.
I really like this game but it has some issues, a few logic leaps, and some bad english/typos in some places. It is a short game, but was actually longer than I thought, and has multiple endings. That said having to redo stuff is going to be slow/slower without a proper save system, though you do get a chapter select which helps with collectibles. A lot of the hacking stuff doesn't *really* make sense either, but that's fine. Some time waiting wasting and stuff, and repeating sequences is *really* annoying if you didn't do something right the first time (and some pictures are small enough that you can easily miss if you have a problems with that sort of thing.) Music drops out sometimes, and some alerts don't clear properly. I can understand why people don't like the ending but I think the [spoilers] in one ending is interesting considering it can be interpreted two ways. Some of the stuff in world doesn't make much sense. The worst bit is probably some of the design; you can loop some annoying sounds on some places accidentally, and some placement of stuff is unknowable until you hit it and get annoying sound effect. There's also a *really* pointless pronoun piece in the game. I kept waiting for it to come into play and it never does, it's literally just a useless data point, which is annoying. All that said I loved the game. Like the art, loved the story for the most part. Music is servicable, and has a few *REALLY* good moments.
I love this game but it has a lot of problems. First and foremost for me was a lot of design problems that could be fixed via options, that are there for better representation/simulation. The problem is if I'm/people are put off by it, they won't experience any of that. So I'll leave the camera, FOV, wobbling, and flashing with no option to even tone it down some out of this, just with the note that at one point it got bad enough that I almost threw up. I understand it is there for a reason, and am glad its there, but not having the ability to tone it down to a point where I can tolerate it is a misstep. What is badly designed though is a lot of the rest of the game. There's some bloat in combat, one of the best moments in the game should have been more at the end but instead there's a whole section and a half interrupting it. The most egregious to me thing though is how badly paced triggers for things are. You'll have long forced walking segments (and your movespeed in the game is low even when running, it could do with a bit of an increase), with no dialogue, and then hit a dialogue trigger with another manual activated dialogue trigger, which just means I'm standing listening to dialogue and waiting for it to end. There are a ton of points like this in the game where dialogue should be running in forced segments. Those manual dialogue trigger elements are also a problem in where some of them are placed. Some are easily missable, and having stuff like that is a mistake in a game as important as this (same with achievements). A lot of stuff I feel like is wrong is because they went for artistic/filmic styles of stuff, while neglecting the fact its a game, and did some of the gaming stuff badly. If this game was shored up it'd be fantastic, and narratively/representationally I loved this, but it just falls to average when it comes to design altogether sadly.
This game is pretty fun, definitely a step up from the average (but still fun!) Alwa's Awakening. Largely built and designed well, but there's definitely a few problems that still need fixing. Two dungeons are badly designed, and there's some unclarity with early spell upgrades and what they do with no real hint or use until way later in the game. The open world aspect really works for the game though it's not quite as open as it could be, there's a few places that you need logically to do in order still, so it's kind of a miss on how those fit together with the main free flow area of most the game. Still, the games a joy, much less cumbersome than the previous. Good for a good 10-15 hour romp / playthrough (and you may want to do 2)
This game is REALLY bad. The only reason it's not 1 star is because it functions as a game at least. People will say 'it's hard, it's complex, it's super hardcore, you didn't understand the game'. That's probably true for an average player, but even if you do understand the game, it's STILL a bad game. Man where do I start. Story, music, audio, sfx, are all terrible. Even the audio queueing is terrible. No basic options, runs in a bad framerate. Characters are almost all either dull, or disgustingly bad, especially when you hit generation 3, where the worst character in the game and the MC of the generation basically become the same shit character. The english is bad, it goes for like medival but not quite english and some places the translations so bad even I with no actual experience or knowledge can tell what's being said is very different than what's written. There's two saving graces; the art, by which I mean the the character art, and the battle system idea. But not the actual battle system. The battle system fails from the UI and every step of the way. Conflicting design choices, things requiring multiple requirements to employ because they designed it all to be arranged around the linking of characters. Information, guides, damage, etc are all half assed presented if it's even there, the main parts of the battle system have no real information you'd want. Even equipement staggering for slots is done badly; got a character you want to use x skill on? well you can't until 40 hours into the game because, guess what there's also a really bad crafting system in the game and you can't get a weapon with the skill slot you want on the character you need until that late. So when people say that there's a 'lot of customization' they're wrong, they just lucked the setups they wanted to do were available at the time. Crafting UI is terrible, doesn't tell you what you've crafted (which is important because you can buy from the store afer you done so)
Really enjoyed this game a lot. The first half of the game is fantastic. Second half though really needs some work (annoying minor backtracking, jungle area , etc.) Has some problems with repeated slightly different content (there's 2 warp room sections, and 2 mazes, in a game this short/small is REALLY annoying/noticable, especially when two are pretty close to eachother). The games also buggy as hell. I hardlocked twice, almost immediately discovered a pointless zip, things like that. Also annoying is you have to skip tutorial to break out of it, so it feels like you can accidentally some things right at the start, you don't learn about until later. That said this game is really cool. Loved the story, even though one of the 'twists' really kinda killed one of my favourite things in the game. Back half of the games mechanics are really sloppy, it kinda has the Evoland problem of not really fleshing them out properly. If they ever polish up this game it'll be for sure be up there higher rated, but it is sadly mediocre as a whole package, which is a shame for what's a really largely fun/interesting game.
I notoriously hate everything, because I don't give shit a pass because I like it. This game is a short RPG but it's REALLY good. It's not super complex. It sets out exactly what it wants to do and does it almost completely well. Some map issues that could have been shored up, I think there's at least one mistake in the text, and the only major complaint I have is super late in game in regards to one thing that *requires* bruteforcing when it should have even a slight bit of hinting either to solution or that its needed to bruteforce. This also might be my favourite game that does stereotypical dickhead elves really well. Writing-wise is fine, amusing no big plot twists or anything. One thing that does bother me in the writing is some characters getting an undeserved free pass on some blame/actions they take in the story, which I found infuriating, but isn't necessarily bad. Music didn't stand out for the most part but it isn't bad or annoying. But when it did stand out to me it stood out hard. It says it's Open World, but if Open World games worked like this they wouldn't be so bad, so don't be put off by that. Class/setups seem like they'd be all viable minus maybe 100% tank on one character like I did (it was still viable, but having no AOE guard still meant I couldn't full tank). Skill choices were fun, consumables weren't massively useful, but I will bet they will be when I go back for expert. One of my favourite RPG's and comes very close to a post game I'm looking for in an RPG.
did devs run out of time/money for the second half? Not bad, pretty fun. glad unlocks weren't stats. Really awful last "boss" section. And there's a very obvious point halfway through the game that's almost done well just from levl design but reused objective locations didn't do a refresh that's needed. Good fun, and I hear the second is better so I'm looking forward to that. Somewhat shaky mechanics sometimes also need a brushup, but otherwise it's passable. Also some things are just forced ability sections which I'm not a fan of. Not a big deal as that's preference, but when it's just 'seeing' its a problem.
This game is is just wholy unfortunate and is my new example of the Arkane Studios problem of failing basic mechanics that hinder the game. It's an extreme how unfortunately bad the mechanics are. I've aimed bounces off straight walls and have had them go completely straight in the opposite direction. Easy to get stuck, combat is clunky as shit awful dodge, can't rebind the stupd default controls, the list goes on (unclear elevation that interrupts flow, a horrific autojump, overdesigned maps which I wager people will find to be 'good' design, but there needed to be some constraining) . The world(s) makes very little sense, and the story kinda ends up being really bad which is unfortunate cause its pretty interesting if a little standard for what it is, The DLC does not help. The side minigames are universally awful. Thankfully some of them once you realize if you ignore what are supposed to be the mechanics they're really piss easy. Where this game shines is its puzzles, the condesnsed maps and dungeons. If they had focused on that aspect instead of making a really bad 'mmo' game it would have been the game everyone says it is. I enjoyed the game when it works but fighting the systems so often destroyed any chance this had at being an average/above average game. Music is pretty good, or fantastic. Art is really good. Last....lets say half of story, and the lackluster mechanics destroy what should have been one of the best games I've played.
