This is a RPG that has a tight world that expects you to take the time to explore it, and I felt like it was deep / rich enough to justify the effort. I also enjoyed that any monsters you kill stay dead, and the world and characters in it felt more responsive than I expected them to be. The combat is has weight -- nothing that stood out, but it did the job -- and I loved the art. The writing didn't engage me too much at first, but there is a turning point in the game where it finally grabbed me and made me care. Overall, I felt it was a tight game that did exactly what it intended to do, and I hope the studio gets a chance to make another game in this style!
The Trails series can be guilty of anime tropes, but usually the execution is well done enough not to be bothersome. That said, this entry in the series is one of my favorites. It does a great job letting you get to know the city-state Crossbell since the scope is tighter -- you spend most of the game running around the city and its environs -- and the characters all have credible reasons for doing what they do. If anyone is jumping into the series with this game, I strongly recommend you take time to speak with all of the random NPCs standing around after each chapter, because they all have small stories that progress throughout the game. None of its essential, but I've always loved that about this series. I've had a great time playing this, and I'm looking forward to the sequel!
I enjoyed playing this game. It does a good job capturing the feel of holding back the tide. There are sector maps where your various enemies launch attacks, and you can only address a limited number of those a turn. If you lose all 50 planets, you lose the game. I think any strategy game that requires you to write off territories to protect ones that you feel are more important is off to a good start. You can also lose missions without losing the entire game, so failure is more a matter of being pushed back before you can return and smack the bad guys around. My one recommendation is that you play the objective. If you fixate on trying to destroy all of the enemy ships, you're going to lose -- especially on the higher difficulties. I wish the game had more mission types and that the sector maps had more strategic depth, but this was an overall fun, space ships make things go boom game.
This game is a perfect example of what happens when developers have a firm grasp on the scope of their project and execute. The world is small but dense, the writing is compelling, the soundtrack and visuals drive home the setting, and you have a lot of choice on how your character handles situations. Exploring the world frequently gives you new information that opens up dialogue options and choices that impact quest outcomes, and it also gives you better gear that in turn opens up more exploration. This is a text-based adventure game that has lovely pixel art to flesh out the world. Normally, text-based / visual novel / choose-your-own-adventure games aren't my thing, but this has enough depth to its resource management and other systems that it drew me in. On top of that, it's respectful of your time and doesn't overstay its welcome. I absolutely recommend this game to anyone who loves RPGs!
As someone who greatly enjoyed Battle Brothers, I feel that this game is both easier and deeper. Even on higher diffuclty settings, it won't beat you up in combat once you grasp the mechanics, but it does a much better job than similar games of building a sense of place and letting you sink into it. It does a great job of allowing you to wander around a province, take on missions, and solve the local issues while your mercenary company grows. The only major shortcomings are: 1) that the combat / build options become limited (note I've probably sunk a clean 60 to 80 hours into this on a higher difficulty, so your mileage may vary); and 2) it does just a good enough job of the worldbuilding that the lack of reactivity becomes noticeable. For example, early in the game you can recruit a farmer who is dying of the plague and quickly cure him. Even once you cure him, however, if you go back to his wife she acts as if he's a dead man walking. A lot of the game is siloed like this, where you enter a location, complete the quest, and nothing matters after that point. I believe this is just a product of a limited budget / dev time, but it does stand out because the world is just engaging enough to make you notice. By way of a quick summary, this is good, not great, but I adore it and hope the developers get more money and more time to do the same thing better. It's clear there's real talent behind this game, and I want to see what the folks who made it can do next. Battle Brothers is a perfect, tight nugget of a game, this is sloppier and larger, but it also has more places to go. Also, it has a DLC that lets you run a tavern, and I'm the exact kind of goblin that eats that sort of stuff up!
Short version: I have a difficult, fulfilling job, so I don't need to spend my free time doing tedious crap to feel like my life has meaning. Now for the long version. I played about 5 or 6 hours -- long enough to get a feel for what this game is trying to accomplish -- and it just did not do it for me. At its heart, this is a game about exploration and learning the hard way, which I normally enjoy. For instance, I've sunk waaaaay too much time into Kenshi, I did the whole Dark Souls and Nioh 2 thing, and I enjoyed trucking through Battle Brothers and Darkest Dungeon (until the BS with the final dungeon and pointless grind it introduced). I don't have an issue with challenging games. I almost got the hook in this one: sure, the start is an unfair load of crap that just punishes you (far worse than ANY Soulslike) for not already knowing how to play the game. But there IS a moment where you start making progress, you clear a dungeon, your gear improves, and it feels like you're ready to strike out. Then something steamrolls you and you spend -- not kidding -- 30 to 45 minutes just trying to get back to home base. I put up with that once or twice, but by the third time, the design decisions sapped my enjoyment. For example, when you hit Esc, the game doesn't stop, it just brings up a menu. You have to click another button to actually pause it. That's stupid. The map doesn't show you where you are. I'm an Eagle Scout, but I have a dogwater sense of direction. Being lost isn't a challenge, it's what happens when I get delusions of grandeur and don't use my GPS. This world is not designed well enough to get away with that. To be clear, no issue with the lack of quest markers or quests requiring you to keep track of stuff on your own, but give me a dot on the map that's me so I don't have to waste time. If I was still in high school, I'd have the time to dig the fun out of this game. But I'm not, and I don't. There are better versions of this out there.
