The game starts nice, but the history turns around 180 degrees in the last part of the game to provide a "twist" This changes the game from an space exploration setting to another thing, and the game is not improved by it. The duration and the price, especially in sale is correct. The puzzles are ok and there is no difficult or obnoxious puzzles.
pro's: pixel art is nice, the game is well voiced and the setting, characters and history are interesting. It feels like playing a sci-fi short novel. For a point and click game the puzzles are logical, almost always self-explanatory and there are no crazy combinatory-guess puzzles. two small considerations: - the first is that the game is short, not a problem, just saying (5-6 hours the first run). - the second is that there is only one autosave by game. This is not a problem, just saying it.
this game is good, very good the history unfolds slowly at the start but the gameplay is fun, mixing exploration, a bit of adventure and jrpg (with combat usually being on the easy side) the characters are lovable, there is humour, and you can bypass the outdated graphics because at least the ui is good enough and the movement are fluid only small issures are that once in a combat you cannot load and you cannot skip or accelerate animations in any way but they are very small issues compared to the good things in the game
the game offers an open world with a lot of items to trade and adventures and quest to have (i am pretty sure that they are there) then it puts between that and you as much as unfairness and frustration as it can because the entire world is against you you try to move from A to B and are assaulted constantly, I have been attacked after having dodge one spanish and one british fleet to end being attacked by pirates.... (and i was using the start game option fewer encounters, that has to be a joke....) the naval combat, it starts with your ship stopped and the enemy ship going 2x your speed, and there is no way to flee, only option is to start boarding ships. no mechanic to easily flee makes the game slow and breaks your fun And the moment that boarding starts, you are on your own, my record is 1 versus 8 in a battle 4 hours after having started the game. uninstalling it (only good thing is that discounted is affordable and at least now i know that i should not buy similar games of the series) with less enemy ships constantly attacking you and without all the entire caribbean sea attacking you it could have been fun
the combat system of the game is designed against the player, there are limits put in the player that are not in the enemies, especially in: 1: the number and power of the summons. 2: number of attacks. 3: resistances and strength 1. summons: according to internet history, creator of the game nerfed the player summonings but did not nerf the computer enemies. This results in making you summon one monster per char which is weak and the enemies will summon between 5 and 6 enemies way powerful than anything you can muster. any enemy mage is a chore due to this. do you fight against 3-4 demons? prepare yourself, in one turn you will have 3-4 hasted demons plus 10-20 high level summons. 2. attacks: you attack multiple times based on your stats with a very low CHANCE to trigger a second attack, the enemies have multiple attacks set by design that always trigger, this is made even worse by the next point. 3. normal enemies are ok, they are clearly weaker than you, but the special enemies, that is, demons, high level enemies and bosses are unbalanced in how they deal damage and resist. Basically if you can have 12-14 str at the end of the game, these enemies behave like they had 40 str (which is basically unattanaible to you) . the same with your resistances versus theirs. probably if you are looking at this game is because you like old school feeling and this game has that plus an excellent lore and a ux that honestly has aged very well and makes playing the game very smooth if one has into account its age but this is clearly a game that has not been player tested in any way and that most of the combats after the middle of the game are beaten through over leveling and trial and error. my experience is from playing hard difficulty. the hardest difficulty is called "tormentum" and the name is spot on.
