Incredible game, another mindless dungeon crawler in the best way possible, tons of awesome maps that look like scarred dreamscapes in some magical, post medieval parallel world. Honestly the aesthetics are giving FromSoft hardcore, excellent control scheme that allows for some really cool strategizing in the heat of battle. Definitely another monster hunter-like as it heavily rewards knowing your enemy, preparing your weapons and being as fast and as unharmed as possible leaves you with tons of extra rewards. Kinda skimpy "part-break" system that feels like it was better left unimplemented than the kinda half assed version here where you simply auto target a piece and blast away till it falls off, it's redeemed somewhat by having to balance breaking certain parts on certain runs as the health pool isn't big enough to sustain a "complete" defeat. The auto lock is super necessary though, just about every attack is somewhat ranged with the exceptions essentially being turn your arm into a giant (stone, flame, poison, wind, etc) arm and wail on the thing in front of you. It get's relegated mostly to a weed whacker for smaller units and boss spawns. Most of the boss monsters are so fast or large that you are better off grabbing something ranged and finding your moments to let off some shots. Voice acting is absolutely incredible with half the cast sounding like FromSoft characters and the others delivering on unique sounds and affects that are less gimmick and feel like fleshed out characters even though it mostly boils down to voice lines shouted in battle. The story telling is a bit bare bones but most of it is done through gameplay or in little tidbits shared through the mission briefing. The games takes influence less from the standard shinto/hindu mix of east asian mythos and focuses much more heavily on european or early american tales, featuring creative takes on werewolves, centaurs, dwarves, slimes, wraiths, etc. This lends an excellent visual style to the enemies steering away from elemental variations and instead seeming to pair the smaller units with the landscape having essentially a few different units per area, matching them with boss monsters depending on status effects, move type etc. Once again the player is rewarded tremendously for preparing ahead of time. Finally, this game offers the "Dark or Light" playthrough common to games of this era but again does something unique and creative to a typically underwhelming system. It is revealed early on that the monsters are actually mages like yourself who have succumbed to the madness of using the magic and turned into beasts themselves. The player can then choose to save this soul or banish it, earning not only upgrades towards the dark or light path, but also gaining instant buffs to magic attacks or healing when banishing or saving respectively. This allows for a lot of different play styles, while also reinforcing narrative through gameplay as the narrator will comment on your choice afterwards. The game will then repeat this choice to the player by marking it down in the book that serves as the quest menu as that beasts canonical ending. There's so much to the narrative of the game that the player then gets to participate in or experience first hand. Excellent design, amazing synergy and definitely one I will remember forever.

The MH Clone that definitely lacks the most in terms of the overall gameplay loop and other mechanics in exchange for focusing on the story and presentation which it makes up for immensely.

SSD basically presents everything through you the player, navigating a talking book to start missions, change your loadout, read enemy lore and everything else. This is also how it tells it's depressing tale on an unnamed sorcerer and his partner's descents to madness in a completely bleak world, split through multiple chapters where said sorcerer crosses paths with fellow sorcerers of different beliefs and their very unique predicaments that really get you attached to them by the end of your very brief meetings.

All the monsters are also these grotesque monstrosities that are all named after legends, mythical creatures, and fairy tale characters like Red Riding Hood, Unicorn, and Jack O' Lantern to name a few, which add a lot to the overall uniqueness of the game. Fights are then fought by using Offerings which work like spells of different kinds like charging your arm into an axe or donning an armor of stone, some spells you can even combine which make for the most unique combat system in an MH/Clone game for sure.

As for it's faults, the game definitely lacks in terms of the base gameplay loop and there's really not much to do after doing all the story chapters which can take about 40 hours. Add this to the extremely RNG Essence system which is basically your carved materials every time you kill a monster which you only get 1 of every kill, makes for a very frustrating and unfun grind when you want to get very specific things. Building a character can also get quite frustrating especially midway through the game once things get spongier if you really don't have an idea what you're doing even with grinding the games level system. I managed to actually decimate things by the end of the game after realizing how loadouts and builds should be done but it can definitely get a bit grating to feel like swinging pool noodles at monsters for 20 minutes.

All these said, it's an extremely good game and for sure one of the most unique experiences not even just by MH/Clone standards but by games in general and it's definitely sad to see it die on the vita. Definitely play it if you're able.