I don't like to go hard on games like this, but as someone who is ostensibly the exact target audience for this(ex-tumblr lesbian jrpg fanatic), its awful and basically the exact opposite of what to make a faux-jrpg as.

To start, lets get the combat out of the way. Its a mix of Paper Mario and Battle Network, except somehow lamer and significantly slower than either of them. Even trash encounters take 3-5 minutes because you spend an inordinate amount of time walking up to hit the guy only for them to jump away immediately. Combined with the generally low combat numbers and high HP pools of enemies, in addition to the action button combat making it so you can't speed up combat its just a miserable slog. By the halfway point of the game, I just turned on the "instant win all combat" button, except that STILL makes you wait until the protagonist's turn in-combat to activate so you're still sitting there 30 seconds each fight waiting. That alone killed any momentum in the game for me.

Next, the world. You'd think a Magic School would be a slam-dunk setting for a jrpg--lots of fun themes and tropes you can choose from, quirky npcs to encounter, etc etc. Ikenfell does a very bold move here and makes the entire map a dungeon. Besides one tavern at the start of the game(and ceases to be relevant 10% of the way in), there is no real "towns" or calm places. You walk into the school courtyard, which is a dungeon, which leads you to the dorms, which are a dungeon, which leads you to the botany labs, which are a dungeon, and so on. There is functionally no "downtime" from the combat portion of the game, you are just shuttled from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon. There also aren't really any npcs to deal with, no sidequests to handle, nothing of the sort. Just large dungeons bereft of anything interesting or exciting. This game is honestly a masterclass in how not to pace your game, the constant slog of enemy encounter after encounter just removes any tention or interest the game could have.

But surely, I thought, this game should be heartfelt. Perhaps to someone younger, it might be, but I could not connect with any of these characters. The most interesting one is the hot-blooded lightning lesbian, in part because she does something besides mope around the entire game. The writers focused so much on either the grander Plot stuff or the traumas the various characters have that any sense of comradery or fun is lost. And like, you can make characters who just mope around all the time--I recently played Tales of Berseria, where the main character is a deeply traumatized young woman who spends 80% of the game with coping with that trauma, but there she's surrounded by people who don't take things as seriously and the game isn't afraid to clown on her from time to time. The plot itself is also generally whatever, its basically just a collect the macguffin plot to lead you from place to place. It doesn't even really use the setting in any interesting way.

An odd note as well is that there's three vocal themes in the game, all of which belong to later-game party members who's function is just not plot-critical. Which, its fine, I love hip hop and am a huge sucker for vocal themes but its a weird choice. None of the main characters, just these three weirdos. It feels like a bit of a waste of dosh, but like sure why not.

What actually gets me is one of the songs has a lot of references to real life figures like Martin Luther or Bob Ross, and it took me out so much. Like, the game pretty expressly does not take place on Earth so..???? Petty concern, for sure, but its actually funnily enough the thing that stuck with me the most.

All in all, a waste of talent and time by all involved. I feel bad because every lesbian-themed western indie jrpg seems to disappoint(even Christine Love's Get in the Car didn't hit the marks it should have), and I don't want this to be the case because, well, thats me.

But that's the world we live in. Its a pity.

So I should probably start this off by saying that uhhh this game did not play particularly nice with my Switch for whatever reason. Every time I put it into sleep mode and then pulled back out, it had to find the controllers again and then sometimes it would freeze instead of just delaying getting the game going again? I genuinely don’t know if this is a weird problem that literally only happened to me or what since I haven’t seen anyone else talk about it, but it did mean I had to re-fight bosses every once in a while and that was pretty unpleasant!

That particular issue aside, I generally had a pretty good time with this game, even if I do agree with a lot of the common criticisms. While I thought all the characters were generally pretty fun, I do wish they all had more space to breathe. I think Mariette and Perty had the strongest actual arcs, and I do have to complement the writers on making teen relationship drama compelling without sending me back into my own embarrassing high school memories, but Gilda especially kind of felt like her character arc stopped the second she joined the party. Which was a shame, because I enjoyed her vibes a lot.

I didn’t manage to do all that much of the side content, so I don’t know if there was some stuck behind that… the stuff I did manage to find was just loot related, which wasn’t super exciting. I would’ve been happier with character related stuff honestly.

The story itself wasn’t super original, but I don’t think it really needed to be. It was a fun queer magic school romp with the opposite of any Baggage that some other magic school stories might have, and I will admit it did throw some surprising curve balls! And the ending and epilogue did Kinda get me, not gonna lie. Also a lot of the enemy designs were colorful and fun, and the music was pretty excellent. I also liked the world itself! While I do think the lore could take precedence over the characters it was at least neat lore.

I do have mixed feelings on the gameplay. While I think it was conceptually very neat and creative and made me really look forward to learning new moves to see how they would work, I feel like the difficulty curve was just a little too sharp at a certain point, particularly given the weird sleep mode glitches I had. Some timed hit tells from the enemies could be just a little obtuse, with one example that nearly made me quit being an enemy with an animation I could not figure out the timing for that did massive damage and inflicted poison if you got anything less than perfect timing. And then it was brought back for the final boss fight as an add… maybe I should have turned on story mode, except I forgot I could. Oh well. I also wasn’t sure if increasing speed actually did anything after a certain point, since it didn’t actually seem to make my characters’ turns come around more quickly. The game positively drowns you in stat increasing and decreasing items, but I’m not sure how actually useful the speed related ones are because of that.

Anyway, it’s definitely worth a shot! Like I said, I don’t know how much my weird problems were specific to me or not, so I don’t know if I can actually say you should get it on a different platform than the Switch, but if possible you should check it out. It’s very much worth the time. I’d definitely love to see a spiritual successor or follow up sometime that irons out the kinks a little.

'Ikenfell' has my heart. Fun combat, a delightful world, and engaging characters, 'Ikenfell' has all the qualities required for a heatfelt indie hit.

But what makes 'Ikenfell' special, to me, is just how queer it is. Most of it's cast is gay and/or genderqueer, including the only use of neopronouns I've ever seen in a videogame.

Not only is 'Ikenfell' a great time on paper, but it's the only game that's made me feel 'seen', and for that it has my heart.

Un juego maravilloso que recomendaré siempre a cualquier amante de los rpg y de las buenas historias, esto es una carta de amor a su genero.

Su ambientación y universo, junto con una banda sonora increíble, hacen que te sumerjas de lleno en su atmosfera. Tiene toques retro pero te recuerda que es un juego actual con pequeños detalles como su música, por ejemplo, que te recordará a esos rpg que jugaste en tu gameboy pero que, sin embargo, no recurre a hacer que sea de 8 bits para ello. Una mezcla compleja nada fácil de conseguir.
Además, es completamente LGBT friendly sin hacer que un personaje gire en torno a su orientación sexual como forma de personalidad, que tampoco es algo que haya visto muy a menudo.

Por si fuera poco, habla de temas como la depresión, los traumas, la falta de confianza y el no sentirte suficiente nunca, a través de sus personajes.

Después de el increíble viaje, giras la vista atrás y recuerdas con nostalgia el principio.

"Cuanto hemos conseguido, juntos. "

En resumen: una obra increíble que no olvidaré jamás.

PD: La versión de Microsoft Store esta rota al final, he tenido que ver la cinemática en YT. Comprad la versión de steam o consola.

After finishing Ikenfell, I can’t help, but feel a strange sense of calm. Apart from a few scenes etc… that purposely very lightly lean into horror aesthetics, this game is just so cosy from start to finish.

The visuals remind me of the GBA, but is very clearly it’s own distinct thing. The music beautifully mixes chip tune sounds with instruments such as an acoustic guitar. I can wholeheartedly say that at least 4 of Ikenfell’s songs are going on my playlist after writing this review. This game’s presentation is flawless.

The combat is extremely rewarding to learn and always offers something new and how getting new spells is tied to levels you always feel like you are getting a new tool often enough that lasts the whole game, but still gives you enough time to play around with the final spell. My only complaint on the combat would be how it felt it fell off for me towards the end (Tbf my strat revolves around increasing defence and having regen) as bosses and even some regular enemies felt like damage sponges. The only real time combat overstayed it’s welcome though was having a few final boss phases too many, genuinely closer to 10 phases then 0 iirc.

The story is so pretty, like the rest of the game. Every character, especially the party members just feel so fun, unique and real. While the story may be investigating a magic school that has lost the plot, the character interactions is where it shines.

Lastly I want to touch on some Switch specific (as far as I can tell) issues. Whenever I would open the game from sleep mode my Switch would freeze (This may have had something to do with my Switch settings and having the usb wired connection for pro controllers on) and the final boss I noticed some performance issues with a drop in frame rate. I get sometimes games need to choose between visuals and performance on Switch, but when you have stuff like quick time events drastically changing how much damage you do/take and how potent buffs/debuffs are being effected by a frame rate drop feels way poorer then any visual sacrifice. Genuinely scared my Switch was gonna crash during the end.

In conclusion, Ikenfell is way worth the experience. In 20 or so hours I have experienced one of my favourite jrpgs and is a very unique take on the tactics genre. If you have any desire to play Ikenfell just do it. ❤️

Wonderful battle systems, story, aesthetics, and music.

The game plays a bit like a more expansive Mario and Luigi superstar saga with a shot of SRPG for some positioning tactics. All of the powers are varied and interesting to use, even if some are a little bit easier to master than others, and some characters are more interesting. Some bosses are extremely tough due to their multiple phases but usually you can tough em out pretty well.

The art is mostly great, I didn’t love the human character designs totally(mainly the heads) but I’d say about 95% of the art is exquisitely done GBA friendly pixel art, with the right amount of little game people energy.

The story and writing were overall well executed and interesting, although it felt a little padded with going back and forth between places to get the next macguffin to unlock such and such door, though usually their justifications were interesting enough.

I think the dialogue also mostly shines, except it felt like some lines were a little forced to enhance the representation. I’m cool with that, a better reason to force some dialogue than others, but did happen often. Luckily a majority of the time it felt totally natural, just occasionally had a bit of artificiality to the way so and so’s sexuality was mentioned etc. the way it establishes and grows all of the characters throughout is satisfying.

Altogether it was mostly well done and unfortunately it seems to me this game has been rather slept on. It might not be so, but a lot of the circles I follow typically would be all over this and I’ve never seen any buzz around it.

There's a lot I could talk about when it comes to Ikenfell, a lot of things I loved. I could ramble on about the almost casually effortless way it handles queer themes, its excellent music, the well-executed and rare GBC aesthetic. I could point out how its world is focused, interconnected in a way that makes it painless to traverse, how its secrets are accessible or how it manages to forge a unique identity during a time when it is very easy for a lot of indie RPGs to feel very of a kind.

But that's not what I want to talk about. When it comes to Ikenfell, what makes it a game I have come to adore is the personal and the mechanical.

The personal side of Ikenfell isn't a new one. It's not the first RPG to elevate its characters beyond the plot, to treat them as more than tropes. But the way it does so, the pervasive nature of the interpersonal development of these characters, is difficult to approach. Each one feels like a person, someone with a life outside of this story and whatever moment of time they are inhabiting. Ikenfell spends as much time on the relationships between these characters, the exploration of this personal space, as it does on the plot itself. And it does so in a way that does not disrupt the flow of the game, coming as a very natural ebb and flow of plot, mechanics and introspection.

The growth of these characters, catalyzed by a plot that pushes them into uncomfortable personal realities, is as much the focus of the game as the moment-to-moment story developments. A rarity in a genre that is often propelled by grand, sweeping themes and ever-increasing stakes. It's tempting to talk about the details, the ways it subverts expectations, how it handles its serious moments with a rare dignity. But it's a game I refuse to spoil, as the act of discovering these moments is the emotional core of the journey.

That alone would be more than enough for me to like the game. But the fact that the mechanical side is so polished, and in a way that suggests a keen understanding of the pitfalls of games that pull from the JRPG well, is what elevates the game to one that is, for me, an instant classic.

Moves. Skills. Think of the RPGs, particularly the JRPGs, you've played. Ask yourself how often you used the entire skillset on a regular basis. How about half of it? How many skills were simply different flavors of the same. Fire for ice enemies, ice for fire enemies. Raising magic defense when fighting spell casters, physical versus melee. Spells that are strict upgrades, rendering the previous version obsolete and thus not being new at all. Rote responses to rote situations and, in many cases, ones that aren't even required, with combat that favors brute efficiency over dynamic choices. Systems that are, ultimately, prescriptive, difficulty curves that expect average play and thus punish those who fully engage with the tools provided by dropping all pretense of a challenge.

Ikenfell does not have this problem. Each character has eight skills, with the last one earned notably before the endgame. In most cases, the very first skill will be the strongest. Everything else is a sidegrade. A weaker attack, but one that hits an area and clears traps. A stronger attack, but with severely limited range. One that allows you to approach from a different angle. An option for movement, or limiting that of the enemy. Healing spells with actual differences that genuinely matter. Every single skill you earn, beginning to end, will be useful on a regular basis throughout the game. There is no chaff at all, no extremely niche choices.

Movement in combat is best described as SRPG-lite, with a limited field and enemies that are quite mobile. Your opponents will also have specific ranges they prefer as well, attacks that hit in spreads and lines, near and far, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find optimal positioning as the game goes on. This is compounded by the lack of random encounters, with each mob pack having a unique combination of enemies. No two battles are the same, a dynamism that is sorely lacking in so many entries.

That dynamic nature is furthered by the timed hit system. All skills, offensive and defensive, and all incoming attacks are subject to this. But unlike other timed hit setups, they are of critical importance here. Hits can be bad, good or great. Buffs and heals will fail to take on bad, debuffs can be avoided with great. The difference in damage is very notable, both coming and going. And every skill on both sides has a different, uniquely animated timing to it, making the occasional mistake all but inevitable. To the game's credit, the tuning on the numbers is so solid that those mistakes will often cause you to change your plan, leaving an enemy alive or a character in peril.

But what about gear? Too often, gear is a series of largely linear upgrades, with accessories allowing a bit of variety. You arrive in a new town, you buy your new gear. You go into a dungeon and root around for a few ahead-of-the-curve pieces. You give a relic to this person, a bracelet to that one, to tweak their build just a bit or to prepare for a specific battle. Most of these decisions don't matter, so long as the number goes up and obvious mistakes are avoided.

Not so in Ikenfell. Gear that you find is of equal use to the gear that you buy, with every piece being a trade-off in some way. As in combat, the numbers are kept low and fine-tuned to such a degree that you will absolutely notice the difference dropping speed for an extra move makes, the defense you sacrifice for power. Meanwhile, special equipment is largely limited to collecting gems from secret areas and trading them in for items in a shop. You know what you're getting, and what you're getting isn't a strict upgrade. These, too, offer trade-offs, special effects at the cost of stats. Even the tired trope of ultimate weapons hidden in obtuse ways and bringing game-breaking stats and abilities is absent. Your best weapons will be acquired in the final area, through character specific trials and in time for you to make use of them in the ending hours.

There's more. A soft cap on leveling and an EXP curve that tops out perfectly just from fighting the enemies you find along the way. An economy that forces actual choices if you intend to use all of the characters. Three roles, with two options each that play out quite differently while providing you all the freedom you need to make an unbalanced team. Secrets that are both worthwhile and which want to be found. Consumables with multiple effects, and the need to use them if you choose not to rely on the (arguably too) generous save points to recover.

All of this is just to say that Ikenfell does more than provide a compelling plot and characters to care about. It builds systems to drive you forward, systems that feel like they require your engagement instead of simply shuttling you along. Dungeons aren't slogs, they're exciting opportunities to learn new enemies and expand your strategies. Itemization isn't fishing for the highest stats, it's an active decision with tangible impact and inevitable sacrifices. Numbers are small enough to easily track the differences made when one goes up or down a bit, and the choices for them are diverse enough that you feel like even small choices will change how a battle flows.

Everything matters, from the plot to the personal to the play of the game itself. It was the first time in a long time I felt I wasn't simply along for the ride in an RPG, part of a visual novel with just a bit more mechanical depth than usual. Ikenfell is a game in a genre where many titles are just stories that check to make sure you're still awake between cutscenes and, for me, a breath of fresh air that reinvigorated my waning love for RPGs.

Um RPG extremamente diverso e acessível - o que é diferente de um RPG com diversidade e acessibilidade. Esses temas não são um mero adicional ao game: eles percorrem todas as decisões mecânicas e narrativas do jogo, fazendo com que nada pareça forçado ou mal-pensado. É um game que quer que todos possam apreciar seu divertidíssimo combate e seu elenco único e carismático.

Ser acessível, entretanto, não é a mesma coisa de ser trivial. Pelo contrário, ninguém pode culpar Ikenfell de ser um RPG sem profundidade mecânica. Sua inspiração explícita nesse sentido é Paper Mario, mas com bem mais complexidade quantitativa (você controla três personagens, em vez de dois; o timing das ações têm dois estágios; há bem mais stats e equipamentos para você se preocupar) e qualitativa (a arena é grid-based, com o posicionamento de seus personagens sendo essencial para vitória; as animações dos ataques são bem mais variadas e longas, então o timing das ações é mais desafiador; há várias estratégias possíveis baseando-se em armadilhas, controle de multidões, stats-boosting, etc). Os combates entretém bastante do início ao fim e, caso você tenha alguma dificuldade com ele ou só não esteja com muita vontade de enfrentá-lo e só liga para a história, há várias opções para facilitar sua vida, inclusive a de vencer as batalhas automaticamente.

Falando na história, há muito o que gostar aqui. Nenhum dos personagens é estereotípico ou clichê, mas também não são exagerados e diferentões porque sim. São todos críveis e singulares, como deve ser. Eles carregam a trama com força e o desenvolvimento deles é o foco - o que não quer dizer que a ambientação e a mitologia que criaram para esse mundo também não tenham seu valor, muito pelo contrário, são tão bem construídos quanto o resto.

Por fim, sou obrigado a reservar algumas palavras específicas para a trilha sonora. Ela foi composta pelo dueto Aivi & Surasshu, que trabalharam em Steven Universo. A performance do duo aqui está no mesmo nível do desenho, com direito até a algumas músicas cantadas em momentos especiais.

Very solid tactical RPG, with great music, and charming visuals.

Held back by some pacing issues, the big cast needed a bit more room to breathe for the emotional beats to land more solidly, could have done with either setting some lore aside to let characters come to the fore a bit more or maybe cut down the cast a bit.

Some minor issues with the gameplay, can be unclear what the timing is for the timed hit system, sometimes the isometric perspective blocks key visual information, just a little bit too much time spent in random battles.

Loved the very queer cast, and variety of levels and enemies, great length for the price.

I bounced off this game several times before finally getting properly into it, but boy am I glad I finally stuck with it (shoutouts to @unforeseenboy for picking it for my backlog “spring cleaning”). What starts off as a kind of slow, small RPG about a wizard school that doesn’t suck gradually expands into a pretty compelling story about coping with loss and messy teen relationships, bolstered by a robust and pretty unique grid/lane-based battle system.

The battle system is really what made this game shine for me. Basically every element was tailor-made for someone like me, who really enjoys small-number RPGs with timed button presses like your Mario RPGs (of both the Paper and & Luigi variety) as well as grid-based systems like Live A Live or Trails in the Sky.

The action commands for attacking and dodging are tuned basically perfectly - quick enough to keep the pacing of the battle nice and tight, and just tricky enough to stay engaging without being too taxing over a long period. My only complaint is that the first hour or two felt like a bit of a slog because your action vocabulary is very, very limited at first.

As for the story, I thought it was very fun to center it around the sister of the sort of Harry Potter stand-in character. It allowed for some interesting exploration of how the average YA protagonist engages in some pretty shitty behavior, but also gave some of the secondary characters the chance to experience some real growth. And of course, we love to see the sheer amount of diversity on display - not a straight white male in sight for the entire game.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the killer soundtrack. There’s lots of fun little chiptunes, some beautiful piano pieces, and several tracks with vocals, which i wasn’t expecting. My standout tracks were Showtime (Gilda’s Theme), and the first battle theme, Rhythm of the Wild.

Anyway, if you’re itching for a game that scratches a similar itch as the early Mario & Luigi games, or one with a canon they/them AND a cannon ze/zir AND at least 3 canon gay relationships that get happy endings, I’ve got just the game for you.

Muy buen juego. En el aspecto narrativo se nos presenta un Hogwarts inclusivo que apuesta por las minorías y por la representación. Se tratan temas de cambio de edad y de salud mental con mucho cariño y delicadeza.
La parte jugable es un Paper Mario muy sencillo pero con una escalabilidad de los números bastante apretada. En cualquier combate puedes besar el suelo si no timeas bien los ataques y las defensas. De todos modos, el juego tiene modo asistido e incluso un "botón para ganar" opcional por si se te acaba atragantando el sistema o te aburre.
Todo en Ikenfell derrocha cariño. Los personajes son muy entrañables y bastante redondos. Es raro que termines el juego sin haber elegido un personaje favorito y sin que ese haya sido Petronella en algún momento del mismo.