A beautiful little throwback JRPG that maintains the spirit of the games that inspired it. It can be very challenging and unforgiving if you aren't paying attention to your party's abilities and composition, but the difficulty never really reaches an unfair level.
I didn't do all the side content and grinding necessary for the platinum, just because the game is leaving PS+ in a few days and I don't really want to be grinding until it leaves, but I do feel like I've seen what the game had to offer me and I was content with it. It was a pleasant experience, and the story was surprisingly touching, especially the ending.

I Am Setsuna had me hooked at the start but slowly lost my interest and was downright a bad experience by the mid-late game - surprisingly though it does turn it around by the very end.
It's honestly a bit baffling how well Tokyo RPG Maker live up to their own motto of making games that feel like they're from the golden era of JRPGs. Unfortunately I find that to be a bit of a fool's errand.
It's charming graphically, and the soundtrack is without a doubt a highlight, both of them combine to really give that 00s vibe. The lack of map or any waypoint indicators also require you to really pull out the JRPG classic of going around and talking to everyone if you don't know what to do next(you probably won't need to though, they spell it out pretty clearly every time). Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad from that era of game design. Each area is very short and linear(rarely a complaint from me) and enemy variety consists of maybe a dozen total non-boss enemies with palette swaps or minor changes. The battle system is a mixed bag, but the waiting around with literally nothing but bars filling up on screen is pretty bad. The balance is all over the place too, everything does too much damage and it feels very weird to be taking half your health from an enemy that you can also pretty much 2-shot if you hit him first. This is doubly bad with boss fights because you sure can't 2-shot them, while they very much can instakill a party member leading to many frustrating moments. As an aside, I'm very glad the kamikaze attack some of the bosses had never made me game over, because that sure would've sucked, and is a pretty baffling thing to include what amounts to a health check after defeating a boss for no reason.
The story, which I'm told is highly derivative from FFX but I can't know because I've only played a few hours two decade ago, has some good beats and sticks to it's themes well, but the pacing and presentation is very lacking(This is almost 1:1 with my feelings about Oninaki's story, so maybe it's an intentional stylistic decision). The ending is genuinely great and that does so much to offset the bad that came before it. Not enough for me to say I truly liked I Am Setsuna, but I came out feeling like at least it was worth the 20 or so hours I put into it. The fact I only put the 20 hours in and did none of the optional content betrays what I was feeling like before the credits rolled.

The game was mostly enjoyable up until the final boss. Most of the characters are alright to play; easy to find your favorites. It's fun to discover combos and gain skills through items rather than leveling. Incredibly strange to unlock one of the team members literally right before the final encounter. I only used them when necessary because at that point I already had a favorite setup.

The bosses are frustrating with cheap trips and one-shot moves so be prepared. Thankfully there are saves before those battles. I do wish there was a skip option to save myself time mashing X to quickly skip dialogue. It would also be nice to swap party members during battle. I know they're standing right there watching you; there's no story or in game reason why they cannot hop in.

The real drag was the usual RPG grindy mess in the late game before the final showdown. Powering up levels, collecting gear, and triggering fluxes will consume hours of your time. Jumping into a fight, battle, collect rewards then rinse and repeat. Over and over and over. It is not relaxing to me. I hate grinding for something like leveling. It's boring and leaves a bad experience. Overall I do think the majority was fun but I am ready to move on. It overstayed its welcome.

I am Setsuna might be the most mid game I have ever played. Like it is just so mediocre in every single way. So forgettable.

It plays fine. It looks fine. The story is very uninspired. It's so mediocre. So predictable. I did not care about anything going on tbh. There is also this illusion of choice. They give you choices that don't matter.

Combat is fine. It's really basic. It's just a slightly more complex Chrono Trigger but less fun.

The music is probably the only thing that stands out. It's pretty good. But that is the best compliment I can give it.

When I say the game looks fine, it's actually decently pretty. The problem is that the environments are not varied at all. Mostly white due to all the snow. It just ends up being bland after awhile.

This isn't a bad game. It's a game of all time. The most game of all time. The most mid.

I played my fair amount of obscure JRPGs, like The World Ends With You and Moon, and I Am Setsuna is a modern take on a retro JRPG. There’s comparisons of this game to Chrono Trigger and I guess there was similarities like the battle system and themes.

The battle system was pretty straightforward with the addition of timed presses for Momentum and Flux. I ain’t ever fully understand the battle system and I was just tearing my way through with ENDIR AETERNA AND KIR. This is my battle plan: AETERNA DEMI to bring them in and then ENDIR CYCLONE as AoR dmg then KIR FIRE II for screen sweep. Or for bosses, AETERNA HASTE ON KIR, ENDIR X-STRIKE if it gives me the option sometimes, KIR FIRE II, and if I need health, ENDIR AURA AND KIR DRAIN. And I pretty much cheesed the whole game with of course grinding those 3 ICE FOXES that freeze you in the beginning of the game.

I can tell that they’re a big unbalanced portion of the game, I was heavily op by the end of the game, the DARK SAMSARA was cheese and Julienne and Fides don’t even matter. The story was pretty well written and by the end, I SWUNG MY SWORD AND WENT KCHING and the game was over. Time for next TOKYO RPG FACTORY GAME.

20h
235648G (I WAS RICH)
ENDIR LV 48 / CYCLONE AND AURA / TIMEFORGER
AETERNA LV 48 / DEMI AND HASTE / MAGILOCK DAGGER
KIR LV 48 / FIRE II AND DRAIN / BLOOD ROD
the talismans I ain’t even understand the concept of them tbh.

SETSUNA LV 41 / NIDR LV 41 / JULIENNE LV 36 / FIDES LV 44

THE PIANO BALLADS THROUGHOUT THE GAME SET THE MOOD.

I Am Setsuna tells a pretty cliche storyline that is particularly overdone in JRPGs -- a maiden is being sacrificed to save the world occasionally. That's fine. As long as they do something good with it, cliches are not always a bad thing.

I Am Setsuna manages to tell a decently interesting story, with decently interesting characters. This is pretty high praise to be honest, as there are not many modern JRPGs that you can say that about. Even though I'm not giving this game a high rating, it's all relative. This is probably one of my higher ratings for a modern JRPG.

The only major failing of this game is every other element other than the story. While the combat is fine in and of itself, the progression system is the dumbest system I've ever seen in a JRPG to date. It's so convoluted, you have to use the built-in prima guide to understand how the hell it works. Being now that it's been some months since I finished this game, I probably won't be able to give a complete explanation of how it works.

Basically, progression is built around random dice rolls. When you use skills, there's a random chance that skill will receive a permanent buff from Spritenite you're wearing. These buffs stack to a maximum amount, meaning you can buff skills to pretty high degrees.

None of that shit matters though, because all you need is Endir and Nidr's combo move "Blowbeat" to beat the entire game. It's one of the first combo skills you get, and you legit can and should use this combo to 1 shot entire encounters for the rest of the game. It also inflicts every good status ailment, which works on many bosses. If you find yourself struggling to beat a boss, you're probably not using Blowbeat enough.

In conclusion, I Am Setsuna is a decent way to waste a few hours listening to a decent story about a rugged mysterious boy trying to save a girl.

Oh, and the atmosphere is very well done. The music and art style lend a very somber tone to the game.

For the cold and occasionally snowy month of February, I chose to play I Am Setsuna, and I’m so glad I did. This is a spoiler free review.
I Am Setsuna is the first game by Square Enix’s Tokyo RPG Factory, a studio made of just ten core employees whose goal was to recreate the magic of the SNES era roleplaying games. The influence of the “old masters” of the JRPG is not simply something felt throughout- it is the air the game breathes. This can be considered both the greatest strength and the most crushing weakness of I Am Setsuna. The game with the greatest influence on Setsuna is Chrono Trigger- something insurmountable to live up to. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten around to playing Chrono Trigger yet, and I don’t feel compelled to compare the two, that I found Setsuna so striking.
Every location in this game has two constants; it is covered in an unmelting blanket of snow, and it’s scored by a lone piano. These two choices are extremely controversial among players and critics, but I truly can’t imagine this game being nearly as successful artistically without this unwavering commitment to this direction. It was absolutely the correct choice.
The combat system is interesting, and one I disliked quite a bit at first. One of the reasons I like JRPGs as a genre so much is the focus on strategy rather than quick execution in gameplay. The common turn-based combat of JRPGs clicks with me, but Setsuna has a sort of hybrid- the ATB, or active time battle system. It did grow on me, eventually. I found longer battles to be very rhythmic, and if I needed some time to think, I could always dive into a safe menu to find my bearings.
The basis of Setsuna’s systems are fantastic on paper. Defeating common enemies rewards you with unique materials. You can sell these materials for money, and selling enough of a specific material also grants you the ability to use it to create skills called Spritnite that can be equipped. This creates a cycle; use your skills to kill enemies for drops, use those drops to create stronger skills, rinse and repeat. It’s a bit more complex than my simple explanation makes it seem, but the foundation is rock solid. The implementation is where this system can become a bit shaky.
The game also has combo attacks achieved by equipping two characters with compatible Spritnite. I made sure to equip Endir and Nidr with the Shock and Provoke skills respectively to create the Blowbeat combo. This is where I discovered the true way to play I Am Setsuna: find one OP combo and, using Setsuna’s support on the side for HP and MP management, coast through the rest of the game. Flattening every combat encounter was something I appreciated more than not. It made things easy, but finding and using a build that worked so smoothly was satisfying. This didn’t trivialize the entire rest of the game though- the bosses could still be quite tough, as they’re all massive damage sponges. All of this comes together to create a combat system that really clicked with me, and I even found it addictive at times.
You travel the eternal winter with six people, all of different backgrounds, with different stories to tell. These characters all have their own simple narrative, each with a fun twist, that ties thematically back to the main ideas of the game. Though they’re not complex, they don’t need to be. It strikes a lovely balance. The story is truly what makes this game so special. Like the rest of the experience it’s simple, a bit underdeveloped, and merely echoes the great masters before it, but these are all things I love about it. Its brevity is a strength, its ability to exist in the shadows of great stories without being a mere copy is a wonderful thing, and its confidence to keep the story simple is refreshing, especially within the context of its genre. It does exactly what it needs to, in a quiet and elegant manner. This winter journey’s tale ties together the identity of the game to create a serene, melancholic journey.
I Am Setsuna is a game that has received much criticism. It is not a JRPG darling like the classics it exists to emulate. It is certainly flawed, in many ways, but that doesn’t keep Setsuna from being a very special game. I think so many people are so focused on where Setsuna draws its inspirations, that they are unable to experience it for the game it is. It’s true that every step of the development was inspired by games of the past. But that doesn’t mean Setsuna should exist within the confines of those expectations. This game is truly something special when removed from the preconceptions placed on it, and I hope more people will be able to approach it with a perspective similar to mine. I think those people will have a very meaningful experience.

___ this was adapted from a full review written for my blog

I abandoned I Am Setsuna. Why? Well, because it was just too simple. Did I think it was a bad game? No. But I did think it was not worth my time. I played it for like 3 hours. The story was going too basic. Characters were very two dimensional. No depth at all.

Combat was very simplistic. It did not have any interesting or exciting feature. I just couldn't force myself to continue. There are good things here though, like the art direction and the music but that's all.

Do I recommend you to play I Am Setsuna? Not really. I'm sure you can find much better JRPG's to play than this. I think it would be a waste of your time.

This is nothing new and I should've listened to you all, but... I Am Setsuna is a painfully average experience!

It took me around 25 hours to beat this game and, sure, while it successfully manages to convey the feeling of a retro JRPG from the PS1 era, the nostalgia just didn't pay off in the end. It felt good at first, but the feeling fled halfway through the game.

I Am Setsuna is beautiful, though. The artstyle is pretty, the character and bosses are well designed and the soundtrack does its own thing, becoming a driving melodic force throughout story and gameplay.

The solid battle system, optional content, easy grinding and challenging bosses make for a compelling reason to get you to the end. Setsuna's conumdrum about her sacrifice also caught me intrigued. Her story may not be very well written, but the ending happened to be quite nice.

But it just wasn't enough. Nothing surprised me and things kinda fell off.

For starters, environments, world map and dungeons are extremely repetitive and dull. The main cast is insipid and their motivations and reasons to join Setsuna on her quest are mostly unconvincing. The choices you make are useless (especially the final one) and plot development happens too fast and too dry, turning a good idea into something half-baked.

I'd also like to point out that not being able to sell equipment or skip cutscenes you have already watched were big issues for me.

And that's kind of it for I Am Setsuna. A good nostalgic idea executed in a very uninspiring way.

I don't regret playing it, but I also feel like I kinda wasted my time. I don't …

Such an opportunity to make a great statement and falls real short. PCs design and music was stand out. Battle system, while flawed and not explained well, kept me going until it the game finishes (thankful for the short run time). The story is pretty weak. Not a bunch going on then we get expo dumps with a huge one at the end. Underwhelming. Tries to be trigger without the heart or engaging, easily understood combat. So many reused assets and the snow setting has everything looking the same already.

I’ve been looking forward to playing I Am Setsuna ever since Oninaki–Tokyo RPG Factory’s third title–was announced back in 2019. I feel it’s rare to see a studio so specifically devoted to one genre of game with nothing else in their portfolio, no matter how mediocre those products might be. I Am Setsuna is nothing if not a profoundly and shockingly mediocre title that nonetheless attracts attention due to its unique-if-compromised creative vision. Taking place in a desolate world drowning in an endless snowfall, you play as Endir, a masked man tasked with assassinating (for no real reason) the young sacrifice, Setsuna, whose life must be given to save the world for another cycle. However, upon their initial meeting, Endir sees no reason to murder this child who is going to die soon anyways, so he becomes her protector alongside a group of cliche and uninspired party members.

The party’s goal is to save the world via bringing Setsuna to Zanarkand–i mean the Last Lands. If the premise sounds familiar, it’s because I Am Setsuna’s plot is highly derivative of the painfully overrated Final Fantasy X, and the game’s combat system is ripped straight from Chrono Trigger but worse in every way. These derivative elements were part of what drew me to this game, given that that FF10’s story of sacrifice and cycles is the only redeeming part of it’s otherwise bloated and inconsistent narrative, and Chrono Trigger is a functionally perfect game and its combat system could never be made mostly bad (it is.). The changes that I Am Setsuna makes to its inherited combat system mostly involve making the combo system much more complicated to use by not condensing everything. The menus are clunky and barely usable, with the combo options never being shown when equipping Spiritnite (this game’s version of Materia) and the gameplay generally relying on this terrible wait-to-charge system that is barely explained. If I have to look up how to make the game work post-tutorial, the game has probably failed at explaining itself (looking at you FF8).

While the story itself isn’t much worth writing home about outside of pointing out how much it takes from FF10 (thankfully they didn’t adapt Seymour Guado), I Am Setsuna was at the very least able to engage me with Setsuna’s emotional journey. Setsuna learns to value her own life by the end, even when she still has to sacrifice it, and she’s made unforgettable bonds with all of these other mediocre characters. It almost pulled at my heartstrings.

The game’s visuals are another component, while I really appreciate the decision to commit to the snowy environments, I could only hope for more visual variety in these cold locales; as-is, I Am Setsuna vastly underscores the diversity of biomes present in cold climates. Let the player explore some tundra! Maybe the clouds blend in with the mountains and the player can’t distinguish what is solid ground and what is cloud! Maybe some of the towns are inventively placed on the ice of a lake or have the colorful characteristics of Scandinavian towns. There’s a lot of missed potential here. I also think all of the town chop vendors just being copy-pasted into random buildings in each town is super boring and a simple solution would have been to make them like a traveling wagon of merchants that have small dialogue snippets the first time they encounter the party in a new town. Would make for a more natural way of engaging with the shopkeepers without having to build a market for each town.

While the game is profoundly mediocre in its execution, I Am Setsuna has a clear identity that carries it through that mediocrity and provoked me to actually finish it despite the copy-and-pasted dungeons and meandering plot and extremely repetitive visuals. I hope the next two releases from Tokyo RPG Factory are able to carry that same sense of identity despite being otherwise mediocre products.

Definitely derivative of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy X, but I Am Setsuna manages to stand out as a chill, comfy JRPG holiday special. Unfortunately, the shoestring budget makes it feel inadequate as a sit down TV experience.

I love the idea of the piano only soundtrack, as it gives the game a somber, lonely vibe as you adventure across a dying, permanently blizzarding hellscape, no doubt a fantastical stand in for the Canadian prairies. It doesnt hit right all the time, though. Serious events or any moments of action are underplayed because of a lack of voice acting and some harsh staccato piano key smashing. But that's part of being experimental; you can't get it all perfect.

The game's combat is fun and strategic, even if the difficulty is low. It's basically just Chrono Trigger, so...if it aint broke, dont fix it. The main addition are "fluxations", which are permanent buffs to your materia stand-ins. You get them completely randomly, and you can go the whole game without getting a fluxation on one of your moves. It's supposed to reward you for using a move repeatedly but the rate is far too low, and the payoff unrewarding.

At 14 hours (20 to 100%), it's a great choice for the holiday season because of the winter theme and general cozy vibe of everything. A solid 7, but definitely could have been a lot better with voice acting and cutscenes.

História clichê de peregrinação de uma garota que será sacrificada para salvar o mundo, lembra em partes o Final Fantasy X, porém sem personagens bons. Há umas frases de impacto aqui e acolá, mas nada que faça se importar com os personagens.

É cansativo navegar em um mapa que só há regiões de neve quase iguais, com uma variedade bem pequena de monstros. Dá muita preguiça de fazer backtracking.

Um ponto interessante é a forma como os personagens adquirem novas skills, que envolve o loot dos monstros e a forma como eles são eliminados.

Acabei largando o jogo no boss esponja que regenera o hp quando está com 1/4 de vida e exige o uso de uma certa magia que possui um loot específico pra desbloquear. Isso juntou com o fato de eu não ter sido fisgado pela história e personagens.