Project Moon's attempt at simultaneously cashing in the goodwill they built up with their two previous masterpieces by making a (fucking) gacha game while also trying to maintain their reputation by making the game less greedy than other gacha games while maintaining their high-quality storytelling. The result is a game that's ludonarratively much weaker than its predecessors and, uh, has bullshit like energy mechanics gating story progression behind real-time waits (unless you want to pay of course)... but still kinda justifies its existence by being a platform for Project Moon to create a long-form ongoing story set in its fantastic fictional universe.

The later cantos really do have great stories, but the game also suffers from a really horrible push and pull where they clearly want this to be a Real Video Game like the previous ones so there'll be bossfights that are actually challenging but that challenge ends up feeling completely hollow compared to previous games as unlocking/leveling up new IDs/EGO to try out new strategies on hard fights is locked behind f2p/gacha bullshit.

Unfortunately I can't stop playing because the story really is that good.

Echoing the thoughts of some people here, I wish indeed this was a normal game. The game -- and the series, really, has a great foundation in its lore where the weird becomes commonplace and the weird is lethal. Oftentimes you might ask why the City operates in this way, but the game often does not explain it to its surprising benefit.

This is no different in Limbus, though given that you're actually managing a bunch of low-tier misfits now with little experience compared to a washed up Fixer in the previous game, things that seemed incredibly easy to the previous game's characters are lorewise pretty tough here.

I will say outright that I ditched the game during the tutorial due to some amount of confusion and dislike of the presentation of the game.

You start out with a system where you have to line up actions and they will carry out those actions seamlessly. Compared to the previous game's manually assigning which Dice would clash with another enemy's dice, this is much, much quicker to execute. Unfortunately, it seems that it in effect has made it much harder for you to view who's clashing with what, not helped by the standard gacha tutorials restricting the actions you can carry out

Further exacerbating the issue is that if you're playing on the phone, some important icons are stacked on top of icons, making it hard to see, and the game is reliant on being able to perceive colors in order to see which sin types are resonating with which action you're performing.

The game also requires multiple keypresses in order to view a character's skillset, having to do it one by one per character if you want to see what your team member does.

All in all, this does not make for a good first impression and an unpleasant experience, which is a shame because the plot is great here; Dante (the Main Character) is a defined 'loser' that has to earn the trust of the people under his command, and the City still remains as oppressive as ever.

Will I pick it up and deal with it? Maybe; not likely, even if someone told me if I did the same on the Rats in the previous game (no, I didn't; but I did use a mod that gave me 99 copies of a page after burning a book), but I think it's too much an ask if the official game can't even provide tutorials (in normal Project Moon style) instead with people referring newcomers to a certain youtube channel's guides (which to be fair does not go too in-depth to the point it can't be understood by newcomers) in order to understand the basics.

Also, the phone version... just works(tm). It was fantastic that after I tabbed out, the game just froze and won't respond. I think I see why people recommend playing this on the PC, what with its miniscule UI being suited for bigger screens, and... that.

But I don't like playing gacha games of any form on the PC. And it's still a bit too much to ask people to wade through confusing content before they arrive at something peak, though I have no doubt that Project Moon can, and has already gotten to that point.

I wish this was a normal game. The first two story chapters do their respective sinners wrong but each canto gets better and it doesn't stop. You get to explore the world and wonder how the next canto will top the previous one. This is a sequel hacked into gacha, if it stayed a normal game it'd be a spectacular rush where both story and gameplay get better and better and reach for the stars. Canto 6 ditches gacha dungeons from previous cantos and is the closest it gets to the experience limbus could've been. And unlike some songs mili does for other series, the limbus ones are always story relevant, sure nobody will say anything if you want to listen to them outside the game yet the ideal is to wait for context and reach the epic ruina boss. Remember to read leviathan first ofc. Despite what some people might say If you arent familiar with previous games and the comic you won't know what's really going on since the start.

And sure, it has gacha issues I won't deal with since you can probably imagine like endless grind and dailies and gambling and crap, it's awful. You are going to read about how this is the best possible execution of gacha and it's just faint praise. I guess the first things you'll also notice are autobattles and the ability to read if attacks are going to land or not, such as Dominating and Hopeless ones, which is neat qol that is not present in ruina. Autotargeting enemies is something ruina has (press P) but barely works. In limbus it works for the worst fights but it's a gacha game. It would be a good idea if this was a normal ruina sequel of a couple encounters, one against mobs to play quick and farm resources followed by some boss to spam special attacks against. But this is gacha about autobattling a dozen fights against nothing until you reach a somewhat challenging fight, then you might start reading and manually deal your clashes like in ruina. This is why dungeons at the end of most cantos are weird, it's where the plot gets good and gameplay takes even more of a dive, encounters are just not interesting, there might be some bosses who require you to read, but it's just droning through mob fights and saving a ton of resources to launch your special attacks later. Compared to ruina I hated my first 60 hours or so in limbus. Again, they just kind of hacked great ruina combat ideas into a gacha game and made it braindead enough.

This is the game for the current pm crowd and some people just don't have it in them to play games well, even though it's this braindead, because of uis, because of bad tutorials, but really some are just not good enough and will never make it past a boss. If this is you, it's still nice to watch this on youtube. But I think it's self sabotage since the ludo in limbus is actually nice to experience unlike the dumbass self flagellation of lobcorp and this side of limbus just gets cooler as it goes. I persevered through gachashit and was rewarded

tldr cool world to explore + cool ludo

My favourite gacha game in the market (Right now), atleast
I am a huge Project Moon sucker, and here they have done it again- With the latest Cantos, they have been constantly mindblowing stories and interesting reiterations of classic literature.

My only problems with it however is that its a gacha game, and although you can grind out for all the IDs, to me a gacha is often still a gacha. But I wouldn't say to let that stop you at ALL. Project Moon is incredibly attentive to their community, and often respond quickly to bugs (And gives like, insane amounts of gacha currency as compensation).

Although the combat had to be simplified, and is a more RNG based than Library of Ruina, I think the combat was still translated the best it can in a gacha format. Def check it out

I'm obsessed with this game. It's a brainrot that consumes me every waking hour. I binged the finale to Canto VI for 5 hours straight and was hooked the entire time. I've been working through reading the literary inspirations for all the Sinners, and what Project Moon have built off the back of Wuthering Heights is incredible. More than anything, the character writing is so movingly human despite the horrors and depravity of the City. Nobody's ever too "broken" to be worth love.

Love must be the reason why
I still believe in this lie
That you'll live a better life
Without me by your side

I've been playing since around launch. Starting around this time last year, and the game is ONLY getting better. Now that we're (roughly) halfway through Inferno, I think leaving a full review is pretty apt. With each Canto, I'm astounded that they top themselves. I'm always gonna have issues with its gacha system, but it's still pretty fair if you play actively. It's a game that I cherish, look forward to every update, and I could see it becoming THE all time favorite for me. The writing only gets better, along with the presentation, reading the source books of the Sinners make you appreciate the story even more, it's all so good. I also like the Refraction Railways a lot.

(Canto VI)

Cannot be understated how Project Moon are the best developers in the game right now and nothing else is even close to what they've been able to do. This is what gacha SHOULD be for, long-form and with an immense variety of storytelling styles. From Canto 4's near-future sci-fi approach to Canto 5's nautical travel, and Canto 6's period piece drama, and the many side stories inbetween these. Sure, 4 and 5 had their issues despite their peaks being at the same tier as their previous works, but 6 FEELS like they've understood how this medium works, and they've used that to nail its pacing, its characters, its plot, continuing to advance so many overarching plot lines but also creating an amazing conclusion to Heathcliff, with such perfect attention to detail in its presentation and boss fights more in-tune with Ruina's... it really cannot be overstated how ahead of the curve PM is, how above in quality they are in everything, and how excited I am for what they continue to make in this long story that'll span many years.

Putting a pin in this one for now because I'm honestly just not enjoying it at all.

Going straight from Lobotomy Corp and Library Of Ruina to this might be the biggest downgrade I've ever seen.

Limbus Company feels like a demented theme park version of Project Moon's setting. LoR was a funny game when it wanted to be but there was a nice blend of humor and actual dialogue. The jokes flowed naturally, but here... I never thought I'd accuse a game of being too funny, yet here I am.
I don't inherently think the idea of "slightly more lighthearted LoR" is a bad thing, especially since the last two games were BLEAK despite their hopeful mission statements, but in making this a gacha game and thus trying to give it mainstream appeal, I feel a lot of the edge has been sanded off. LoR's city is this grimy, nightmarish place that wears the veneer of a functional place but in reality is basically a series of holding pens for a city-state that practices systemic human sacrifice. In simpler terms, a slaughterhouse.
But Limbus is so obnoxiously clean and civil. Even the nastier parts of the backstreets look like they'd be positively scenic in Cyberpunk 2077.

It seeps into the characters too. Not to harp on the LoR comparisons too much, but it's a bit weird going from a game where your two leads are suffocatingly and hauntingly human to a game where characters' "flaws" are very... Battle shonen.
I sort of knew I'd be in for a bad time when I exited my self-imposed Library of Ruina isolation bubble and realized the fanbase had turned Limbus characters into these funny whacky woohoo people that wouldn't be out of place in a Mihoyo game.
I've been told that there are better moments in later Cantos, 5 and 6 especially, but I'm halfway through Canto 3 and I just can't stand these people dude. Hokma is a more engaging character and half of his dialogue in Ruina is "shut the fuck up, good god".
They're not explicitly bad characters but in a setting where even a lot of single-appearance characters are infinitely memorable and have enough character to write a thesis on, I'm actually a little appalled that the Limbus cast are so boring. When they're not boring, they're at best 'fun.

I think, and this might be me being very ornery, a lot of the boredom I feel re: Limbus' cast is from how obvious and controlling the literary influences are. Meursault is a stoic man who only speaks when it's important? Don Quixote is a delusional nutjob? Heathcliff is a roughcast byronic lad? Sinclair is a sad little man that needs an older figure to guide him? Gregor is a bug? Dante is there and being guided through the suspiciously circular City by Vergilius?
It's childish, and I really hate to say that because Project Moon's work tends to be distinctly adult in a way that I often don't associate with the medium of videogames (not due to the medium's fault ofc), and Limbus is so very much divorced from what makes their games great in spirit.
I'm aware that later Cantos allegedly deconstruct their patron Sinner's source material, but...

In the middle of writing this I decided to read up on the story and proceedings of the subsequent Cantos, and while my initial indicator was Shelved I think I'm gonna switch over to Abandoned. To say I'm not very enthused is an understatement, and while a certain facet of Canto 6 had my lean forward in my chair it probably says a lot that I only cared because it was a continuation of a work that isn't this one.

According to Project Moon this is the money vacuum they need to make to fund future games, so I can only hope that maybe that Distortion Detective game has more of their signature sauce, because this is Big Mac sauce and I can get that elsewhere.

As an aside: It is darkly hilarious that this is a followup to two games where the core conceit is "Capitalism really fucking sucks and makes everything worse". If Limbus being mid is diegetic, Project Moon really are the greatest of our time.

...Also the combat is bad. It looks nicer than Ruina on a technical level and the return of familiar sfx is nice on the ears, but ONCE AGAIN; as a gacha, it's massively toned down and there's no deckbuilding or passive swapping or any of the mechanics that caused Ruina to hook its claws into me and start injecting raw joy straight into my faggy little veins.
LoR allegedly once had autobattle combat in the original stages of its development and I am so fantastically glad that they never went through with it because if Limbus is a window into that reality then I'm closing the fucking curtains.
Most fights barring abnormalities/bosses are fought by drawing lines through coins to trigger effects and start combat and god it's just so mindnumbingly boring that I'd actually pay money for them to release this as a visual novel. The other type of battle is essentially diet LoR but with the ability to target boss fights. It'd be fun in a better game which is probably all I need to say to make my malice known.

Really, if you want to experience this game you'd be better off grabbing some .epub files of the books it rips from and digging into them. They're called classics for a reason, folks.

Oh and uh, the gacha elements are fine I guess? There's a permanent currency you can stockpile to trade for whatever Identity/EGO you want, which gives it an edge over the competition, but good gacha elements in a mediocre game are meaningless to me. It also has the usual live service crust one expects from these games (a battle pass, endless monthly/weekly mtx discounts, a really annoying file integrity check at startup, Seasons, etc etc) and doesn't really do anything cool within its confines either.

Shoutout to Heathmael Abortion.

It's a Gacha game with energy mechanics to prevent you from playing at a certain point. It does look fair compared to those REALLY SCUMMY Gacha games by having a good battle pass, unlike whatever the fuck the likes of Genshin or Star Rail tell you a battle pass is, the pity system existing and being okay-ish, and the game giving you plenty of currency to pull with. It's still absolutely a fucking gambling simulator, so it's not going to get any points for that, but still, it COULD be worse.

The gameplay is frankly terrible, the only real gameplay is team building, so again gambling for the good characters and the good attacks, then picking your team based on the foes' weaknesses/strengths, followed by using your energy to farm EXP tickets to raise their levels, followed by actual gameplay which begins with an invisible dice roll deciding the speed of the characters followed by every single action being a dice roll to see if you succeed. Do you see the problem? You can theoretically have a perfect lineup for the enemies ahead and still fail due to dice rolls.

The ONLY reason this game should ever be considered by you is the story, which seemed so far so good to the end of Kanto 3 which is where I gave up out of boredom. The characters, the setting, and the art that brings those to life are all top-notch. The game is also fully voice-acted which is not a thing every gacha or even a normal game has, which took me by surprise. This is the only thing that strung me along and I'm going to work my way backward thought Studio Moon's catalog to find more about this world, but Limbus Company is a certified stinker.

I will be talking about all the chapters in the game one by one so its spoiler territory. I wanted to write this after Ishmael's chapter but said to myself nah I'll do it after Heathcliffs, which probably made my thoughts more organized. I'll probably update it after chapter 7 (canto 7, Don's chapter). For my thoughts on the game as a whole, this is the best gacha out there and it will only keep getting better and better with their writing quality and their ideas to implement evolving as Project Moon adds their previous ideas on it, expands the lore and gaining new insights while they experimenting/ making those ideas real. Even if you hate gachas this is still a must getting into if you love Project Moon's other works because it literally includes all of the previous ones, also its not entirely gacha as you can get everything with playing and in time. I think making Limbus gacha was the right choice because if it was a standalone game how would they add the new stories later, like, new dlc for new chapters? Sure you can use the argument ''they could finish everything and then publish the game'' and my response would be good luck waiting 5 years, with no chance of getting fixes after it releases and no cool other versions of sinners we get every week on banners, because you would probably had to play the game with base sinners if it wasnt gacha. Plus waiting for new cantos/in between stories of cantos (events) is the sweet nectar.

Prologue: What a cool introduction to a new story on pmoonverse with giving us two familiar faces from the previous entry (Leviathan) and making us question why Vergilius is here now and what the hell is going on with Dante. Wow our character cast is immortal as long as Dante can revive them, there are so many possibilies for pmoon to explore with this, like for example making extremely dire situations because they can challenge what a normal human cant with immortality. Oh Mili and Studio Eim (Studio Eim please upload the soundtracks to spotify please I beg thee) will keep on working for Limbus huh, okay we got music side covered they cant go wrong, cant wait for Mili songs in the future.

Canto 1: Our first sinner to get his conclusion and character development, it was good and exciting with a surprising ending. Gregor makes peace with his difference from others. We got so see more information on what happened to lobotomy corp branches after the previous entries, looks like we search for golden boughs and we got more info about smoke war because Gregor is a smoke war veteran and story took place in Gregors memories because of the golden bough. We also saw the main villains. So, characters and their stories are actually from literature and Limbus integrates them to its own story huh, cool, we can speculate what to expect from their books.

Canto 2: This one was weird and underwhelming from previous canto, I assume they rushed this because they were working for other aspects of the game and next canto and release date was nearing. There was no climax and Rodion didnt get her resolution, also no new info except there is a gambling district in the city. At least we saw funny interactions of the cast and how they are getting used to each other and to the job they do. Still sucks for Rodion but they might come back to this later.

Canto 3: Overall incredible and peak and makes you wonder how we come to this from canto 2's bland ending. We saw our most meek and always terrified sinner Sinclair get courage to stand up to this cantos villain, Kromer, and I think this is the most bitter one after Heathcliffs canto, people understate/ forget what happened to his family and town from what I've seen. If I remember correctly this is the first time we saw distortion since Library of Ruina, they keep on continuing building on the lore. Also we got our first Mili song (if we dont include opening Mili song) bgm, going more in line with LoR's formula. Made me wonder how can they top this at the time of experiencing it, which, it was at the launch of the game, what I mean is it looked hopeful for future content, if you start wondering how can they top this, pmoon tops it, works in reverse. This was also the hardest time for both devs and players with so many bugs or lack of quality of life options. If devs stopped giving a fuck we wouldnt get what limbus is today, so I applaud their hard work, just like what their stories conveys, they faced the fear and built the future. Most of the bad opinions about Limbus stems from bad launch or Velmori incident or people who hate the gameplay (skill issue)

Canto 4: Very emotional canto with again another peak ending and another question of ''how can they top this?'' (Im repeating myself and I will keep on doing it but its literally this every single time, plus my vocabulary isnt much good for me to talk about it detailed, but still I want to write a review about the game most excited I get nowadays, which is waiting for new limbus stories). We got to see why Yisang is depressed, we see the league of nine and we learn more about the most important aspect in the entire game: mirror worlds, its basically paralel universes of someone you can see on the other side of the mirror or extract with a another complex tech. Thats basically how we can use different versions of our sinners in combat and its inventor is Yisang. Another cool concept and how it makes Limbus work as a gacha, you wouldnt imagine a gacha with a low number of just 12 characters keep living in this medium but it actually works wonders with giving you more worlbuilding in those mirror world versions and stories of the characters, everything Project Moon does and implements expands on their lore (even the sandwhich restaurant HamHamPangPang). Plus you got to see more of the sinner(s) you like so basically a clever way of fanservice. Now getting back to canto, Yisang gets over his depression after confronting his past coworkers and seeing his smile on canto ending song and later cantos, seeing him become more sharing and talkative just melts you and gives you a smile too. If you get invested in these 12 characters you definitelly see them develop and change later with how they interact differently from earlier cantos, a genius writing as always and a living story, never staying stagnant, seeing those are one of the best enjoyments you can get from this game and other Project Moon works in general.

Canto 5: Ishmael is the most logical sinner aside from stoic and a machine of a being Meursault, but, she was also the most hotheaded one beside Heathcliff (which at this point Heathcliff became calmer after getting to know limbus crew better so Ishmael was the only one left out of the group) because of her obsession, which is, getting stuck on the thought of killing Ahab and getting her revenge. She would disagree at some points with Dante's choices in this canto and act on her own because she thinks its the most quick way for her to get to Ahab, making Limbus crew at a disadvantage or in danger, but at the same time she is the only one with immense knowledge on seafaring and the place they are on. Another point why she does this is because at this point in story sinners know they will get their spotlight, after witnessing it 4 times before they know it just like the player, their time will come, and Ishmael knows. Heathcliff knows too, with knowing hes the closest or next on the canto list, he tries to stole hair coupons for his canto and makes the situation hopeless unknowingly, because those hair coupons were Middle's, one of the fingers in the city, which never forgets the crime done to them. This was the thing I was talking about in prologue section with making the situation dire, Middle is way above their level and they fuck our sinners up hard, not even getting revived again and again saves them. At the same time it is about time for Middle to learn immortal sinners weakness, Dante, with no way of our own color fixer Vergilius to come help us (this is also the moment Fraudgilius memes appear). In the end Ishmael gets over her revenge after a fight with Ahab inside a whale and finds her way back, starts to make positive relationships with other sinners after breaking herself apart from just seeing one single goal. Again with this canto they increase the production value from previous ones, easily tops the previous canto again with overall quality increase and ending and they fix minor things like pacing issues in canto 4 which I didnt mention. We dont see Velmori's art anymore because of the incident (a sad korean drama and a lot of misunderstandings on english players side because of the confidentiality contract Project Moon made with Velmori at the time of drama) but I have to say, I prefer Naiga's art more, it works better with Limbus's tone and setting and more in line with previous game. Still, Velmori's character expressions were cute.

Canto 6: We came to Heathcliffs canto that he were despairing for this moment on both canto 5 and intervallo events and at the time of writing this is the best one with so many interesting things happening. More Leviathan lore, more mirror world and the technology for making identities lore, Vergilius beating the Fraudgilius allegations, our own sinner distorting, Dante getting a spotlight and we getting a boss fight similar to Black Silence reception in Library of Ruina, they have a beef with wifeless guys I swear. I didnt mention earlier again because it looked more fit here but this canto is the most clear we see Carmen trying to distort someone with voicelines and all because the one distorting is the closest to our team. We even see 2 cg arts of Carmen, that passes in the blink of an eye, from Lobotomy Corporation. After an absolute peak and cool of a boss fight Project Moon says nah its not over and breaks the hearts of the players more with a meta, fourth wall breaking gameplay cutscene, no wonder canto's name is Heartbreaking. Heathcliff's canto's ending is the most bitter with how it ends but he still has hopes for the future and determined to bring *** back. This is easily the best canto right now but I trust them to surpass themselves again in Don's chapter, we'll see in 3-4 months later.