I've played 3 to 4 hours, so like 15 to 20% of the game I believe. It feels unfair to give it a score, but it's enough to give my thoughts.
I was kinda excited for this one after playing the demo some time ago, and this continued during the beginning of the game proper. The 1st battle I thought I was hooked - you throw a "Soaked" status at the boss, send her into the future, and that becomes "Rusted", a pretty interesting idea!
Sadly, that's it. The game does nothing else with its core mechanic. In fact, the time manipulation thing soon proved to be just a gimmick.
I was hit by the realization I wasn't getting what I wanted from this game in one particular boss fight, this robot thing with two arms. Simply put, none of the mechanics of the game work in this fight. Sending the arms to the past or future does nothing at all., not even their HP changes. All you can do is, when the core comes out... soak it, then rust it in the future...
The two arms do this charging attack, and none of my ideas to disrupt it worked. Sending either arm to the past/future, so maybe that part of the mechanism is broken/not finished? Nope. The past version is even called "prototype", but that doesn't mean a damn thing,
You can "pass" your turn, and trade it with whoever is next. Okay, so maybe I put myself in between each arm's turn? Nothing.
One of them was paralyzed by my thunder attack. Will that do it? It didn't. All I could do was tank the damage, or try to kill one of the arms before they executed it. That's it.
I was flabbergasted. The whole fight was just a matter of having bigger numbers than your opponent, which is the case for most RPGs, plenty of which I enjoy - e.g. Suikoden 1 is of the most shallow games I can think of, but I've enjoyed it.
But Cris Tales pacing isn't compatible with its complexity, as this game takes too long for anything to happen. Battles are much longer than they should, when you're not really doing anything beyond "hit it with your best stuff". Again, the future and past stuff is completely meaningless.
It's painful to say all of this, because the game looks great, but I honest to God think they spent all their resources on the art department, neglecting the core mechanics almost entirely.
It's very much possible I'm being super unfair to the game, and it does use all of its mechanics later on, but I find that very hard to believe.
If you finished it and this does happen, let me know. I'd love to be wrong!
I was kinda excited for this one after playing the demo some time ago, and this continued during the beginning of the game proper. The 1st battle I thought I was hooked - you throw a "Soaked" status at the boss, send her into the future, and that becomes "Rusted", a pretty interesting idea!
Sadly, that's it. The game does nothing else with its core mechanic. In fact, the time manipulation thing soon proved to be just a gimmick.
I was hit by the realization I wasn't getting what I wanted from this game in one particular boss fight, this robot thing with two arms. Simply put, none of the mechanics of the game work in this fight. Sending the arms to the past or future does nothing at all., not even their HP changes. All you can do is, when the core comes out... soak it, then rust it in the future...
The two arms do this charging attack, and none of my ideas to disrupt it worked. Sending either arm to the past/future, so maybe that part of the mechanism is broken/not finished? Nope. The past version is even called "prototype", but that doesn't mean a damn thing,
You can "pass" your turn, and trade it with whoever is next. Okay, so maybe I put myself in between each arm's turn? Nothing.
One of them was paralyzed by my thunder attack. Will that do it? It didn't. All I could do was tank the damage, or try to kill one of the arms before they executed it. That's it.
I was flabbergasted. The whole fight was just a matter of having bigger numbers than your opponent, which is the case for most RPGs, plenty of which I enjoy - e.g. Suikoden 1 is of the most shallow games I can think of, but I've enjoyed it.
But Cris Tales pacing isn't compatible with its complexity, as this game takes too long for anything to happen. Battles are much longer than they should, when you're not really doing anything beyond "hit it with your best stuff". Again, the future and past stuff is completely meaningless.
It's painful to say all of this, because the game looks great, but I honest to God think they spent all their resources on the art department, neglecting the core mechanics almost entirely.
It's very much possible I'm being super unfair to the game, and it does use all of its mechanics later on, but I find that very hard to believe.
If you finished it and this does happen, let me know. I'd love to be wrong!