There is such a thing as doing too much, and by God is this game guilty of that.
On top of the "which monsters do I want" thing that's inherent to monster-catching rpgs, every monster also has a skill tree, leaving you to consider what kind of role it'll play in battle (you can unlock a good chunk of it by max level, but not all of it, so you do have to commit, though it is possible to reset the tree with some common, buyable items).
Each one also has four, count them, four equipment slots that you absolutely cannot ignore - each of these can also be upgraded up to +5 using crafting materials. This is annoying, as traditional equipment is very much a no-no in monster-catching rpgs, imo.
And then - yes there is indeed more - you eventually acquire the ability to change every monster to either Light or Dark forms, each one possessing one passive skill, and I didn't even mention each monster having elemental weaknesses and resistances, as you'd expect from the genre.
It's a lot to keep track of, too much I would argue. Here's a game that encourages switching monsters around (every egg you hatch comes in the level of your current party), but makes it kind of a pain to actually switch them around a lot. There's no "transfer equipment" or "optimize gear" button, you're stuck doing it manually.
I also get the feeling they focused more on the post-game than anything. The amount of cool shit I've encountered when I was almost done is crazy. "Oh, that sounds cool, I'd like to use that", but then just thinking of switching around my already pretty good party, nah.
With so much stuff to keep track of, this game's balancing suffers - debuffs feel particularly better than just about any other strategy - if you look around, you'll find tons of guides that tell you to use a debuff party to 5-star the Champions.
Some of the skills on the trees can also be difficult to determine how good they are at first glance, since there's a lot of RNG involved.
Still, as you can tell by the rating, I did enjoy the game quite a bit, playing it for 40+ hours doing a ton of optional stuff (including defeating every single Champion). I just wish the devs didn't throw literally everything in this game, as I have no doubt I would have enjoyed it even more.
It does help I'm a metroidvania whore and find turn-based RPGs super chill.
It's one of those games that verge on true greatness. Almost there, but there's some too obvious flaws
On top of the "which monsters do I want" thing that's inherent to monster-catching rpgs, every monster also has a skill tree, leaving you to consider what kind of role it'll play in battle (you can unlock a good chunk of it by max level, but not all of it, so you do have to commit, though it is possible to reset the tree with some common, buyable items).
Each one also has four, count them, four equipment slots that you absolutely cannot ignore - each of these can also be upgraded up to +5 using crafting materials. This is annoying, as traditional equipment is very much a no-no in monster-catching rpgs, imo.
And then - yes there is indeed more - you eventually acquire the ability to change every monster to either Light or Dark forms, each one possessing one passive skill, and I didn't even mention each monster having elemental weaknesses and resistances, as you'd expect from the genre.
It's a lot to keep track of, too much I would argue. Here's a game that encourages switching monsters around (every egg you hatch comes in the level of your current party), but makes it kind of a pain to actually switch them around a lot. There's no "transfer equipment" or "optimize gear" button, you're stuck doing it manually.
I also get the feeling they focused more on the post-game than anything. The amount of cool shit I've encountered when I was almost done is crazy. "Oh, that sounds cool, I'd like to use that", but then just thinking of switching around my already pretty good party, nah.
With so much stuff to keep track of, this game's balancing suffers - debuffs feel particularly better than just about any other strategy - if you look around, you'll find tons of guides that tell you to use a debuff party to 5-star the Champions.
Some of the skills on the trees can also be difficult to determine how good they are at first glance, since there's a lot of RNG involved.
Still, as you can tell by the rating, I did enjoy the game quite a bit, playing it for 40+ hours doing a ton of optional stuff (including defeating every single Champion). I just wish the devs didn't throw literally everything in this game, as I have no doubt I would have enjoyed it even more.
It does help I'm a metroidvania whore and find turn-based RPGs super chill.
It's one of those games that verge on true greatness. Almost there, but there's some too obvious flaws
Kularian
1 year ago