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.
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.