This review contains spoilers
Well. Here we are at 48 hours of playtime. After spending more time with this game. I have to come to the conclusion that this ISN'T the greatest game of all time. Whu-oh, gripe time.
You can only overlook so many performance and overall QA bungles before you start to feel them encroach on your enjoyment of the fun RPG gameplay.
The crashes, thankfully are circumvented by frequent autosaving, and the recent update (1.03, I hope giving this context is going to will another update into existence for gripe #2)
Music cutting out for certain seasons and weather effects sucks. Detracts from the atmosphere instead of adding it because why wouldn't this song play during the winter? Makes the fields feel worse to explore when in truth they're very well paced and populated with secrets and monster variety through the seasons.
Difficulty has been strange to assess. After a certain point of getting the stronger tiers of talent trees with high damage AOE and stronger heals, nothing has really posed a lasting threat. This might be a symptom of the systems of amassing power being so open ended, that it accounts for a wide range of player skill as they progress through the main story.
Speaking of story, I got mega baiting into thinking the game had a branching narrative of characters entering and exiting the scene, I'm owned. The narrative puzzle is gradually revealing itself as a purely "what if", seeing as how Teen Psaro is existing at the same time as the fully formed team of adventurers you would experience playing as in DQ4.
This is more of an observation than a complaint. But part of me wishes our boxart trio had a greater impact in a gameplay sense. I'm reminded a lot of SMT IV Apocalypse at least as our anti-hero protagonist is pulled in a tug of war between savior and tyrant. Would players taking the role of Asahi be more likely to kill their friends kiddo if there wasn't a bar charging every battle to interrupt an enemy turn and bestow free damage and buffs? The point I'm making isn't that a character's life should be tied to their numerical benefit in battle, but maybe we would all like Toilin a little more if every so often he threw a bomb at the enemy, or Rose would help in scouting monsters. They're not cursed! What's keeping them on the sidelines?
Altogether the game is still good. Finding the next killer combination of monsters is satisfying. Amassing accessories combines the options to cover a weakness or exaggerate a strength in battle, or reap greater rewards which is a great way to scale the EXP for new monsters, getting them in the fight faster as you fuse up the ranks. Hopes and goals are to fuse a "final" team and rush the final tier of areas to see the ending. Then decide if I want to plot a new run or fill out the bestiary. Cheers!
You can only overlook so many performance and overall QA bungles before you start to feel them encroach on your enjoyment of the fun RPG gameplay.
The crashes, thankfully are circumvented by frequent autosaving, and the recent update (1.03, I hope giving this context is going to will another update into existence for gripe #2)
Music cutting out for certain seasons and weather effects sucks. Detracts from the atmosphere instead of adding it because why wouldn't this song play during the winter? Makes the fields feel worse to explore when in truth they're very well paced and populated with secrets and monster variety through the seasons.
Difficulty has been strange to assess. After a certain point of getting the stronger tiers of talent trees with high damage AOE and stronger heals, nothing has really posed a lasting threat. This might be a symptom of the systems of amassing power being so open ended, that it accounts for a wide range of player skill as they progress through the main story.
Speaking of story, I got mega baiting into thinking the game had a branching narrative of characters entering and exiting the scene, I'm owned. The narrative puzzle is gradually revealing itself as a purely "what if", seeing as how Teen Psaro is existing at the same time as the fully formed team of adventurers you would experience playing as in DQ4.
This is more of an observation than a complaint. But part of me wishes our boxart trio had a greater impact in a gameplay sense. I'm reminded a lot of SMT IV Apocalypse at least as our anti-hero protagonist is pulled in a tug of war between savior and tyrant. Would players taking the role of Asahi be more likely to kill their friends kiddo if there wasn't a bar charging every battle to interrupt an enemy turn and bestow free damage and buffs? The point I'm making isn't that a character's life should be tied to their numerical benefit in battle, but maybe we would all like Toilin a little more if every so often he threw a bomb at the enemy, or Rose would help in scouting monsters. They're not cursed! What's keeping them on the sidelines?
Altogether the game is still good. Finding the next killer combination of monsters is satisfying. Amassing accessories combines the options to cover a weakness or exaggerate a strength in battle, or reap greater rewards which is a great way to scale the EXP for new monsters, getting them in the fight faster as you fuse up the ranks. Hopes and goals are to fuse a "final" team and rush the final tier of areas to see the ending. Then decide if I want to plot a new run or fill out the bestiary. Cheers!