As someone who is drawn to quirky, surrealist RPGs, this obviously scratched an itch for me and succeeded in delivering some really cool moments. The details of this strange world are so eerie and off-putting, as each zone explains it's surreal alchemical means of production- Smoke is mined out for the Elsen to breathe; metal extracted from butchered cattle to form the ground upon which they walk; plastic shipped in vast mail rooms, forming lakes and oceans out of the void; meat poured into bottles to consume; sugar extracted from burnt corpses to allow the Elsen to cope with reality. These elements in turn are used in battle in lieu of typical fire, water, etc. attacks (though the mechanics of combat are not particularly developed.) These Zones are strange communities of extraction and exploitation, needing "purification," the repercussions of which are left purposefully vague. As the Batter, you set out on a straight-forward mission of mindless destruction, which is at odds with the peculiarities of the worlds through which you travel. After purging these Zones of ghosts and their Guardians, they are left as lifeless, empty spaces. Ultimately, the Batter becomes the villain of his own game, and after "purifying" the world of all life, you must choose whether to bring this destruction to it's conclusion, turning the game itself "OFF", or turn against the Batter, leaving the husk of this world clinging to one last shred of life.
This is all great stuff, and the strange details throughout the game give you only enough information to keep you wanting more, never over-explaining. While this mostly worked for me, I can definitely understand if some find it to be trying to hard to be weird without really developing a believable world or well-developed characters.
All that said, in terms of gameplay, the game is very rudimentary. The battle system is severely under-developed and never challenging. Despite containing many status effects and elemental attacks, the game never really makes you understand how they work or put you into situations where you need to think strategically about how to use them. The game's puzzles, while sometimes aesthetically-interesting, more often than not require you to simply remember something that you saw in another room, rather than really exercise much logical problem-solving.
This is all great stuff, and the strange details throughout the game give you only enough information to keep you wanting more, never over-explaining. While this mostly worked for me, I can definitely understand if some find it to be trying to hard to be weird without really developing a believable world or well-developed characters.
All that said, in terms of gameplay, the game is very rudimentary. The battle system is severely under-developed and never challenging. Despite containing many status effects and elemental attacks, the game never really makes you understand how they work or put you into situations where you need to think strategically about how to use them. The game's puzzles, while sometimes aesthetically-interesting, more often than not require you to simply remember something that you saw in another room, rather than really exercise much logical problem-solving.