One of those weird hidden gems we stumble by accident.
Once again i come back to this game, i never finished it but i'm writting this review just in case i finally do after so many attempts, so i'll just edit it in the future.
Contact is certainly one of a kind, this game leaks originality and passion, the atmosphere is great, the setting is comfy yet so strange , the music is just beautiful and set's the mood perfectly. This game presents itself quite well, it's just aestheticaly pleasing and really set's itself apart from pretty much anything that has ever came out before, even from the franchise it obviously draws inspiration from which is the Mother/Earthbound series.
Aside from all the positive aspects from this game there's always an elephant in the room when we talk about experimental video games, which is the gameplay. Contact's battle system can be very clunky at times, you basically wait for the main protagonist to hit the enemy, which leads to confusion since action RPG's usually are more fast-paced experiences. The battles can be also very though, even more with the diggestion gimmick, the character heals by eating but he has a limit of how much he can eat for a period of time (besides it's not that easy to farm heal items). The level up system is also a bit unusual, your stats level up as you use them, so attack levels up as you manage to strike enemies in battle, and vitality goes up as you take enemy attacks and so on, i'm not a fan of this since it's basically what FF2 does and can be very annnoying when grinding and also very broken in long terms.
To sum it up, Contact is one hell of a unique experience held back by it's gameplay's flaws, not really huge flaws but little ones that keep stacking up until the problem get's big enough to make most of those who play it end up dropping the game. But being honest, it's one of those things that require patience to get used to, because once you get used to it the game get's much smoother. Keep in mind that this game is hard and sometimes just not fair, so if you're really having trouble just use save states and grind a bit. Enjoy.
Once again i come back to this game, i never finished it but i'm writting this review just in case i finally do after so many attempts, so i'll just edit it in the future.
Contact is certainly one of a kind, this game leaks originality and passion, the atmosphere is great, the setting is comfy yet so strange , the music is just beautiful and set's the mood perfectly. This game presents itself quite well, it's just aestheticaly pleasing and really set's itself apart from pretty much anything that has ever came out before, even from the franchise it obviously draws inspiration from which is the Mother/Earthbound series.
Aside from all the positive aspects from this game there's always an elephant in the room when we talk about experimental video games, which is the gameplay. Contact's battle system can be very clunky at times, you basically wait for the main protagonist to hit the enemy, which leads to confusion since action RPG's usually are more fast-paced experiences. The battles can be also very though, even more with the diggestion gimmick, the character heals by eating but he has a limit of how much he can eat for a period of time (besides it's not that easy to farm heal items). The level up system is also a bit unusual, your stats level up as you use them, so attack levels up as you manage to strike enemies in battle, and vitality goes up as you take enemy attacks and so on, i'm not a fan of this since it's basically what FF2 does and can be very annnoying when grinding and also very broken in long terms.
To sum it up, Contact is one hell of a unique experience held back by it's gameplay's flaws, not really huge flaws but little ones that keep stacking up until the problem get's big enough to make most of those who play it end up dropping the game. But being honest, it's one of those things that require patience to get used to, because once you get used to it the game get's much smoother. Keep in mind that this game is hard and sometimes just not fair, so if you're really having trouble just use save states and grind a bit. Enjoy.