I enjoyed this a lot, but if I was writing some kind of reviewer’s tagline it’d be something like “The Sea is beautiful but not very deep.”

The game wears it’s influences on its sleeve, openly a tribute to classic SNES JRPG’s, so when it’s evoking the vibes of those games it’s all very nice and pleasant, but what that means is that by design the story, world, and characters, feel like they’re written that way to most emulate the feel of other games that you might have played in the past and liked.

If the starting point is “I want to make something that’s like this other thing.” Well then, it’s just not going to be as interesting as the more original work.

Maybe I’m being overly cynical and presuming too much about the writers’ goals, but it certainly feels that way, particularly when they’re putting in meta-jokes about JRPG tropes… you don’t need to undermine the reality of your own world with trite observations.

What all that means is moment, I’m enjoying the story, I’m liking the characters, but I also have this vague feeling that it’s mainly because it’s very deliberately like other things that I’ve also liked.

The Combat then – again enjoyable, it’s a good take on turn-based combat, it’s probably getting the “lock” mechanic from something else too although I haven’t played whatever game that is. I do sometimes find it irritating that enemies would suddenly go.

“Here prick, break 12 locks of every damage type in one turn!”

And I’m like

“Doesn’t seem fair?????.”

It is fine though, you can’t 100% break the lock every time by, but it can feel odd and like you might be missing something sometimes.

I do think if the game were any longer the lack of complexity would have started to be a big problem. There isn’t much you can do with character progression or builds in this game. When you level up you simply choose between what stats you want built up.

That’s fine, the combat is more puzzle and decision based, but I got through this entire game without dying (I did die once on a simple random encounter because I’d completely forgotten to heal after the battle before, and I’m absolutely cursing myself for this) There are relics you can turn on to make the game harder (and easier) and that’s all fine, and I’m not saying introducing lots more mechanics and character build variety would necessarily work in this game, it would probably just create other problems. But I think it’s a system that feels like it never quite gets out of third gear.

I feel like I’ve spent this whole time criticizing a game I really enjoyed and had very few complaints about, but that’s the thing. It doesn’t do much wrong, but doesn’t do much that’s amazing either… although that one bit where you traverse to a new area for the final third of the game, wow!