Charming!
Wish I developed stronger feelings about it. A good portion of my friend group described it as "straight fantasy romance written for gay people." Kind of hard to match those expectations. What I got instead was just a great, fast, action game.
You can really see the building blocks for what would become 13 Sentinels. Multiple playable characters, interacting storylines. Whole she-bang. Each character's gameplay style feels more concrete here than in 13S, especially when you've just finished a speedy character and started a slower one. My favorite characters relied significantly more on how comfortable they controlled rather than personalities. The 2D shooter style gameplay of Mercedes stressed me out far more than speedy Cornelius fight boy.
But the story telling is the real high point. Once you accept this as a straight-forward fantasy adventure without much subversion, the interweaving narrative is truly something. Gwendolyn's struggle to impress her father, Cornelius fighting for love against a curse, Mercedes avenging her mother, Oswald rediscovering his identity outside of being a soldier, Velvet defeating the sins of her family. All compelling frameworks. There's a few missed opportunities here to develop more conflict between the cast. Their goals keep them divided, but for the game's supposed interweaving narrative, the main cast actually interact very little. Their fights can never take place inside both of their narrative, only before one narrative has begun or ended. A character isn't allowed to lose during their own story. Feels like its not quite ready to commit to how its characters can have deeper or more antagonistic relationships. By the final scene, most of the cast doesn't know each other. Its an odd feeling.
But the sheer charm and warmth of the game tends to overpower that sense. Dragons, evil kings, family drama. All the tenants of good fantasy. It works! Even if it worked on me less than others, I can't deny that it works.
Wish I developed stronger feelings about it. A good portion of my friend group described it as "straight fantasy romance written for gay people." Kind of hard to match those expectations. What I got instead was just a great, fast, action game.
You can really see the building blocks for what would become 13 Sentinels. Multiple playable characters, interacting storylines. Whole she-bang. Each character's gameplay style feels more concrete here than in 13S, especially when you've just finished a speedy character and started a slower one. My favorite characters relied significantly more on how comfortable they controlled rather than personalities. The 2D shooter style gameplay of Mercedes stressed me out far more than speedy Cornelius fight boy.
But the story telling is the real high point. Once you accept this as a straight-forward fantasy adventure without much subversion, the interweaving narrative is truly something. Gwendolyn's struggle to impress her father, Cornelius fighting for love against a curse, Mercedes avenging her mother, Oswald rediscovering his identity outside of being a soldier, Velvet defeating the sins of her family. All compelling frameworks. There's a few missed opportunities here to develop more conflict between the cast. Their goals keep them divided, but for the game's supposed interweaving narrative, the main cast actually interact very little. Their fights can never take place inside both of their narrative, only before one narrative has begun or ended. A character isn't allowed to lose during their own story. Feels like its not quite ready to commit to how its characters can have deeper or more antagonistic relationships. By the final scene, most of the cast doesn't know each other. Its an odd feeling.
But the sheer charm and warmth of the game tends to overpower that sense. Dragons, evil kings, family drama. All the tenants of good fantasy. It works! Even if it worked on me less than others, I can't deny that it works.