I think this game is a really cute, memorable, solid entry in the current renaissance of western-developed "JRPG"-style indies. It's a really impressive project for one main dev to have come up with, and it's clearly brimming with love and passion. But at the same time, I almost sometimes feel like it tries too hard, for lack of a better term. It goes really hard on the boss battles and story moments, to the point it feels like it's aggressively trying to compress a 15 or 20 hour JRPG into a 10-hour package by cutting out fluff, with very little in the way of dungeons or normal enemies to fight. Like many games in the aforementioned emerging indie Pseudo-JRPG subgenre, it tries very hard to fight negative conceptions of the genre as "too grindy" at the cost of having overly brisk pacing that makes it hard to fully appreciate the nuances of the game's combat. While I'm sure this was in large part motivated by an honest assessment of the developer's time and resources, which I understand and respect, I do feel like they seem a bit too afraid of including content that feels like padding, which makes the many different interesting setpieces they developed feel a bit underutilized.
The story nicely synthesizes a decidedly queer perspective with the common emotional tone of JRPGs about raging against fate and both literally and metaphorically slaying gods. The game is packed with characters that exude personality, even down to minor NPCs, and the game's aesthetic of cutesified mirror image of our world of real people with real issues goes a long way towards creating emotional investment. It's very upfront and unapologetic about it's political messaging, and while I really hate the idea of seeming like someone who would whine about devs shoving social justice politics down consumers' throats, I do also feel like it comes across at times as a bit didactic and unsubtle in it's real world allusions in a way that I fear detracts from the messages it is trying to convey by way of sounding potentially preachy. And yes, I know we live in a world of people saying there should be no politics in games while in the same breath praising Metal Gear Solid 2, but I don't think the solution is to just throw all subtlety out the window. I think the act in Sky Garden really epitomizes the highs and lows of the game all at once - creating emotional investment and the thrill of an epic struggle against fascism, while at the same time being packed with really specific and eyeroll-inducing references to things idiots on the internet say that already feel dated to use for humor. Regardless, the game certainly has more highs than lows, and even if I feel like it could have done more to spread those highs out and conveyed it's themes a bit better, it definitely is a ride I would recommend taking.
The story nicely synthesizes a decidedly queer perspective with the common emotional tone of JRPGs about raging against fate and both literally and metaphorically slaying gods. The game is packed with characters that exude personality, even down to minor NPCs, and the game's aesthetic of cutesified mirror image of our world of real people with real issues goes a long way towards creating emotional investment. It's very upfront and unapologetic about it's political messaging, and while I really hate the idea of seeming like someone who would whine about devs shoving social justice politics down consumers' throats, I do also feel like it comes across at times as a bit didactic and unsubtle in it's real world allusions in a way that I fear detracts from the messages it is trying to convey by way of sounding potentially preachy. And yes, I know we live in a world of people saying there should be no politics in games while in the same breath praising Metal Gear Solid 2, but I don't think the solution is to just throw all subtlety out the window. I think the act in Sky Garden really epitomizes the highs and lows of the game all at once - creating emotional investment and the thrill of an epic struggle against fascism, while at the same time being packed with really specific and eyeroll-inducing references to things idiots on the internet say that already feel dated to use for humor. Regardless, the game certainly has more highs than lows, and even if I feel like it could have done more to spread those highs out and conveyed it's themes a bit better, it definitely is a ride I would recommend taking.