absolutely LOVE seeing gorgeous Soejima character illustrations in an isometric tactics game context, especially when paired with that very particular starkly overexposed angelic pearlescent rendering style I totally adore (think Armored Core: For Answer, Ico, El Shaddai, Drakengard 3, or literally just the cover art for .Hack: Infection). The actual tactics game design here (while fun enough) is very much a mid 2000's meat and potatoes Disgaea knockoff with a few tweaks, and it doesn't leave much of a lasting impression. For me this is kind of a sister game alongide Eternal Poison in the way the potent imagery and tone elevate a mostly adequate game into something more mysterious and memorable to reminisce on after the fact. I'm surprised screenshots or character portraits from this game don't get passed around on ~ aesthetic ~ blogs more because it's quite beautiful and distinct!

--to LOOK at... the audio really fails this game in a lot of ways imo! The english voice acting is hilaribad (borderline comparable to Chaos Wars at times) and totally makes a joke out of all the existential patter that would feel way more confounding and atmospheric as nonverbalized text, and while i love Sakimoto and his work on many games I think the conventional FFT orchestral treatment was a big mistake here and does nothing to accentuate the icy elegance of the artwork. This game needed to be scored by like FFXIII Hamauzu or Susumu Hirasawa or fucking ENYA or something, give me a SYNTH and some VOCAL REVERB for god's sake!!!!!!!! mute the game while playing and put this album on in the background instead and you will have a better experience https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nGYNlk-262RFCH-ONZf5IHywLRh9uxRHc