Overall a pretty enjoyable JRPG. Feels like a mix of Dragon Quest in the overworld and level design and Pokémon in terms if collecting monsters/familiars.
The world, art design, music, and overall visuals are all excellent. This game has one of the best looking worlds in a JRPG with some of the most interesting looking towns and cities. The story varies between being quite engaging and being pretty standard but it doesn't really drag too much in my opinion.
The combat, which is the staple of any RPG as its what you'll be doing 80% of the time, is a bit of a mixed bag but ultimately pretty enjoyable. It tries to do something different from the typical turn-based system and there's a fair bit of depth to the moves and builds you can construct, but sometimes it feels a little janky. Often my familiars got stuck and couldn't attack meaning I lost precious time and often the AI companions would choose the worst combat options or fail to defend from powerful attacks even though I instructed them to. The game is not long enough for it to become a serious problem, but it's definitely its biggest weakness.
Playing this game I compared it a lot to Dragon Quest XI which I played a few years ago. This game seemed to value your time more and the voice acting was a bit more consistent. The characters in this game aren't as expressive as those in DQ, but I found them a bit more cohesive as a team and the game benefitted from having a small party. Mr Drippy especially was great throughout. The villains were nothing special but their boss fights were pretty fun climaxes to the game; they served their function.
Ultimately, I had a lot of fun exploring this world and recommend this to anyone fond of Dragon Quest who maybe wants to mix things up with a different combat system. There's a lot of postgame which I didn't really explore but the game can easily be extended quite a bit if that's your thing. I spent around 34 hours beating the main quest and about 90% of the errands and bounty hunts I could find, but doing everything could easily take 100 hours or more.
The world, art design, music, and overall visuals are all excellent. This game has one of the best looking worlds in a JRPG with some of the most interesting looking towns and cities. The story varies between being quite engaging and being pretty standard but it doesn't really drag too much in my opinion.
The combat, which is the staple of any RPG as its what you'll be doing 80% of the time, is a bit of a mixed bag but ultimately pretty enjoyable. It tries to do something different from the typical turn-based system and there's a fair bit of depth to the moves and builds you can construct, but sometimes it feels a little janky. Often my familiars got stuck and couldn't attack meaning I lost precious time and often the AI companions would choose the worst combat options or fail to defend from powerful attacks even though I instructed them to. The game is not long enough for it to become a serious problem, but it's definitely its biggest weakness.
Playing this game I compared it a lot to Dragon Quest XI which I played a few years ago. This game seemed to value your time more and the voice acting was a bit more consistent. The characters in this game aren't as expressive as those in DQ, but I found them a bit more cohesive as a team and the game benefitted from having a small party. Mr Drippy especially was great throughout. The villains were nothing special but their boss fights were pretty fun climaxes to the game; they served their function.
Ultimately, I had a lot of fun exploring this world and recommend this to anyone fond of Dragon Quest who maybe wants to mix things up with a different combat system. There's a lot of postgame which I didn't really explore but the game can easily be extended quite a bit if that's your thing. I spent around 34 hours beating the main quest and about 90% of the errands and bounty hunts I could find, but doing everything could easily take 100 hours or more.