This review contains spoilers
(i have completed up to chapter 11 hard/classic at the time of posting this)
i have been very excited for this game and i am both pleased and disappointed. the positives are that the gameplay is very good, maps are tightly designed and feel good to play, the emblem system early on may seem overpowered but soon enemies will get emblems and they will use them against you, bosses also having multiple hp bars forces you to make careful use of your attacks so that you dont waste an attack that can be the difference between keeping a unit alive or them dying. the bosses are very strong offensively and it seems like the game will even rig crits (or ive been very unlucky) to punish you for not killing them fast enough. the battle animations are fantastic as well. the positives end there, as the writing is worse than fates sadly, every and i mean every non enemy character sucks off the protagonist for no good reason other than that they were born special, even some of the protagonists enemies suck up to them, it feels unearned and just bad. the characters are more one note than the awakening cast as well, some characters honestly are still fine and enjoyable but some are either immensely grating (CHLOE) or just disappointingly flat. it really does not bode well to have such a poorly written game especially right after 3 houses which was good but underbaked. i hope that the next new mainline entry in the franchise hires a new writing staff because this is bad. the character design varies, some i love some i dont. i wish some characters were not the way they were (bunet and boucheron are particularly unappealing desings) but some are very good. overall i enjoy the game but hope that we never get a game with this quality of writing again
i have been very excited for this game and i am both pleased and disappointed. the positives are that the gameplay is very good, maps are tightly designed and feel good to play, the emblem system early on may seem overpowered but soon enemies will get emblems and they will use them against you, bosses also having multiple hp bars forces you to make careful use of your attacks so that you dont waste an attack that can be the difference between keeping a unit alive or them dying. the bosses are very strong offensively and it seems like the game will even rig crits (or ive been very unlucky) to punish you for not killing them fast enough. the battle animations are fantastic as well. the positives end there, as the writing is worse than fates sadly, every and i mean every non enemy character sucks off the protagonist for no good reason other than that they were born special, even some of the protagonists enemies suck up to them, it feels unearned and just bad. the characters are more one note than the awakening cast as well, some characters honestly are still fine and enjoyable but some are either immensely grating (CHLOE) or just disappointingly flat. it really does not bode well to have such a poorly written game especially right after 3 houses which was good but underbaked. i hope that the next new mainline entry in the franchise hires a new writing staff because this is bad. the character design varies, some i love some i dont. i wish some characters were not the way they were (bunet and boucheron are particularly unappealing desings) but some are very good. overall i enjoy the game but hope that we never get a game with this quality of writing again
5 Comments
i think its fine even if there are games that are better whole packages than fates/erngage, a game like tactics ogre may be a wholly better game than fates or engage but i think both can coexist. i tend to replay games often (more often than i play new games) so if i find a game thats better it just becomes another game that enters the endless cycle of replaying
after all its easier to ignore a bad story than it is to ignore bad gameplay (skip button be like), so in the end im ok with the story being bad, but i would rather the story be something i can enjoy alongside the gameplay, which is why engage only gets 2 stars
i think i also tend to replay things more, but unless it's an action game that isn't focused on story i tend to care way more about story than gameplay (even on replays) which is why i love games like xenogears and vagrant story more than games like fates or engage
thats fair, i always prefer gameplay over story so thats how i am still able to enjoy fates and engage but in the end i think what is most important is that devil survivor is the best smt game
fascinator
1 year ago