Really great tactical experience with high replay-ability. The pixel art is charming; I love all the sprites and drawn, detailed headshot for each character. There is a ton of lore and backstory I haven't seen in my two playthroughs. There's more I could have played, so don't think 64 hours is high. I found it fascinating that character side stories are stretched across different playthroughs. You can't see it all in one. That encourages to replay and keeps the content fresh.

The battles are fun; I had to learn new mechanics that I haven't seen in Fire Emblem. (I haven't played many tactical games, so my references are very small.)

I did enjoy that the gameplay differs. I could have played more runs for new story bits, but my tactical itch was satisfied. I was pleased with my screw-everything-up run and the golden route. The story isn't meant to be a mystery book, but you learn which allies are baddies real quick. You can have a good guess what's going on behind the scenes. That felt like the weakest point to me. But the character depth, history, and magic were well done.

In my first playthrough, my screen would rapidly spin around in combat. I don't think it was my stick getting stuck; I haven't experience that in other games. Then the second playthrough was fine. It didn't constantly rotate the camera. Certainly odd.

Reviewed on Jan 13, 2024


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