Completion Crieria: Full Reward Board + Credits

Heard about this alot last year and ended up blasting through the game when it came up for game club. The expectations were that the gameplay was fun and it had an aesthetic that I wasn't particularly invested in and that's what I got. Thankfully the negative didn't hurt as much and the positive stuck with me more then expected.

While the story isn't extremely unique, usually Warring states ends up getting extremely sidetracked whilst I thought this did well staying pretty cohesive. It attempts to be mature but not to the point it's overwhelming and it has some fun ideas and magic welding it together.

As mentioned above. I think it has a good modern take on Turn-Based Combat. Utilizing Tug-of-War Systems to try keep combat dynamic whilst removing the 'chore' or MP of resources outside of it. Full MP and HP refills, with free retreats make the dungeons feel like quite a breeze with full momentum. I think the major downside of these systems is that it makes Buff/Debuffing extremely strong as they are no longer a reserve for necessary use but just the pre-amble of every fight and unfortunately by the end of the game, your game plan is the same for every encounter.

I think one floor of the game may be the gem system which was completely ignored until the end game optional content where they felt necessary. The end game overall feels a bit messy with no clear understanding of when I was supposed to just brute force a scenario or I had options to make it easier.

Overall, a good recommendation. I guess in the future I will be able to make the important comparison of Chained Echoes vs Sea of Stars to give an informed opinion