bugz
Fun gameplay locked behind 900 hours of monotonous story. And for a game constantly praised for it's incredible and non-toxic community, it sure does have one that rivals the worst just in a different flavor: passive aggressiveness and veiled insults, all coupled with the lack of an ability to block users except in the middle of the ocean during a blue moon at precisely 6 AM on Mars.
Let me explain: The blocking sucks, only works if the user is on your server specifically, and is unavailable in instanced content; you know, the place you'd need it most, leading to toxic users having free reign in the chat for the entirety of the instance. Sure, you could just kick them, but good luck if they're in a party with their mates.
Past that there's plenty of systems that utterly bog the game down, especially housing, effectively locking users out from content for no reason other than artificial scarcity.
Let me explain: The blocking sucks, only works if the user is on your server specifically, and is unavailable in instanced content; you know, the place you'd need it most, leading to toxic users having free reign in the chat for the entirety of the instance. Sure, you could just kick them, but good luck if they're in a party with their mates.
Past that there's plenty of systems that utterly bog the game down, especially housing, effectively locking users out from content for no reason other than artificial scarcity.
I can't believe how well this game has held up over the years. Even in 2023 it's still a blast to play. <3
Incredible characters, art, story, music, dialogue, everything...
...Except the combat.
Combat is.. terrible. It's painfully boring, takes forever, and is poorly balanced to boot (there's a very obvious/powerful build and you're not very rewarded for switching it up.. sometimes even punished for it). Thankfully there's an option to turn down the difficulty significantly to be able to focus on the rest of the game without as much disruption.
I get that's mostly a symptom of being made in RPGmaker, but that's the reason for a 4.5/5 rather than full 5/5.
The rest of the game though? What a delight.
Characters I couldn't help but obsess over, absolutely gorgeous art, solid story, and OST so good I bought it and the demo on Bandcamp as soon as I finished the game.
...Except the combat.
Combat is.. terrible. It's painfully boring, takes forever, and is poorly balanced to boot (there's a very obvious/powerful build and you're not very rewarded for switching it up.. sometimes even punished for it). Thankfully there's an option to turn down the difficulty significantly to be able to focus on the rest of the game without as much disruption.
I get that's mostly a symptom of being made in RPGmaker, but that's the reason for a 4.5/5 rather than full 5/5.
The rest of the game though? What a delight.
Characters I couldn't help but obsess over, absolutely gorgeous art, solid story, and OST so good I bought it and the demo on Bandcamp as soon as I finished the game.
RIP Dorito bullets.
(In all seriousness, this remake is absolutely gorgeous and extremely well-made.)
(In all seriousness, this remake is absolutely gorgeous and extremely well-made.)
2022
$60 for a beta test cosplaying as a finished game.
Solid game, definitely recommend playing this.
Knocked a star off for occasional crashing problems and some incredibly poor writing with one of the reoccurring characters (the rest of the writing is fine.. just that one character seemed as though they were shoehorned in AFTER the story was already finished).
That being said, this game has some of the best and most fun travel I've had the pleasure of experiencing. I genuinely forgot there was fast-travel till after I beat the game and just happened to stumble across a review that mentioned it.
Knocked a star off for occasional crashing problems and some incredibly poor writing with one of the reoccurring characters (the rest of the writing is fine.. just that one character seemed as though they were shoehorned in AFTER the story was already finished).
That being said, this game has some of the best and most fun travel I've had the pleasure of experiencing. I genuinely forgot there was fast-travel till after I beat the game and just happened to stumble across a review that mentioned it.