this game really came outta nowhere. its the only roguelike i can think of id recommend for the story and not the gameplay, not because the gameplays bad, but because the story is better. the gameplays still good enough to keep me playing this game after finishing the story and getting both endings. i did find it a little easy, with a sudden difficulty spike for the true final bosses, but its "easy" in the sense that i felt like i could solve my way out of most situations rather than because i can just blindly use the cards with the highest numbers and win, which is a good thing.

i forgot to update this review for a while but im here now.

so im a little conflicted after finishing it. gameplay wise its incredible, but... at some point you wonder to yourself "is this it?". you fight a lot of the same enemies, the exploration isnt very meaningful a lot of the time (though the exploration that does feel good, is very good), and the story is just frankly not good. the game really takes its time in the first region, but then you move onto the next one and its over in less than half the time, then you move into the last and third region and the games over pretty much right away. and if that was it this would be a 3.5, but then if you engage the true ending at the very last section you get into a far more interesting part of the game in pretty much every way. i wont spoil it, but then after just a few more hours its over. those last couple hours do drag it up by quite a bit honestly. it has a strong beginning, a very weak middle section and a strong ending, but i expected a pretty heavily replayable game which this isnt. it would be a little that if some of the changes to the world that are made in the last part were made permanent in ng+, but as is this is a one and done kinda deal which feels a little disappointing, but its still amazing in the gameplay department so its really really worth playing just for that, just dont expect it to change your life.

booting this game up for the first time after finishing the ps1 games had me going wild over how much better it seemed at first, but after actually playing it for a short time you realize its... still basically the same game. this time however, it seems a lot more balanced, but i feel as if thats to its detriment since the previous games sort of masked some of their awful mission design with just how strong you could be, while this one is just brutal in an extremely frustrating way. unlike the previous games, i didnt 100% this one, the arena was far too difficult, maybe thats a skill issue though.