This review contains spoilers
They get started on the right foot with a comfortable game-feel normally reserved for the most polished of action titles. Moving and dodging feels good, hits feel weighty and the enemy design is consistently solid for a group this large. You have an understanding of action fundamentals here that you just don't get in a lot of ARPGs. For that, the game deserves to be commended. It's only when digging deeper when problems start to arise, which would be excusable for a game half the length of this one.
The gameplay loop is defined by two major stats: Damage and Will Damage. Damage affects the enemy health bar and Will affects the returning stagger bar. This makes the optimal setup obvious from the very beginning: cast abilities with high will onto enemies first with the stagger bar, and then finish them off with high damage abilities when the stagger bar is empty. Since you get the high will damage dealing GARUDA early on, you have everything you need to conquer most enemies and bosses in the game by the time the first third is over.
Ironically, more liberal application of RPG mechanics could have helped with this. The game was right to keep some aspects like armor stats to a minimum, but they went too far and cut out things like elemental weaknesses which would have at least made some abilities less redundant compared to others. When fighting Garuda, casting fire and wind have the same effect when some nuance here would have necessitated a shift in strategy from the rest of the game.
The game neglecting RPG elements to focus on action would at least be admirable if the action side wasn't also underdeveloped. Clive gets a single combo at the beginning of the game with the only way to modify it being the magic burst ability, which might be enough nuance for newcomers but if you've played an action game before the timing will be trivial. Base spells don't differ in terms of damage and AOE like in the kingdom hearts series. They behave like the firearms in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta with none of the variety offered by either. With each Dominant having a different fighting style, New eikons could have been equipped with different base combos and projectiles to go along with their abilities to differentiate them. This was so obvious that I'm guessing the designers cut it mid development for some reason, which leaves the combat system we have feeling repetitive and unfinished. The generous activation window and i-frames of Precision Dodge means defensive gameplay isn't all that engaging either.
This is where the problems realy begin to start: For a game structured around replayability and nuance it doesn't have any of that to speak of. Just about the only thing you do in between lengthy cutscenes is combat, and with the system struggling to remain interesting in a runtime half as long as a lot of contemporary RPGs it just gets dull long before it's over.
How is that story, anyway? Well, the game fulfills promise of a more grounded setting and tone punctuated by battles between gods of unfathomable power for the first chunk, but as you press on, contrivances begin to pile on and the tone gets more fantastic. A genuinely good arc for Clive carries the game through most of it's rougher moments, but most other characters disappoint. Jill is a noncharacter who might as well be another Torgal for how much she adds to most of the story. Joshua as an enigma creating a trail of questions where every answer turns out to be the least interesting one. Cid is the clear winner of the pack, with a genuinely interesting dynamic with Clive that the game struggles to fill once it decides to kill him off early. The rest of the cast make up the many shops and services in the hideaway. It's going to depend on how much the player wants to invest in boring, repetitive sidequests if they want to make the most of the cast, but the fact that they largely don't take part in the main narrative hurts later proclamations by Clive that his friends form the backbone of his ironclad drive. It's pretty standard RPG fare that would be a lot more emotionally affecting if the game was actually an RPG. Those games are actually built around groups of characters collaborating alongside one another. For a single player action game with one of the dryest casts in recent memory, it's a cliche that falls flat.
The world of Valistea is genuinely interesting, but it's let down by the dull character writing and hackneyed conclusion. The risky decision to base the game's plot around a slave driven economy is an interesting one, but it falls apart under scrutiny. How has the balance of power shifted away from powerful magic users in so many parts of the world?
Even if it didn't, it's a thread the game drops anyway in pursuit of a much more standard plight of a god who grows tired of human conflict and seeks to end it through extreme measures. It's impossible to draw a through-line from the complex issue of slavery to zombies, but bless this game's heart for trying anyway.
It's a game too shallow for all of it's bloat, too juvenile for the tone it wears like a skin and with too dull of an imagination to deliver on all the interesting ideas it puts forward. It's not a bad game, but definitely the most disappointing one I played this year.
The gameplay loop is defined by two major stats: Damage and Will Damage. Damage affects the enemy health bar and Will affects the returning stagger bar. This makes the optimal setup obvious from the very beginning: cast abilities with high will onto enemies first with the stagger bar, and then finish them off with high damage abilities when the stagger bar is empty. Since you get the high will damage dealing GARUDA early on, you have everything you need to conquer most enemies and bosses in the game by the time the first third is over.
Ironically, more liberal application of RPG mechanics could have helped with this. The game was right to keep some aspects like armor stats to a minimum, but they went too far and cut out things like elemental weaknesses which would have at least made some abilities less redundant compared to others. When fighting Garuda, casting fire and wind have the same effect when some nuance here would have necessitated a shift in strategy from the rest of the game.
The game neglecting RPG elements to focus on action would at least be admirable if the action side wasn't also underdeveloped. Clive gets a single combo at the beginning of the game with the only way to modify it being the magic burst ability, which might be enough nuance for newcomers but if you've played an action game before the timing will be trivial. Base spells don't differ in terms of damage and AOE like in the kingdom hearts series. They behave like the firearms in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta with none of the variety offered by either. With each Dominant having a different fighting style, New eikons could have been equipped with different base combos and projectiles to go along with their abilities to differentiate them. This was so obvious that I'm guessing the designers cut it mid development for some reason, which leaves the combat system we have feeling repetitive and unfinished. The generous activation window and i-frames of Precision Dodge means defensive gameplay isn't all that engaging either.
This is where the problems realy begin to start: For a game structured around replayability and nuance it doesn't have any of that to speak of. Just about the only thing you do in between lengthy cutscenes is combat, and with the system struggling to remain interesting in a runtime half as long as a lot of contemporary RPGs it just gets dull long before it's over.
How is that story, anyway? Well, the game fulfills promise of a more grounded setting and tone punctuated by battles between gods of unfathomable power for the first chunk, but as you press on, contrivances begin to pile on and the tone gets more fantastic. A genuinely good arc for Clive carries the game through most of it's rougher moments, but most other characters disappoint. Jill is a noncharacter who might as well be another Torgal for how much she adds to most of the story. Joshua as an enigma creating a trail of questions where every answer turns out to be the least interesting one. Cid is the clear winner of the pack, with a genuinely interesting dynamic with Clive that the game struggles to fill once it decides to kill him off early. The rest of the cast make up the many shops and services in the hideaway. It's going to depend on how much the player wants to invest in boring, repetitive sidequests if they want to make the most of the cast, but the fact that they largely don't take part in the main narrative hurts later proclamations by Clive that his friends form the backbone of his ironclad drive. It's pretty standard RPG fare that would be a lot more emotionally affecting if the game was actually an RPG. Those games are actually built around groups of characters collaborating alongside one another. For a single player action game with one of the dryest casts in recent memory, it's a cliche that falls flat.
The world of Valistea is genuinely interesting, but it's let down by the dull character writing and hackneyed conclusion. The risky decision to base the game's plot around a slave driven economy is an interesting one, but it falls apart under scrutiny. How has the balance of power shifted away from powerful magic users in so many parts of the world?
Even if it didn't, it's a thread the game drops anyway in pursuit of a much more standard plight of a god who grows tired of human conflict and seeks to end it through extreme measures. It's impossible to draw a through-line from the complex issue of slavery to zombies, but bless this game's heart for trying anyway.
It's a game too shallow for all of it's bloat, too juvenile for the tone it wears like a skin and with too dull of an imagination to deliver on all the interesting ideas it puts forward. It's not a bad game, but definitely the most disappointing one I played this year.