finally got around to beat this one. for compliments, the atmosphere and world building are probably this game's best qualities. the first two games had this nice grunge to them that the future games slowly drifted away from, which isn't terrible, but it's sad to see. the fact that this game manages to introduce so many factions and cities that don't feel overabundant is honestly crazy for how it affects the later games.
In terms of actual gameplay, i'm atleast glad RGG managed to only go up from this. the lock on mechanics are downright awful for the most part. it's aggravating to hit anyone if they move to the side or god forbid dash behind you. worst part is, your moveset is good enough that a good lock on system would've made the game a hundred times better.
this game is probably a 5/10, but the impact this game had is enough to at least warrant a higher score. i'd love to retry the game if it had a new game plus. for what it's worth, the game makes a pretty good impression, but i'd recommend kiwami over this for anyone trying to get into the series.

Stardew Valley meets Spirited Away. A few neat ideas with some interesting gameplay with the bathhouse but somewhat lacking NPCs. Admittedly I didn't delve very deep into this game but other than the dog I didn't really care for any of the NPCs, unlike something like Stardew Valley which this game clearly took inspiration from.

I'm not sure how to describe it but something about the movement controls feels wrong too. It feels like when you stick in a basic move script when prototyping a game, but then in this case just left it at that.
I never expected I'd ever say this, but I wish the NPCs walked slower when you were following them. They move at exactly the same speed as you sprinting, which means its really difficult to keep up with them.
I'll never complain about Bethesda NPCs walking too slow again.

I do wish I could love this game because I think it definitely has potential, but in its current state I'm not going to continue playing.

Pretty fun for a fanfic sequel to the bible!

Not having any real world language is definitely a plus for a language puzzle game, and made me feel like a more active participant than Heaven's Vault. The multiple languages were also a big plus; the best puzzles are definitely when you have to translate from one to another, and thus need to remember each language's syntax, and ways of describing the same thing.

But also, the game undermines itself by pulling its punches. Vocab is validated too often, and the picture clues are too obvious. Often times I was able to guess just because I had so few available words. And there were several instances where the real definitions were wildly different from my placeholder definitions. Hard not to compare it unfavorably to the much stricter way Obra Dinn handled the issue. All that is ultimately forgivable, but I won't forgive the stealth sections. Totally unnecessary and extremely boring!

I'd like to see more emphasis on language features. One of the best moments I had was realizing that drawing a box around a noun meant a place that holds that thing, e.g. "dead" with a box around it means "cemetery". I ended up noticing a lot of great touches like that, but never needed to again.

Still, a great weekend game

A surprisingly well written and snug tactics game about how a bunch of role playing nerds saved the world. There's plenty of variety and customization to create depth in the various scenarios and some excellent twists written into the narrative, driven with fairly funny and well thought out characters. The side quests could have been a bit more fleshed out (they're all some variant of a fetch quest generally) and instant fast travel from a menu would have really reduced a lot of the downtime. Additionally, you get pretty used to listening to the same overworld music due to all the walking through the chapters. Nevertheless, this was a great hidden gem that I feel did enough to distinguish itself from mainstream tactics franchises, and I'll gladly look into any future works from Versus Evil due to my positive experience.

A noir-flavored detective side scroller set in a bleak world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals.

Nice jazzy music, a fairly strong pixel-art visual presentation, and a story that goes in an unexpected direction but feels drastically cut short. Backbone gives the distinct impression that the developers didn't have the time or money needed to execute their vision to its fullest. Relationships are especially truncated with characters saying out loud how they've formed important bonds with each other without showing any development between them. Be prepared for the writing to tell instead of show at almost every turn. Hints of worldbuilding are left largely unfulfilled in a game that only shows a small slice of the various locations discussed and showcased on the city’s sprawling map.

Then, there's the major lack of gameplay. Two quick stealth bits and a single engaging puzzle are about all that interrupt the player tapping one button over and over again to advance the story. The main gameplay consists of choosing between dialogue options, but the player’s choices don’t seem to affect the trajectory of the conversations or make any meaningful difference to the end result in most instances. There's no investigating to speak of in this detective game, nor is there any challenge in the mold of the typical adventure game. Backbone provides you with an inventory, but you will never once have cause to use it as the only items you can pick up are immediately required and used automatically within the same 2D space. There are so few possibilities as to your next move, that you will never be left wondering where to go or what to do next, for better and worse.

With an engaging stylistic presentation and a story that is interesting if hamstrung, Backbone is marginally worth experiencing through its short, 4-hour-ish runtime if you are prepared for something a little closer to a stylized 2D walking simulator than the detective adventure game it aspires to be.

-EDIT-
Lol, they changed the title from Backbone to Tails Noir like two years after release. Backbone was a terrible title anyway, but you don't get to just change your title post-release