mundodisco8
This review contains spoilers
While the art direction and the writing it's outstanding, none of the "videogame" elements on it work.
The animations are brilliant, the character design is detailed and the backgrounds are simply gorgeous, specially during the sunsets, where palettes shift to reds.
The story is really interesting, and you care about (most) of the characters, their stories and their relation to the protagonist. It's adult, and doesn't sugarcoat things.
But as a videogame, it's just a list of fetch quests, and the worst type of them. In one particular case, it made me search for three people located obviously in three places, only to find one of them that told me that I needed to go to a fourth place. And traversing is boring as hell, the boat is really slow, making the boat phases dull, and on top of that they are limited by the night time, for no apparent reason other than making your experience more miserable. The light platforming is not good either, it's just a thing they had to put there to extend the duration.
The other elements of the game, mainly the crafting, has no depth at all, and it's just there to again extend the duration of the game by creating more currencies so you are always lacking something, and the minimages get boring after the second try... if this was a 4-8h game that would be forgivable, but being as long as it is, it's a total lack of respect for the player's time.
Had it been a visual novel, for example, I would have rated it highly, although if it had been a visual novel, at least I would have known that I wasn't my cup of tea.
The animations are brilliant, the character design is detailed and the backgrounds are simply gorgeous, specially during the sunsets, where palettes shift to reds.
The story is really interesting, and you care about (most) of the characters, their stories and their relation to the protagonist. It's adult, and doesn't sugarcoat things.
But as a videogame, it's just a list of fetch quests, and the worst type of them. In one particular case, it made me search for three people located obviously in three places, only to find one of them that told me that I needed to go to a fourth place. And traversing is boring as hell, the boat is really slow, making the boat phases dull, and on top of that they are limited by the night time, for no apparent reason other than making your experience more miserable. The light platforming is not good either, it's just a thing they had to put there to extend the duration.
The other elements of the game, mainly the crafting, has no depth at all, and it's just there to again extend the duration of the game by creating more currencies so you are always lacking something, and the minimages get boring after the second try... if this was a 4-8h game that would be forgivable, but being as long as it is, it's a total lack of respect for the player's time.
Had it been a visual novel, for example, I would have rated it highly, although if it had been a visual novel, at least I would have known that I wasn't my cup of tea.
Split in three DLCs that are basically a bit of story missions (which are always good) and then the same secondary missions for all three. A bit tiresome, unless you control the urge to do everything and stick to the main missions.
2017
Great art style and beautiful story. The one gameplay idea they have is good, but sadly as a videogame that is all it has to offer. Would have been great if a couple of additional mechanics had been thrown into the mix or if the puzzles were deeper, but as it is, it's not very entertaining.
2018
While the art design is superb (both visuals and audio), as a game is pretty weak. Puzzles are easy and there isn't much to do apart from pressing your analogue left or right. Traversing is particularly boring, which is something shouldn't happen in a platformer.
Story-wise, is your generic "bits here and there and let the user pierce it together" that really don't tell anything.
Story-wise, is your generic "bits here and there and let the user pierce it together" that really don't tell anything.
2022
Outstanding art direction and even better level design, controls are simply fantastic.
1997
Played on the Legacy Collection on Switch. I don't know if indeed finally git gud, but it seemed to me that it was stupidly easy, and didn't really bring anything interesting... and the anime cutscenes are atrocious.
Haven't played with Zero yet, I will update if that makes me think differently, but so far, quite "meh".
PS: Played as Zero, still meh.
Haven't played with Zero yet, I will update if that makes me think differently, but so far, quite "meh".
PS: Played as Zero, still meh.