This is my first Vanillaware game. A lot of what they made hasn't really caught my attention much in the past. I heard about Murimasa alot in the past, and I hear nothing but good things about Odinsphere. I’m not super huge into the fantasy genre though, I will definitely play them, but I typically prefer Sci-Fi to Fantasy on any given day. I bought 13 Sentinels 2 years ago and its been actively bothering me in the back of my mind that I haven't played it yet. Finally made time for it and it was certainly worth it. I knew next to nothing about the games story going in, except that it was pretty acclaimed when it came out in small circles of people. When I first started, the game was incredibly intimating on thr visual novel end, where it shows the player the flow chart of all thr different outcomes to a given sinereo of one of the 13 storylines. As you keep playing though, it luckily becomes more straightforward that the game, while complex on one hand, is simple and liner to tackle from a play standpoint. The complexity of the games story DEFINITELY comes from its writing and weaving 13 stories in and out of each other in a non linear fashion, Tarantino style. There were points in the game were I just wanted to get out a whiteboard and try to piece together all the clues that I knew so far and try to make sense of it all. Thats the beauty of the game, it may start off a little overwhelming with the amount of random story threads it drops on you that almost seems like its contradictory in a meaningless way, but it pulls together fast enough to keep you invested and wanting more. There are points in this game were plot twists and major reveals will happen about every 15 mins for hours on end. And it all feels earned. I can’t even imagine the amout of time the writers had to take just to go over every minute detail of the plot to make sure of there not being contradictions. There seriously isnt a game that tries this to this level, let alone absolutely nails it on its first go. Ive heard (haven't played) games like Octopath Traveler kind of presenting itself in a similar fashion, with multiple protagonist storylines that are supposed to intercept. But i’ve also heard of them falling flat and not really mattering in the grand scheme of things. 13 Sentinels does this on such an extreme level with 13 different storylines that are infinitely more complex than most i've seen. Before playing this, I debated replaying Broken Age too. As I kept playing 13 Sentinels, I couldn't get the comparison out of my head that this game is like Broken Age, just about a hundred thousand times more complex. Part of me wonders if Kamitani was aware of Broken Age at all when it came out in 2014, as this concept of the game was conceived in 2013 (probably not, I don't even think Broken Age is available in Japanese). The database in the game is shockingly well thought out and Im genuinely curious as to how many hours went into creating everything in it. That goes for the amount of voice acting in the game too, every line is voiced (I played with the Japanese dub so I cant a-test to the English dub being good or bad). The one thing that really scared me going into this game, was the RTS stuff. I’m not really good at RTS and really the most complicated, similar thing Ive ever played is Mario Plus Rabbids. I was afraid of getting stuck on these sections and not being able to enjoy the game, but I surprisingly ended up loving them. I played all the way through on the normal difficulty, and found the first zone to be a total pushover, getting S rank in everything. I think the 2nd and 3rd zones are more appropriate in difficulty, but generally felt it was thr perfect level of challange. I was shocked to find myself actually looking forward to these parts of the game. The music and presentation are great and very distinct to me also in the whole game. Definitely one of my favorite games I've played in a few years. My feelings leaving this game are very similar to how I felt after beating Nier Automata for the first time a couple years ago, a game I probably would not have normally played if not for its word of mouth and ended up loving. I would definitely consider myself to be a fan of George Kamitani now and wanting to play is older titles and look forward to whatever him and Vanillaware do next!