wavebeem
I am so conflicted on this game. On one hand it's about a queer roadtrip to defeat fascism, on the other hand, I absolutely cannot get into the combat at all.
For the most part I really enjoy the writing. That meme about writers who use subtext being cowards is totally relevant here.
I particularly enjoyed Act III for diving deep into Sam's psyche. I ran out of steam in Act IV, the final part of the game, against the final boss no less.
The combat system is... very weird to me. I've heard that it's like FFXIII, but as someone who hasn't played many FF games, this doesn't help me at all.
The tutorial is pretty short, and by Act III I had played the game so poorly I soft locked myself. See, I was like 4 levels below the boss I was trying to fight, so they literally instant killed all of my party members constantly, and I didn't have enough money to buy gas so I could keep grinding to level up. This game is weirdly a resource management game with the money in a way I've never felt so oppressed by before. I genuinely had to restart the game from Act I because I had been foolish enough to repeatedly save in the same slot, despite the game offering like 50 save slots or something.
So the second time around I minmaxed leveling as hard as I could... without making myself completely out of money since I could mess up the game again. AND I turned on Story Mode combat difficulty. Which, frankly I find the name a bit offensive. It's not like you can simply button mash your way thru boss encounters on that level, at least not the final one. See, the upgrade system is the whole way you level up, and there's lot of spells and if you don't read them all very carefully you can end up with a pretty shit build. I think that's what happened to me at some point and it was making the game a lot harder.
Sadly, the encounter rate just gets too high, and it literally interrupts party dialogue. Gracefully the game resumes conversations where you left off, but I found myself dreading the interruptions. Even on Story Mode where you apparently get more money, I constantly was running out of money for upgrades if i wanted to keep enough money to not run out of gas and lose the entire game.
Eventually I just looked up a Lets Play to watch the final boss play out. Also, apparently at some point the game was patched to prevent you from using your entire item collection during fights, because it was considered messy/confusing. As far as I can tell this was a massive nerf to your combat ability. You have to constantly remember to restock the items in your 5 slots, and it's hard to balance which items you want to take to each fight. In particular Act III and Act IV bosses have some items you really want to have around and I had to restart both fights because I hadn't taken the right loadout.
Anyways, the writing is definitely cheesy at times, but I like the parallels to fascism, LGBT rights, and ineffective liberal government "status quo" woes. Oh, and all the stuff about social media in Act III again was great.
Sadly, my lasting thought about this game is that it needs a massive balance tuning. Maybe I'm "bad" at the game or something, but it just didn't click and I kept feeling frustrated. I wish this game had just been a visual novel instead.
For the most part I really enjoy the writing. That meme about writers who use subtext being cowards is totally relevant here.
I particularly enjoyed Act III for diving deep into Sam's psyche. I ran out of steam in Act IV, the final part of the game, against the final boss no less.
The combat system is... very weird to me. I've heard that it's like FFXIII, but as someone who hasn't played many FF games, this doesn't help me at all.
The tutorial is pretty short, and by Act III I had played the game so poorly I soft locked myself. See, I was like 4 levels below the boss I was trying to fight, so they literally instant killed all of my party members constantly, and I didn't have enough money to buy gas so I could keep grinding to level up. This game is weirdly a resource management game with the money in a way I've never felt so oppressed by before. I genuinely had to restart the game from Act I because I had been foolish enough to repeatedly save in the same slot, despite the game offering like 50 save slots or something.
So the second time around I minmaxed leveling as hard as I could... without making myself completely out of money since I could mess up the game again. AND I turned on Story Mode combat difficulty. Which, frankly I find the name a bit offensive. It's not like you can simply button mash your way thru boss encounters on that level, at least not the final one. See, the upgrade system is the whole way you level up, and there's lot of spells and if you don't read them all very carefully you can end up with a pretty shit build. I think that's what happened to me at some point and it was making the game a lot harder.
Sadly, the encounter rate just gets too high, and it literally interrupts party dialogue. Gracefully the game resumes conversations where you left off, but I found myself dreading the interruptions. Even on Story Mode where you apparently get more money, I constantly was running out of money for upgrades if i wanted to keep enough money to not run out of gas and lose the entire game.
Eventually I just looked up a Lets Play to watch the final boss play out. Also, apparently at some point the game was patched to prevent you from using your entire item collection during fights, because it was considered messy/confusing. As far as I can tell this was a massive nerf to your combat ability. You have to constantly remember to restock the items in your 5 slots, and it's hard to balance which items you want to take to each fight. In particular Act III and Act IV bosses have some items you really want to have around and I had to restart both fights because I hadn't taken the right loadout.
Anyways, the writing is definitely cheesy at times, but I like the parallels to fascism, LGBT rights, and ineffective liberal government "status quo" woes. Oh, and all the stuff about social media in Act III again was great.
Sadly, my lasting thought about this game is that it needs a massive balance tuning. Maybe I'm "bad" at the game or something, but it just didn't click and I kept feeling frustrated. I wish this game had just been a visual novel instead.
2023
Holy shit this game is so cute.
The vibes are off the charts. The art direction and rendering style are fantastic. The music always delights. The characters are cute and the dialogue is fun.
The challenge level is just right to keep you wondering and exploring without getting stuck too long.
This game is just about a little mushroom trying to get home to his family!
You collect lots of items, jump, glide, climb, and solve minor puzzles along the way.
This is a 5-10 hour delight. Maybe a bit more if you wanted to 100% the game.
There are lots of "skins" you can unlock... maybe like 10? I unlocked about 5 of them. Just adorable.
If you like old school 3D collect-a-thons, you should play this!
I mostly played on PC but it also ran great on my Steam Deck.
The vibes are off the charts. The art direction and rendering style are fantastic. The music always delights. The characters are cute and the dialogue is fun.
The challenge level is just right to keep you wondering and exploring without getting stuck too long.
This game is just about a little mushroom trying to get home to his family!
You collect lots of items, jump, glide, climb, and solve minor puzzles along the way.
This is a 5-10 hour delight. Maybe a bit more if you wanted to 100% the game.
There are lots of "skins" you can unlock... maybe like 10? I unlocked about 5 of them. Just adorable.
If you like old school 3D collect-a-thons, you should play this!
I mostly played on PC but it also ran great on my Steam Deck.
2023
i think this game just isn't for me
it's obviously inspired by pokemon but copies way too much from breath of the wild in what i feel is a clumsy way
you have a stamina meter for sprinting that's absurdly low, and you get a glide ability early on
at that point it's trivial to accidentally go to countless areas where enemies will absolutely destroy you
the whole game structure seems to be based around obtaining quests from NPCs and doing them in any order you want
basically every battle i did was either way under or way above my level
you can barely hold any healing items
the music is not doing it for me... i find it just dull
THE PIXEL ART IS FANTASTIC AND SO WELL ANIMATED
i'm giving this game a 2/5 for incredible pixel art and cute monster designs, but unfortunately playing it just feels like a chore to me
it's obviously inspired by pokemon but copies way too much from breath of the wild in what i feel is a clumsy way
you have a stamina meter for sprinting that's absurdly low, and you get a glide ability early on
at that point it's trivial to accidentally go to countless areas where enemies will absolutely destroy you
the whole game structure seems to be based around obtaining quests from NPCs and doing them in any order you want
basically every battle i did was either way under or way above my level
you can barely hold any healing items
the music is not doing it for me... i find it just dull
THE PIXEL ART IS FANTASTIC AND SO WELL ANIMATED
i'm giving this game a 2/5 for incredible pixel art and cute monster designs, but unfortunately playing it just feels like a chore to me
2023
i played etrian odyssey 1 hd on pc. i've played all the other mainline etrian odyssey games starting with 2 and i adore them.
eo1hd is a great repackaging with many of the modern convenience features of later etrian games (turbo mode, auto mapping, difficulty options, etc).
the skill trees are a bit underwhelming in this game and skill balance could use some work.
i played on "normal" or whatever which is actually easier than the original difficulty, but ultimately i was fine with that because it meant less grinding.
most of the floors were pretty fun, but the game leaned on tedium a bit more than the later games with how few fast travel nodes you get and the extreme rarity of shortcuts.
the music is still great but the monster art in the first game isn't as nice. yuzo koshiro is one of my favorite composers.
the story is shockingly good in this game. much better than later games. genuinely loved the whole 4th and 5th stratum from that angle.
sadly the 4th stratum's boss floor is a complete subversion of how FOEs and bosses work thus far in the game, but with essentially no explanation, and it's a slog.
i think toward the 4th and absolutely in the 5th stratum i was massively underleveled. the final boss could 1-shot my entire party with a single attack. so i used the auto walk + holding A to auto level 10 whole levels, which sadly trivalized the final boss.
wish there was more town dialogue and the town NPCs were more interesting like the later games.
there's certainly charm here and it's no surprise this game spawned a successful series, but i think it's definitely one of the series weakest entries. to be clear, a good game. and the 5th stratum is absurdly cool and memorable. they just added so much polish to the later games that i wouldn't recommend coming to eo1 until you've done at least eo2 and eo3 and decided you want more!
eo1hd is a great repackaging with many of the modern convenience features of later etrian games (turbo mode, auto mapping, difficulty options, etc).
the skill trees are a bit underwhelming in this game and skill balance could use some work.
i played on "normal" or whatever which is actually easier than the original difficulty, but ultimately i was fine with that because it meant less grinding.
most of the floors were pretty fun, but the game leaned on tedium a bit more than the later games with how few fast travel nodes you get and the extreme rarity of shortcuts.
the music is still great but the monster art in the first game isn't as nice. yuzo koshiro is one of my favorite composers.
the story is shockingly good in this game. much better than later games. genuinely loved the whole 4th and 5th stratum from that angle.
sadly the 4th stratum's boss floor is a complete subversion of how FOEs and bosses work thus far in the game, but with essentially no explanation, and it's a slog.
i think toward the 4th and absolutely in the 5th stratum i was massively underleveled. the final boss could 1-shot my entire party with a single attack. so i used the auto walk + holding A to auto level 10 whole levels, which sadly trivalized the final boss.
wish there was more town dialogue and the town NPCs were more interesting like the later games.
there's certainly charm here and it's no surprise this game spawned a successful series, but i think it's definitely one of the series weakest entries. to be clear, a good game. and the 5th stratum is absurdly cool and memorable. they just added so much polish to the later games that i wouldn't recommend coming to eo1 until you've done at least eo2 and eo3 and decided you want more!
## what i played
i spent 75 hours doing maaaybe half the shrines, a handful of side quests, upgrading my armor most of the way, and beating the final boss
### stuff i liked
- the art direction
- the music near the end of the game is incredible
- lots of cool shrine puzzles
- link is once again a hot little elf twink on display for us
- the sky islands were pretty cool
- the enemy design is so cool looking
- i just want to play a game about bokoblins thanks
### stuff i was meh about
- the framerate got really choppy whenever you do physics stuff, but was playable for most things
- the overall soundtrack direction is too subdued and ambient for my tastes
- frankly i'm not huge on the combat in BOTW/TOTK. the side dodge vs back dodge vs parry mechanics is way too much for me. dark souls doesn't even need this many types of parries. i never bothered mastering or even getting half good at this.
- only 5 full dungeons
- none of the boss fights were very fun to me
- why are horses still so useless?
- zelda has always had side quests but i think the structure of putting map markers everywhere and making lists of side quests and all that makes the game commodified in a way that feels uncomfy to me, and pressures me into doing more tedious shit than i would naturally
- the structure of the whole game is basically 100% flat, like BOTW
- everything is approximately the same difficulty with only minimal scaling
- because of this, dungeons can't really build on previous ones
- and you don't collect new and interesting upgrades over the course of the game
- i didnt really find building stuff as compelling as they must've expected
- on occasion i was like "oh shit!" but it was rare
- usually it was just tedious and boring
- due to the finicky physics and weird abilities, lots of puzzles can be cheesed, and it may not even be remotely clear what the intended solution is... leading to a dissatisfied feeling of cheating the game and/or yourself
- i feel like older zelda games had more unique types of enemies?
- most enemies here are just recolors
- it was tough to manage all 5 companions since they're 100% context sensitive actions :(
### stuff i didnt like
- feels too "epic" for zelda imo, which i associate with being a bit more cutesy and subdued
- too many cutscenes
- dialogue for almost every character is far too long
- shonen anime tropes really undercut the zelda mood for me
- the underground area was a huge bummer for me, and i chose not to fully explore it
- dungeon design is once again lacking. the dungeons are basically completely flat in structure: just do 4-5 puzzles in any order. also it's possible to cheese some of the puzzles via environment traversal. eek.
- the pacing of the final stretch of the game is all out of wack
- mech combat is a huge bummer
- "gloom" sucked because it punishes you for exploring and for not stockpiling certain types of cures
- and it makes you want to just run away from every battle involving it
## verdict
i would've had a lot more fun just loading up a classic 2d zelda and replaying it
i spent 75 hours doing maaaybe half the shrines, a handful of side quests, upgrading my armor most of the way, and beating the final boss
### stuff i liked
- the art direction
- the music near the end of the game is incredible
- lots of cool shrine puzzles
- link is once again a hot little elf twink on display for us
- the sky islands were pretty cool
- the enemy design is so cool looking
- i just want to play a game about bokoblins thanks
### stuff i was meh about
- the framerate got really choppy whenever you do physics stuff, but was playable for most things
- the overall soundtrack direction is too subdued and ambient for my tastes
- frankly i'm not huge on the combat in BOTW/TOTK. the side dodge vs back dodge vs parry mechanics is way too much for me. dark souls doesn't even need this many types of parries. i never bothered mastering or even getting half good at this.
- only 5 full dungeons
- none of the boss fights were very fun to me
- why are horses still so useless?
- zelda has always had side quests but i think the structure of putting map markers everywhere and making lists of side quests and all that makes the game commodified in a way that feels uncomfy to me, and pressures me into doing more tedious shit than i would naturally
- the structure of the whole game is basically 100% flat, like BOTW
- everything is approximately the same difficulty with only minimal scaling
- because of this, dungeons can't really build on previous ones
- and you don't collect new and interesting upgrades over the course of the game
- i didnt really find building stuff as compelling as they must've expected
- on occasion i was like "oh shit!" but it was rare
- usually it was just tedious and boring
- due to the finicky physics and weird abilities, lots of puzzles can be cheesed, and it may not even be remotely clear what the intended solution is... leading to a dissatisfied feeling of cheating the game and/or yourself
- i feel like older zelda games had more unique types of enemies?
- most enemies here are just recolors
- it was tough to manage all 5 companions since they're 100% context sensitive actions :(
### stuff i didnt like
- feels too "epic" for zelda imo, which i associate with being a bit more cutesy and subdued
- too many cutscenes
- dialogue for almost every character is far too long
- shonen anime tropes really undercut the zelda mood for me
- the underground area was a huge bummer for me, and i chose not to fully explore it
- dungeon design is once again lacking. the dungeons are basically completely flat in structure: just do 4-5 puzzles in any order. also it's possible to cheese some of the puzzles via environment traversal. eek.
- the pacing of the final stretch of the game is all out of wack
- mech combat is a huge bummer
- "gloom" sucked because it punishes you for exploring and for not stockpiling certain types of cures
- and it makes you want to just run away from every battle involving it
## verdict
i would've had a lot more fun just loading up a classic 2d zelda and replaying it
(Played via the Legacy Collection)
Wow. I never finished this game when it came out. I did this time, but mostly out of stubbornness.
Some games are rough around the edges. This one is basically all rough edges. The idea of this game is great, but almost every detail is incredibly frustrating.
- Very few areas to visit
- Nonstop backtracking
- Almost no guidance about where to go
- Story is extremely boring
- Translation is rough, and character limits make things very awkward
- Difficulty spikes a lot... even random battles can kill you quickly if you get unlucky
- The game never autosaves or checkpoints
- Despite being a collectible card based grid based RPG, this game requires way more reaction speed than you'd expect, leading to lots of deaths due to not being able to dodge attacks
- The last two bosses of the game have to be played in sequence without the ability to save
- The dungeon map design is absolutely horrendous, and there's no in-game maps or even names for areas ever
- You basically need to play this with a map on your phone at all times, and a guide to tell where to go next
Wow. I never finished this game when it came out. I did this time, but mostly out of stubbornness.
Some games are rough around the edges. This one is basically all rough edges. The idea of this game is great, but almost every detail is incredibly frustrating.
- Very few areas to visit
- Nonstop backtracking
- Almost no guidance about where to go
- Story is extremely boring
- Translation is rough, and character limits make things very awkward
- Difficulty spikes a lot... even random battles can kill you quickly if you get unlucky
- The game never autosaves or checkpoints
- Despite being a collectible card based grid based RPG, this game requires way more reaction speed than you'd expect, leading to lots of deaths due to not being able to dodge attacks
- The last two bosses of the game have to be played in sequence without the ability to save
- The dungeon map design is absolutely horrendous, and there's no in-game maps or even names for areas ever
- You basically need to play this with a map on your phone at all times, and a guide to tell where to go next
2021
What a wild conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy. I think overall I preferred the levels in Hitman 2, but Hitman 3 does some interesting changes to the formula that keep you on your toes. Without spoiling too much, the Berlin level was truly unique mechanically, and really intense the first time because of it. Subsequent replays of the level lose the element of the unknown and become more like a standard Hitman level, which is still good. I liked the murder mystery story in Dartmoor a lot. The twist ending of Chongqing was very tense. The final level was shockingly linear, though not unfun. I didn't really care for the bonus Ambrose Island level, though. So mechanically not as good as 2, but has enough unique flair and storytelling that I still give it full marks.
2018
Wow. What a great sequel. The opening mission is really cool as a tutorial/refresher. The Miami and Sgail levels especially were incredible. Colombia was probably the low point, but still quite fun.
This didn't really change the formula of Hitman, but it didn't need to.
This didn't really change the formula of Hitman, but it didn't need to.
2023
Fantastic co-op puzzle game!
+ You build giant Lego-style models
+ Most of the levels are really fun
+ The art direction is charming
+ The music is cute
- The camera angles are awful, and the levels are constantly obscuring critical information
- Sometimes it feels like the fastest way to play the level is to get tricky and do funny things with physics, instead of using one of the many cranes they provide
- Some of the levels focus on making you explore them in order to gather pieces, but I found this tedious and silly compared to actually putting together puzzles
- A few of the later levels took an entire hour to put together, which is just a bit much for this game, I think. They were generally cool though.
+ You build giant Lego-style models
+ Most of the levels are really fun
+ The art direction is charming
+ The music is cute
- The camera angles are awful, and the levels are constantly obscuring critical information
- Sometimes it feels like the fastest way to play the level is to get tricky and do funny things with physics, instead of using one of the many cranes they provide
- Some of the levels focus on making you explore them in order to gather pieces, but I found this tedious and silly compared to actually putting together puzzles
- A few of the later levels took an entire hour to put together, which is just a bit much for this game, I think. They were generally cool though.
2016
I played the first Hitman campaign as part of the HITMAN 3 / World of Assassination collection.
I'm upset that I waited so long to play this. This is one of the best stealth games I've ever played. It's absolutely gorgeous and really immersive, other than the complete lack of notable accents as you go across the globe lol.
I've replayed multiple levels multiple times already. I'm honestly baffled at how some of these achievements are possible. I'm trying to strike a balance between replaying some levels and not burning myself out, since I want to see the whole trilogy.
Wow. Impeccable.
I'm upset that I waited so long to play this. This is one of the best stealth games I've ever played. It's absolutely gorgeous and really immersive, other than the complete lack of notable accents as you go across the globe lol.
I've replayed multiple levels multiple times already. I'm honestly baffled at how some of these achievements are possible. I'm trying to strike a balance between replaying some levels and not burning myself out, since I want to see the whole trilogy.
Wow. Impeccable.
2023
An interesting mix of Metroidvania and Devil May Cry. I really like it sometimes, and others I just find it frustrating.
For a Metroidvania, it's extremely unwilling to offer maps in most areas, and when you do get them, it's an item you pick up like in Zelda. But you can't map anything at all until you get it. This makes it very easy to get lost.
A lot of jumping and ledge grabbing seemed bug, requiring pixel precision. I think some of that was fixed in a patch that came out today.
The real thing that killed this game for me though is boss difficulty. I only made it what looks to be about halfway through the game (fight against the cat boy), and it took me over an hour of nonstop attempts to scrape by a narrow a victory. The cat boy's hitboxes are janky, and attack "tells" are extremely bad for his overpowered homing projectile attack. This made for a unfun fight where I was constantly running away and only doing 1-2 hit combos on the boss, making it extremely slow and tedious. Sadly, I can't lower the difficulty without just starting the entire game over. At this point, I don't think it's worth my time. Oh and the next area of the game gives the enemies poison rain that's unavoidable and does massive damage over time.
Also, the music wasn't memorable to me, and the main character is a little bit boring.
I think if I could've tweaked the difficulty mid-playthru, I'd probably actually finish this game and give it a 4 or so. It's playing with some interesting ideas. But it feels like a small team made a game that's just a bit difficult and finicky for real players, compared to their own playtesting. I could be wrong, that's just the vibe I get.
For a Metroidvania, it's extremely unwilling to offer maps in most areas, and when you do get them, it's an item you pick up like in Zelda. But you can't map anything at all until you get it. This makes it very easy to get lost.
A lot of jumping and ledge grabbing seemed bug, requiring pixel precision. I think some of that was fixed in a patch that came out today.
The real thing that killed this game for me though is boss difficulty. I only made it what looks to be about halfway through the game (fight against the cat boy), and it took me over an hour of nonstop attempts to scrape by a narrow a victory. The cat boy's hitboxes are janky, and attack "tells" are extremely bad for his overpowered homing projectile attack. This made for a unfun fight where I was constantly running away and only doing 1-2 hit combos on the boss, making it extremely slow and tedious. Sadly, I can't lower the difficulty without just starting the entire game over. At this point, I don't think it's worth my time. Oh and the next area of the game gives the enemies poison rain that's unavoidable and does massive damage over time.
Also, the music wasn't memorable to me, and the main character is a little bit boring.
I think if I could've tweaked the difficulty mid-playthru, I'd probably actually finish this game and give it a 4 or so. It's playing with some interesting ideas. But it feels like a small team made a game that's just a bit difficult and finicky for real players, compared to their own playtesting. I could be wrong, that's just the vibe I get.
2023
Disappointing. Probably the clunkiest and least fun Metroidvania I've played.
I backed this on Kickstarter because I love Metroidvanias, visual novels, and trashy reality TV.
Sadly, this seems to be a case where the team was probably spread too thin, and the overall design suffers.
The story is really cringey and is too busy trying to be ironic and meta. The game is consistently so dark you can't see your character or the enemies. There's a complete lack of movement abilities which makes combat very frustrating. The camera is jumpy. The attack animations feel bad.
I only beat the first chapter (66 minutes) because I was in shock. I really wish this game was better.
I backed this on Kickstarter because I love Metroidvanias, visual novels, and trashy reality TV.
Sadly, this seems to be a case where the team was probably spread too thin, and the overall design suffers.
The story is really cringey and is too busy trying to be ironic and meta. The game is consistently so dark you can't see your character or the enemies. There's a complete lack of movement abilities which makes combat very frustrating. The camera is jumpy. The attack animations feel bad.
I only beat the first chapter (66 minutes) because I was in shock. I really wish this game was better.
2023
What I played
I played all 26 chapters of the game, a total of 95 hours of play time. Chapters 1-23 I completed on Hard/Classic (permadeath). Chapters 24-26 I completed on Normal/Classic. I completed a few paralogue missions and a couple skirmishes.
Summary
If you're dying for tactical combat, this could be your fix. There's a ton of video game to play, and it certainly isn't easy on Hard/Classic. Beware that it's very cheesy and difficult to actually get lots of the support conversations. Late game levels abuse frustrating game mechanics to simulate difficulty by wearing the player down mentally.
Pros
The weapon triangle is back!
Lots of great music
Characters are rendered extremely well (very nice anime style)
Hard/Classic provided an engaging tactics experience on most maps
Character support dialogues were generally interesting
Cons
Character designs are almost all completely over the top and awful
Level scaling for skirmishes is completely busted, making it impossible to level up weaker units or work on supports if you play on permdeath (unless you want your units to die)
It's just too long. 26 chapters + 15 paralogues.
The same 4-5 villains are reused for half the game, and they constantly get away from you without dying
The beginning half of the game is just a glorified trek around the world to collect a bunch of characters and is VERY anime bullshit
The maps are simply too big. The latter half of the game frequently features 25x30 combat maps with 12-14 allies, up to 5 boss units, and frequently infinite enemy reinforcements.
The story is just a bad shonen battle anime. The writing of the main story scenes is initially just super corny, and then eventually it just gets melodramatic. I hope you like death monologues, multiple deus ex machina moments, constant talk of "dragons" despite almost no dragon ever showing their dragon form, weird creepy worship of your character as a god, recurring villains who constantly "get away" rather than dying, and a lot a lot of obsession with family relationships
The Somniel is a massive time waster, like Garreg Mach in 3 Houses. it was not uncommon for me to spend 2 hours between missions early on, before i started ignoring most of it.
Revive Stones. these are abused to make bosses unreasonably tanky. bosses often have 2 revive stones, meaning they have 3 total health bars. what's worse is that overflow damage doesn't carry over, so you have to micro manage who hits in what order to do optimized damage. i feel like the idea here was that on normal this encourages you to do a very anime bullshit thing of surrounding a boss with all your favorite units and making sure each gets a turn stabbing, but on Hard this often meant i needed multiple turns of 4+ attacks to kill a boss, which really got absurd when combined with infinite reinforcements on a lot of maps. this led to more silly AI abuse where you skirt the boss's engagement range by one square and pick off their support units with ranged attacks, a strategy i don't always find super engaging. tho sometimes the AI just gets tired of your shit and comes after you anyway. it was hard to find a single answer for how bosses work here.
Build crafting. omg this game is over the top. you have like 30+ characters and 12 emblems each of which can be paired with any unit and you can teach units skills from any of them. there are so many currencies to manage in this game. you can also upgrade and engrave weapons. you can switch classes and promote units. any unit can switch to any class in the game via weapon training via emblem training. it's dizzying tbh. the few times i looked up guides on the later levels, i was always shocked to see who had what units configured how, and like, they often seemed way stronger than i thought was possible. i didnt understand how a few of these game systems worked for way too long, so i may have been spending my resources poorly. but it's hard to grind to get more resources in this game due to skirmish level scaling.
I played all 26 chapters of the game, a total of 95 hours of play time. Chapters 1-23 I completed on Hard/Classic (permadeath). Chapters 24-26 I completed on Normal/Classic. I completed a few paralogue missions and a couple skirmishes.
Summary
If you're dying for tactical combat, this could be your fix. There's a ton of video game to play, and it certainly isn't easy on Hard/Classic. Beware that it's very cheesy and difficult to actually get lots of the support conversations. Late game levels abuse frustrating game mechanics to simulate difficulty by wearing the player down mentally.
Pros
The weapon triangle is back!
Lots of great music
Characters are rendered extremely well (very nice anime style)
Hard/Classic provided an engaging tactics experience on most maps
Character support dialogues were generally interesting
Cons
Character designs are almost all completely over the top and awful
Level scaling for skirmishes is completely busted, making it impossible to level up weaker units or work on supports if you play on permdeath (unless you want your units to die)
It's just too long. 26 chapters + 15 paralogues.
The same 4-5 villains are reused for half the game, and they constantly get away from you without dying
The beginning half of the game is just a glorified trek around the world to collect a bunch of characters and is VERY anime bullshit
The maps are simply too big. The latter half of the game frequently features 25x30 combat maps with 12-14 allies, up to 5 boss units, and frequently infinite enemy reinforcements.
The story is just a bad shonen battle anime. The writing of the main story scenes is initially just super corny, and then eventually it just gets melodramatic. I hope you like death monologues, multiple deus ex machina moments, constant talk of "dragons" despite almost no dragon ever showing their dragon form, weird creepy worship of your character as a god, recurring villains who constantly "get away" rather than dying, and a lot a lot of obsession with family relationships
The Somniel is a massive time waster, like Garreg Mach in 3 Houses. it was not uncommon for me to spend 2 hours between missions early on, before i started ignoring most of it.
Revive Stones. these are abused to make bosses unreasonably tanky. bosses often have 2 revive stones, meaning they have 3 total health bars. what's worse is that overflow damage doesn't carry over, so you have to micro manage who hits in what order to do optimized damage. i feel like the idea here was that on normal this encourages you to do a very anime bullshit thing of surrounding a boss with all your favorite units and making sure each gets a turn stabbing, but on Hard this often meant i needed multiple turns of 4+ attacks to kill a boss, which really got absurd when combined with infinite reinforcements on a lot of maps. this led to more silly AI abuse where you skirt the boss's engagement range by one square and pick off their support units with ranged attacks, a strategy i don't always find super engaging. tho sometimes the AI just gets tired of your shit and comes after you anyway. it was hard to find a single answer for how bosses work here.
Build crafting. omg this game is over the top. you have like 30+ characters and 12 emblems each of which can be paired with any unit and you can teach units skills from any of them. there are so many currencies to manage in this game. you can also upgrade and engrave weapons. you can switch classes and promote units. any unit can switch to any class in the game via weapon training via emblem training. it's dizzying tbh. the few times i looked up guides on the later levels, i was always shocked to see who had what units configured how, and like, they often seemed way stronger than i thought was possible. i didnt understand how a few of these game systems worked for way too long, so i may have been spending my resources poorly. but it's hard to grind to get more resources in this game due to skirmish level scaling.
2023
i love the wario land series and really really wanted to like this game more than i do
it has two major flaws that spoil an otherwise near perfect game for me:
1. it's so fast. seriously, the sprint speed in this game is absurd, and it really tests your level memorization and reaction speed. this generally isn't a huge problem for me since most of the game isn't timed and doesn't have any death mechanics, and the escape sequences generally have fairly generous timers.
2. this is the big one. what the heck is up with the boss fights. the 4 main bosses all have 8 HP then they come back with a second form that's way more chaotic and have another 8 HP. and 3 of the bosses have a QTE at the end of the 2nd form to actually kill them. the final boss is a 7 part boss fight: 3 new bosses and all 4 previous bosses (with reduced health, at least), followed by a timed escape sequence.
i love that this game is trying for a la carte difficulty, where you choose how many "extras" to get, and how fast to beat the level, and your combo meter and such, but the boss fights are absolutely unnecessarily difficult.
i think an "easy" mode that reduced the amount of onscreen enemies would be helpful, because a lot of bosses cover the whole screen in enemies and it becomes extremely hard to dodge things and even tell what's happening. or heck, even a mode where all the bosses had half the HP would be a godsend.
i'm still waiting for a good wario land successor, and i really wish this could've been it.
it has two major flaws that spoil an otherwise near perfect game for me:
1. it's so fast. seriously, the sprint speed in this game is absurd, and it really tests your level memorization and reaction speed. this generally isn't a huge problem for me since most of the game isn't timed and doesn't have any death mechanics, and the escape sequences generally have fairly generous timers.
2. this is the big one. what the heck is up with the boss fights. the 4 main bosses all have 8 HP then they come back with a second form that's way more chaotic and have another 8 HP. and 3 of the bosses have a QTE at the end of the 2nd form to actually kill them. the final boss is a 7 part boss fight: 3 new bosses and all 4 previous bosses (with reduced health, at least), followed by a timed escape sequence.
i love that this game is trying for a la carte difficulty, where you choose how many "extras" to get, and how fast to beat the level, and your combo meter and such, but the boss fights are absolutely unnecessarily difficult.
i think an "easy" mode that reduced the amount of onscreen enemies would be helpful, because a lot of bosses cover the whole screen in enemies and it becomes extremely hard to dodge things and even tell what's happening. or heck, even a mode where all the bosses had half the HP would be a godsend.
i'm still waiting for a good wario land successor, and i really wish this could've been it.
2022
## general thoughts
i really wanted to love this game, but i only liked it. as a (nearly) solo developed indie game, you can get really well executed clear vision on projects like this. emphasis on can. my general impression of this game is that the core developer drew inspiration from too many different sources and ended up with something perfectly tailored for themselves, but not necessarily others.
the game balance in particular is all out of wack, and i had to turn the game down to easy because i was spending far too much time in "random" battles. speaking of that, the game doesn't have random battles, but it literally roadblocks and ambushes you with enemies constantly. especially since XP grind isn't a thing in this game, i'd love more chances to avoid combat and save my energy for the bosses. i initially enjoyed the boss fights, but playing on easy mode made almost every fight trivial, yet i had a hard time being motivated to go back on that.
## what i played
i did a lot of the side quests, but not all of them. i didn't do any of the "post game" stuff. i recruited all 12 party members. i played for about 45 hours.
## the short version
> i don't regret buying, playing, or finishing the game, but i can't see this as "an indie masterpiece" or new best JRPG by any metric from myself. it's a solid 3/5 game for me.
## pros
+ 12 playable characters
+ despite being set in a single nation, neighboring countries and even continents are relevant to the story
+ music is generally good
+ art is generally good
+ lots of "quality of life" changes compared to older JRPGs
+ not too much backtracking
+ lots of characters involved in political struggle, war, and fighting god
## cons
- crafting is tedious (but skippable on easy mode)
- "no random battles" is true but the game has a massive amount of forced battles anyway
- level and map design is not good
- sometimes the perspective on the art is a little wonky
- mech combat is completely unique from on-foot combat, and nowhere near as good
- leveling system is horrible for folks with choice paralysis like me
- too many systems to learn with little payoff
- difficulty curve looks like a sine wave
- localization can feel dry
- a character complains about how growing up rich actually sucks because his sister got raped into a coma by a group of poor people
- i'm not kidding btw
i really wanted to love this game, but i only liked it. as a (nearly) solo developed indie game, you can get really well executed clear vision on projects like this. emphasis on can. my general impression of this game is that the core developer drew inspiration from too many different sources and ended up with something perfectly tailored for themselves, but not necessarily others.
the game balance in particular is all out of wack, and i had to turn the game down to easy because i was spending far too much time in "random" battles. speaking of that, the game doesn't have random battles, but it literally roadblocks and ambushes you with enemies constantly. especially since XP grind isn't a thing in this game, i'd love more chances to avoid combat and save my energy for the bosses. i initially enjoyed the boss fights, but playing on easy mode made almost every fight trivial, yet i had a hard time being motivated to go back on that.
## what i played
i did a lot of the side quests, but not all of them. i didn't do any of the "post game" stuff. i recruited all 12 party members. i played for about 45 hours.
## the short version
> i don't regret buying, playing, or finishing the game, but i can't see this as "an indie masterpiece" or new best JRPG by any metric from myself. it's a solid 3/5 game for me.
## pros
+ 12 playable characters
+ despite being set in a single nation, neighboring countries and even continents are relevant to the story
+ music is generally good
+ art is generally good
+ lots of "quality of life" changes compared to older JRPGs
+ not too much backtracking
+ lots of characters involved in political struggle, war, and fighting god
## cons
- crafting is tedious (but skippable on easy mode)
- "no random battles" is true but the game has a massive amount of forced battles anyway
- level and map design is not good
- sometimes the perspective on the art is a little wonky
- mech combat is completely unique from on-foot combat, and nowhere near as good
- leveling system is horrible for folks with choice paralysis like me
- too many systems to learn with little payoff
- difficulty curve looks like a sine wave
- localization can feel dry
- a character complains about how growing up rich actually sucks because his sister got raped into a coma by a group of poor people
- i'm not kidding btw