TL:DR - this is one of those games that has so many quirks/oddities and frankly, jank, to it that if you are already interested or 'with it' this is a fairly easy game to recommend but if you have doubts or suspect some parts of what this game is will bother you I'd strongly advise you give it a pass as all those/that 'quirks/oddities and ... jank' will compile into annoyances over time. Positives: + Combat is Snooker with guns which immediately clicks, may take getting used to as it's strictly turn-based so even if see an enemy shoot a player character they might not do any damage if not their turn/you interrupt them. + Customising guns with attachments is a mini game unto itself (small tip I didn't pick up on until late but you can rotate pieces with L/R). + Optional content such as the battle arena, sides quests and optional floors of the world map tend to be just as good, if not better, than the mandatory content. + Before you advance to the next chapter in the story the game will warn you if there are any side quests uncompleted (including ones you have not activated), so getting 100% mission completion is reasonable. + Soundtrack uses Yoshi-drums (changes based on player actions such as when attacking) and compliments the game well, rarely something you'd listen to outside of the game but not something you'd likely want to change. + Some genuine charm to the characters and moderately obtuse story, it gets across the points with fairly limited screen-time for cut-scenes/dialogue which is a nice break from text-bloat JRPGs of late (looking at you Compile Heart). + Townspeople/NPCs usually have good plot-related dialogue and I found myself doing the round talking to all in each area I visited per-chapter to get more of a sense of the world. + New-game plus is available and has some nice tweaks such as being able to skip credits/CG cut-scenes which you cannot on a non-NG+ file. 2 additional difficulties can be unlocked in NG+, I'd prefer these be available from get-go but at least they're there. Neutrals: * Combat is slow , even playing optimally with level 100 for both gun types taking on a mob of say 5 level 15 enemies can easily take minutes plural, this can really run up the run time especially in 10-or-so arena dungeons that all take 30-50 minutes 1st time. * Again for combat, it's rather ambitious and complex, stingy with turns (bezel charges) but all-in-all Snooker with guns works... however I can't say it's polished or refined, there's a LOT of issues that come up with it over time and it violently veers between brutal &/or tedious to too easy and mind numbing and back again. Many enemies have very anal hit-boxes so damage you do from machine guns can feel very random at times. Grenades damage flat-out feels like RNG. * The world map is unlocked via Hex-puzzle pieces which is fairly interesting at first but forces a first-playthrough-material-grind and the animation for it is also slow especially if you uncover treasure. Additionally there's potential left on the table, coloured pieces do nothing but unlock arbitrary location or link terminals (grant bonus effects during battle) but themselves have no distinct effect. * If you don't have the correct equipment equipped (taking up 1 of 6 slots, 2 per character) you can get screwed such as not having more than one character with each gun type (encase of status effect) or more likely being in a tedious dungeon without escape hexes taking up a slot, there's no way to change this in-arena. * There's quite a lot of detail in most of the games environments such as towns, manors and dungeons, but many of them are barely used, so feels like wasted effort at times. * World map is tiny, you can cover it in a couple of minutes with your cursor, exploration/immersing into a grand world isn't really a thing in this game. * Difficulty is high especially early on (Chapter 1 boss can die in a fire) but gets slightly easier over time... and especially late game bosses tend to almost be too easy as easy to keep 1 or 2 targets in a stun loop if no other foes to worry about. Negatives: - Technical performance, frame rate can often temporarily dive (and eat inputs) seemingly due to network checks, additionally game can take a long time to boot and fail to boot properly (such as by disabling Steam Achievements, it will warn you of failed boots). - Visual bugs can occur such as clothes polygons stretching beyond the screen created a "streaking" effect mid animation. - Grenades are near useless bar for grinding extra levels for more HP, they don't gain charge speed with levels like guns so more you level up the more useless they become. - Menus are not so good, by the end-game scrolling through your gun attachments to find the right piece involves going through a small list in the corner of the screen and if you think it will track/keep your position in the list and not reset to the start with every change you make... think again. - The targeting system, oh God is it Baaaaaad, you change target with the D-pad, if you're mid turn the rules change (it will not select non-enemies as easily... bit it still might! yay!) and if you think pressing left will say target the enemy to the left of the current target, nope! it'll go wherever it feels like, if it's off screen it wont target at all unless you take out the previous target... then it might bee-line for the off-screen enemy because reasons. Now here's where the fun begins, after you take out a foe you might think the game would then target the most-damaged foe or the nearest target... NOPE! It'll select a random target usually across the arena. Oh but it gets better, not only does the game not pause your turn-timer when selecting targets it will hitch/lag and deplete your turn faster when target switching. Oh yes targeting is the best! I love it! It's not driven me mad no sir! - Dungeons are woeful, tedious to move around in with no real exploration to speak of bar occasional optional arenas and drag waaaaaaay too long and layer RNG generated battles on-top of red-door rooms (have to defeat all enemies to progress). movement in dungeons is also... erm, slow (that word again, seeing a pattern no?). - Collisions in combat feel very bugged at times, grazing a wall can stumble your character or not - very arbitrary, additionally the cursor in combat will make objects transparent so you can see past them - but the effect is so strong you might not even know a collision is there until you hit it/press attack. - The "Condition Critical" system is seemingly just broken. It's a game-over state that lets you recover in theory but how many bezel charges you retain (turns you have before re-entering Condition Critical) in RNG. Why I say it's perhaps 'broken' is bar tri-attacks which require slow set-up you can only move/attack with one of your three characters at a time however ALL enemies can and will attack/move at once meaning they often gang up and take out one of your characters. The game does 'that thing' where the opponent AI deliberately plays dumb and rarely picks your characters off one-by-one but fairly evenly attack all 3 of your characters... in short you can see the string of the developers playing marionette to not pigeon-hole you. Common issue in JRPGs sure with no clear solution, doesn't stop it breaking apart the game at times. Also Condition Critical is... slow , they force you to move/attack very slowly and enemies can easily interrupt keeping you in a stun-loop until game-over. - Slow... everything is slow, millage may vary, fine for me mostly but fair warning ^ Despite a large list of issues this is a 'good' game as a whole but not a 'great' one, perhaps 6.5 or 7/10. It's more worth experiencing for it's potential & how unique it can be, but it's also a bit of a mess and rarely exceptional.
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