It seems like it's got a lot of heart but at no point during playing this did I have any amount of fun. I'll probably revisit it later and see if it grabs me, but for now, I don't recommend it.

Prodigal is a very strange game to be honest. From the trailers it probably looks to you like a GBC style Zelda game a la Link's Awakening or the Oracle games. The truth is that it's a much smaller and simpler game with a ton of extra stuff crammed into it. That's both the result of its inherent design as well as a ludicrous amount of post-release support.

First of all, I have to say that the story is a tad underdeveloped, but it's still more interesting than any Zelda story. Cause this is not the story of some bumpkin from the woods having to save a princess and stop an evil god king. No, if the title didn't already tip you off, this is a very personal story of atonement. Your character, Oran, despite being (pointlessly as usual) a mostly silent protagonist, is someone who used to live on the island the game takes place on, and every character there already knows him from years ago. Oran did something really bad years ago and wound up hurting some people on an emotional level, and returning home now, he's taking the chance to try and redeem himself for his past mistakes. If you decide to play him that way anyway because there are a lot of points where you can choose to still be a ♥♥♥♥. Don't know if it leads anywhere, but you can do it. Also, you do still wind up fighting an evil god king, but for a lot more personal reasons.

The thing that really propels the story while simultaneously holding it back are the characters. Far from having extravagant, anime-esque personalities that you'd expect to find in a game like this, the characters and setting are actually pretty grounded with some ridiculous flourishes every now and again. I do enjoy the characters most central to Oran's arc in particular as the writing actually does do a decent job at simplifying the complex emotions that play into someone having to atone for their past. Plus, I like a lot of the sidestories as well; Despite having a lot of silly things in it, the general tone of the game can be really grim or melancholic as bad things happen or people reflect on their tragic backstories. My problem was that Oran's welcome back was a bit too warm, and the only characters that are really against him are turned around pretty quickly. You don't really get that sense of the town coming to accept him again as he atones because so few have actual contempt for what he did.

The above is probably to facilitate the dating sim elements. I have little to say about this portion of the game, Each partner you can romance gives you a different quest to gain their hand in marriage, increasing the replay value. Likewise, upon marriage, you get a different equippable wedding ring with different effects on it. The thing I dislike about the system is the same thing I always dislike about romance systems like this: all the focus is on the formation of the relationship itself and once that's done it's basically over and goes nowhere. It's a shame because I actually like most of the romanceable characters. They've all got pretty good personalities and they all have more development than you'd think at first.

The gameplayis pretty good, though it's piss easy. In the name of condension, not only are all of the dungeons located in and around the town, instead of having a huge overworld, but your moveset is simplified down to an attack and three abilities. These abilities are added to your base moveset rather than having to switch to them which is a big win and an asset over Blossom Tales. That being said, once you have these abilities, they're all you've got until post game where you can upgrade them to do new things rather than actually getting new abilities. A little bit more to your moveset would have been appreciated as it starts to feel stale by the end of the main campaign. I still think UNSIGHTED is the lesbian queen of giving you a moveset that's equally good for exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat.

Dungeon design is actually pretty good. Like I said, the ways you have to approach a problem are limited so most add environmental effects or area-specific gimmicks to constantly shake things up. I think it's a perfectly valid approach, and I actually like that there are extra moveable objects in a number of places. It means that even if you mess up, you won't always have to instantly reset the room. I found a number of the puzzles pretty clever, but none so obtuse as to be frustrating, so I actually wound up enjoying the dungeons. The bossfights, on the other hand, are over before you know it. Base combat is actually pretty varied because you have an attack and then two tools for pulling enemies closer and punching them away. Depending on where you're fighting, finding the right positioning, especially without getting hit, can be an interesting challenge. Unfortunately there is touch damage which makes that not fun to try, but you know. But the bossfights are pathetic. they go down so easy and so fast that you might not have even learned their pattern by the end.

The presentation of Prodigal is top notch for a game trying to replicate the GBC look. Normally, I hate pre-Advance Gameboy aesthetics, but this one got me. Some people might consider the UI to be clutter, but personally I love having all the information I'll ever need conveniently laid out like that. The environments look great, and the dungeons all look pretty meaningfully distinct. It's hard to think of an example outside of some of the unnamed side dungeons, and the romance dungeons, which reused assets. And of course, the most impressive thing is the character portraits. A ton of work went into giving so many characters different, fluid animations and expressions. They're gorgeous to look at, and I think they're why the dating sim aspect is so easy to get into. Additionally, I do love the music as well. The chiptunes fit the laid back and melancholy tone of the game exceedingly well, and when dramatic things do happen, the tunes do kick it into high gear. Special mention has to go to the vocal final boss theme. It caught me off guard since there's not really a precedent for vocal themes in this type of game, but I compare it to Spark the Electric Jester 2 in that it made the final boss way more hype than it otherwise would have been.

So yeah, Prodigal gets a recommendation from me. Could use a proper sequel to really iron things out, but what's here is definitely good and I do enjoy the experimental nature of it. I was hoping that would be Veritus, but unfortunately I've heard some bad things about that game, so I'm hoping to see a proper Prodigal 2 one of these days.

PS. Still working on the postgame content, so I might update this review later once I'm done with it.