Recent reviews by sand

baits you into thinking its another terrible roguelike and then takes off to the moon instead

game is bliss while you experience anything new in it. going somewhere new, fighting something new, talking to someone new. that is a huge quality to have and i'm stressing it so much because that aside I do have a few concerns,

combat is final fantasy cloned up to modern day but with rock-beats-paper emotions slapped on. speed dictates turn order, cast spells with mana, revive people with phoenix down and if you end a combat with anyone dead, they don't get exp - your party's levels are forever desynced. it was fine to play but did not leave a lasting impression. fun fact i fought kite kid at level 5 - was so impressed there were bosses in the game that would push me that hard to minmax every facet, but turns out I was just underleveled and then I facerolled the rest of the game.

i clocked 42 hours in this going for absolute perfectionism - you can beat it in half that time on your first playthrough. I went EVERYWHERE 10 times in each act to get me as close as possible to that perfect ending and i reached about half perfection. the amount of backtracking i did wasn't even close to paying off and yet i did it because you very quickly become aware that there are time-restricted secrets everywhere and you risk locking yourself out of content and rewards by not finding it.

most won't give a ♥♥♥♥ but i personally take issue with the big twist, mainly that nothing supernatural is happening, it's just one crazy kid hallucinating in his room. thus when the story is over you didn't really defeat anything, your friends don't acknowledge your efforts, your sister doesn't come back to life - you just calm the ♥♥♥♥ down finally. what a relief. i realize most players gave a bawling standing ovation when they saw the black ghost is trauma from mari's eye looking at them but to me it would've been way more potent if it was something tangible and you actually were able to put up a fight.

lastly the game is split into two endings, however considering how long the game is and how small an amount of the 20-30 hours actually play different between the two routes, it's no surprise to me that the fewest try to go for both. kinda sucks because that locks you out of getting closure unless you want it ruin it for yourself by googling.

still a very good game

western developers of open-world games being furious this game exists should tell you all you need to know

friend goes through a nasty break-up
see this game is finally 50% off
think it's just cute co-op puzzles
entire steam page has no mention of
the game literally being about fixing a
broken marriage and forcing these two
cringelords to make it work no matter
what and trapping them until they
emotionally snap and promise they
will get back together

it's good, highly curated experience through to the end which is so rare.

would be the most doomed flush and forget if it wasn't for the motion-captured cat

when your undertale clone literally puts in Gaster, it's time to stop

also the basic gameplay (reverse guitar hero) doesn't feel good to control

evidently made for some generation older than me wanting to go back to something >very< specific. that's the only way i can justify how i keep seeing these trends in turnbased RPGs - there has to be some ancient game that did it before and now boomers all across the flat globe are thirsty for clones. i.e sure there must be others that will like it but here is a list of what made me disinterested.
- class system where you swap out your class frequently, losing the old one. you can't have a character stay a cleric the whole game, they need to spend time as a wizard and rogue etc to unlock new classes. there's a system to at least keep the old spells of 1 class (subclass) while you are starting over in another class but you will still keep having to bounce character identity to match progress, and more importantly, overlap classes for periods of time to keep advancing
- desynchronization of exp in turnbased. just annoying because sooner or later the disparity means your members will level up in offset combats meaning you cant allocate points all at once
- too much final fantasy clonery with "fenix" and doublecast and so on
- might come later but all the healing i could receive was from consumables, MP cost (also consumables), or sleeping in an inn. Nothing from savepoints or walking around, felt odd that you had to either backtrack to an inn or chug some 20+ potions in total to stay healthy
- nothing in the first couple classes caught my eye. evidently you're supposed to play simplified combat for a long time, meaning simple damage/heal abilities with an occasional use of adrenaline points, and then later on be offered real intriguing options. quite obviously there has to be more than SIX classes but of course it has to be drip-fed(?).

i didn't mind the metroidvania and platforming like most other negative reviews seem to focus on, all RPGs make you backtrack regardless of an unlockable doublejump barring you from a zone. As for platforming i've never understood the stigma, aside from the repetitious hybrid-puzzle games like Super Meat Boy to name one. This is just asking of you to press a bit of spacebar while exploring

.

stop reading reviews, dont look at screenshots, dont read anything, just open it and start exploring

game is great as long as you're playing the layers.
layer 1 is being thrown into the game blind and figuring out what even the basic game logic is
layer 2 is becoming aware of the quests and adjusting your play towards them
layer 3 is finding out that the more you stack a zonetype the more it ramps up your questcosts
layer 4 is realizing there is nothing more for you to unlock and progress aside from opening and closing zones more efficiently until you get a score you are happy with

until the last layer it's amazing - you're learning to work towards a goal in a relaxed setting, better and further each time, however towards the end it sorely needs *some* focus other than just the prospect of a high score. make some harder unlocks that in turn enable you to do stronger and more nuanced building, like a town-bridge that connects towns over rivers, make 7-tile megahex zones, add finisher-tiles that form the ends of the map, like an ocean, a mountain-chain, a capital, etc and instantly lock any connected tiles from forming any more bonuses. anything to add to the unlocks and progressions, because that's where the game is at it's strongest. at the moment you run out in less than a week, and soon all the excitement fades - highscores are not inherently rewarding, i would almost redesign it to count your unique zones and how big they got, and for the millionth time, more unlocks that are an asset to your gameplay. Make it so the big endgame builds are possible by first unlocking, then understanding certain tiles