Recent reviews by Sicrux

I'll get this out of the way first.

It is a gacha game where you roll for weapons and skins (usually milestones in some cases).
The MTX are REALLY bad and they push a lot of promotions to buy things.

That being out of the way...

It's a fun little idle game for FF Fans, you don't need to spend money and there's no PvP (yet?) for you to lose against whales.
The story is mildly condensed, but as long as you've played the originals... You're not missing out on much in my opinion.

The art is very appealing and the game looks great! so, keep your expectations tempered and I believe you'll have a good time. I've mostly been playing this on the side while I do other things which has helped reduce the grind fatigue.

The auto combat AI isn't terrible but some choices are a bit questionable and I haven't seen it use Limit Breaks yet.
Grinding has been a bit of a hassle so far, but that's pretty typical in games of this type.

Overall, I really do enjoy this game and just being able to customize characters I like and seeing all the nice outfits that they release. The initial surge of crystals (for draws) is a good start, but you'll run out fast... so choose wisely.

TL;DR Rating

Graphics : ♦♦♦◊◊
Story : ♦♦♦♦◊
Voice : ♦◊◊◊◊
Crafting : ♦♦♦♦♦ (You don't have to have the needed items IN YOUR BACKPACK!)
Farming : ♦♦♦◊◊

Overall : ♦♦♦◊◊

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(Will update this later, but as of right now I'm only 9 hours in and onto a secondary city)

As Harvestella was marketed out in my perspective... It seemed like it would be a combination of Atelier and Stardew Valley with a fantastic graphics. That's not what I would say that we've gotten... The game starts slow and pushes you to get through the first 3 chapters before opening up the world for Ch. 3a, 3b, and 3c + side quests. The graphics reflect that of the main platform this title was made for (Nintendo Switch) and it shows... from flat foliage to very bland backdrops. The farming leaves much to desire as the economy revolves around you farming and selling anything that isn't nailed down and this comes with dwindling usage as crops give 1/pc per plot and seeds are hard to come by in the wild (They don't drop with crop harvesting). Crafting, however, can be enjoyable as it doesn't require much and the crafting materials span your backpack as well as your storage box. Combat is mediocre at best with very little strategy involved past utilizing weaknesses and a stagger meter (for bosses). For whatever reason, there's VERY little voice acting... The most I've heard is from battle starts/ends.

Honestly, it's not even close to being a great life-sim game and even worse at a $60 USD price point.
BUT, if you're a fan of FF-level character art, JRPGs, and can appreciate a good sprinkling of crafting & farming... This game will hit the spot for you.

A quickie! An enjoyable 'Stardew Valley'-esque innkeeper game. As far as EA goes, it has plenty of content to keep you busy for a while. But once you're able to hire staff, the interaction goes from high-to-low. Inventory organization begins to become the next stage of difficulty as you're crafting different types of beer, food, etc. as well as natural level progression begins to give you an outrageous amount of materials and more.

Devs : Please remove or adjust the crafting amount of larger objects (ovens, smelters, etc.) for the cost of one that occurs later in the game.

Overall : It's a fantastic little game and I'm excited to see how it moves forward.

As of right now, I cannot recommend this game due to rampant "FU"'s that start coming up later into the stages...
0x dmg is downright disgusting to deal with when you've amassed 1000+ dmg in a single peg and it does nothing, not even 0.25x or 0.5x.

As for the price, I have to agree with the others that have posted in the positive here... It's too much for what it currently is.

All that being said, if you loved Peggle and enjoy roguelites, you may enjoy this... but I would highly suggest giving the demo a try and run it a couple of times before purchasing at the $20 USD price point.

Pros:
-Fun relics
-Creative challenges
-Quick to play through

Cons:
-Some relics will absolutely ruin your run if you have the wrong synergy going (durable+lifeloss per 15hits=RIP)
-Replayability is there, but having no permanent stats or skills to add onto your further runs is a little disheatening.
-Stage two is wildly more difficult than Stage one... a 8000hp boss that can instant kill you when it's close enough is really lame.
-0x reduction drop zones are a huge bummer if you end up landing in one...

Just... UGH!

Graphics : GORGEOUS
Cinematics : Hit/miss
Story : Bag of ♥♥♥♥
Gameplay : EXPLOSIOOOON!

But for real...
The game is great to just turn off your brain and make your way through the horrendous story and enjoy how 'strong' you can feel wiping out mobs and the like, but there's just so much time you have to sink into this that it's ridiculous.

I've been waiting for this game for years and I'm still excited to finally get to play it, but boy howdy does it get exhausting to deal with the very flimsy story and fetch quests for 5+ hours.

Bottomline : If you're interested, give it a try. If you hate it, stop playing. This game was not made with the Western audience in mind and it shows. This is a lifestyle game 100%.

Found randomly while looking through steam.
I'm not sure where the last hour and a half went.

BUY THIS.

Over 15 hours played since I bought it earlier today...

Short list...

Pros:
Cute
Variety of weapons
Spells can be very flexible
Blink system is extremely fun to set up combos

Cons:
Weapons can be useless a lot of times
No sell on weapon drops
Relics that hurt+help can hurt more than they help
Gacha is near useless in my experiences

Long summary:

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do I enjoy this game... I can see the end in sight a bit after just recently finished one of the additional stages, but the game still has a lot of life left into it. You get an overwhelming amount of crystals to upgrade your facilities, but in a short time you can near those limits very quickly.
If you liked Crypt of the NecroDancer then you may enjoy this game as well!
Give it a shot. I picked it up at sale @ 17.99 USD

If I had to give any constructive criticism... I'd say to swap out the gacha slot machine, a small increase of fountain room spawn chance, and lessen how hurtful some relics can be (or add more beneficial ones) ex. dmg taken per attack, yet no life steal per attack relic.

More to come if I think of it.


*Update 10/21*

I have since finished the main story.

*Some weapons can down right make your unstoppable. (ex. my final run I had *Key of Solomon* which allowed me to spam my skills due to low MP cost (in this case a single/multi target electric ability) and a relic that allowed me to double my casting... It made the remaining section a cakewalk)

*Gold and souls should be auto-pickup after dropping imo. Sometimes they land in some less-than-preferred locations.

*There should be more information on what enemies are doing what during their timer or turn to help the player make their following decisions. (Slay the Spire does this well by letting you know if it's an attack or debuff.)



End review...

Game is good, buy it, enjoy it, let others know!

*Review after finishing game*

Unfortunately, there's no rollover into Hard mode with any items or upgrades you buy and you MUST finish Normal before you can access Hard mode.

Opinions still the same, game is good. Give it a try.


*Received game through HumbleBundle*

As of this writing I'm at Area 3.

Early Access... 6/10

Crafting is more/less useless unless you're lucky and get the drops you need.
Death can set you back quite a bit as losing your kit can make you extremely weak if you try to restart where you left off.
There's no bank other than the showcase (6 items)
There are some hard platforming elements for areas where rewards are high-end while others can be hazardous (fire is tough.)
Combat is solid albeit sometimes one-sided (depending on kit)
Bosses are a cake-walk if you are lucky with drops.

You'll be dodging... a LOT

Bottom-line, if you like rougelites and a dark story... I'd recommend this for you.

Suggestions for Developers:
*Make a progressive upgrading system to allow for consistent story advancement (More CC pls)
*Show what pierces walls and what doesn't. (Some enemies could shoot through walls as well as some guns.)
*DIVE INTO UPGRADES MORE! (Increase damage output, increase health (5+ CC is a lot right now), add armor system (dmg reduction), etc.)

Absolutely amazing.
20 hours in.... two completed runs... and I still want more.

Quick and challenging rouge-like.
A lot of love has been put into this game and I can't wait to see what comes of it.
If you like dungeon-running, card-flipping, perma-death games then you'll love this!