Woof.

I think banking on Chrono Trigger nostalgia and focusing the admittedly pretty visuals in marketing was the only thing they were going for here. Very few other redeeming qualities sadly. Combat is repetitive and doesn't evolve much from the opening hours (only having literally 3 skills was a... choice) the main characters have the shared uninteresting personality of cardboard, there's no character growth or meaningful arcs, and the overall writing/pacing of the cliché storyline feels like it was written by someone submitting a Grade-School level creative writing exercise.

The ending goes into my hall of shame for the bizarre Easier-Than-Everything-Else-You've-Fought final encounter which seemed like it was just the warmup for the real boss, before abruptly ending instead; but not before genre swapping and making you play some dumb SHMUP against the actual Big Bad for... reasons?
Apparently someone on staff thought that making all the narratively-unimportant McGuffin collectable items throughout the game essential for the 'true ending' was a good idea also, which just ensures most people will Youtube it instead.
(The new ending hilariously adds about a dozen more plotholes when you think about it for more than a few seconds too..)

I Honestly don't know why this has an Overwhelmingly Positive steam score, maybe some people voiced their opinions while still in the Honeymoon phase of the opening handful of hours when the mediocrity was in its infancy..?
I can't imagine my fellow peers who grew up with this stuff in the 80/90's are ok with the result considering even the likes of the early FF games and Chrono Trigger (*with* the disadvantage of localization..) were more coherent than this.

Hurts even more as a Kickstarter backer who was anticipating this for years, in hindsight I probably should have taken that refund they offered when the announcement of them selling out to PSplus and Gamepass Day 1 came about..

There's some talent in this devteam for sure, but I just hope they hire a damn writer and do some editing for their next project..

Woof. I think banking on Chrono Trigger nostalgia and focusing the [i]admittedly pretty[/i] visuals in marketing was the only thing they were going for here. Very few other redeeming qualities sadly. Combat is repetitive and doesn't evolve much from the opening hours (only having literally 3 skills was a... choice) the main characters have the shared uninteresting personality of cardboard, there's no character growth or meaningful arcs, and the overall writing/pacing of the cliché storyline feels like it was written by someone submitting a Grade-School level creative writing exercise. The ending goes into my hall of shame for the bizarre [i]Easier-Than-Everything-Else-You've-Fought[/i] final encounter which seemed like it was just the warmup for the real boss, before abruptly ending instead; but not before genre swapping and making you play some dumb SHMUP against the actual Big Bad for... reasons? Apparently someone on staff thought that making all the narratively-unimportant McGuffin collectable items throughout the game essential for the 'true ending' was a good idea also, which just ensures most people will Youtube it instead. (The new ending hilariously adds about a dozen more plotholes when you think about it for more than a few seconds too..) I Honestly don't know why this has an Overwhelmingly Positive steam score, maybe some people voiced their opinions while still in the Honeymoon phase of the opening handful of hours when the mediocrity was in its infancy..? I can't imagine my fellow peers who grew up with this stuff in the 80/90's are ok with the result considering even the likes of the early FF games and Chrono Trigger (*with* the disadvantage of localization..) were more coherent than this. Hurts even more as a Kickstarter backer who was anticipating this for years, in hindsight I probably should have taken that refund they offered when the announcement of them selling out to PSplus and Gamepass Day 1 came about.. There's some talent in this devteam for sure, but I just hope they hire a damn writer and do some editing for their next project..