izigame.me

1 weapon
1 armor
and 1 gem slot
that is all you got in the form of player progression and customization for a good chuck on of the game
some say it is slightly less than half; it was around 20 hours for me
besides leveling (and getting auto stat increases thanks to levels) that was/is all
until you "unlock" skill trees for your characters (and additional gear slots); but oh no; it is not like suddenly the game would remember what player choice and freedom means: moments after getting said skill trees the game tells you in an info-box that past lvl 35 "lower level enemies have an exp malus"; we are talking you needing 24-25k exp and a fight suddenly netting you 150 exp.
that is my take on the actual game mechanics: god awefull.
sometimes in the past devs started to believe this garbage about grinding, etc. beeing bad in these game; when in reality it was a sort of freedom, a choice. you could play FF9 straight on; or you went to a higher level area and maxed you chars: choice. it was on one hand an organic difficulty setting (the more you grind, the easier it gets) on the other a sandboxy cohesive feel many of these overdesigned new age games completely lack....and this one is a prime example.
same goes for the combat. it is so unbelievable gimmicky. mainly beeing about positioning and attack arcs in a 3D space.
but these best the game can do with it is sometimes throwing a "blocking" enemy in a fight who breaks attack arcs...that is about where all the creativity went.
and the dimengeon or whatever it is called doesn't fare much better. basicaly you get random encounters, but in this game you can "collect" em and then fight your collected encounters all at once.
which sounds way cooler than it actualy turns out to be.
a) this leads to you always fighting in the same "arena", same backround
b) the random enounter frequency is incredbly high...almost like the game was built around this "collection" mechanic; which in turn makes the whole act kinda pointless. for if you are not using it you will be fighting every 2 god damn steps..brilliant
c) fights that thanks to the weird gimmicky turn on exp-mechanics (past lvl 35) will net you nothing pretty quick; besides annoyance
the story setup is okay; the world kinda interesting, although the moment you start to think about what characters are actualy doing, or how they are acting/re-acting you get a headache; still it is okay.
the art-design is fantastic; especialy when it comes to the enviroments. reminded me a lot of the FF7, Baldur's Gate 1/2 pre-rendered backround style. most of the character models also look quite nice (for what it is; aka a former mobile game).
the OST is a tad hit and miss. the more futuristic tracks are very interesing, whereas the standart fantasy bmgs are as generic as it gets.
everyone besides random town npcs is fully voiced and the VO is almost spotless.
the U.I. is probably one of the worst i've encountered in a rpg like this? which mostly might stem from it's mobile-roots.
i mean you can use it and the incombat U.I. works, but the out of combat U.I. is downright horrible; horrible to look at and horrible to use.
i wouldn't recommend the game; not even when you like the art-style or a hardcore fan of jrpgs. there are way better games around; metric tons of em. but if you realy need to collect each and every jrpg: wait for a heavy discount.
i wish i could be nicer to the game; but frankly the weird, gimmicky takes on the combat, random encounters, the none-existant player-progression for a good chunck of the game, you getting player-progression and then the game suddenly making it obselete since the exp-range design is so weird...mechanics wise this game is just bad. there is no way around it.
and past that point most "dungeons" felt just like a chore: you basicaly might get some loot out of 2-3 chests, but every fight is inbetween (and there is a lot) is pointless since you won't get exp (for your shiny "new" skill-tree!...i mean how bonkers is that) or anything interesting from these mass-fights anyway.
very weird mechanics. a shame.