3.1 hours played
Written 1 year and 2 months ago
The premise of the game intrigued me but the music in the trailer is what really sold me.
You play a kid that's trying to figure out what's going on. The horror aspect is, I think, done well. I bought this game late and night and I definitely felt the dread. This game doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares for the horror, but instead goes for a sense of uneasiness, that the world around you is off, that the people are off, and so on.
This game has light rpg elements to it: There's combat, but there's no exp. You get stronger at the end of each dungeon, but there's no weapons, no armor, no inventory to worry about, and you heal at the end of each battle.
I am, however, giving this a thumbs down for a few reasons.
I like the design of the dungeons, the use of a set of core assets to bring a sense of identity to them but also foreboding along the way. I don't like how wide and large the dungeons are. The main character walks slowly which is understandable considering the atmosphere. A button to run would be great for this, making the walk speed faster, or making the dungeons not as wide and as long as they are.
Combat is why I am not recommending this game. Your primary attack is a slider where you have to time the button push (think Undertale/Deltarune). A successful attack gives you one energy (max 4) to your magic gauge.
The wrong magic spell hits for 5-10, the right one hits for 20. On all enemies. The weakness is [spoiler]usually lighting, and almost never shard[/spoiler]. Sometimes a full magic bar with the right spell hits for 80. Sometimes it doesn't.
So, combat works like this: Punch -> cast, punch -> cast, punch -> cast. The music doesn't make up for the tedium. The only variety in enemies combat-wise is how much they hit you for and what lines are written when they hit you. When the final dungeon came around, I grabbed a debugger so I could two-shot every enemy because I was just **done**.
This game has multiple endings, but when you get to the end (I got 1), you do NOT get the option to start over. Oh no no no, if you want to start over, YOU have to manually delete your save or uninstall/reinstall the game. Seriously?
I really like the music, the ambiance, but I despite how slow this game feels (slow walk speed in overlarge dungeons), and I loathe the combat.