Rating games based on the Judge categories
Gameplay
The battle system felt rather confusing at first, even with the tutorials. I got the hang of it pretty quick however. Sadly, the game crashed about 30 mins in during one of the battles. Could not get too far and it had been a while since my last save.
Even though I could grasp how the battle system worked, the timing and animations for choosing which action to do next felt a little iffy. Sometimes I would try to do an action and either do nothing or find out I had another buffered from before
The symbol map system was a really neat way to present the dungeon crawler experience.
[15/20]
Presentation
Art is very nice, and the sprites give a lot of life to the battles (even though the enemies are all static, as far as I could tell). The whole aesthetic of the game was cool.
The story had too much exposition in the beginning for my liking, specially since we don't see even a preview of how the Illuminate look like.
Music and sfx were nice and fit the action
[15/20]
Engagement
The battle system feels satisfying and the multiple difficulty levels, alongside the ability to skip battles, makes for a great player experience. I think this one can retain players very well
[16/20] -> Doubled to 32
Potential
This game certainly has potential. The battle system is unique in the genre and the world has room to expand (as long as it does away with too much exposition)
[16/20]
Total: 78/100 (4 Stars)