itch.io

This game is surprisingly good.
At first glance, the game seems rather simple; the controls are easy to understand, and the mechanics are self explanatory enough that the first time you're dropped on the "overworld" (a.k.a. where you select where to go next) you intuitively know what is going on. What that simplicity hides, however, is an immense amount of depth, both in its content and its mechanics, all tied together by a wonderful aesthetic and soundtrack.
And by that I mean that the game really doesn't show you much unless you dig deeper. When I first played I thought I had a pretty good idea of how much content the game would have, but the game just kept expanding right before my eyes at every turn, again and again, and that feeling of finding things like new playable characters, the end of the world, the negative layers, HER, is simply incredible to experience, and it reached a point where I don't know how much there still is to see. Like, sure, I have three characters, but who's to say there's not a fourth somewhere? That uncertainty is something I absolutely adore. It's comparable to the feeling of just finding new layers and paths in The Binding of Isaac.
Mechanically too, in the sense that your success is entirely dependent on your strategy. Knowing which event is which is vital to survival, but not only that, as you play the game you start noticing some patterns emerging, things like noticing that the same enemy always drops the same things, until eventually picking your battles carefully based on the enemies' moves and rewards becomes a part of your strategy. There is always a risk to everything you do, and sure, there is randomness involved, but it's just enough rng to scratch the itch in both my gambling loving brain and my strategy loving brain. (Besides, what RPG *doesn't* have rng?)
The simple aesthetics makes this much more approachable than most strategy games, like I mentioned before you can usually tell what to do without a tutorial. This simplicity, however, is also a double edged sword, and this is where I'll have to be a little bit more negative in this review, but the early game doesn't have enough of a hook to really make people want to stick around. I mentioned before that at first I thought I had an idea of how much content this game had, and that's not good, because after I've beaten the no-skin man once it took me two days to pick up the game again, and the sole reason I did is because I was bored. I'm glad I did, as I love this game, but if I had something to do I probably wouldn't have.
The point I'm trying to make is, as much as I love how the game hides so much for you to discover, I don't think there is enough of an incentive for you to look for them, if that makes sense. What *really* got me into it was finding root for the first time and triggering the end of the world, which made me realize that maybe this game isn't as linear as I thought. I also really don't like the unexpected events. Like, at all. Sure, it's fun the first two times but after that it just becomes annoying, if there were a lunar upgrade to remove those that would be great.
There are a few things that are noticeably placeholder too, like Trish's memory on the recollection screen, but that's more of a beta thing that I'm expecting to not be in the final release, it's quite jarring going from the genuinely pretty damn good puzzle battles of mary and rugs to "girl why you crying" "DREAMS :sob:". You got me really interested in these suicidal clowns and I wanna learn more about them.
Overall, tho, this game is worth playing, I'll give it a 7/10 on the right track to being a 10/10, keep up the good work!

Ok. I have quite a bit to say.
This game is good. I'm gonna be a bit negative in this review, but I need to make it clear that I quite liked the experience here. It's nice, the monsters feel genuine and they're fun to play around with. In that vein, I don't really have anything to complain about 001's route. It's just a good time.

004 tho. Yeah. I have some things to get off my chest, it wasn't good. The route is long, and the ending doesn't really feel as satisfying as it could have been. Allow me to elaborate: the buildup is weird. It's long, and the knight is a bit *too* trigger happy. This isn't really a problem on it's own, but coming off from the sweet and short 001 it is quite jarring just how much harder 004 is. This isn't a big problem on it's own, but there is also the payoff of all that buildup, where it is revealed that you are a reincarnation (I think?) of the knight's master. The issue? What was the point of everything else if you were just the master all along.

Your choices didn't really matter here up to this point, past the ending it felt like you as a player is just thrown from one scene into the other until the game decides that you have won the lottery and you're actually his master. In a game that markets itself with "from blackmailing to flirting anything is fair game" you have surprisingly little say on how to deal with him. It would be better if you could convince him through helping him process the death of his master, or through a newfound passion for cooking, or - here's an idea - instead of straight up killing you when you make a perfect armor maybe it would send you down another route where you gaslight him into thinking you're the master when you're really not. It would be better if the sword was scrapped altogether, just *something* to make you feel like you did something, that makes you feel like, you know, an actual mediator. For now, the lingering aftertaste that the chapter leaves in your mouth is that you got lucky, and luck doesn't really feel good.

Both monsters so far have been solved mostly through who you are rather than something you do. For 001 I can forgive it, since he doesn't really overstay his welcome and it's playing into a very specific fantasy, but it should be a one off thing. Unless there is another route for the knight I'm not aware (and if there is, please tell me), it being solved the same way makes me worried for the game's future and the direction it is going. I bring this up because there is a lot of potential here, again this is not a bad game by any means. But it can be improved. I hope you take this the best way possible, but 004 is frustrating when it didn't really need to be.

Uhhh yeah. Best of luck.