99 Spirits

𝟵𝟵 𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙨~

This game is fun, engaging, maybe even straight up addictive, and I don't even notice time going by when I play it. Then why wouldn't I recommend it? It is prone to effing crash randomly during battles. So if you forget to save every so often, which a game like this tends to cause one to do, you can lose a lot of play time. It is frustrating that a bug like this isn't fixed for as long as this game had been out now. If you don't mind that, then this game is an easy recommend. I, however, can't give a game a pass on unnecessary wasted hours of my precious life.

so much talking so much crap.

Cute little spelling game that eventually spirals into a repetitive game loop. The style is so unique and interesting that I give it a low, but positive recommendation.

트레이닝 카드 모으려고 구입했고... 트레이닝카드 모았다. 설명 끝.

我还是挺喜欢这个立绘风格的，这也许也是本作最大的亮点了。不要误以为这是个常见的小型JRPG，实际上这是个猜字谜游戏，基于日本的妖怪民俗，让你填一些英文单词... 本身的故事从开头起的调来说应该可以一看，但是战斗和走格子这些几乎没有变数的过程实在会令人乏味。

garbage game, only played because the cards are worth a lot. Easy achievements too.

A very charming game that decides on a theme and runs with it. The focus is on the "tsukumogami" (a type of yōkai that possesses a specific object) and the main story involves finding a way to stop the chaos they create, primarily by visiting a number of ancient gods. The game really goes all-in on the "traditional Japanese" aesthetic, which is reinforced with the focus on different types of yōkai, shrine gods, and (in the original) the gameplay focus on Japanese writing. This incredibly focused aesthetic adds a lot of charm to the game!! Most importantly, it's a faithful localization that doesn't try to downplay any of this intentional theming. Gameplay mainly involves RPG-like combat where you must decipher the possessed object through hints before you are able to attack. After the deciphering, the combat portion is fairly plain other than timing your parries and using a tsukumogami power or two. Outside of combat, gameplay involves simply walking around interacting with things, while occasionally using tsukumogami powers to clear obstacles. The overall gameplay is fairly simple all things considered, but I feel it is nice enough, since the real weight of this game is mainly carried by its atmosphere, characters, and environment. (Note: As someone who only played in Casual Mode, I can say the game really benefitted from the addition of that mode and how it provides a much smoother experience. It really helps the focus of the game stay on the story and world as opposed to having potentially tedious gameplay elements distract from it. The story is really able to shine now and so I would recommend Casual Mode as the default gameplay experience.) The overall tone of the story has a very serious dramatic feel, which is always cool. In addition, there are a lot of moments in-between the crucial story beats for the characters to mess around and have some silly interactions. You can tell the one who made the game had a lot of fun designing and developing all the different characters you can encounter, as they all have a lot of personality to them despite the relative brevity of these silly in-betweens. I guess it only makes sense that the game eventually got visual novel DLCs that focus more on playing around with the characters outside of the context of a serious plot (something I always enjoy seeing creators do). In essence, while the game is not perfect, you can tell there was a lot of heart and a lot of thought put into creating this world, which contributes to making it an special and enjoyable experience.

So, I tried playing this game back in 2015, but apparently I only played it for 16 minutes before I ended up shelving it. Fast-forward a decade and I randomly decided to try it again. This time round, I quite enjoyed myself. I'm glad that I read some of the reviews suggesting that you play this game on casual, because having to constantly identify the enemies every time you encounter them would have been quite annoying. The combat was very unique, you first have to attack the enemy to fill up a gauge that lets you use an ability to give you hints on the name of the enemy you're fighting because initially it's covered in a shroud. Then you have to defend to build up another gauge to use an ability that lets you guess the name. Once you guess its name correctly, the shroud is lifted and then you can attack it normally until its health depletes. This is where casual mode helped out, because once you guess the name right once, any time you face that same enemy, you won't have to waste time guessing its name again. That only ever happens during scripted story battles, where I found myself facing enemies I already fought that were still shrouded even on casual. There seems to be multiple endings, I assume I got the normal one. I didn't really like the story enough to go through its newgame plus mode to see the others and get a potentially better ending. It involved collecting all the names of all the enemies, too much of a grind for my tastes. The story was okay, the text was written a little awkwardly with some typos, but it was mostly serviceable. I'm glad to have played it, it was a fun, quirky game with a unique combat system. I did feel a little culture/language barrier here and there with some of the names I had to guess, though, and some frustrations with spelling, like armour/armor or not knowing whether the name was a plural or not, like spoon or spoons.

It's good