Absinthia

Absinthia is quite a charming game, reminiscent of SNES-era RPGs. It has a lovely pixel art style and enjoyable music, resulting in vibrant environments that are fun to explore. There are plenty of secret areas hidden around to reward the player for exploring thoroughly. The plot starts out rather simple, but there are plenty of twists and developments to keep the player engaged, and the writing style has a perfect balance of gravitas and humour, featuring a cast of playable characters who are tight-knit and have strong personalities. The closeness of the cast in terms of writing meshes well with the team attack mechanic in battle. Similar to Chrono Trigger, the party can combine attacks for greater effects in battle. The game is balanced around this, and MP is gradually replenished as the battle goes on, making it possible to unleash these stronger abilities many times in a battle. There are many ways you can tailor Absinthia to your play style; the game has not only difficulty settings, but a wide variety of equipment with different stat attributes and effects, and late in the game there are many viable choices for how to equip your party depending on how you like to play. This game does not have random encounters, and grinding didn't feel necessary. The amount of enemies that are placed throughout the maps give the perfect amount of exp to be able to proceed without too much trouble, though any players who wish to grind can do so by leaving and re-entering a dungeon to respawn enemies. The dungeons are not too puzzle-heavy, but the puzzles that are present are well-constructed, in which the mechanics of the puzzle are very easy to figure out but thought is required to proceed. Overall, I would say Absinthia is definitely worth the purchase, whether at full price or on sale. I especially recommend it for fans of classic RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Lufia II. A first-time player can expect to spend 10-15 hours in this game and each hour is going to be filled with enjoyment. I didn't want to stop playing, and after finishing it I'm already looking forward to playing this game again in the future.

Not a bad game

the best of the series so far excited to see what comes next

É um jogo de RPG maker interessante, com diálogos divertidos, batalhas vibrantes e quebra-cabeças, mapas e cenários bem-feitos para o gênero. O que tem de mais original é que a maioria dos personagens são LGBT (com atenção especial para o T) e a evolução de seus relacionamentos românticos e de suas personalidades é uma parte importante do enredo. O que mais deixa a desejar é que Sera, a protagonista da maior parte da história, não tem nenhum relacionamento especialmente importante e não evolui como personagem – a não ser, é claro, para ganhar níveis. *** It's an interesting RPG-maker game, with fun dialogue, vibrant battles, and well-designed puzzles, maps, and scenarios for the genre. What's most unique about it is that most of the characters are LGBT (with special attention to the "T"), and the development of their romantic relationships and personalities is an important part of the plot. What's most disappointing is that Sera, the protagonist for most of the story, doesn't have any particularly important relationships and doesn't evolve as a character—except, of course, to gain levels.

Finished this yesterday and overall I'd say I like it. The combat mechanics are really solid, having to do a balancing act between regular attacks, skills and MP regeneration made the combat consistently engaging, I was playing on Normal, but even with that the regular encounters never felt mindless. I'm not too familiar with RPG Maker so I don't know how much this deviates from the usual, but it felt pretty unique to me at least. The areas you explore were all right, pretty standard but definitely not bad. I wasn't a big fan of most of the lategame sidequests(with one exception) since they felt kinda short and didn't tend to move the characters forward or even let them interact all that much, the main story locations were generally good though. I generally like the cast of characters here, the main cast are very enjoyable and I really enjoy the dynamic the have with each other, their interactions were generally the highlight of the game for me. All of them are queer which is generally something I like and I feel it's handled well here, their identities are all important to their character and come up a quite a bit, but they've got plenty going on besides that. The side cast fares a bit worse unfortunately, I'm not big on Lillith, she feels a bit too generic to me. I like what the game was going for with her interactions with Freya, but I just felt like the execution wasn't all there. Ruthea is also not great, I like her when she shows up, but she really needed more screentime. Despite being important to Freya's backstory she only shows up a couple times which makes the resolution between them feel a bit undercooked. As for the general plot, this game is really going for something more character centric which I like and it's well executed, but the general plot beats are pretty generic, basically just a compilation of fantasy tropes. I can't say I found this world or most of the major events all that interesting, the interactions between the main party was the thing keeping me engaged, not so much the story around them. The game tries to have comedic moments pretty frequently and these are a mixed bag to me, generally it's great when it's not relying on reference humor or memes which is unfortunately pretty often. Still got a good amount of laughs out of me, but also quite a few groans. Visually the game looks pretty good, not blown away by the pixel art, but it does look pretty nice. The OST is also really good. I did notice some performance issues during battles in the late game side quests, the laptop I played this on is pretty old so maybe that's the reason, the issue was also generally resolved by quitting to the title screen and reloading so it ultimately wasn't that big of a deal. Overall I'd say I definitely have my issues, but I still had a very good time with this and would recommend it if you're looking for a good indie RPG.

Really fun! Feels very well thought out with a lovable (and complicated!) cast of characters. Normal mode was a good challenge for me, had to go back and find some things I'd missed before I could give the final boss another shot. Soundtrack is lovely and pleasant to listen to even if you leave the game idling in the background. It's also wonderful to see people like myself & friends represented in a game that's so full and polished. I'm not much of an RPG player (usually I get overwhelmed by all the stats, upgrades, equipment, etc.) but I really loved this and I was able to grasp the vulnerabilities of different enemies, and when to switch up my gear! Kept coming back to it time after time until I finally completed it just a little while ago! The only thing that's missing is fishing ;)

Set a few years after the events of Celestial Hearts, this one focuses on a new set of heroes facing Lillith after she fell to the continent below when she was defeated by the heroes of the previous game, but not all is what it seems and Freya, a deserter Halonian Knight, has more than one secret she's afraid her companions won't understand. Another solid entry in the series, similar in tone, gameplay, pacing and themes as the previous games, it also features mentions of minor appearances of characters from the previous games and one of the main characters is the great-grandson of Morgoth the wizard. And like the previous games, it features a post-credits scene that sets up a future plot point, though it remains to be seen if it will ever be addressed directly in a sequel, or indirectly such as when we found out through a second-hand account in the third game how the original heroes faced off against Morgoth in their final battle, or how in this game we finally see the fight against Lillith, but not being fought by Kaya, Helen and Achilles. I do have to say that I found Lillith's arc very interesting because in the first coupe of games she's an optional super boss you can encounter and learn about, but not directly part of the main story, but then in Celestial Hearts she turns out to be the main bad guy at the end, and in this one she's the main bad guy from the start, but she's no longer a crazed angel/goddess of death being controlled by an evil god who created her, so she's more reminiscent of Lissandra after Hermes removed her curse than of herself in the previous game when she was already free but still basically ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy. She even mentions that her ultimate goal is to kill a god, much like Lissandra did at the end of Knight Bewitched 2 during her youth. I thoroughly enjoyed all these games because they include every element I love in retro JRPG's, including a relatively detailed story, but they're also fast-paced and you can finish them in less than 10 hours instead of 50 or 100 hours the bigger names require. I already got Knight Eternal, The Black Dungeon and Knight of Heaven to play on my phone and finish all the series so far. My only very minor complaints are that I caught a couple of misspelled words in the dialogue, and that this one has my least favorite character portrait art of the whole series. Also, If you're one of those Anti-Woke hysterics-prone types, you'll probably lose your ♥♥♥♥ at the amount of gay and lesbian characters in these games and pitch a fit because they're destroying western civilization or whatever your media outlet and/or pastor says, but it honestly didn't bother me in the slightest and I'm a straight guy who's old enough to have played the Atari 2600 when it was popular. Hell, the games themselves have a sense of humor about it, like how in this one a random Halonian Knight NPC says that he's surrounded by women soldiers all the time but he still can't get a date and it feels like every chick in Halonia is a lesbian. And I'd say that out of the complete series, this is the one with more gay people in the main cast and where they discuss those issues the most during the story, but they certainly don't spend the whole game talking about that, much less in a preachy or confrontational manner like, say, Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. I thought the combat was punchy and kept me strategizing the whole game. I really enjoyed the story and the relationships built between the characters. I think the only thing I'd want from future releases is slightly bigger feeling worlds. This game is 100% standalone, but it is part of a bigger series and so it only covers a small part of a big world. I loved having queer characters just existing in a world and having interesting storylines All in all, I'd give this a solid 8.5/10. I think there is room for the devs to grow and evolve, but it's a very solid showing for a 20 hour retro RPG. Interesting story, believable but small feeling world and great characters.

I stumbled across this when it just got funded on kickstarter. Completly lost track of it until now. Happy with it so far. Nice pixel RPG comfort food right here.

Made me gay 10/10