Absinthia

Was good

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.

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.

mysigt JRPG som blev betydligt mer intressant ac 4 timmar in

Safe and fun little recommendation if you like classic RPGs. Despite its short length of 10-15 hrs its paced extremely well and doesn't feel rushed anywhere. A very small amount of map puzzles, mostly lever pulling jumping ones that can expand two rooms at times. The story does has some interesting twists that make it more unique than the normal tropes you often see as well. I would suggest reading the manual key item to learn about status effects and know that your characters actually have elements they are weak to and also some they resist!

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.

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.