An Automaton's Journey

Honestly this game is genuinely just.. such an amazing and fun journey. Don't get me wrong, you will get significantly more enjoyment if you are even just remotely a hololive EN fan, but the gameplay is fun enough to where just about anyone can pick this up and have a great experience. All the dialogue feels in character and was enjoyable to read, to where i'd go out of my way to make sure I actually read everything and just.. absorb it all. Personally I played using a controller and it's honestly what i'd recommend too, as being able to switch between a joystick for general play, and a dpad when maybe I wanted to be slightly precise was an absolute blessing in certain moments. In terms of difficulty, normal mode can definitely feel a smidge easy at times, especially depending on how thorough you are with finding collectibles and increasing your health at the earliest possible moment, whereas hard mode can.. actually be a challenge at times, especially if you're going for the challenge achievements, as there were quite a few that honestly took me a fair few tries. Seriously though, everything about this game is so damn good, from the art style to the flow of the gameplay, to the music and just... absolutely everything. It oozes charm in every corner and I really really really recommend giving it a try!!!

You start the game in a cave with no memory of how you got there. Before long, you learn that a mysterious curse has been spreading across the land. Your friends hid you away, hoping you would emerge later and save them all. The curse has no effect on you because, despite looking like an ordinary human, you're actually powered by gears hidden inside your body. The game is an action adventure with puzzle-focused dungeons, which gives a pretty clear idea of what to expect. If that description alone doesn't ring a bell, it probably will the moment you cut down your first bush and watch it drop either currency or gears that restore health. Anyone familiar with classic games of this style will immediately recognize the formula. You explore an interconnected world, search for dungeon entrances, acquire new items and abilities, and use them to reach previously inaccessible areas before moving on to the next dungeon. Your character, Cecilia, starts with a dash ability that lets her avoid attacks and pass through certain threats. She also carries a spear that serves as her primary weapon. Its reach is respectable, although it feels closer to a sword than a true spear. Not long into the adventure, you gain the ability to throw explosive carrots. While useful against enemies, they are mostly used to destroy suspicious looking walls that often hide chests containing money or other rewards. Most enemies go down after a few hits, but they still demand some attention, especially when attacking from a distance or hiding behind shields. Even when you take damage, recovering isn't much of a problem. Enemies and environmental objects respawn whenever you move between screens, making it easy to stock up on health, money, explosive carrots, or anything other consumable. There is a catch, though. Your carrying capacity is limited, so finding larger bags becomes important. The world itself is divided into individual screens. Each screen is revealed on the map the first time you visit it. The map does an excellent job of showing the exact layout of explored areas, along with important locations such as resting benches. These benches restore your health and act as checkpoints. However, they do not save your game, so you'll need to remember to save manually through the menu or trust the autosave system. You also have access to a mini map, which unfortunately isn't very good. For starters, it occupies a nice portion of the lower left corner of the screen and often blocks your view of what's happening underneath. More than once, that hidden area turned out to contain an enemy I never saw coming. The second issue is that the mini map disables itself whenever you interact with something, which quickly becomes annoying. Along the way, you'll occasionally meet friendly characters who offer dialogue, quests, or items for sale. These NPCs are conveniently marked on the map. Treasure comes in the form of chests. The plain looking ones are usually tucked away in hidden corners and contain money, although any excess is wasted if your moneybag is already full. The more elaborate chests contain valuable rewards such as gear pieces that increase your maximum health. The main objective throughout the game is tackling dungeons. Inside, you'll solve puzzles, search for keys, unlock new areas, and obtain useful tools and weapons. These include a bow, boomerang, whip, and several other gadgets. Most dungeons culminate in a boss battle. Every new item doubles as a puzzle solving tool. The boomerang can retrieve distant objects and activate switches, while the bow is used to hit targets such as floating eyes. There are also quality of life upgrades, including a violin that allows fast travel between unlocked resting benches. Each dungeon introduces its own mechanic. One memorable example is the graveyard dungeon, where knights remain friendly while the lights are on but become hostile shadowy enemies once darkness falls. While the themes and gimmicks vary, the overall dungeon progression follows a familiar structure. One thing they all share is an abundance of pits. Falling into one sends you back to the room's entrance, which can be particularly frustrating during obstacle challenges that require dodging arrows, avoiding damage, and watching for spikes emerging from the floor. To make matters worse, if you're knocked into a pit after taking damage, you lose health from both the attack and the fall. The bosses are actually your corrupted friends, the same people who hid you away at the beginning of the story. Defeating them restores them to their normal selves. These encounters generally aren't too difficult, especially since the item found within each dungeon is usually designed to help against its boss. If you're looking for an extra challenge and an achievement, however, you can try defeating bosses without using the dungeon item. That's a much tougher task. While those achievements are technically missable, at least you can keep trying until the boss goes down. The same cannot be said for the speedrunning achievements, which I absolutely hate. I've never understood why games that encourage exploration and reward players for aiming at 100 percent completion also punish them for taking their time and enjoying the experience. One playthrough should be enough, and forcing players to rush through a game like this just feels unnecessary.

This was so much fun! You made a really neat game with lots of great details, good challenges, secrets, creative dungeons, funny dialog, and more! Thank you!!

I intentionally avoided watching any streams of the game because I wanted to discover everything for myself. This is easily the best Hololive fan game I've ever played, and honestly one of the best top-down 2D games I've played in general. It's simply fantastic. Every single dialogue hits perfectly. The game is packed with countless inside jokes, and they're written so well that you could genuinely believe these conversations happened exactly like this between the talents. In some cases, they practically did. I'm currently about 60% through the game and unfortunately have to stop for the night because I need some sleep. But I'm already incredibly excited to continue playing tomorrow after work and I honestly can't remember the last time a game made me feel that way. I haven't even reached the ending yet, and I'm already hoping for a sequel. Huge praise to the entire development team.

speeeen to win! ERB's sword is seriously overpowered, making it perfect for a roguelike newbie like me... The story is really cool, and i love solving all the puzzles in it and exploring this world! Otomos now listen, this game is full of fun easter eggs for you! I recommen :3

a pleasant adventure game i was most impressed with it's competency with it's design , in how it contextualizes the items with hololive , and how it's item's are new (to me) that fill niches for abilities your character can utilize , and then instead of each new one rendering the previous obsolete , most of them get re-used in later dungeons the overworld is nice to explore , as you seek to understand the curse that has befallen the land to undo it , and bonus points for some unique dungeon themes , & lots of unique mechanics right from the start of the first one , you know the dev was doing good when the player is consistently left feeling like they want more out of each aspect of the game so you can explore deeper ways to construct and solve the puzzles i found the writing to be corny and funny which is a staple for holo-games oh and the difficulty feels right too , i played through on hard mode

If your a fan of the talent behind this, you'll enjoy the game for what it is. The game was overall a fun time, the dungeons were at worst meh and too short to really drag, but at the same time the good ones always feel too short so it goes both ways. I found some dungeons especially the first one to be rather good. The main positive of this game is it's a good small zelda-like game with some good humor that'll make the trip worthwhile. Personally I think the items themselves had a few that were always necessary and were made a requirement after you got it, while others are sort of there to solve the problem in front of you and stop you from skipping ahead then become irrelvant. Yet despite that there are some sections that make you string them together which felt good. EDIT: Got it mixed up with another game I bought for 7$ that's actually fine, worth the price

I love Cecilia Immergreen from Hololive EN Justice.

10/10 game. Perfect understanding of not only Hololive, but The Legend of Zelda. The way the dungeons are laid out, and how the puzzles evolve to teach you the dungeon are immaculate. Each item provided is useful in its own way. If you want to dodge attacks their is an item for that, if you want to tank the damage there is an item for that, if you want to absorb projectiles and shoot them back… there is an item for that. The freedom of motion and ways of attacking make this game incredibly fun and never dull. The music also absolutely slaps.

The game started incredibly strong but ended with frustration. The main points of frustration came from Pekora (good lord was she annoying to fight), the weird control of the teleport ability, fairly often random enemy projectiles while on water, sliding of platforms for some reason AND the huge amount of knochback you receive. It is incredibly annoying that i always "respawn" at the start of the room when falling. Im only pointing out the negatives in this review BUT i genuinely do think that this game is a awesome little game to beat 100%. Somewhere around 5 game hours in total that were filled with mostly joy and the occasional annoyed sigh. 8 out of 10 total One of the best games holo indie has published Make another game, just add more fast travel options next time. Good job devs