[h1]Alexandrian Library of Commands[/h1]
[h2]Story[/h2]
The protagonist, Oli, is the chosen one of the legendary sword Durend, which allows her to learn spells that are used on her. However, the sword causes pain to her if she gets separated from it, and she wants to learn why the sword chose her and subjected her to this. All she knows is that the sword bonded to her in Astral Point, the HQ of Stardust City's ruling organization, the Agency. She soon meets Sai and Amara, two people who are on the run from the agency. While Amara has amnesia, Sai fakes amnesia and has something to hide.
Oli's character arc mainly consists of her realizing that her purpose with Durend [spoiler]doesn't actually exist, causing her to realize that if she isn't tied down to a purpose, she's better off helping her friends with their own Agency-related problems. IMO, it feels like she accepted her lack of destiny a bit too quickly.[/spoiler] Sai's character develop concerns his bad habit of wanting to take the easy way out or give up easily, which ties into how he hid his identity from his friends, since he didn't have the courage to tell them until his identity is revealed at the worst possible time. I enjoyed seeing him overcome his guilt and cowardice and seeing him stand up to Chip and Mayor Swed, though it makes it me wonder if he's the real protagonist of this game and not Oli due to how much focus he gets. Amara was intended to be a [spoiler]living weapon for the Agency, but due to how Overflow works, it becomes clear that she decided her path in life very early on when she goes into this state to protect her friends from Lux. However, she seems to have an archenemy in Omegaxis, who is her opposite in how they want to use their freedom from the Agency, which means she will likely get an expanded character arc in the next game alongside her foe.[/spoiler]
The Agency is supposed to be a corrupt police state that everyone sees as oppressors rather than heroes. The people of Slate City certainly have reason to despise the Agency, [spoiler] since the Agency kills their leader and destroys their home for the "crime" of being an anarchist commune[/spoiler]. However, we don't see much direct oppression of the people of Stardust City and other towns under the Agency's control. At best, we know that they persecute the homeless (according to the NPC in the cathedral), they [spoiler]are secretly repsonsible for asxpawn monsters being everywhere[/spoiler], and they [spoiler]experimented on at least one criminal[/spoiler], but we don't see much reason for the average citizens to despise the agency. On the other hand, Stardust City is implied to have a lot of wealth inequality, the mayor holds the poor in contempt, and Astral Point is basically a gated community for the upper class, so one could argue that the Agency is creating their own crime problem in the first place, which would then lead to more people [spoiler]being experimented on and essentially enslaved[/spoiler], thus rendering Swed's "tough on crime" rhetoric hollow.
[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
The game's main gimmick is that your characters can only equip 8 commands, though some equipment grants special commands that don't take up space, forcing you to consider your builds carefully. The game also has way more commands than you will ever need, which should supposedly lead to interesting builds on paper, but in practice, I ended up just using low cost skills that have multis because it's more damage efficient than the higher-end skills. Higher-end skills cost a ton of MP but have no multis, so I felt no incentive to use them over their cheaper counterparts. TBH, it feels like the large command pool was meant more for the enemies than the player.
Oli is supposed to be a blue mage character who can learn spells, but her version of this mechanic feel overengineered. For one thing, you need to use up a turn to use a collection-type command instead of learning the new spell in a more natural manner. Additionally, you need to have a high C stat to increase the chances of learning certain skills, which means in the early game, you will have to make compromises in your equipment setup. You will also have to have Collect, Conduct, and Coerce at minimum in your command list if you want to learn rarer spells, which is a lot when there are only 8 slots. This normally wouldn't be too bad, but what really breaks the camel's back is that many enemies have large learnable skill pools, which can add a very thick layer of RNG to learning spells. You can somewhat influence the spells they use by using Mana Taunt and Coerce, but it isn't that reliable. The sad part is that as I mentioned earlier, the game's meta means you probably won't even use most of the spells Oli learns outside of the ones that trigger cost-efficient multis.
Speaking of multis, they are actions that require 2 or more specific commands to be used by the party, which will cause all involved characters to use up their turn to perform the action. These can deal damage comparable to higher-end skills for the cost of two low or mid tier skills, which makes them very efficient. The elemental Breaker series of multis as especially powerful when combined with Sai's Exploit special, which adds elemental weaknesses. These are satisfying to pull off, but I really wish there were multis for higher tier skills and extra elemental skills. It's possible they exist, but they're not listed in the Gamefaqs guide or the Handbook on itch.
On the field, each character has an exploration ability: Oli can create ice boats to travel across water or create a bridge across 1-tile gaps/obstacles, Sai can push boxes, and Amara can activate springboards. However, Sai and Amara's abilities require you to confirm their use if you activate them after a map transition. It's a minor nitpick though and most of the puzzles are fair.
As for enemy balancing, most of them are fair, but some enemy commands' damage formulas can feel really OP compared to others of the same tier. Spinel difficulty feels like it was meant for players who accidentally overleveled in the process of farming Eater Eyes or teaching Oli spells, so I would recommend the lower difficulties for a non-grinding playthrough.
The equipment system isn't about linear upgrades, since everything has a percentage-based trade-off. As a result, levels matter much more than gear, but it can still be worth considering each piece of equipment's attached commands and non-statistical properties. Generally, you'll want to focus on further increasing the characters' strong stats.
One thing I think the game needs is either a setting for enemy encounter rate or a much higher cap for Invisibility Sprays, since the default encounter rate is very high. This becomes more apparent in big and open maps where navigating is difficult. I guess if you don't feel a need to hoard money, you can also just run from battle and accept the dropped change.
[h2]Verdict[/h2]
7.5/10
The story is fine for the most part and I enjoyed Sai's character development, but I think Swed and the Agency have some missing potential as villains. The gameplay is mostly balanced, but there are so many redundant commands that it doesn't feel worth it to buy all of Amara's Eater Eye commands or learn all of Oli's spells. Maybe it would help if those higher-end skills had multis too?
