Bloomtown: A Different Story

Отличная игра. Графика, музыка и сюжет выше всяких похвал. Однако мне не понравилось обилие фарма, а ещё разачаровала боевая система. Разработчики поступили очень странно, на мой взгляд. Они наворотили до чёртовой матери разных типов урона (горение, заморозка, яд, электрификация, ошеломление и т.д.), проработали правила, когда разные эффекты усиливают друг друга (удар электричеством по ошеломлённому существу наносит двойной урон и так далее), но при этом… Они сделали всех боссов без исключения иммунными ко всем упомянутым эффектам разом! Яд, горение и прочее действуют только на рядовых мобов. На боссов работают только дебафы прямо снижающие характеристики (атаку, защиту, удачу). Больше ни-че-го. То есть какую-то замысловатую тактику можно придумать только против рядовых врагов, что не сильно-то и нужно. Против боссов обязательны аптечки, параметры экипировки и, разумеется, прокачка. Из-за чего сложность игры, по сути, определяется только тем, сколько игрок готов фармить, ибо… да-да мобы со временем возрождаются, а опыт для level-up дают только за битвы. Квесты идут мимо, вернее, прокачивают социальные навыки, нужные для диалогов. Выбор тяжёлого уровня сложности на старте не сделает битвы интереснее, а только добавит лишние часы гринда на мобах. Bloomtown: A Different Story спасает только то, что к моменту, когда боёвка начинает максимально тяготить, игра заканчивается. Она не очень-то длинная, на самом деле. Я пробежал сюжет за 16 часов, а если бы не приходилось фармить, справился бы вдвое быстрее. PS. Но графон и анимации, всё же, моё почтение! Сюжет тоже классный.

Bloomtown: A Different Story is close to 20 hours of an 1960's Americana-persona adventure, that lacks the depth of Atlus's titles, 10-15 with no side-content. It's on the short side, and it feels it. There are 3-4 dungeons, that feel too big with long corridors, dead-ends with nothing in them, and pointless side rooms that are just there for load screens and autosaves. The city aspect is underdeveloped, with another large area with little of worth in it. The dungeons could have had another pass for optimal pathing and rewarding exploration, as half the time it felt unneeded to actually look everywhere. There are little to no stakes for the main character, you're asked to care when most of the drama affects people you don't know, or have known for sparse minutes. With no real deadlines or issues of failure either, you can just play it while being relaxed, regardless of when NPCs warn that someone is in danger. The demon system is also very plain and boring most of the time. Fusing just grants 1 demon experience, to level up with a chance of new skills and resistances, with a cap of level 15 that is reached too early. However, you can't easily capture demons, as the skill system heavily favours statuses over damage, when you need to down a demon with a damage element, and the "One More" system is random on if it procs. You can only really capture from the 2nd dungeon forwards. With the devs not being natively English, the translation is also very rocky. Some explanations are unclear, with many grammar discrepancies. Plus, characters are written rather weird, with the 12-year-olds talking like they are in their 30s. The game is also full of bugs. I had 3 side quests glitch on me in an endless loop of "Do thing" when I did the thing. I had a few issues with freezing, and 1 crash, too. Many interactions also didn't seem to work, with some minute areas for trigger boxes. Some people liken the game to Stardew Valley, but that comparison ends with style and theming. You can grow some crops, but that system is very limited, and is just to cook some items for combat. However, the music is the standout part. Easily an 8/10, for the few tracks crammed into the 20 hours. So many battle themes with amazing vocals and melodies. Everything together, with constant annoyances and poor design, I'd give Bloomtown a 5/10. The music is pulling a lot of weight with this release. Get it on sale, I'd say.

Bloomtown is a good game that is constantly flirting with being a great game. It's never bad but you'll regularly be thinking to yourself "Man, if only it pushed this a little more it would be amazing." Unfortunately, that's just sometimes the weakness of small indie development. But being a good game with a lot of untapped potential doesn't mean it's not worth a play. Far from it. Emma and her brother Chester are shipped off by their recently divorced mom to Bloomtown for the summer to stay with their curmudgeonly grandfather. While trying to figure out what they're doing for the duration Emma is visited by the demon Lucifer who wishes to form a contract with her that allows her to utilize demons and travel to the Underside of Bloomtown which has become active with three particularly strong demons that Lucifer wants you to get rid of. Seeing as the demons are harming the town itself, Emma agrees and sets off to live out her best summer as well as save some people along the way. The game is very influenced by the Shin Megami Tensei series, Persona in particular. Your party members have social links that develop their sidestories and strengthen them, you can get demons to join your party and fuse them to get them stronger, combat is turn-based with a weakness system and there is even an option to all-out attack when you down every enemy. I'll get into these systems a little later but I liked the little spins on the formula. First, I need to make something abundantly clear; The artwork and music for this game is amazing. Like, impressively so. The spritework is complicated, there are bespoke animations for almost everything, locations with unique work abound, it's kinda wild. You'll regularly see an animation for an activity that you will never see again, or a room with a bunch of items and backgrounds that are only in that room. The artists came into this game to show off and man does it work. There are (I think) five regular battle tracks that rotate and they're all absolute bangers. I never got tired of them. Ambient music or dungeon themes were nice as well but since a lot of the game involves the combat you'll be hearing those songs on repeat. And that's also where some of the cracks start to show. There will be a room with astonishing amounts of unique sprites and items...and no reason to ever be in it. Nothing to interact with, no reason to go in other than to go right back out. Which is much more noticeable when that isn't the case and you get a room with a bunch of things you can interact with even superficially or where you can find treasure. There are lots of great characters...but you have very few actual social links. There are tons of activities to do...but they all involve leveling a stat and little else. What I believe is the main issue that undercuts a lot of the game is an unevenness. You look at the art and see a shocking attention to work and detail that the rest of the game can't live up to. The scope of the art betrays the reality of the gameplay. And like I said above, the rest of the game is good! I enjoyed it thoroughly, I don't regret my time at all. But you also get shown all these options that don't have nearly the variety or granularity that you are expecting. There's nothing wrong with a shorter RPG experience, but it definitely feels like the length was due to constraints and not the original vision. I can think of almost a dozen characters who they probably had as social links that they simply didn't have the time, manpower or money to implement. I can see the massive amount of locations in town that either don't have much to do in them or literally are just pretty things to look at and can't be explored: a burnt down fire station, a rich neighborhood with a huge house behind a gate, a church you can engage with talks of God that...simply don't go anywhere. This is the thread through the gameplay as well. You have social stats; you'll have them maxed well before the end of the game. Each demon design is unique and individual; fusing just gives you a chance for a skill or resistance change with small stat improvements. Combat is fun and engaging; stat effects are rarely worth using as even if a demon is weak to that element damaging them will always end the battle faster and safer. I don't want to harp on this but it's important to put it to words because it's a feeling that you'll have throughout the entire game. If they just pushed this story beat a little farther. If this dungeon puzzle lasted a little longer. If I could just have a social link and story with this character. If there was just more reason to catch and fuse demons. It's an itch you can't scratch, a game that is just so close to being the realization of its promise. The bright side of it is this; the game as it is still works. It's still fun, engaging and a joy to play. And looking to the future, a dev team with this much raw talent on display leaves me very interested in what they have coming next. If they can impress and leave me wanting more well, they have the chance to make something truly awesome.

This is one of the few games, I genuinely felt like I wasted time playing. I really want to like this game because the art and music is beautiful, but there's some really silly mechanics that just ruins the entire joy of the game. If you mess up without reading a walkthrough, you just end up failing the whole quest (with no manual saves). Side quests with no rewards, why did I even do it? There's rng miss mechanics in combat. The story and dialogue is rushed and gravity-falls cringey. Overall, it's a pixel persona copy, but done poorly. Spent about 2 years of begrudgingly chipping away at the game until I finished it, but I can't recommend it.

to be honest, i just got bored. i feel like kids or young teens would enjoy this game but it's just not for me. great art though!

[u][b] BACKGROUND: [/b][/u] When I first picked up this game, I felt nostalgic. I was worried; assuming it would be like those other RPG Maker-esque games with an inflated price but I was pleasantly surprised and quickly proven wrong. Bloomtown is refreshing, fun and has so much to offer. If you grab it, I promise you'll be as hooked as I was). [u][b] APPEALS: [/b][/u] Bloomtown appears to be your generic RPG game at first glance, so its easy to worry that it would quickly feel repetitive or unordinary - [u]this is not so![/u] While Bloomtown maintains the traditional RPG pixel gamestyle, the Devs have heightened the game by changing up the battle style, preparation and animation; have made the game mechanics reasonably challenging without being frustating; included some quite challenging puzzles and collectabiles; included a feature where your character develops traits that are constantly and consistently used throughout the game; and mixed in easy mini games/features for variety. While the game mechanics are simple and easy to understand, Bloomtown utilises its different mechanics to ensure that the game is sufficiently challenging without being suffocating or frustrating, but you don't get any hints). I also appreciate that the various mechanics have multiple uses so you'll never be furstrated about learning a mechanic for only one use. The game is very mature (not in a sexual way). The themes addressed in the game are dark but relevant to the overall story. You'll come across broken relationships, strained relationships, trauma, death, forgiveness, suicide, etc. These themes are presented in a beautiful, respectful but realistic manner. There is a fast-forward option for dialogue and a 3-tier battle speed. So, even if you begin to find some feature become boring, repetitive or disinteresting, you can breeze through these easily. You might think, "Well that's great for boring battles but skipping dialogue is absurd" - Well.. the Devs also have a dialogue history tab available for reference if you miss anything. The artwork is bright, colourful and absolutely gorgeous, the background music is so lovely and fun (you wouldn't mind hearing it on repeat). The battle music is infectious. Every character was well written with a short but succinct background so they don't feel like generic NPCs. They have their own lore, quirks, and stories which you'll uncover as you progress through the game and invest in your friendships. Gameplay is seamless - I haven't come across a freeze, stutter, bug or crash. However, there is one issue with quest marking (see Concerns below). The game auto-saves frequently but there is also a manual save function (you won't need it unless you're save scumming and listen.. I don't judge). [u][b] CONCERNS ABOUT THE GAME: [/b][/u] There are several issues a lot of people (including myself) have encountered throughout the game. However, I must preface something: these issues are not game breaking. Are they irritating? Yes. Are they so horrible that you may rage quit this game? Absolutely not. Let me explain! For my fellow achievement hunters - it is possible to get all the achievements in a single playthrough, however, there is a bug that makes it so that certain quests don't get checked off your list even when you successfully complete them. This means that these quests don't count towards your 'Destiny' achievement and will also affect your 'Pride of the Nation' achievement. So like me, its very easy (to no fault of your own) be stuck on 39/41 achievements. It is also possible to completely miss out on certain quests which trigger upon entering an area if you don't enter the area the correct way or distance. Its hard to explain this, so here's an example: [spoiler]For the 'Sweet Life' questline, if you want too far on the left side of the road, the quest will not trigger. Chester must be near the candy store. [/spoiler] There are also A LOT of side quests which you can miss solely because you opted to do quests a certain way. For example - [spoiler]For the 'Fight on a Walk' achievement - In the Act 3 dungeon(?) you'll have to choose either to start as a staff or patient. If you start off as a patient, you're likely to miss this Boss battle and/or overlook it even when you switch to staff later on because this area has a lot of minor enemies. [/spoiler]This is really frustrating because you need to do all the side quests in a single play file to get the 'Pride of the Nation' achievement - and no, you won't be told in-game about more than half of these side quests. The playerbase has been raising these issues with the Devs since the game was released and to date the Devs have not made any attempt to patch these glitches or to even address/respond to the players on the Discussions pages. Really disappointing everyone here Devs... [u][b] GAMEPLAY TIP: [/b][/u] This is neither a pro nor a con, but something all players should be warned about before going into the game. The game has a traits feature which will impact the outcome of many things. These trait features are used consistently throughout the game so you can't avoid it. However... if you mess up a trait check, you're screwed. You can [u]never][/u] go back and redo most trait checks. So this is what I recommend you do at the start of the game: [spoiler]When you begin the game and start exploring, before you do anything, go to the Library then borrow and read all the books there. This will take a few in-game days (no consequence) but will quickly level up your traits. I recommend only doing trait checks when you have a 80%+ success rate, ESPECIALLY the Museum call one. [/spoiler] [u][b] CONCLUSION: [/b][/u] Overall, Bloomtown was a super fun game. It's unique and worth its value. I personally grabbed it while it was on sale, but because of the amount of content, I don't think you'll regret paying full price for it.

Overall, a nice and easy little game to play. I enjoyed it for what it was, which is a quick and easy adventure game. However, as much as I liked the game. I do have some complaints and I think these complaints will determine whether you will enjoy this game or not. So, complaint number one. The battle system. It's not my biggest gripe because I don't mind if a battle system isn't over complex or grindy. However, I felt like this tried to be complex with added extra features that weren't really necessary. There's an option to catch demons and merge them to power up your spells. I ended up going the entire game without needing them and with how easy the battle system is. It's pretty easy to cheese your way through the whole thing. Basically all you have to do is work the job your character is given for a couple days, save up the money, and go to the junk store and just buy all the top quality gear. After that you're basically set for the whole game. So, if you don't mind and easy to cheese system and just want a fun game that won't make you throw your mouse. Then you'll probably will like this and not mind the system. If you want a more complex system and you want a challenge then I don't think you'll enjoy this game at all. My second complaint is the dialogue. I like the overall story and the Gravity Falls vibes it gives but I can't help but feel like a lot of the dialogue was shallow. It could have been a bit more in depth and given more characterization and context in certain situations. It kind of made it had to care about the characters at some points because the dialogue was so lack luster. It also suffers from railroading. It gives different options but doesn't actually do anything with them. It's normal for games to have a set option it wants you to choose but it usually still opens up new dialogue and conversations before going back to the main options it wants you to pick. With this game it just kind of gives you a curt reply and just doesn't go anywhere. Which kind of adds to that lackluster, shallow, feeling. It was overall hard to get emotionally invested. Those two complaints aside, I enjoyed the game and I think people who liked Gravity Falls would also really enjoy it. I do recommend picking it up if your looking for something fun, quick, and maybe not something you have to put a lot of emotional investment into. If just want a light easy game then this is the one to pick up. However, I would recommend waiting for it go on sale.

目前只玩了两个小时，但是被惊艳到想来写好评。 首先必须要称赞的是这个游戏的像素美术，太好看了。相信每一个玩家点开标题画面的时候都会被惊艳到！！ 游戏中的像素动画也都做得很流畅，每一个人物甚至怪物都画得非常精细，美术风格充满特色。 一开始以为是类似怪奇物语的故事游戏，结果并不太一样。 是主角小女孩和路西法签订了契约获得了能力，然后去探索这个小镇的黑暗秘密的故事（大概？） 说真的不管是世界观设置，游戏机制，其实都会让我有点点想起persona系列... 比如睡觉后才能进入的异世界空间，对战的恶魔可以进行捕捉和融合进化；比如可以借阅书籍进行阅读提升能力（有阅读进度条）；比如借住的家的后院有个小花园可以种菜收集www 只是有一点点幻视但是基本上这作还是一个风格一致要素丰富的剧情战斗RPG游戏。 对话还有掷骰判定系统啊啊啊。能力值影响成功率。 在游戏操作方面有很多人性化设计，对话和场景都可以快进，解锁的地点也可以随时快速旅行。 目前玩下来没有觉得不好的地方。 主角小女孩很可爱，对话台词诙谐有趣。 玩的时候截图很多有趣的对话ww 就是不知道是不是机翻，有些地方中文有点意义不明（） 总之非常推荐！！