Castle of the Underdogs : Episode 1

The writing here is funny, and it has good use of comedic timing with its scripting system. Characters will frequently talk over each other, ignore each other, etc. The half-simplistic Minecraft character style is actually well-animated enough to support some basic, Final Fantasy 7-style emotes and hijinks that work out really well. By not going super-realistic, nor super-dumbed down for pixel art, they struck a median that makes it easy for them to do a moment's artwork and animation for many quick, one-off jokes. For the first hour of gameplay, even just having Hikaru try out random words to cast spells on people with her wand stays pretty funny. I like that the writing never really goes EXCESS in being self-parodic. Yes, there's a bunch of fourth wall drops, and the main character is hyper and self-centered, but they still manage to stamp out important story beats without needlessly trying to toss jokes into it. The combat has some inventive elements too. Like many games, enemies have a weakness system, but you must strike *each* of their weaknesses to progress to a knockdown effect. Also, you can charge up a character's special points faster by taking them out of the active 3 fighters. It's not an amazingly deep system, but it's interesting enough. You can sorta tell the UI didn't add much to the basic Unity kit, and I have the strangest suspicion some of the animations were taken from San Andreas or something, but it kinda all works, and never interrupts the flow. I bound Ctrl to Back so I didn't have to reach for the Esc key so often. Main appeal to me is the funny writing and situations, especially when they're willing to tie them with a good animation or funny sudden gameplay tweaks, like a character still being "BLIND" because of something in a short one-off cutscene.

このノリ、キライじゃないぜ… よくあるJRPGの体裁こそ取っているが、登場人物がどいつもこいつも問題児、どっかのゲームやマンガのネタやメタなセリフ回し、時代背景行方不明の世界観などとにかく一言で言えば　「おBAKA」　である 紹介動画にもその片鱗は見えるのである程度お察しできるだろうが、中身はもっとひどい（褒）のでこの手のギャグがキライじゃなければとりあえず手を出してみるとよいだろう。まあ安いし。 クリアしたので追記。うーん、Ep1となってるからそういうことなんだろうと思ったが、想像以上に早く終わってしまった。少々その点では物足りなさを感じました。まあ楽しめたので良しですが次以降出るとしたらもうちょっと遊べる範囲を増やしてほしいところ。

Where do I start? I just want to say first off I have been having a really tough time in my life... I feel like it's going to get better but then something worse happens. This game had smiling and laughing... if you are going through some tough times and like jRPG type games pick this one up. It will have you laughing and forgetting about your problems so quick. (AAA title Hogwarts game couldn't even do that for me) First I will begin with... It's been a while since I picked up a game and couldn't put it down... whether I paid for it, got it for free, that I have actually been able to sit down and enjoy. I got dying light for free on epic store, I bought Hogwarts legacy and played to hogsmeade, I bought RE 4 and I love it and I'm only at the castle, I Played wartales for 20 minutes...... etc etc The game I've played the most recently is..... Fallout 3/ New Vegas which I already have hundred of hours in. That being said I picked up this game because I loved the Suikoden games as kid. Even though It didn't talk about my favourite part of that game which was battling armies vs armies I decided to give it a try anyways and I was not disappointed.... in fact I was blown away by how much I enjoyed the game. First lets start off with the humour.... Right from the get go this game had me chuckling.... almost every interaction between the Main Char and her friends have a bit of humour too it. Some parts had me bust out laughing and I don't remember video games ever doing that to me. The world is a minecraft looking world which if someone had told me that before I Started it would have turned me off because I was never a minecraft type player... but had I not recognised the blocks you wouldn't know it, It would just be a different art style fitting for a small dev team type game. That being said the game is a simple design, but also doesn't feel like its lacking. I saw another reviewer say something about certain identical assets in the game (like a book shelf or cabinet) having treasure and others not and you had to spam x to find them.. but that reminds me of playing ff8 where you had to walk around a room clicking on everything to get a ! and find hidden treasure. I find it more rewarding when a game doesn't hold your hand and you can miss certain things.... and find it on your next play through. The UI is simple and clean. Nothing to complain about. Story. It's cute, charming, and not over sophisticated. It does well with what it has. The jokes and references made that both poke fun at itself allowing it to get away with "cliche" type stories like "oh no bad guys are attacking the village, we must save the village" doesn't feel so lame when the guy who made it is just using what assetss he has to work with and no dev team to build out a much "in depth" AAA type game. That being said the story it does have is based on humour and JRPG elements.... a neat little blend done well if you ask me. Game play... Well I wasn't expecting a whole fleshed out system I have never seen before but at the same time the "Shatter" system that is uses is in depth enough for it to both be fun, and a challenge at the same time. It has all the elements you would want in a jRPG game. Different weapon types, armour types, counters to each. It's own umm "orb" type systems where you assign different elements to your armour or weapon. All the items you would recognize what they do from other games like "Phoenix xxxxx" being the resurrection item, "medicine" healing, "eye drops" for blindness etc. Just when you think the game is getting to easy it throws a bit of a difficulty curve at you. Also the first time I died and I said okay that's enough for now it had a "try battle again" and of course that kept me in the game and playing for another 45 minutes or so. I didn't have to reload from a save point. You can save anytime or use the "save points" I didn't think my ps4 controller was going to work for the game but it did. (Maybe steams controller profiles helped with that) -I thought the way you picked up items in the monster areas was really cute, and I enjoyed how you used the mine craft block environment to make some of the items harder to reach and you had to figure out the path to get to it. (Don't want to spoil what the item pickup looks like, its cute, and not something I thought I would like if I heard it outside of the game, but loved it in the game) Cons or things I didn't like: Honestly the music in the first zone/village get repetitive. They don't have some famous composer working for the game so of course you cannot expect much. I never was one for video game music anyways, I'm the type that always has a podcast or my own music playing while I game. So for others it might be fine. That being said IT WASN'T BAD music or anything it justs after I heard it for the 10th time I was like "okay that's enough" but by then I was in the next area anyways. -I am already dreading for the game too end, I have made it to the castle (for the 2nd time and unlocked the rune system) I don't want it to end!!! We need more chapters, we need more people working on this game!!! This game can be a huge JPRG success. Honestly I played the first legend of heroes Trails in the sky game not that long ago and I had much more fun playing this game. I know that series gets way better as it goes and has become a huge hit with newer titles and I can see this game getting to that point. Suggestions for the game. -Please add a pause feature!! I want to be able to pause the game instead of go to the menu and have the time continue to tick(I am a stickler for completion times on my games,) -Maybe for higher difficulties turn the "save anytime" function off and make them only use the save points -Have a new game plus feature so the higher difficulties don't become a grind fest and more of a "replay the game but scale the enemies" *I AM NOT DONE WITH THIS REVIEW* I will add more to it as I continue through the game, whether it's stuff I like or dislike or suggestions that I have. For now I give this game for WHAT IT IS as a 10$ Jrpg a 10/10.... if comparing it to other games like AAA titles a 7.5/10 but that would not be fair in any way to compare it to an AAA title. So for what I was expecting, what I paid for, and what I got I give it a 10/10 Thank you for this little gem! :) <3

Highly ridiculous game! I have been waiting for it to be released for a while and so far it is worth the wait. MC is a thieving, troublesome little wench that is going to give me anxiety if she keeps setting people on fire... on accident. Haven't run into any issues so far. My only gripe would be some way to track what you are doing next. Or maybe I haven't found it yet? Pesky hiding widgets. xD So far so good, the graphics considering they are pixels are overall smooth, no loading screens when going to different areas. Looking forward to further updates and game play. I love anything Suikoden inspired and the comedic element just adds to the charm of the game. Keep up the good work, I appreciate how much hard work it can be when you're a tiny studio of one person. <3 The Mistress

I have been streaming it on my Twitch and my viewers are OBSSESED! We have like 6 clips made already from the first 3 hours of the game XD. The jokes have us ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dying!!! The "Elohamora" bit was personally one of my Favorite early moments as well as the Aerith flower reference. I really hope this does well and you can make the rest of the games. The touch of Suikoden, Grandia and Minecraft together leaves this game with an OVERHAUL of nostalgic feelings. the 10$ price is more then fair for a 5 hour long game with around 100 characters to recruit!!!! I can't wait to see where this franchise heads.

A good introduction to the mechanics and the world, but it can't stand on its own because of the excessive fourth-wall breaking and unbalanced combat. The vibrant graphics are the first thing you notice. Although the art style has been seen before and it’s not particularly original, it somehow makes the game stand out. The game has a third-person view with a rotatable camera when you're outside, but as soon as you enter a house or other enclosed area, the camera switches to a static top-down view. The story is filled with slapstick comedy and moments where characters break the fourth wall. In my opinion, they go too far with these. Every conversation doesn't have to be a joke, a reference to something modern, the awareness of being in a videogame, etc. The characters mainly smile and move around in smooth animations with a few different facial expressions to convey mood. Talking to people is done very well. To ensure that you don't miss anything, they have a speech bubble over their head when they have something to say. While the majority of them may be easily ignored if you don't want to hear their mundane words, you must pay attention to the blue speech bubbles that advance the plot. However, interaction with the world adopts a traditional style that makes things easy to overlook. What I mean by this is that hotspots aren’t marked. Some things like chests are obvious, but some are very random. You might try interacting with several cupboards and get no feedback, but then you interact with another that looks exactly the same and find something new. Even though these are optional and solely contribute to the world-building, it’s still a shame to hide them like this. The world has a distinctive appearance since it is formed of blocks. With the exception of high places, the exploring is mostly pleasant. It's odd that your heroine has to face challenges every time she tries to reach higher spots. Imagine a set of stairs; if you take each step in order, you can climb a hill; if you try to skip a step, you'll run into a wall. This is the simplest approach to illustrate the issue. Everything conforms to the traditional JRPG structure. This entails fighting in random and turn-based battles, purchasing and equipping new gear, using items, etc. The use of skills is the slightly different mechanic. These operate on points that carry over to subsequent battles and gradually recharge after each turn. Even though you control only three fighters at a time, your party can have up to six characters who can step in to take the place of the active fighter when their turn comes. Although it may seem like you'll have an easier time, a character's death throws everything out of the window. Because a healthy character won't automatically take its position after being knocked down and because you can't switch it until you bring it back from the dead, the problem is that a downed character is practically a dead weight. An extremely odd and senseless design decision. Another weird decision is the inclusion of difficulty settings. This should be removed. While playing on easy makes sense if you want to focus on the story, playing on hard makes the game absolutely unplayable because of unbalanced encounters. You’re constantly walking back to your bed to heal after every battle or wasting revive items on companions who are killed in one hit. Having generic difficulty settings where enemies hit ten times harder but you hit ten times weaker is simply lazy. It really shows how unbalanced the game is. There are moments where you're thrown in battles without any option of stocking up on healing items. At one point you're stuck in an area with deadly enemies and a boss waiting for you at the end. Before entering, there is no warning. You might as well start a new game if you don't have any healing items. Unless you remember to use a separate slot for the game save. But what I really found interesting is the mechanic where you fill out information about enemies. Each enemy begins with a card that is entirely blank and has only question marks. From health and experience points to status effects and drops, this card has it all. Information can be obtained in a variety of ways. You have three options: utilize a scan magic, defeat the enemy, or hit it with various weapons, which is the least useful approach because you don't always have everything in your arsenal. If you keep fighting, you will eventually obtain all of the data since at least one piece of information will be filled out each time you scan or eliminate an enemy. The perk of collecting info is that you can skip a fight.

I had a blast with this one. Big fan of old school RPGs, and it's easy to see that the developer is as well. Lots of love has gone into this game already, with great references and gags sprinkled throughout. There really was never a dull moment. The battle system is pretty interesting. It took me a couple of encounters to fully understand the nuances, but once I did it kept me very engaged, even during your average random encounter. The player has the option to swap out party members during battle too, which I love, especially in games with huge rosters to pick from. The rune system allows the player to customize each character as well, and although I never really went wild with it I can tell that by the end game players would have a TON of options on how to build their characters. Very cool stuff there. If nothing else, play the game for Enrico. Trust me.

Good game but too short. Even for $11.

For anyone who enjoyed the JRPGs of year's past this is a definite must play. There's clearly a lot of passion in the project, and it's a great meta take on all different sorts of classic games in the same genre. I really like that they used a similar combat system of FFX. It's jolly good fun. I definitely recommend this game. As far as criticisms, the difficulties seem a little overtuned. They should balance the harder difficulties with better drops, more XP, or more currencies. Otherwise it's just the same game with enemies doing more damage while your characters do less.

this game is super easy, most dialogues are hilarious and no need for grinding except you wanna get all badges. I think it's still in development so plot is totally incomplete tho (Presumably Ep 1 only 15% of the whole game). Await for Episode 2/3/4/5/final to come out