Cradle of Nightmare : Flowers to you

Cradle of Nightmare: Flowers to You is a fun journey through a world on the verge of ending. Cradle of Nightmare gives me the same feeling of playing Black Souls 1 with the exploration and gameplay of 2. The point of the game is the gradually traverse the world, fill out a deceptively small map and explore a giant sandbox whose four corners and hidden pathways will give you around 20 hours of gameplay. Either explore fully and piece together the story towards the true end or fill your sanity meter, kill invaders and bosses and embrace the apocalypse. Your party is unique. You play as Yue Qing (or Le Qing) and you're supported by a wispy 'light' who can act as a support unit or a second DPS. In addition, there are NPCs summonable for bosses like Dark Souls (or even Black Souls). The main gameplay loop is exploring the map, either stealthing with the MP consuming skill to avoid overworld encounters or fighting enemies in the way of chests and visible loot. For bosses, you'll play like you do Black Souls, buffing turn 1 and either mowing with melee or melting enemies with magic. (There are purchasable stat boosters in the form of a bartender in a secret area necessary for the true end) The gameplay will begin moderately difficult, with Le Qing's death leading to a party wipe, and your 'light' will either buff Le Qing or DPS with magic attacks of its own. Uncontrollable NPCs will do their thing (will keep themselves alive with flasks). Bosses will use telegraphed attacks, either preparing to lunge or chanting a coming spell and even instant-kill attacks. Near the end, however, magic and even melee will scale so high that most bosses die in 3 turns on normal difficulty. The narrative surrounds the two schoolgirls Le Qing and Fang Yu, a young couple, and how their normal lives collapse when in the blink of an eye the world ends. Brought to the Ashen Ballroom in a Bloodborne-esque manner, Le Qing--with the aid of the mysterious, winged flower-gardener Miriam--you'll explore a world fought over between the two clashing groups of Naraka and the Alliance (I think. The translation makes it a little vague) Delving into the technological, the cultish and the Lovecraftian outer gods and their outer-space invaders, a mysterious white light comes to earth and ends the world. Le Qing wanders the city, recollects her scattered memories and learns of the cause of the apocalypse, the true identity of the mysterious Miriam and her role as a seed. She holds onto her love of Fang Yu and keeps her sanity until the chosen ending. The problems of the game are as followed: Memory leak issues (restart the game after 2 hours of continuous playtime to fix the FPS drop) Lack of official translation Difficulty drop at later and endgame Confusing story told in dripfeed. Overworld interaction with hazards (traps, snipers, archers, instant-death stomach acid) Lack of warning before NPCs go mad (beware the bird and use vanish at the fly knight boss to prevent it) Cradle of Nightmare is very reminiscent of Black Souls (so much so that they have a reference in Red Hood's outfit) and in terms of gameplay and story they have the same problems. Only, Cradle's endgame is a complete pushover and its story is far more complicated and characters more barebone than Black Souls 1. BS1's story is simple enough and its twist plays out over an hour of gameplay. Cradle's narrative is complicated in terms of lore (magic books talking of history and fallen civilizations who wielded magic) and of the backstory between the two factions, their meddling, their cloning and their motivations. The most straightforward parts of its narrative is Le Qing's memories, the intro segment, her reuniting with Fang Yu and their final confrontation as either allies or enemies towards the ending. Miriam's story is also more straightforward than the rest, but can be a little confusing surrounding Le Qing's sister and maybe even daughter. Despite the issues, however, Cradle of Nightmare: Flowers to You is still a great game. It's perfect if you come for good ATB gameplay, a giant world to explore, a few interesting characters to follow and a simple story about love and its ability to both destroy and restore the ruined world. As an RPGMaker game at a relatively cheap price (8.99 CDN), it's a great experience, the best thing I've played since Black Souls, and a true passion project by its lone developer, 红锈雨. Cradle of Nightmare is a diamond in the rough by a creator who truly loves their craft and wears their inspirations proudly on their sleeve. In other words, it's a flower to us all.