Fading Afternoon

Before reading this you should know that I only would recommend someone buy this game if it's on sale because I do not believe this game is worth it's full price and can only be worth it if bought on sale. The reasons for this are: First of all, the controls require surgical precision in selecting GUIs as to avoid wasting what could potentially be a certain ending run due to you accidentally walking back into your car/the subway or accidentally calling a hit on the wrong guys. Second of all, the order in which enemies appear sometimes forces you to take damage, when you hold punch for example the main character sometimes flips a coin before guarding himself therefore getting hit by a bottle and the combat system is rather repetitive other than a few enemy types, although seeing that the more boring enemy types are legacy ones this can be somewhat overlooked, also when you are in a turf defence war, you can catch stray bottles coming from off-screen and find yourself hand-breaking an opponent while teleporting infront of another opponent. Then there are the mechanics left unexplained in the game, while it could be argued that it adds to the charm of the game, it still does not excuse the small bugs found throughout the game like your girlfriend climbing the buildings at the city-centre like we're in a shonen anime just to then greet you up the stairs or you being able to throw a bottle at koto at the countryside. And on top of that there is also a certain lack of mechanics, the most obvious of which is the lack of a volume setting. I do understand that the music is part of the experience but is it really a sin to listen to your own music while playing a game? I personally think it's not. There is also a lack of saves in the game but I get that it might interfere with the bag system (Speaking of which, there is still a bug that makes your bag disappear lol) so it can be spared from judgement. That being said, the game has a lot of aspects that makes it fun/interesting like the amazing pixel art, immersive enviromentaş music, dynamic background and the beautiful placement of everything. Azuma's office seeming more "busy" with the dart board, the map etc. in contrast with our new office being more tidy really goes to show how much effort is given to detail. There is also lots of choice on how you might want to heal or spend your time in the game from getting a massage after a fight to going to the sandwich place to get a quick bite. Perhaps you wanna do something that doesn't heal you but is fun? We have that too! You can play all sorts of games or maybe even go drinking or gambling. The game also gives you a variety of things you can wear, drive or accomodate with all sorts of customisation, which along with all the pixel art backgrounds really shows how much effort went to this game from just two artists. In addition to that, the amazing storytelling really takes you from the modern world and throws you into the world of yakuzas during the showa period (probably showa, I don't actually know) . There are a lot of scenic and generally chalm cutscenes that are in sharp contrast with the fighting in the game in addition to the calm moments you can have in the game where you just light a smoke and look at the sunset. All in all, it has potential to be a great game, however it still has bugs and lackings that are almost impossible to not encounter atleast once when playing, which turns this into a meh game. I really wish these bugs and lackings get fixed but I don't think it's going to happen because the game developer's working on a new game and he's also doing this as a passion project with limited resources which I understand. It's so sad that this game will likely stay a meh game forever.