Frogsong

Oh my goodness I love this game. Please please please play this gem of a RPG. I love the story and the characters, and it's really fun. It's short to 100%, and well worth it. Frogsong is such a good game!

I heard a lot about this game in 2021 I think, back when just the demo was out. I was estatic when it finally did come out, honestly surprised it took me this long to give it a go. I really love this game. Chorus being non-binary and having moments where they explain it and have to assure somone its fine theyre stuggling with their name hit so close to home as a non-binary person myself. The art in this is so cute, and the music is amazing, definetly going to find myself listening to the soundtrack later. The story is nice and i love the interations with the other characters, especailly Basalt and Rana :) Anywhoies, play this game if you havent, its great and deserves to be talked about more.

It's a cute, casual game, with some good writing and nice character moments, but the controls are rough and simple, the level design will get you stuck on corners a lot, and the final boss feels REALLY janky. Way too big arena for the amount you see, and to trigger the defeat you have to go up a path that's completely unindicated at any point, so it makes it feel like at the last hit the boss disappears and you just got softlocked. Recommended for the vibes with the STRONG caveat to get when it's on sale at least 50% off. 15 dollars is too much for a 5-ish hour experience that's pretty unpolished.

A fairly short but lovely game. Im currently at the beginning of chapter 5, and there are 6 chapters. You play as a little tree frog named Chorus, and you're trying to join a defense guild. You go on many adventures and meet so many different kinds of frogs! I loved being able to identify all the different species. I was even shocked to relate the Chorus in some ways. The game also managed to make me cry, thats how you know it's good. I am excited to see what these devs have in store for future games!

I didn't like the combat. I'm not sure what exactly it is, as I've played other 2D games with combat without issue, but this felt very slow and clunky. Luckily the game includes several ways to minimize it. The distance between locations was also quite large, with very little exploration, but at least you unlock fast travel once you've been to those places. I also didn't like how abruptly the ending came about, though it was very sweet. I know I sound a little negative here, but trust that I did have a good time playing the game! It was a lot of fun to see how the story progressed (and a lot does happen in only ~4 hours).

[i]Frogsong[/i], much like it's protagonist, proves that great things can come in small sizes. While the game is short, at about four hours or less depending on if you search for every collectable, the game's story, and charming characters, still leave a great impact. Chorus' personal journey is one that is sure to resonate with many players for a myriad of reasons, especially those who have experienced arbitrary exclusion. Additionally, the game's extensive accessibility features provide several different ways to enjoy the game's narrative and gameplay in a way that works best for you. Overall, [i]Frogsong[/i] is a delightful treat for people who enjoy classic action-adventure games in the spirit of 2D [i]Zelda[/i] titles.

TLDR - as long as you're alright listening to something during the boring traversal bits, there's a charming narrative to experience here. I was originally unsure if I want to finish this game, and was going to give it a negative review. The gameplay mechanics are extremely basic and boring. You can do a jump, that I primarily just used to get around faster (the usual "base speed is slow but there's no sprint so let's dodge-roll everywhere" situation). In the latter chapters it doesn't seem to let you pass through damaging gas, you just have to walk around or wait for it to fade. You have a simple slash attack, that can be upgraded to do more damage. That's it. Admittedly you don't need more, as aside from the penultimate boss, no enemy was really challenging, and even there the problem was mainly that you have a short reach, and the dodge didn't feel agile enough to get out of harm's way sometimes You get bombs. They're okay. The saving grace for me was the friendly bug that can be configured to help find secrets or help with combat, and thus one could avoid most of the boredom of the non-boss-monsters by avoiding them, or just speeding up combat while you're blade is not upgraded. A good chunk of the game time is spent traversing & fighting (or avoiding combat), and since these mechanics weren't engaging, I was listening to other things during these sections. The reason I finished the game, and am giving it a positive review, is that the setting, visuals and story are very charming. A nice froggy tale about persevering in the face of social pressure, and working hard to be accepted for you want to be. The characters are compelling, even though some minor NPCs (primarily in Copper City) could stand to get more dialogue reacting to the game's events. The construction froggy in copper city still repeating the same dialogue, where the main character [spoiler]still complains about the Defense Guild, even though already accepted into it[/spoiler] during the epilogue was a little nonsensical. I hope the devs, for their future games, can learn to deepen the game mechanics a tad, while keeping up the charming presentation and narrative. Important QOL hint - adjust the text speed in the options. I noticed this too late. You can sometimes get stuck going through longer dialogue with minor NPCs who just have one line on repeat, and since you can't click to make the text go faster/skip forward, it's best to adjust the text speed from the get-go.