In Vitra - JRPG Adventure

[I]A Pretty Thorough Review of In Vitra[/I] [b]*Basic Summary*[/b] I want to preface by saying that the Recommend/Don't Recommend binary makes this one tough; it's a mediocre JRPG with an interesting concept (but stiff and almost charmless writing/dialogue) with a by the numbers combat system that's tuned in a weird and oblong sort of way. The art is charming, the world is believable enough if small, and the music and sounds are honestly pretty solid. This is a deep sale buy if any and probably only if you're longing for something throwing back to the classic Final Fantasy SNES days rpg mechanics. [b]Story[/b] The overall premise is really interesting but it's delivered in a pretty flimsy way. Noa the primary protagonist has always dreamed of being an adventurer and honestly the story plays as the first quarter of a longer, richer, deeper rpg, in the sense that the whole story is driven mostly by Noa and his childhood buddy's eagerness to be adventurers and therefore willingness to just do whatever comes up. After the first quest you don't really have that much skin in the game of the plot so it's really just the characters kind of following along doing random things as they happen around them. The story doesn't really get interesting until near the end and then finishes on a "To Be Continued" which feels bad rather than intriguing the same way watching half an episode of a drama and then when the kidnapping happens it just goes "To Be Continued" 20 minutes into a 40 minute show. I liked what they were shooting for but it just feels delivered by the numbers and then ends when it would otherwise get interesting. [spoiler] The big reveal at the end of the game after travelling to the temple of God (who they talk about a lot in the game, a non-denominational god who once lived among them long ago) and find a huge wall and above and beyond that wall, the glass of a terrarium. The game zooms out and shows the whole microcosm the game took place in, this little medieval world of 3 towns and one mountain is in a glass box with some lights and instruments on the top, implying it's more of a science experiment. Earlier in the game you found a pipe at the top of the Sacred Mountain where essentially all the water is piped in from the "sacred source". But when they zoom out the pipe is at the far end of the terrarium. At which point, could they not have seen the glass from there? Or followed the pipe to it's origin? But moreover, this is where the game goes To Be Continued. And honestly, it's a clever conceit but it feels more like To Be Continued is a polite stand in for "We Wrote Ourselves Into a Corner". Because where do you go from there? 4 medieval humans the size of ants what... make their escape from the containment and get absolutely bodied by the nearest cat, dog, or accidental human foot? The world is shown to be too small for them to go talk to someone else, there's no other nations or continents. The whole thing just falls apart. So it's clever but it's also sort of pointless in it's way? Also the game ends immediately. No conversation, no emotional response from the characters (they're all one note archetypes anyway: the eager youth, the flirty cheeky best friend, the wilful and independent beauty who's of course your healer), the studious and pious acolyte raised by the church). Still. The ending is both the best and worst part of the story. Rest of the story is very by the numbers -- Grandma needs medicine > Go get medicine > Go tell the king about the plague you only see Grandma sick with in the whole game > Go investigate the source of the plague > king's obviously evil Chancellor (shown in the prologue) sends you to kill his personal hit squad that he no longer needs > go find some sage > go into the wild lands of the savage orcs > orcs aren't the monsters we thought they were! (so foreshadowed it was obvious) > go to the 'Forbidden Zone' where God used to live > the Chancellor beat you there! > He tells you to turn back but you can't, you're too determined > he has evil demons with him for no discernible reason > boss fight > the world is in a box reveal > To Be Continued [/spoiler] [B]Combat & Mechanics[/b] The game is very poorly balanced. The start is the worst. Mom sends you into the woods to get grandma some red herbs. There are wild boars in the woods that show up in 1s or 2s. And you are barely a match for 1 solo boar. This game has no qualms about throwing monsters at you that the pace of the game would suggest makes them suitable challenges early on and they'll just stomp you. I eventually realised you can run from MOST battles and just ran from ever duo of boars. What's stupid is once you get back with the herbs your told to catch up with your friend and he's waiting at the way out of town. Now you're a duo and he's definitely your main DPS. His name is Luke and he's broken as heck. He has an ability called Knockout that literally kills things instantly and works on I'd say 90% of monsters. Which is good because almost every monster is an obnoxious stack of hit points. He gets an ability later that deals 30% of a creatures max hp and your best tactic at all times by far is to just funnel MP pots into him as he scythes through monsters. Worse is I think that's the only real way to do it? Best I ever saw for damage on a crit even with my best armed characters was 180 or so near end game? You hit most monsters with the 30% hp damage and they take something like 300, 400, sometimes 700 damage? The tunning is terrible. That said once you get past the early early stages of the game and do just a tiny modicum of leveling your characters defence rises quickly and you take minimal damage if you're geared and ready. tl;dr -- the combat is just kind of a mess. Everyone winds up with a ton of spells/abilities but none of them really really matter. Poison proves potent and useful but otherwise? Not really beyond Luke just carrying combat on his back. You get Billa the priestess last and she's the only one with Fire/Ice/Wind/Thunder magic. And there is no way to know which ones are good against who (if at all) and other than having AOE (almost no one else does) she's by far the least interesting party member. And honestly just becomes your healer via items. [b]Art and Music[/b] I thought both were solid. The art style for the monsters is honestly really really good. The wild boars are cute as hell. Honestly the monster art is really satisfying. Nothing radical or reinventing the wheel here but just solid monster designs and character portraits are equally charming. I played mostly with music off but what I heard I liked. [b]Misc[/b] -Not nearly enough weapon diversity or opportunity to upgrade your gear. -You find what feel like legendary items pretty early (the sword of the great hero, the sword of light) and so on and they pretty much become your go to. -Every character gets 2 accessory slots and I found maybe 4 accessories in the whole game? -WAY. TOO. MANY. ENCOUNTERS -- the fights are too sloggish and grindy and way to frequent; you hit a point where you're honestly just running from everything since you don't need the gold for almost anything and the fights aren't fun. The game isn't bad in the sense of being awful or unplayable. But it's just... meh. I got it for like $2 but even the $5.69 CAD price normally isn't worth it unless you absolutely just want something classic JRPG like. There wasn't a single line of dialogue that I enjoyed or laughed at.

Game was half decent and had potential but even with some grinding you can finish it in eight hours. Just skip it waste of money.

The game is crap takes you less of 6 hours to finish.... and for the money they ask for the game for 6 hours realy serously selll the game for less of 0,30€... And yes i seen games selling by 0,30€ with high duration...

SCHLECHT

Nice simple game with low difficulty level. Team gets OP fast and decent amount of optional farming of turn-based battles for XP/gold/drops.

easy game for anyone to play.

Got up, played, got a pal to join the party. Attacked the sandworm, died, game over. Save file is probably nonexistent, cause after a game over the continue button was unavailable. ... Review subject to change.