Johnny Lionface

As a poet once described the earlier games in the series, it's like playing an early 2000s webcomic.

cool game, some of the map layouts are a bit confusing, but the rpg mechanics are versatile and fun, you can really play around with your party and experiment with your strategy. plus their a LOT of options, theres at least 12 characters and they all have 20 abilities (give or take) that you can swap out anywhere.

So just like Zeran's Folly and Leowald, this game has lot of vulgar or juvenile humor and edgy or offensive dialog(it really is very reminiscent of 2000s) and just like with Zeran's Folly I still find it kinda refreshing because I don't usually watch media with this kind of sense of humor and especially not games in this genre. Plus this time there is option for different type of dialog which I think will help game get published on consoles and such though I haven't played game in that mode so I dunno what its like. Just like Leowald it isn't as explicit as Zeran's Folly was, but there are still at least one boss that likely gets changed on the graphics censor mode. I need to replay Zeran's Folly and Leowald at some point, but I do get weird feeling this game feels hornier than those two games? I blame Johnny's anime protagonist nature where everyone lusts after them(I noticed kickstarter implied there was gonna be some sort of minor "choose who Johnny romances" event but in release nothing like that in the game, though I guess it honestly fits game better to leave it ambiguous whether he ends up with none of them, one of them or even all of them), but I do feel like there was lot of sex jokes focus on this one. Johnny as protagonist was bit hard to read on. Lone was charmingly naive(but also fast to murder), his kids in second game had strong "on first adventure" vibe, Johnny is bit of naive shonen hero so I guess is closest thing. He apparently attracts lot of women as you can see from intro alone, at first I thought he seemed too dense to notice party members crushing on him, but later kinda makes it clear that nah he isn't just passive in flirting once its pointed out to him. Its kinda like he is playboy without noticing it? As said I guess it might be some sort of lion reference. Besides that he seems super focused on his goals, but while he was annoyed at first "locals ask him to help with something before he can move on to find the sword"he also seems fast to jump to help people in trouble? Or maybe ye need to be cute girl to be one asking idk. As said its hard to get read on his character, but overally seems well intentioned heroic guy overall. Plot itself is fairly simple and carried by characters being fun, its lot of "party gets sidetracked by people asking them help before they can proceed" and lot of party members aren't super integrated to mainplot(two of them are completely optional, but lot of them are "they asked johnny to help with a thing and then they joined johnny because they helped and then helps to progress on main quest") but yeah this plot doesn't need to be super deep, it just needs to be fun enough. Though there is very dark moment in final dungeon that feels bit off tone wise from rest of game, especially with how character seems completely back to normal by next scene with them. Game itself is party based hack and slash game instead of 2d action platformer, the dungeon are fairly long and late game enemies feel tanky, but combat itself was fun and I never felt that dungeons were TOO long or enemies too annoying. Its admittedly bit of repetitive game to play, but amount of variety to customizing party members makes it up for it and game never requires you to grind, if you go for collecting clearstals you will always keep up with game's expected levels. Plus its fun to collect secrets and such as it was in previous games. I do kinda feel though that some of the main story dungeons could have been split off as optional areas for sidequests or such considering how long some of main story areas are(especially late game essentially each part of quest involves visiting two areas with over ten screens). There are like only couple side things(like ones to recruit optional characters), but the two companion related ones are mostly just matters if visiting rooms and talking to npcs in same location.