Ledgerbound

I really enjoyed this game and it's narrative. For the most part it tells a unserious, sarcastic and fun story. But at it's core it's about loneliness and companionship with heartwarming and sweet relationships which build up over the course of the story.

I waited for this game, and I don’t regret buying it, but it’s a mixed bag, so let me be specific. Spoilers ahead. What works. The voice acting carries the entire game. I can’t imagine how many hours went into recording and mixing all of it, and it shows, the sound is excellent. Thank you for that work. The character writing is the other half of it. Every character is distinct, no one is a reskin of anyone else, and they’re genuinely funny. What doesn’t. The saves. Plenty of people have said this already and I’m not going to be the exception, I’m not replaying the entire game just to see a different ending. I want to see where another storyline goes, and there’s no way to get there without starting over from scratch. I finished the game and I’m locked out entirely. The menu screen is missing its items, so I can’t even start a new run. The story loses me at the end. The protagonist finishes exactly where she began, and I kept asking what the journey was for. A circular arc can work, but she has to come back changed, and I couldn’t point to what changed. There’s also just too much text. The voice work makes the dialogue pleasant to sit through, but the sheer volume works against the game. At restitudes I tried to talk to everyone, and there are so many characters that it turns into a long stretch of pure conversation. The ratio is off, too much talking, not enough fighting between the talking. The difficulty doesn’t hold up either. I played on normal and nearly every enemy went down in a single attack, which makes the protagonist’s “I don’t know if we’ll survive the last battle” land completely flat. The writing keeps insisting the stakes are life-or-death while the combat quietly tells me otherwise. The romance had the same problem. Cazian asks at one point whether they’re exclusive. He’s not the type to share, and I said yes. After that, almost nothing came of it. They talk about what he’ll do once the quest is over, and then the quest ends and they don’t even speak. All that buildup goes nowhere. If I’d known the line paid off that flatly, I would have stayed poly. No Steam Deck support. I played on one, and the help text during battles and the newspaper sections were a real struggle, the font is far too small to read at that screen size. Despite all of that, I still love this game. The foundation is strong, and I hope to see more from you in the next game, improved and better balanced. All the best to the team.