Mari and the Black Tower

[h1]Morgoth is Compensating for Something[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The dialogue in this game is overall very light, due to the fact that all the party members are silent protagonists, even Abbie. They do have Mari, their nymph companion, doing most of the speaking though, and she has a connection to one of the antagonists. Personally, I prefer the other games having a set party of important characters who all have story relevance, rather than just having a bunch of random mercenaries. IMO, Keller should have been a playable character here due to his connection to Morgoth. Strangely, the terminology and names used in this game isn't consistent with the rest of the series. For example, Halonia is called Halona and Zamas is called Zumasa, which is weird because they're named correctly in [i]Finding Light[/i]. Maybe this was before the names were finalized? As for how this fits into the plot of timeline 1, the game explains that humanity has a sort of chaotic energy in them that makes them prone to violence, and Zamas didn't like that, so he screwed up the balance of that energy even more to make them destroy themselves faster. As for Morgoth, the final boss, he's supposed to be a decontruction of utilitarianism, since he saw a vision of humans destroying each other with chaos energy, so he believes absorbing that chaos energy into the Black Tower and killing humans is going to save the planet in the long run. Though it would have been more interesting to see more dilemmas where Morgoth had to try to apply that philosophy. It also would have been interesting if Keller debated Morgoth about this, though Mari does point out the flaws in Morgoth's logic. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] This game is definitely more focused on gameplay than story, even compared to KB1. You have several classes to choose from and many ways to build your team. The first class you choose, which is for the main protagonist Abbie, is also the most important since Abbie will also get anti-Miasma skills no matter what class they pick, meaning you have to consider if it's wise to delegate both the anti-Miasma role and the chosen class's role to Abbie. Personally, I made them a Brewmaster because that class can avoid having to use too much TP to perform their role, allowing me to save that TP for anti-Miasma purposes. Note that all characters have TP, but not MP, which means you have to pay attention to how you can regenerate TP for each class. If you use two healer characters, it might even be possible to sustain yourself in weaker areas without having to use items. In a way, I think this game partially inspired the combat system in [i]Absinthia[/i], where you're encouraged to use guard skills to recover a limited pool of MP rather than just having a large MP pool to burn through recklessly. As for non-combat stuff, you're exploring a huge multifloor dungeon like in the Etrian series, and you have to constantly look for ways to unlock shortcuts. As long as you find all the shortcuts, you can make it to wherever you need to go quickly, but I still wish there was a more convenient quick-travel system at times. The town has a day/night cycle that changes when you exit the dungeon or use the inn. While some stores are always around, some merchants are only around at night or only show up randomly. Sadly, there's no way to tell when certain merchants will appear, but there's no penalty for aimlessly advancing time, so you'll find what you need eventually. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 7/10 The dialogue definitely isn't the selling point of the story, though Mari herself does get some good lines in the final boss cutscenes. There is some confusing lore about the miasma and humanity's chaos energy that's needed to understand what happens in some of the other games, as well as Typhus's motives in KB1. The gameplay is a bit more complex compared to the other games in the series due to the class choices, as well as how most of the classes aren't traditional RPG ones, but it's still fun to see how your chosen party synergizes despite their lack of traditional mages.