Mirrored Soul

I am going to update this review once I have beaten the game; I currently sit with around 6 hours of playtime (including time playing prior to official release), I am having a great time testing out different fusions and abilities to make progress through the game. The writing is really good and is definitely a standout feature of this game. The puzzles are intuitive, and the many varying character monsters have funny personalities. I love the nihilist statements from some of the monsters mid battle. The more I play, the more rich I am finding the mechanics to be. I keep asking, "I wonder if I can do this..." or "What if it were possible to..." to find that I can. The designers clearly were very thoughtful about the natural progression of the player's desire to test out possibilities with monster combos. If you are interested in games of this nature, I think the introductory offer is definitely a steal. Highly recommend!

I've been watching this game's development for years and played some of the demo releases over time. Extremely good game so far with what I experienced with it. It's like pokemon with elements from Shin Megami Tensei and Earthbound. It works well with combining these elements together for a cohesive experience. Music and the designs are great too. Well worth your money. Would have paid full price even if it was double the cost. It's that good. EDIT: In practice, the upgrades are really good. Get free swap right away when it opens up, and it costs 6 points to get it. It's 5 more than the normal swap, but it helps when low on SP. Highly recommend

I expect I'll be coming back to add more to this as I play more, but I think losing track of time and experimenting for 3 hours by the first fusion machine means it deserves a recommendation (even if I'm barely past the first boss. Unique worlds, recruitable monsters that can be fused, a detailed and original type system, and so much personality in the writing; even without the great price, this game is worth playing. I can't wait to see what else I'll find next. Addendum (redux): I ran into an issue on the Steam Deck where a minor update on it ended up causing my game to lose track of the save files. After I mentioned it on this review, the devs reached out to help me find where the save files ended up from running in Proton, and pointed me towards the right folder to copy them into now that it was properly running on Linux. I really appreciate their assistance with this, and it removes any worry I had regarding future updates messing with save data (looking at you, Castle in the Darkness). I can't wait to play more.

It's fun, it's weird, it's great. I got all excited to fuse a new combination of monsters I thought would make a cool result. I found a monster storage manager and fusion machine side-by-side. I go to the monster storage manager... and it grew legs & ran away from me, never to be seen again. 10/10.

Okay, I love this game's monster design, that's it strong point, but in terms of gameplay loop, that's where it takes a nose dive, I played this game on stream, thinking I was going to have a good/decent time, but I ended up having a bad one. For starters, the puzzles started out good, but by the third kingdom took a nose dive when the game didn't do a good job guiding you towards a solution leading you to brute force it. Secondly, the battle system is fine in theory, it's smt inspired, but I feel it's missing a qol feature in which monster weaknesses are displayed or at least recorded as you discover them. And finally, I don't like how fusions work in this game, with fusions, monsters should generally be better than standard fodder or learn abilities that their parents learn, but it seems like they only keep some of the abilities that they had previously and not learn any of the future ones they could have. Honestly, I recommend you buy it at a discount, it's good for the first two dungeons, but the third dungeon made me drop it.

This review has been edited because the developers deserve a personal shout out. Not only is the game excellent with a lot of clever humor and creature designs, but the creators listened to feedback and immediately patched a major issue that the community had with the game. They've fixed a legitimate avenue of frustration and that's a high mark from me. Great soundtrack, great story, and an incredibly affordable price. Easily worth the full cost. If you love creature collectors, Soul Hackers, mysteries, or adult humor, don't miss this one. A shining gem of indie gaming and these folks deserve to succeed. Respect.

I wasn't sure about this game, but once I actually tried it I instantly fell in love. Definitely one of the best monster taming games in recent times. Edit since I just 100% completed the game: now I can safely say this is a perfect video game. Do yourself a favor and buy it already. 10/10

good writing, polished inventory animations, great "hard boiled" vibe overall. being able to negotiate with monsters to catch them and then fuse them together adds extra depth. good game.

An amusingly written monster collector RPG with very charming presentation. While it wears its inspirations on its sleeves, it also does enough with them that it avoids feeling overly derivative. For instance, while the negotiation is very SMT, each monster has a unique script and recruit condition. Many are satisfied with the right answers, some require items. One required me to try negotiating with it multiple times before asking me to survive in combat against it for -7 turns-. Did not expect that. Monsters make comments during combat, whether they're enemy or ally, which also helps them stand out. The animated battle backgrounds bring to mind EarthBound, but when you obtain a usable phone, you can then use the backgrounds you've seen as your phone's background, even turning off the animation if you choose. When you open your menu, you're treated to a view of your suitcase, Mario & Luigi 1 style. A folder contains info on all the monsters you've seen, you save your game on a tape recorder, and quitting the game is taking your pills. It's constantly taking what you've seen before and, if not reinventing it, at least putting a novel spin on it. It's also very funny, if you couldn't tell from the pills thing. Finally, the game was difficult enough that I needed a few tries on the first major boss, giving me an excuse to backtrack and recruit/fuse new monsters while reworking my strategy, so kudos for making me actually engage with the battle system. I'm only 3~ hours in at time of writing, but then again I'm only stopping now because it's 3AM. Pretty good/10.

Just finished the game and... what can I say? This game was a huge surprise damn, it's probably one of the best games I played in a while, it's fun af, and pretty different from others, also original on it's own way, if you don't know if buy it or not... I recommend you to do it, it's truly a gem and a masterpiece, I don't know how this game is not very knowed yet.