Slow, monotonous, and so hopelessly addicted to the idea of being "dream-like/nightmarish" that it forgets to actually do anything of value with its thematic ideas... That would likely be the quickest way to describe Mythic Mire. It is almost unbelievable to me that a game which only took me 4 hours of actual in-game time took a solid three weeks to motivate myself through, when I can usually polish off a 20-30 hour RPG in half that time without issue; hell, it might be one of the roughest times I've had finishing an RPG since playing FF7:RI. But such a colossal black hole of joy speaks to the type of feeling Mythic Mire's design philosophy brings to the table.
It's best to start off a rather negative review with the good things that I can say: audiovisually this game is absurdly, iconically unique. Like no other RPG I've yet to play, oftentimes resembling a semi-low-budget SNES or Turbografx title, but tinged with turn of the millennium CG effects and assets straight out of a PS1 game or a fifth generation manual. The music is grungy, heavy, and strange, but also veers well into strange synth-toned pieces. That sort of eye catching blend of ideas and styles (as well as the presence of anthro characters) was what originally drew me to playing in the first place. I only wish that the rest of the game was able to keep pace with its standout features.
Mythic Mire struggles under the weight of the sort of bad decision making that crops up every now and then in RPGs I play. Namely, while it has an alright splay of ideas (if a bit uninspired ones), it fails to consider the interplay between its core mechanics, or how to properly balance and utilize features like touch encounters, maze-like dungeons, or limited skill use windows/inventory space in order to create a satisfying gameplay loop. Unfortunately, while struggling to knit its ideas together, it creates and falls victim to a problem which is just a killer for many titles in the genre: flat pacing.
Take for example how encounters are designed: all enemy groups are touch based, which is fair enough. This usually gives the dev very precise control over how combat is paced alongside exploration, and room to experiment more with complex or interactive level design that would be difficult to properly meld with something like random battles. But here, you're still going to be getting into fights every 10-15 tiles, and the dungeons are still designed like many classic random-battle titles, as labyrinthine corridors with runbacks or long, drawn out loops. Without the element of constant risk and tension created by said random encounters, this builds an experience that treats combat like a necessary chore rather than an active and engaging part of the level.
Further muddying the waters here is the fact that the entire game is built around a singular dungeon with themed zones- so for whole sections of the plot you're traversing the same environment, the same hallways, over and over again until you hit the next boss battle. About the only mechanic MM seems willing to add to this long walkabout is the inclusion of switches to open locked doors, to reveal... switches that open other locked doors. You're stuck in this back and forth hallway traversal situation for the whole game, being pestered by combat at a constant beat, with enemies that are essentially the exact same (mechanically or visually) for the entire game. To say it becomes old fast would be an understatement.
The game attempts to break up this dungeon delve by making you find and accept a "quest" of sorts for certain NPCs to unlock the next thematic zone, but again, repeats itself to its own detriment. Not only is this kind of "find an item in the dungeon so an NPC will give you a key for a door in the dungeon" just *a switch that opens a locked door, behind which there's another switch*, but it means that every instance of this quest is in effect the exact same interaction taking place, and the same mechanical "challenge". The thing(s) you need to find are of course located on the one path to the next locked door, since this dungeon is entirely linear, rendering most of it a moot point in the first place that ends up feeling more like deliberate padding than any fleshing out of the narrative, world, or mehanics.
That sort of nagging feeling of padding crops up elsewhere too: turn cycling and animations that take just a *little* too long, only being able to purchase items one at a time, having to leave the dungeon to have your three non-protagonist party members gain skills (they still need to level, but you have to leave the dungeon just to press a "learn skill" button after the fact, for entirely inexplicable reasons). Perhaps the worst offender is that every quest-vendor requires you to play a dialogue guessing game which amounts to "say the right thing four times in a row", except its all essentially trial and error when you don't know the character in question, and getting a wrong answer still leaves you answering the rest... Meaning it often takes a good 5-10 minutes just to figure out the correct sequence of buttons to press to get the damn quest in the first place. There's no challenge or narrative implication there, it's just 'pick a number between 1 and 3'. Four times in a row.
When it comes to things outside the story/exploration/level design elements, combat is just painfully boring and repetitive fluff. JRPG basics, throw out damage and heal ad-infinitum, so vapid that there's not even much to say about it. Bosses and enemies all feel like the same thing and never ask you to display an ounce of strategy. Every character's kit is just damage and healing (if they have a kit at all). Because the game is so pared down and lacks things like equipment or any sort of player-driven choice for character building, the experience remains the same for the entire runtime; mechanically speaking there's just no room for any sort of fresh idea or new challenge. The building blocks are so basic that it just can't be done. About the only real unique idea is the "Mire" status effect, but it comes up so vanishingly infrequently and in ways that never seem to matter, rendering it meaningless.
In the end, that really sums up the whole experience. It just feels... meaningless. What you have with Mythic Mire is a game that's only 4 hours long, but somehow feels like a 20 hour slog through poorly considered, ill-melded mechanics and the most banal of JRPG staple ideas done blandly, flatly and slowly. I would have spoken about the story as well; but there frankly almost isn't one, a central mystery idea that never goes anywhere and explodes into nonsense babble in the last 10 minutes, hoping something will stick somewhere and give it a bit of meaning. You're left with only a neat aesthetic that begs investigation, but serves as a mile marker for empty, well trodden ground that there's no reason to explore in the first place. A truly sad result.
