Orangeblood

Orangeblood is NOT a good game. Does it have good art? Yes. But the does the gameplay live up to it? Heck no. The story is a complete mess. Basically, the main character Vanilla is on an island fighting over power and getting into conflicts with other criminal organisations after being employed by her client named "Iceman", who later turns out to be a clone of Jesus, which was lacklusterly teased throughout the story. But does this mean anything? No. Nothing in the story carries any weight, nor do they carry any correlation. The entire thing's whole goal is to be as edgy as possible by using as many words related to crime, jargon and vulgar language. The dialogue isn't fun to read and somehow the side quests have a better narrative than the main story. The gameplay is, to but it bluntly, boring. You start with 2 characters, ending with 4, with each character having a unique skill (with the exception of Machiko, who has 2). Each character can carry a gun for combat, which needs to be reloaded. Every non-boss fight is trivial and follows the same formula: spam the attack skills and one turn kill everything. There are many unique enemies with nice designs, but it doesn't make a difference if they're just fodder anyway. And even boss fights more or less follow the same formula: try to survive the boss' onslaught until you can use your skills to nuke them. The system is just not that deep considering every character only has one skill and the guns don't change your game plan in any meaningful way. The boss fights are the only interesting part of combat, but most of the time, you're just wasting time farming, as you need good gear and moderate levels to stand a chance, which is the most frustrating part of the entire game: 80% of the time, you're not playing a game, you're brainlessly clicking the same buttons over and over, farming mobs and looking at equipment you get from RNG loot crates. And in the late game, the achievement bosses are just so overpowered that you are forced to do so, as you are either too low level or need specific unique gear, demotivating me in trying to 100% the game. The main scenario was tolerable, but I still had a really hard time with the first boss as I just didn't have good equipment and only cleared it by getting lucky. But that might not be the same for everyone, as all equipment obtainable in-game is randomised. Additionally as soon you want to egage with endgame content, get ready to grind the life out of yourself. Simply put, Orangeblood uses it's appealing art to lure you to play the farming simulator disguising itself as a game while not respecting your time. Especially with it's price tag, it's just not worth it. I wanted to like the game, but it's important to recognise the game for what it is beyond just the nice art.