[u][b]This is a MIXED review.[/b][/u]
Starting off, the graphics are ok, and the music is pretty nice.
[b]The story[/b] is disappointing, I'd say, which is unfortunate, as at first it was intriguing with the whole between-chapter narration and stuff, but eventually it just brought down much of the game for me. Throughout the game as it went on, Julie became a less and less likeable character, like the moment Eva came in, Julie was on the out, and that just solidified the more I played. This game does have several protagonists, and that is good because Julie being the only protagonist and being unlikable is a big no, but luckily the other characters were. It's unfortunate inside story elements I don't think it had much difference in text, like, for example, the final boss one. It's pretty obvious from the text that the one meant to be talking is Julie, as that's the type of stuff she'd say, but the dev didn't want to force people to use only her on the final boss (I imagine is the reason), which is good. I like when I'm not forced on a character.
That unfortunate thing aside, there's also the 'good' ending, which really is just the bad ending 2 let's be honest, there are 2 bad endings and 0 good ones, which I guess shouldn't be surprising given how the story was going, and then the thing that happened was just, sheesh. But I think the biggest gripe I have with it is the post-credits scene, where [b](heavy spoilers for the true ending.)[/b][spoiler]it shows Eva definitely died as no one jumped in front, but worst of all, was Nancy saying that finally her revenge was complete, what? What revenge? Why? It opens so many loose threads for no reason, it wasn't a good choice, imo. I think I would rate the story higher if left vague like before, not because of the vagueness, I don't like that stuff either, just so I didn't have to see a twist villain(?) appear out of nowhere, no hints towards it, no nothing, just here's a villain, idk I didn't like it, especially because of the no reason given, no explanation, at least give us something to explain what that was. At least Eva's death was confirm, taking out that vagueness, which was good.[/spoiler]
[b]The gameplay[/b], in one word, was overwhelming.
In the first few chapters it's relatively fine, but boy, does it ramp up in some levels. You can get mobbed so fast, and it frustrated me so much. This one, though, could probably be a skill issue, if I had played more tactically, it probably would have been a bit better. Although it's not like you can kill them all, they'll just keep spawning, it gets to a point where you gotta ignore them, but if you leave them too long or ignore the wrong section of robots, then they just mob you, so you're just out of luck, it's simply too overwhelming, at least for me. But the combat was fun at least. The health and shield drops are few and far between, which is unfortunate, and I personally think there should be more. But the gun drops were interesting, the first few are more standard, but the later ones definitely felt cool to use. So if anything, playing this game and just not paying attention to the story and focusing on just the gameplay and doing combat or tactical, or however way you go about it, it can definitely be some fun. Some of the bosses, too, were interesting to fight against, so that was cool.
Other than that, the level design was kinda cool, and some of the mechanics are certainly nice, although the level-up screen did mess me up at times while saving me in others, so yeah.
Enemy design looks interesting for the most part, while being dumb in others, one of them has immunity from the front and big damage, low HP sure, if you can get his AI to brick and assuming there's not other robots on his side. I think mid his attack animation, you're meant to be able to attack him. But I found that it only works *sometimes* not all the time.
[b][u]Some things I also wanted to mention are:[/u][/b]
The seeds, the ones that have bonuses inside like the switch or hp/shield/gun drops, should be different than the enemy ones, so you can distinguish them and not have to activate every single one to see which kind of seed it is and thus get overwhelmed by them. Speaking of seeds, there are also some levels where seeds will activate ahead of time in a completely separate room and height elevation, likely because it only detects if you move within the 3 spaces from it, regardless of how far below or above (and thus more than 3 spaces) the seed actually is.
The controls at the start were unexpected for me, took me a bit to even find the damn start button, but once I changed them to something better, it was no problem. My main thing here is, at least let the players click any button to start the game, or put them in the menu itself, or let them use the mouse only then, I don't know, something, just so you don't go searching for the correct button.
The achievements, some of them are bugged, I had some that only popped on reload, and the find Diana one was just bugged entirely and needed a new save to go get that one. So maybe look into that.
Also, I found a couple typos in the text, here and there, along with a visual bug where, in the Robopedia page for Megadolos, the sprite is in front of the text, so you can't read anything there.
The text going automatically without my input I don't really like, even if it does give some time to read and think, it still feels like it could pass at any moment and you gotta rush to read it.
Laura's ability, VERY often messed me up because I had to keep waiting until the damn thing was actually destroyed and it would let me pass, I'd say allow Laura to be able to pass through those so they don't keep blocking the way forward and inadvertently actually trap you, and then oops, here's some robots to overwhelm you. Seriously, toning down the robots, less of them or less often, should be considered, just what I think.
The level being too high system is alright, I guess. I get the point, so you don't have a super low level character when you really need to use her, but still, it's kind of annoying being forced to play other characters for a bit until you're allowed to play the character you like again and thus enjoy the game more. Overall, the system is just *ok*, I get it, but damn it if it didn't hamper *some* of my enjoyment.
[b][u]Overall[/u][/b], an interesting game for the gameplay and fun combat, provided you don't mind the sometimes overwhelming amount of robots. If you care about the story, then, well, I can't speak to others tastes, but this story wasn't for me.
