[code]Honestly, I'm not the target audience. I haven't played a game like this in 20 years so perhaps I expected more in that time. Regardless, I give all games an honest go and really tried to like it but there's a lot I dislike and I'm not really the type to glaze a game just because its popular online.[/code]
[h1]Things I Like:[/h1]
[b]++ Demonic Pokemon:[/b] Turn-based combat with creature collecting. Pretty much what I wanted it for as I haven't played a Pokemon game in 20 years and demons are neat.
[b]++ Some of the demon designs:[/b] Some of them look really cool and come from myths and legends from the whole world, not just Japanese. I liked reading some of their brief lore bios and I was able to recognise a few by name alone.
[b]+ Some of the music is good:[/b] I appreciate some of the tunes, specifically the Battle tracks, like 'Qadistu'.
[h1]Things I Dislike:[/h1]
[b]--- Illusion of Choice:[/b] Replaying some story sections, I've come to find that most dialogue choices dont actually matter. One section I was given the choice between 'Can you explain that?' and 'What do you mean?' and the character responds the exact same way. Like why even give me a choice? This is a waste of time!
[b]-- Low Quality:[/b] Sure there's a ton of poke-demons, most you can completely skip over and not all of them are given the same treatment in their level of design as others. Boring fetch quests, poor writing, poorly directed cutscenes that come out awkward, graphics are just ok, fps drops in one of the menus with high end hardware, no VO for creature dialogue and a lot more linear gameplay than I expected. Compared to games of the same year and year past, I can see why this falls super low on the radar of people who aren't tapped into the genre. Also, they're charging £54.99 for this? And there's a paid time saver DLC? Jesus christ.
[b]-- Can't customise the main character appearance:[/b] I hate how he looks. I'd prefer to play as a demon.
[b]-- Creature collecting isn't really satisfying:[/b] I enjoy the odd quiz now and then, but ultimately, this is kind of a boring and often trivial way to recruit something as interesting as a demonic entity, especially when sometimes they just take some cash and thats it. The fact there's essentially a ladder you can climb by fusing demons skips this whole process for cash too. Getting new characters never feels earned.
[b]-- Fantasy JRPG non-sense:[/b] They love to be quirky when naming stuff dont they? It's not 'go the hub, open the shop and manage creatures' it's 'enter the Leyline Crossing, spend Macca at the Cadaver's Hollow and enter the World of Shadows to perform Dyad Fusion'. I still get confused as to what Macca is because even in the shop they dont call it that lol Instead of talking like a drugged homeless person, can we be functional and just say what things are? Surely no one is pining for mumbo-gumbo glupp ♥♥♥♥♥♥ names for things as basic as 'money'.
[b]-- Kinda braindead easy:[/b] Can kinda just walk past the mobs as they don't really hold anything of value. Whole game is kinda A vs B. I never really find myself wondering which demon to take, it's always just the strongest ones I have available, especially since they can inherit the same skills and some stats from past demons. The hardest part during my playtime was accidentally walking into something a much higher level than me and having no way out but death, but you can kinda save whenever you want to and ignore those parts. In fact, you could just save before every encounter, dive in to see what their weaknesses/moveset is, then go back to the save and exploit it, which I did a few times.
[b]- Can't load/save during a battle:[/b] So if you know you're gonna lose, you either ALT-F4 or just sit there, skipping turns until your HP is 0 and the cutscene plays.
[b]- Can't remap controller buttons:[/b] But at least it recognised my PS5 controller and I didn't have to mod in Playstation prompts this game.
