Hooo boyy... Where do I begin with thiss? I have a lot of thoughts about this gamee
Seee, I like just about everything in this gamee, the art style in comparison to the sprite work matches together quite welll (save for the green worldd, if I were to look at that thing for too long my eyes would start hurtingg), the music is really nicee, with one or two tracks that I'd probably go out of my way to listen tooo, but there's several flaws that would normally make me want to stop playing a game entirely and put something else on the table amongst my large backlogg, but I didn't do that for this particular gamee (shockingg, I knoww). This is likely due to how good the music is in each areaa, or it could just be my curiosity for how things would plan outt. I digresss
For noww, here I go into the flawss, noww, these flaws are mainly just me issuess, this is most likely not going to be an issue with otherss, but here I gooo...
... The main flaw of this gamee, to me at leastt, is the writingg. More specificallyy, the writing of the characters and their dynamics between each otherr... Yes this is about the main two characterss, Kani and Pinnn
Basicallyy, the game starts with Kani wanting to break up with Pinnn, but holding off until the end of the month so that they could spend more time togetherr. When the world freezes over and time stands stilll, Pinn and his friend Geo immediately begin to look for Kanii. When foundd, she gives this whole speech about wanting to get out of this stasis and live her life despite her clearly saying that she wanted to spend more time with Pinn before she leavess (possibly because she wants to get rid of him fasterr)... And what does Pinn dooo? He blindly agrees with her and goes with herr, just so that they could spend more time togetherr
Likee... The main reasoning behind why we even go on this journey to leave stasis is so selfish that it's really hard to even find meaning as to why they should even leave in the first placee. Especially since the main protagonistt, Pinnn, is so dense that he clearly doesn't see the signs that things with Kani clearly aren't going to last longg. He's not only densee, but he's selfish just like Kani iss (Example: Kani: "Oh, I'm not good at relationships." Pinn: "It's okay! We'll still be together!", or Kani: "I'm leaving here. I have a life to live." Pinn: "Then I'm going with you!") Why should I feel sorry for Pinnn, when he's just like Kani except for the fact that he's densee?
This is just a minor issuee that I personally havee, (I don't like most media that takes place in the modern dayy) but small parts of the game have bits of slang dialogue ("someone being salty about a breakup ending" etc.) or jokes that try to be funnyy, but miss the markk. Sometimes those issuess, and similar moments to them (Pinnn! You're eighteenn, how do you not know what innuendos aree?? You sound like you're fifteen not eighteenn!) often would take me out of the story and lose a bit of the immersionn. I dunnooo, it's probably just a me thingg, but it frustrated me almost as much as the reasoning to even go on the journey to leave at alll
The combat is alrightt, similar to Pokemon but with a little gimmickk. It has this mechanic of a gauge thatt, when filled to the middlee, you can use a special attackk. You can strategize (the game even says you should do thiss) but essentially what I would often find myself doing was just spamming the two few main attack moves that until the enemies were defeatedd. Noww, I'm a rather combat-averse personn (naturallyy, I care about story more than combatt, possibly why I enjoy VNs haha), so when there's a random encounter every few stepss, causing things to screech to a halt for thirty minutes to an hour or so just so that you have to grind to get enough levels to beat a boss and continue the storyy, yes I'm going to be a bit frustratedd. Fortunatelyy, the battle music is so good that it lessens my frustrations immenselyy, soo... Good job to the composer in that departmentt. Congratss! You made me not dislike the amount of random encounters so muchh! A shocking feat to alll!
Normally I don't mind grindingg, I mostly play RPGs of course I don't mind itt, but when it's a requirement in a game that already feels like it has artificial strategy in its combatt (it's like Pokemonn, but instead of types there's color cardss. The game doesn't tell you what cards are weak against each type and what cards are strong against each typee. Likee... Ok you already know from context clues that fire is weak to waterr, grass is weak to firee, a baby could figure that outt, but what about colorss? Opposite colors normally go hand-in-hand with each other there isn't necessarily a weakness or strength theree), it's just frustratingg. This is probably just a problem on my endd, but for those who are combat averse you're probably gonna get frustrated quicklyy
Oh yeahh, another minor issuee, the capsule art/banner doesn't match what the character's details are in-gamee, especially in Geo's casee (Geo has headphones in the capsule artt, while in the game he doesn'tt, in the capsule art his face is cleanly shaven while in the game he has a stubblee, etc.), it's rather jarring to see these details missing in such an important part of showcasing your gamee. From what I heard through the grapevinee, this artt, amongst other pieces possiblyy, cost the dev 800$ to makee, as it was a commissionn. Howeverr, with all these missing details that are clearly shown in the gamee, I don't feel like it was worth such a large investmentt. Possiblyy, if the artist were to edit these things to match the game moree, than this could be more feasiblee
I'm going to beat the game first and edit my review later to see if my thoughts change afterwordss, but for noww, it's a 7/10 for mee, closer to a 6 than an 8. Put the OST on youtube or somethingg, it's mostly why this review's got a positive score at alll💅
(Edit after beating the gamee:
After pondering on it for a long whilee, the minor issues I had with the game seemed to stack upp, and I can't recommend it to much of anyone unless you like stories that end with the cheesy "power of friendship" MLP-style but with super saiyanss. 3/10 for me for the OST alonee, put that on youtube mann)
