An isekai tactical rpg in anime style (Fate inspired?) at a budget price. Does the price imply budget quality?
First, the story starts like a typical isekai: an average protagonist transported into another world where he is turned into a seasoned swordsman. He quickly gets involved in a conflict inspired by the Hundred Years' War. Our hero joins the French side by allying with Joan (Joan of Arc). With his knowledge of historical events the protagonist is trying his best to change the fate of Joan,i.e. save her from untimely death. This interesting premise convinced me to give this title a chance. Here I need to mention two major issues. The English translations is pretty bad. Most can be understood but some sentences are barely coherent. Also, during some scenes the text scrolls really fast making it impossible to read. Funnily enough, I could not find a button to skip the read text manually.
Next, lets talk about the gameplay. The game is split into several missions. Each mission consist of preparation, story and battle. During preparation you can play with equipment/skills/character levels, craft/farm/hunt for resources, do shopping, cook, meet a character (mini dating) or visit a dungeon. Once ready, you can go to the next battle, with a story before and after it. Pretty standard for tactical games overall.
The first few missions are relatively easy but the difficulty spikes after just 6 or 7 battles. To progress, you will need to upgrade your equipment and grind levels in the Tower of Babel (separate, challenging dungeon) where you can also obtain various resources. This lack of balance makes this game pretty grindy, and it takes ages to level up characters.
Also, higher level skills, upgrades, accesories cost tons of gold which is also gained very slowly. You will need a lot of grinding to afford anything in the later part of the game.
There are also badges to collect but I have no idea how to find them. The brief instruction provided is unintelligible and the game manual is nowhere to be found.
The music side in this title is rather unimpressive and lacks variety. One track during preparations, one or two during story and battles. That's it. None of the tracks is catchy or memorable but they fit the theme at least. Low budget here is very evident.
Art is pretty average too. Simple charcter portraits in menus and sprites with few poses during story. At least pixel art during battles is good enough. Speaking of battles, the stages are pretty barren and unimaginative. One opening cutscene is probably where most budget went. Overall, at this price point visuals are good enough.
Now I need to talk about bugs and issues. Aside the aformentioned terrible english translation + text skipping, there are even more serious problems. Game crashing at times was annoying and I lost progress several times. Next, I read there is a new game+ but I couldn't even finish the game properly. I reached and beaten the 20th mission, which I believe is the last, after which instead of credits or next battle I was back in the preparation menu, doing the same 20th mission again. Infinite loop. I'm not sure if it is a bug or I was missing something but I could not progress the game any further.
Moreover, a lot of items are bugged as well. For example, % HP potions were not healing the % max HP but current HP, making them rather useless. Some skills and status effects are buggy as well, e.g.: status effect placed not on enemy but on your own character or skills not working at all.
On top of that, achievements (except the first one) don't work and none of them were translated into english.
To conclude, a simple, budget tactical rpg, with ok story, art and music ruined by the terrible english localisation and tons of bugs + crashes. Were it not for the mountain of issues I would give this game my recommendation, but as it is, I simply cannot: 4.4/10
