That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI Chronicles

Am a fan of the series and mainly got this to see how the game would handle the encounters compared to the Anime plus I was aware that this would feature some original and light novel content. This game has some genuinely good aspects about it but unfortunately was ruined by extremely repetitive gameplay and very poor performance. DO NOT, for the love of Rimuru-sama, EVER consider buying this full price. You can get the Deluxe edition at around 20$ on sale which includes the DLCs, those are imo the best part but more on that later. I still think even on sale it’s too expensive and while this game is long, it is long for the bad reasons and padded to no end. ———— THE GOOD: The entire game is voice acted in Japanese even the least important character is, everyone has an animated portrait with multiple expressions including characters you see once for maybe 2 lines of dialogue. If you know the series you know there are hundreds of characters in this game. They all greet Rimuru in town. Everyone also has an animated ult, including all major bosses and the non-Anime characters, the only exception is Ranga [spoiler]before he evolves, not sure why, strikes me almost as an oversight angle as he evolves rather quickly in the series[/spoiler]. The characters feel all very unique, of course some have very similar attacks but many come with modifiers that alters their gameplay. You will also need to master all of them as certain missions will require them, you cannot bomb rush through the entire game with a single one. Bonding (unlocked a little later) is really cool for combos but sadly locked to Rimuru only. The town building is cute, the buildings have a lot of detail just don’t expect too much as this is not a city builder game, the town is basically just party wide buffs. If you hated the Charybdis arc in the Anime, you’ll be treated much better here because it’s not a moving JPEG this time around. Light Novel only stuff is present, especially [spoiler]the inclusion of Zegion and Apito[/spoiler]. The new Angels storyline fits the politic struggles of the Tensura world pretty well and I personally enjoyed it. This game is easy to achievement hunt. The Labyrinth DLC easily lets you catch up on resources in the late game, Martial Arts tournament is a whole arcade fighter mini game built into this game that tests your skills with every character (excluding the other DLC ones, that being Hinata and Veldora). The last DLC for Hinata is a regular storyline. I suggest doing that one first as Hinata [spoiler]lets you freebie every fight you get stuck on with her ult. It is literallly the I-win button[/spoiler]. ———— The MEH: There are some inconsistencies with the character models in certain quests, especially the screenshots used from the Anime. There is a quest that gives characters ‚new outfits‘ but it’s just supposed to be the set they wear by default. There is another that gives Gobta a sword but he never actually uses one in battle. A couple where Rimuru randomly swaps between outfits within the same quest. With how much they invested into the character interaction I really wish they ruled these problems out. The chibi look is whatever to me, I think on some characters it works fine but others are so bobble headed compared to their bodies you think their brain is about to implode. The Training Grounds help your crew to catch up in XP, granting them a flat amount of XP once after a few runs but it only affects characters outside your party and there is no indicator when it will trigger. Since you will always have the character you are leveling in your party you need to manually keep track when to dump them just so they receive the boost. Nice idea, executed poorly. The reason why I find this bothersome is the Hot Spring which you unlock AFTER comes with said tracker. Enemy variety is whatever, most new enemies are recolors with slight model changes. I appreciate that they at least changed some details instead of painting it another color and calling it a day. [spoiler]Kataki[/spoiler]is build up heavily and you don’t even get him as a playable character. Diablo is unlocked way too late imo, [spoiler]you get him only post-game however he is already in town at the beginning of the final chapter so all you get to do with him are side quests and the DLCs[/spoiler]. The amount of side missions dumped on you Post Game is ridiculous, you do not get an Achievement but the game does reward you with [spoiler]a unique building in its own extra slot when completing the final quest[/spoiler]. The BAD: Combat: Performance is a big issue. I thought this was my issue playing on Steam deck but no, the game stutters in cutscenes, whenever enemy armor breaks, during certain moves or switching characters regardless of your setup or settings. It just runs awful on PC or Deck. The partner AI is terrible. Most of the time it freezes especially when you corner bully your enemies. Enemies will easily dodge moves with no tracking so [spoiler]Shion’s ult[/spoiler] pretty much always misses. The parry button is essential, there are 2 or 3 instances that are completely geared towards it and 1 instance that is unwinnable without it, that being [spoiler]Rimuru vs. Hinata because she uses her BS ult and dodging that equals fully dodging through Malenia’s Waterfowl[/spoiler]. It is hard to tell when you or the enemy have i-frames. Typically a downed enemy has them, but not always. Some attacks also can knock you out off a skill you are using while others don’t. Hitboxes are sometimes iffy, if you think you should’ve gotten a parry but the game didn’t give it to you then you are not alone. Mostly affects the flying enemies, especially bats. Character balance is lacking, some are so strong they literally phase skip past an Armor phase or even the entire Awakening phase of a boss. This is especially true for [spoiler]Milim, Hinata, Shuna and Diablo[/spoiler]. There is a damage limit where characters will do only 1 damage but it is tied to remaining health and if you burst the boss it won’t take effect, hence why [spoiler]Hinata's ult literally one-shots everything in the game as it always subtracts their exact max hp on hit and ignores armor[/spoiler]. Characters basically all have the exact same upgrade path with no variation. Everyone has 2-3 unique upgrades and those are level locked. It’s extremely disappointing, build variety is non-existent. Questing: The game is way too padded for no reason. For example in Chapter 2, the [spoiler]Kataki[/spoiler] storyline just lets you fight the guy 5 or 6 times in a row and the story goes nowhere. And here goes the biggest offender: Most quests are simple fetch quests that require some new item you cannot farm ahead of time, you have to go out again and get it. This is 90% of this game and most of it is slice-of-life tied into the main quests, completely unskippable, while side quests you only have a few until you hit post game dumping it all on you at once. This game has the typical JRPG issue of dialogue being too long and tiring sometimes. The characters simply do not get to the point. The longest I had was something like 40 minutes just to be tasked to fetch a potato and then sit through another 10 minutes of dialogue before getting the quest completion. Autosave only triggers when you leave town. Sometimes the process is broken up where you can talk to character X to continue and save in between, usually in side quests. In the main quests where it matters the most, you generally don't have that luxury. Final Thoughts: I got the Deluxe Edition for less than 20 bucks and even for that price I cannot really recommend it unless you’re okay with going at the slow pace the game forces on you. I find it sad that with how big the world of Tensura is all we get is a half-baked product that shows the passion of the voice cast, animators and modelers but also the rush, bad writing and corporate greed.