This Way Madness Lies

FYI : still has a gamebreaking bug. Saving in the backstage area will permanently brick your save, sending you back to the first post-tutorial area. This will be unsalvageable, and you'll have to delete and start over no matter how far into the game you were. After two restarts because of this, I'm regrettably giving up on the game. Maintain multiple saves.

Enderaring, but shallow. The “story” is a flow of barely connected non sequiturs. Combat is hampered by how we can’t pick our own party (and, at least in the beginning of the game, the worst and most annoying character is often put in the party). There’s a lot of repetition in this game. Unfortunately, it’s not really worth it.

Man, what happened?! After the dynamic combat systems and party building of the Penny Arcade games and Cosmic Star Heroine, we get this: a slapdash series of vignettes full of vanilla-ass battles. Party members come and go at random, devoid of mechanical or actual personality and sapping any sense of progression the game might have had. Enemies are sacks of HP with elemental weaknesses. The environments are drab, the music generic, the dialogue tedious. Even the UI and menus are clunky: it might not look like it, but my god does it *feel* like something cobbled together in RPG Maker. What a bummer.

Theatre AND magical girls? This sounded like a game tailored specifically to me! Unfortunately, this game is written like the filler episodes from Sailor Moon, with less explanation or foundation to establish anything that's happening. You're thrown into the world with no exposition, and due to the large volume of information you're handed at one time, you have little reason to latch on to any particular character or event. The characters are shallow, reduced down to singular tropes you may see in a magical girl series without any of the heart that these characters normally have. The characters have clearly known each other for a long time, but don't behave like friends, feeling more like colleagues that are together simply because they're all Shakespeare characters and nothing else. Friendship and individuality are some of the key themes of magical girls as a genre, so that lack of connection was sorely missed. Additionally, getting stuck with Miranda for almost every dungeon was miserable, as her moveset renders her nigh useless and artificially inflates the lengths of battles. The combat system was one of the things that this game was doing well, but Miranda was like a hemorraghing wound on an otherwise healthy body. That's not to say that this game doesn't have it's pros. The comedy is, in fact, quite good, as long as you lean towards absurdist humor. It's just hard for the comedy to hold up the game on it's own. The music, also, is quite interesting! It's good at setting the mood while also standing out as unique. The art direction is also wonderful, as the pixel art style is highly detailed and pretty despite the inherent limited nature of pixel art. The art medium was used quite well. If you don't mind a lackluster and empty plotline, this game is a visual and audio treat. But unfortunately, the narrative weighs far too important on my scale.

It's a Zeboyd game, for better and for worse. The concept of Shakespearean magical girls is funny, but the formula is always the same ever since [i]Cosmic Space Heroine[/i]. This game is more episodic as opposed to a sprawling space opera, as befitting of a story about theatre plays, but for the rest nothing has changed: - very detailed and colorful yet strangely grainy pixelated graphics - cool tunes - overly convoluted tactical combat system with too many variables - difficulty levels that are always either too easy or too hard - fun but flat characters that never change from beginning to end - snappy dialogues and wacky situations - several references to pop culture, Lovecraft and their previous games. If you enjoy these things and their other games, you will likely this one too. As for me I still think that their original [i]Cthulhu[/i] games are still their best ones.

It is like Cthulhu Saves the Christmas, but you are Magical Girl who is saving Shakespear from Cthulhu. And I am sure it makes sense, at least it must make sense - thought, I haven't found it yet, only insanity so far.

Amazing linear JPRG with charming storytelling and unexpectedly deep combat system. Mixing up Magical Girls with Shakespeare is a genius idea: the cast is amazing, dialogues are fun and witty, and the story flows without any hiccups. Gameplay loses itself a bit around the end due to some combat repetitiveness, but the story keeps everything fresh and engaging throughout the journey. Highly recommended.

jRPG stylizowane na pikselki z lat 90. Kieruj nastoletnią trupą, której członkinie są [i]magical girls[/i] walczącymi ze skażeniem Przedwiecznych przesączającym się do światów sztuk Szekspira powstałych z powszechnej kulturowej świadomości. Co jest HOT: + ciekawy schemat rozgrywki, przeplatanka sekwencji (oddzielanej opadnięciem kurtyny): loch w szatkach sztuki szekspirowskiej kończący się bossem, lekcja literatury z pytaniami z Szekspira, slice-of-life bohaterek typu "wybieram zwierzątko", "jedziemy na camping", "przygotowujemy się do wystawienia sztuki" (zwykle z minibossem w stylu "antagonista odcinka w Sailor Moon"); + sympatyczne scenki w klasie; + nietypowy, bardziej skomplikowany system walki niż mogłoby się wydawać, pełen traitów i umiejek, bez broni; + cudna grafika, retro stylówa jest w sedno, doceniam abstrakcyjne dandżony pod względem klimatu, bardzo dobra muzyka; + jRPG na max 10 godzin >>> jRPG na minimum 300 godzin; A co NOT: - humor jest jaki jest (jakkolwiek zdarzyło mi się uśmiechnąć tu i tam), dość sucharowy i jedną nogą w "hahahaha RaNdOm"; - lochy są bardzo ubogie: NPCtów można policzyć na palcach jednej ręki, znajdźki to albo powiększenie plecaka, albo przedmioty, których i tak pewnie nie użyjesz w walce, bo twoje umiejki są po prostu lepsze (chociaż na plus, że przedmiotów jest parę i do ponownego użycia, więc nie bawisz się w zbieranie śmiecia), bardzo rzadko można wejść w interakcję z jakimś rekwizytem; - gdzieś w połowie (niedługiej) gry walki i żonglowanie umiejkami już nuży; - ostatni boss jest zabawny, ale generalnie fabuła mimo oryginalnego założenia nie dostarcza niczego ciekawego. I to jest jeden z tych momentów, gdzie zero-jedynkowa ocena na steamie mnie nie zadawala. Z jednej strony jestem naprawdę pod wrażeniem tej gry (konstrukcji, pomysłu), a z drugiej strony mnie po prostu zmęczyła. Z jednej strony nie polecę tej gry żadnemu znajomemu, ale z drugiej - cieszę się z zagrania, bo to coś nietypowego (AAA would never), i dla samej stylistyki było warto.

Picked this up on the summer sale. I had a lot of fun with it. I love JRPG, Magical girl, and I'm an English teacher IRL so it was the perfect trifecta for me. I do wish it had a NG+, though I haven't tried the hardest difficulty. I would play a sequel for sure.

[u][b]This Way Madness Lies[/b][/u] is a short and comedic turn-based RPG which has two sets of scripts that add an element of comedy to the otherwise mundane story and characters. Otherwise, the game does nothing special but also does nothing poorly and is fairly generic as far as turn-based RPGs go, though there is a major bug that can corrupt your save slots which the developer was never able, and didn't care, to fix. Overall, I'd prefer to give this game a neutral review because the dialogue frankly carries the game and is almost worth playing through it to completion but I don't think this alone is worth recommending it. In fact, once the novelty wore off and the dialogue had lost its luster after the first few hours, the rest of the game was so generic that I didn't end up coming back to complete it until a few months later. Note: this review is current as of v1.24 released on 8 Feb 2023 (the latest patch). [hr][/hr] [quote][b]S U M M A R Y[/b][/quote] - The gameplay is linear and typical for the genre but with the developer's signature spin and focus on status ailments which both help shift it away from the damage-centric arms race that this genre often defaults to; - The replay value is practically non-existent as you see almost everything there is to see in one playthrough and it's not worth going through a second time; - The graphics are composed of colorful pixel art but the visual effects and animations are lackluster and dull; - The soundtrack is good and has a few stand-out songs (particularly the vocal songs) but is otherwise forgettable background noise; - The story is a unimaginative magical girl adventure where they save the world but is carried by the Shakespearean English script and the hilarious "New English" script which is a modern-day translation of the Shakespearean that adds plenty of humor to the game; - The game is missing a few quality-of-life features that would make the intricacies of the game easier to keep track of and understand but has a major bug that can corrupt your save slots which the developer doesn't know how, let alone care to, fix. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]A C H I E V E M E N T S[/b][/quote] The game has 16 achievements which can all be acquired throughout one casual playthrough (with one being missable) that should take around eight hours on the easiest difficulty setting. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]R E V I E W[/b][/quote] [h3]Gameplay[/h3] The gameplay is emblematic of the classic, linear, turn-based RPGs of ye olden days but with the developer's signature spin on the formula: - Each character has eight slots for actions that they can take during battle (other than using items) and each action may only be used once before needing to be recharged by taking the [i]Defend[/i] action (meanwhile items can only be used once per battle); - Each action becomes more powerful, or has its properties changed, if the character is in [i]Hyper Mode[/i] which occurs automatically every few turns based on the character; and - Status ailments and the enemies' resistances to them play a large part in controlling the flow of the battle and help shift the game away from a damage-centric arms race, though damage still reins supreme even on the harder difficulties since status ailments are not permanent, don't last long, and are hard to set up given that the turn order isn't displayed and you have to learn the turn order based on each character and enemy's speed stat. The above points help to expand the otherwise mundane combat system but the battles inevitably become a bit of a chore once you figure out the optimal team composition to counter the specific enemies in each area. The replay value is extremely low as the only unique things to see are a few (less than five) different dialogue options depending on the choices you make during certain scenes; however, these don't alter the story in any shape or form and are purely superficial. There is also no "New Game Plus" feature despite the fact that you only reach level 45-50 throughout a casual playthrough but the level cap is 99 which is a missed opportunity as this could have been used to add an extra challenge for more hardcore players. The scalable difficulty level is a nice touch as it allows you to tune the game to your preferences and either make the battles more nuanced, giving it some much-needed depth, or turn the game into a very casual experience that you can breeze through if you only want to experience the quippy dialogue. [h3]Graphics[/h3] The graphics are made up of very nice pixel art which unfortunately turn out blurry and look saturated on bigger screens. Fans of the [u][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Force]Shining Force[/url][/u] series will recognize the battle screen and the game pulls the look off quite well. Disappointingly, the visual effects for attacks and skills are pretty underwhelming while the character animations are very basic and stiff. [h3]Sound[/h3] The soundtrack is mostly forgettable but I found that the track you hear when you first start the game really hooked me. The vocal songs are great and a number of other tracks are quite enjoyable to listen to even outside of the game which is somewhat of an exception for me as far as indie video game soundtracks are concerned. That being said, the rest of the soundtrack works well as background noise but otherwise isn't anything special. Thankfully, the songs don't become irritating after listening to them for too long. [h3]Story[/h3] The story is a clichéd tale of magical girls saving the world from an evil force intent on destroying it; however, the developers had the fantastic and novel idea of writing most of the script in Shakespearean English and adding a humorous "New English" translation which which carry the otherwise unimaginative story and bland premise. The two scripts can be switched to in real-time and I thought that the modern-day translation was comical as it genuinely had me laughing out loud quite a few times during the first few chapters of the game and was easily my favorite part, as well as the highlight, of the game. The characters are one-dimensional and don't develop or grow throughout the story but their clichéd magical girl personalities get involved in exciting shenanigans, add plenty of comedy, and are enjoyable enough to be around for a few hours. [h3]Miscellaneous[/h3] The game is missing a few quality-of-life features such as displaying what each action does in [i]Hyper Mode[/i] during battle so you can plan your turns better without writing things down or using a guide, having a help menu or legend for the status effects icons, and explaining character buffs in more depth. The game also has one major bug whereby saving during the "Interlude" screen and reloading that save slot corrupts it completely to the point where you cannot progress from it any further. If you happen to do this on all three save slots then you would be forced to restart the game since you would have no other save files to load and resume progress from. Perplexingly, the developer didn't seem to know how to fix the bug and wasn't willing to devote the time to try and figure it out which is somewhat ridiculous considering that this is a fully-released game. I know there's no monetary incentive for doing so but you'd think that something this impactful would get fixed regardless. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Overall, I'd prefer to gives this game a neutral review because I don't think the dialogue and comedy alone are worth trudging through the game for. While the game is serviceable in all other aspects, it's nothing special among the sea of other choices out there; however, if you get more out of the combat or blaze through the game just to see the story then it might be worth it when discounted so I advise waiting for it to go on sale for [url=https://steamdb.info/app/1318970/]1.40-1.50 USD at 85-86% off[/url] which it regularly does.