Ok, as a long fan of Fire Emblem (from the GBA era, being the last 3H becuse I reject Engage with all my soul) someone recommended me this game and I tried it. For those wondering this is a gem to me, I will put below pros and cons but it is a 9/10 because the limited budget and dev team size didn't let it become an 11/10
Here are the "*PROS*" to me on this game
1 - First of all, the art of the game appealed to me, no hyper-realistic bs, good art direction, small size and amazing pricing while working well on Linux (surely on Steam Deck but I mean on Linux, tried it on Mint, Manjaro, OpenSue, all fine).
2 - Second and here is where I started to fall in love with the game, upon starting you are asked not only difficulty but "Perma Death or not? Random Growth Rates on characters or fixed ones?" That made me realize this was a game made with passion for all the gamers who love the genre.
3 - Third... the voice relating... it is really well done, props to the guy, the characters themselve have no voice acting but their drawing fit all the circumstances, and yet those little moments between chapters where the story is told by the narrator give it not only a nice touch but a touching sensation plus the subtitles for people like me which is not native English speaker. Sadly the game is not on other languages but Those Who Rule 2 will be as I understand and I will pull at least 2 friends to play it easily.
On the music and soundtrack, it was ok at first but each time I played a mission it would stuck more and more, really nice.
4 - The story, it felt interesting, the ambient and plot from the start, the characters personality, the change on the face when some scenes required it, (I can't stress enough how fast I dropped even RPGs with sprites when they were using the same smiley face over the whole game even when people just died and they were supposed to be angry or sad.)
5 - The Board!! Hexagonal? Getting only bonus damage by the back laterals instead front sides? The "taunt" system with the skill and the "punch" action? I can't remember if I played only one hexagonal cell board in the past and it wasn't half as good as this one, I just felt in love with it.
6 - The weapons system and skills, at the beginning it felt kind of simple but each chapter added more variation and expanded upon a good basic set of options. The crafting and upgrading is good as well!
7 - The Class Promotions! The option between many of them with also their new skills made it so damn cool... nothing really broken that made you think "Oh this is the best class", all of them have their uses and synergies, amazing!
8 - The option to save mid chapter, since I was going with perma death it took me not only many restarts on some chapters but a lot of time overall to finish each mission cautiously, so it was nice to have the possibility to save and quite, to continue later.
9 - The Support Conversations! Most of them were really interesting and well done, explaining many character's personality and goals, relationships between them and such. That made me feel even more immerse on the game and try to keep all of them alive or not use them at all.
Also incredibly amazing to be able to decide on some characters if they die, join the party or have other fate by our hands, even for chapter 20 but that moment break my heart.
10 - The dev's support on these forums and other places, which I also realized when finishing the game and reading the "credits", this is not a game to make some bucks, it is a passion project, a game crafted with love to us gamers.
Now the "CONS" or stuff that needs to be improved in the next game, and as far as I read on the forums it is being taken in mind with all the feedback.
1 - The Board limits for enemy ranges and such can't be set kept toggle on when you then select your units, not a dealbreaker but something to improve, you can anyway see it before moving your character, it is hard to explain but some people could see it as a problem, for many it won't even matter since you can manage it.
2 - The forge system is super interesting but you will most of the time lack gold to use it if you buy new gear for many characters, and end up just using better weapons dropped or the default ones instead of upgrading others if lacking money. I tend to play with at least 2 full teams from the roster without sharing weapons so I used it a little only, but it is absolutely optional, which is good.
The Weapons Mastery on each character only gives them access to certain weapons, but not bonuses on hit or atk, which is not bad but don't rush to level them if you don't need it, so again you can improve with the forge system the accuracy of forged weapons and their atk.
3 - The Class Promotions... graphically they were rough lol, pretty rough hahaha, but since it was just a moment I didn't care enough, however it was hard to show to my friend "Look how cool this class promotion is!" on that screen with those sprites. Understandable tho but I hope it could be improved a little, don't get discourage by it please!
4 - The Support Conversations... and Characters... the good part was really good but then there were some characters showing up out of nowhere in few chapters (not many the)... without proper dialogue.
Also some characters that were incredibly important at first kind of disappear from all conversations when they should really be involved near the end. I understand the lack of more Support Conversations being a solo dev with help but there was missing a ton of presence from key characters during the main plot past half game IMHO.
And those are the cons to me! Imagine how good it is I was going to buy a Switch 2 for the new Fire Emblem and I just didn't, moved into playing other games and I am just waiting for Those Who Rule 2.
