Trials of Kokoro

I just beat this game and although I don't write reviews often, I was compelled to directly after watching the credits roll. Trials of Kokoro is about a man who wakes up in a forest with no memory of his past. Cliche as that idea is, the 14 hour story (in my case) that follows is a magical ride with a deep storyline and plenty of character and world building. In fact, the only complaint I have is the shortness of the adventure. Graphically the game is wonderful. There is no roaming from dungeon to town and so forth. It's on a linear path but this choice in style makes it what it is. The backgrounds for each place you visit is beautiful and there is alot of charm in the hero models that play in the visual novel-equse story scenes. The battle system is deep. This isn't your typical mash attack button layout. Buffs and debuffs are very important. Learning and knowing your enemies weaknesses are very important. Equipment depth is vast and you can change between battles to suit the needs of the oncoming opponents. The music is great too. And there are a lot of different songs involved. They fit the mood quite well. Highly recommended for people who likes strategic turn based rpgs, or just like a good story. And the difficulty settings means you can enjoy it for which ever you're there for. I played on normal and found the challenge just right.

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6142328/][b] With 1,300+ reviews, make sure to follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more![/b][/url][/quote] Upon starting a new game, you will have the choice of four game difficulties. You have Storyteller, Normal, Challenging and Heroic. Storyteller the enemy defence and damage is reduced by thirty percent, heroes are immune to death magic and is more focused on the story. Normal difficulty, the defence and damage is reduced by fifteen percent, the game is fair and forgiving and is recommended for most players. Challenging, the battle will be difficult, enemies suffer no penalties and will require games to have a good understanding of the game mechanics. Finally, you have Heroic, the enemy defence and attack are increased by fifteen percent, there’s a minimum and maximum on resources management and you’ll have to have good strategies if you wish to succeed. You play as Aedric, or you can rename the character to something else if you wish. You are thought to be dead in the woods after being found by Rhea, although it turns out that you are only sleeping. However, after being asked who you are, you suddenly realise that you haven’t a clue where you are or what you are doing there. Rhea says that she’ll keep an eye on you and that maybe the Elder in the nearby village of Kokoro can help you. Rhea joins your party and you set off to the village in the hope of finding some answers. When heading off on any journey event you will have to make sure you are prepared for your journey before setting off. The event will take place after dialog with characters has finished this will then display the event screen. Here you will find Manage Heroes, Check Journey and Start Journey, there may be other options as you progress. Manage Heroes allows you to prepare your heroes for what's to come, you can heal them, equip them with new gear, weapons etcetera. You’ll also be able to spend any Power Points earned by your characters unlocking new abilities and skills. Check Journey will let you know what your journey will detail on your way to the location you plan to visit. This will detail the number of fights that you will encounter and if the party will rest at all. Your journey will look something like Fight - Fight - Rest - Boss, each event will differ slightly. Later you will have Chained Fights, this will have multiple fights one after the other. However, any active status effects, buffs and debuffs will continue over into each of the chained fights. So, you’ll want to make sure to check your journey details and manage your heroes in the best way that you can before starting your journey. Selecting Start Journey will begin your journey and the events detailed in the Check Journey will commence. There’s usually some dialog and then combat will commence. Combat takes place with your party displayed along the bottom of the screen, above them are three by two grid and you’ll find your enemy within these six tiles. The front three tiles containing enemies will provide defence for any enemy on the back row. You cannot attack any enemies on the back row until the enemies on the front row have been defeated. You will have new characters join you and Rhea with each bringing their own benefits to the group. You will have to have all the characters work together if you are to survive in combat. Aedric is a warrior, Rhea is a Brawler, other characters such as Athena who is a Favoured of Trestae and while she isn’t a fighter like Aedric and Rhea, she can provide help in treating wounds and providing buffs and protection through her magic to your group. Other characters will join you on your travels, although they may only join you for a short period of time and they’ll take care of their business rather than you deciding what actions they’ll take. As you progress in defeating the enemy, you’ll gain experience points and level up your characters. Each time you level up a character, they will gain a Power Point. These can be used to unlock new powers, some of the powers you can unlock will have multiple levels and while most will cost one-point others will cost quite a bit more. Defeated enemies will also drop money, weapons, equipment, gems and other items. Weapons, gear and gems are class based and can only be used by a character of the same type of class. You’ll collect various items which can be sold at merchants as can any weapon, equipment etcetera and use the pennies to purchase new stuff. You can find out more about your characters by selecting Review from Manage Heroes. Here there are four categories, Summary, Details, Parameters and Elements. Under summary there is detail on your current Experience Points and how many to reach the next level, Biography, Character Level, Class, Health and Spell Energy. In detail it gives information on the Gender, Deity, Nationality, Trait, Race, Alignments, Zodiac and Flaw. Parameters details a character's stats such as Strength, Max Health, Willpower, Talent, Evasion and Block Rate. Elements lets you know the characters Element and Sub-Element type, which elements that a character is strongest and weakest against, Damage Resistance and Bonus Damage stats. In the settings there are options for System - Difficulty, and Autosave. Screen - Display FPS, Full Screen mode (Window or Full Screen), Stretch Screen (On/Off) and Special Effects (On/Off). Audio - Master, Music, Environment Ambience, Special Effects and Sound Effects Volume Sliders. Interface - Windows, Text, Touch Input, Menu Arrangement and Battle UI. Trials of Kokoro is an enjoyable game to play, the story is good, and I like the artwork. The game runs well and I haven’t experienced any problems so far. The battles are challenging as you progress through the game but that isn’t a bad thing. There are no achievements or cards currently but maybe that’s something which will happen in the future. Positives + Good story + Nice artwork + Enjoyable game Negatives - No achievements currently - No cards currently Rhea, along with other characters you set off on a journey to help Aedric figure out who they are along with what they were doing in the woods near the village of Kokoro in the Visual Novel RPG game, Trials of Kokoro. 7/10 [quote]Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB! Any opinions expressed are entirely my own! [/quote]

This is one of the prettiest indie rpg I've played. I love the art and sound direction with this one. The gameplay is engaging and the characters are charming. The story is also well written and dialogue shows the differences in personality. Also, Rhea is adorable and I must protect at all cost.

I'm really enjoying this game so far. Everything about the visual style and ambient sounds fit well together... something you don't always see in indie RPGs. The developer describes it as a visual novel--which it is--but I feel the nuanced tactical gameplay shouldn't be overlooked. It's a lot of fun building out characters to your preferred style and going from battle to battle, each one with different enemies using a new set of abilities you haven't seen. I found the default combat setting a tad too easy, but fortunately you can change at any time from the menu and there's a few settings to choose from. The story is intriguing and has potential (as I would hope from a VN). I'm still only a few hours in but am already enjoying what I'm seeing with the character development/party interactions. Strong recommendation from me if you enjoy turn-based JRPGs and/or visual novels.

For those like me who enjoy combat and don't really need a reason to beat the monsters, the VN part isn't getting in the way, dialogues are to the point. To the combat now: Do not get fooled by the first few battles, mechanics are slowly integrated as you play to end up with a static turn-based combat with individual initiative, Stamina/Mana management as well as cool downs and elemental resistances. Interactions between characters is a major point: One unit can liberate an other from webs for example, casting the right buff clears up a debuff and so on. Your best move isn't always kicking a@@ ^^ The monster cast and their mechanics force you into using every skill/item available to get through, even on Normal difficulty. Characters have fairly open skill choices and gear can also help focus on one role or an other. Overall ToK is highly tactical and each new monster encounter had me check their skills and stats to find the weak spot and means to survive. I also enjoyed the fantasy world and its different cultures/areas.

Trials of Kokoro is a refreshing take on a JRPG. Full of soul, clever writing and world building. Lovable characters and seemingly endless customization. I am now a fan of TD Games and I can't wait to see what they do next.

It bangs.

A wonderful gem of an RPG. The battle system is the highlight, first time in many years I've felt engaged in "standard" turn-based combat. No random battles, so each battle is carefully crafted to challenge you, often in new ways. You can change the difficulty at any time, as well. The overall story is standard, but heartfelt. In many ways, it felt like playing a good D&D campaign. It's about the characters, and they are wonderfully written. There's also some great world building, hopefully get to see it pay off in future games! Can't forget to mention that the art is beautiful. It is billed as a visual novel type game, but it's a linear story, with the split between writing and battles/preparation (felt like) 30:70. The pacing felt perfect to me. Previous review: Clearly a lot of effort put in, very neat so far. Wanted to get in a review during the summer sale, but I'll update once I'm finished Small update: Love how tactical the battles feel so far. The removal of random battles means each battle feels very finely tuned. Lots of different enemies and interesting challenges even in the intro act. Do note that you can lower the difficulty if you're not (yet) great with tactical fights.

I can't say I ever played a Visual novel Rpg before, never knew this was a thing tbh, but I really am digging this one. It is a great looking game, combat seems to be pretty straight forward, which to me is a great plus, sometimes adding a ton of mechanics just to say you have them is a drag.... so yea I am really getting into the overall plot of the story. Looking forward to diving into it a good bit more and if anything changes I'll update my review but my first impressions of this are pretty positive.

Beautiful visuals and the characters are really compelling and different from one another. Combat is interesting too.