Trials of Kokoro

I go trawling through steam for demos to play on a fairly regular basis, and while for the most part I'll play it and move on, or add it to my wishlist where it remains until the end of time, every once in a while a game sticks out. Trials of Kokoro is one of those games. It starts out quite simply, with a man awakening without memories in a forest. A cliche perhaps, but all cliches become cliches for a reason. The story isn't complex, but it is quite fun, and I enjoyed my whole time with it. The combat is quite solid, with a simple and easy to learn base that gets slowly expanded on as the game progresses. The art is pretty and the combat animations are nice and impactful for what they are. Overall my only real complaint is that there are a few potential story threads that get brought up and then never expanded on (like what's up with the Sol-Ikati), but with the story that the game is telling it makes sense that that stuff isn't covered. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone else looking for a nice story-focused game with a solid tactical combat system to boot.

This is quite the game. The story so far is very good. I'm not into Visual Novels at all but this one I can't recommend enough. Adding in the RPG genre, the turn-based action is a lot of fun. Making me think and strategize my attacks is good. Art is nice, the music is very relaxing. So far, amazing title and the dev is awesome. Easy purchase.

This is a high quality game that I enjoyed even though I am not fond of the pantheon subject matter but that goes along with most games in a fantasy setting. I liked the mixing of visual novel combined with rpg battles. Speaking of rpg battles, the battles in this game are very strategic. Each character has a number of choices in buffs and debuffs. It is not like other rpg's where you merely use your best attack and do away with the debuffs because bosses are immune to them which count for most jrpg's. No, in this game, bosses are immune to nothing. You can buff yourself, debuff your opponent, cause poison to weaken them over time. There are a number of ways to finish a battle. It is quite a tactical turn based rpg system. The characters also have a lot of personality. I grew attached to a number of them. I am however more interested in game mechanics than story so I will be focused on that. There were a few things I did not like however. Each character can equip a number of items that each give different effects. I like this but because the game does not allow for grinding but instead you go from one fight to another, you cannot buy everything. This gave me anxiety during the first half of the game. Each time you finish a sequence of battles, you can go back to the shop and each time you do so, there are a number of new items with stats and effects you can buy but your gold supply is limited so you cannot get everything you want. I would have liked to grind so I could get everythign I wanted especially because I played on Challenge Mode. You also cannot get every ability in the game so you must choose wisely which ones you want. Yes, you choose to learn abilities because the game uses a Skill Learn system. Normal JRPG systems are where you learn skills upon leveling up which is boring because there is no choice on your part. This Skill Learn system is a great way to give you choices in what abilties you wish to have. The battles themselves. There is a feature where you can hover over the character portraits to see what the number of status effects do and there are a lot of them, most of which I cannot remember what they do. This feature is useful but because I played with a controller, I also needed to use the pouse to hover over a character to see what buffs and debuffs they had. I would have prefered to play completely with a controller and not need the mouse but this is a minor complaint. Overall, a well designed game. Pros: - Immersive Visual Novel story with great characters - Strategic Turn Based Battle System - Skill Learn System Cons: - battles go from one to the next, leaving no room to grind for levels or resources - you cannot purchase everything you want - if you play with a controller, you will need to use the mouse also to check character status - the pantheon of false gods is dangerous even in a video game so as a Christian I must advice against it. Even though I recommend the game for its mechanics, it being well made as a game, the subject matter of false gods however can confuse a person and be dangerous which is why God forbade it in the Old Testament heavily and it caused many to fall away. As a Christian, I must advise against it and playing things with that kind of subject matter.

Game was a ton of fun, full of touching moments and fun fights. The story does have some cliche moments, but overall was a blast, and the fights were fun and challenging. Definitely a great game to run through.

I loved it.

An unusual, but nice little combination of turn-based combat and a VN to read, Trials of Kokoro may be a little saccharine (and I personally wish it had a little more personality to its writing), but it's earnest and quite endearing. Likeable characters, lovely art, some nice music and surprisingly involving fights and equipment flinging. Pick it up on sale if you're unsure, but it's a nice little adventure that gets better as it goes on. 7/10

Having played the awesome prequel "Trials of Guinevere", which I really liked, I can promise you that Kokoro is worth playing as least as much, if not more. (That said, there's no need to play ToG before ToK - they tell different stories set in the same world.) Though the game is played differently - it's not an RPG, but a visual novel with RPG elements - it's a strong spiritual decessor. And it looks much more polished, you can definitely tell that the developer put even more effort into making a quality game here: the visuals are very pleasing and work well together, the UI and other systems are more refined and the mechanics have more depth to them. The music also fits the game very well. The world of Vitaria is so vast and there's so much to it, one can only marvel at it and the well-crafted story taking place within it. You'll see for yourself when you play it. Again, the strong point for me in this game is the likable characters and their dialogs. They are very vivid, plain fun to read, and every character has their own quirks that makes them interesting and lovable. Highly recommended!

I'm 2 hours in and the developer claims Trials of Kokoro is 12 hours, so this is more of an early impression. Why am I doing this then? Because the game has been out for over a week and has less than 10 reviews. So, in honor of helping this indie game, I'll give a review early and update it over time. Trials of Kokoro's worst qualities are pretty easy to point out. -The menus are messy and it's hard to find things. Using the skills points to gain skills requires opening the main menu, then the skill sub menu, then going below the main skills past what looks like a natural end point just to find the place to spend it! I may not know how to best fix the menu nightmare, but I know how to point it out. -The art isn't bad, but it does that cheap Visual Novel thing of only giving every character one piece of art and having the character have like 5 expressions on their face to show impact rather than giving more expressive body language. I'm not a "I only play games with the best graphics" type of player, but the lack of different poses makes the characters feel more one note to look at. -You need a mouse just to open menus because there is no menu open button on the controller and it's just BAD design to do that. Maybe the developer just couldn't code it right, but makes it harder for me to play. That all said, if you can look past ALL THAT, there is good to this game. Enough to recommend. -The music is amazing. Honestly, a good ten minutes of my play time was just listening to the town's music because it's so peaceful and relaxing. If there is a place to buy the soundtrack, I would do it and support the composer. -The characters are interesting enough. 2 hours isn't a lot of time, but enough to make me like them and learn more. -The combat has some neat ideas. It's not mind-blowing and it isn't going to appeal to those who hate turn-based combat, but I like how you build up a meter to spend on skills that have cool downs. Given how there are no random encounters, it works well. If anything changes, I will update the review, but so far, I like it.

An amazing game that no one should miss, especially if you like visual novels, JRPG-styled games, or just games with a profound and well-narrated story. This game is a mixture of a visual novel (containing a good amount of dialogues to read, using different characters moving through different locations within the game lore) and a turn-based tactical RPG (where you will control your heroes in very well- designed battles against various types of enemies and bosses) that excels at both. In one hand, the story is perfectly well tied, with characters that you will feel identified with, situations that will immerse you into weird storylines and convoluted plots. On the other hand, the battle system is really good, works smoothly and works on very standard bases (defeat the enemy, use elemental vulnerabilities to deal more damage, buff/debuff...) but with ingenious twists (e.g. specific types of actions needed in certain combats to resist instakill skills from enemies, amazing interaction between party members...) that will delight you for hours. While I initially thought this would be a good game for a weekend, after playing on the second hardest difficulty (out of 4 available), I can really tell that playing it for the story once, and playing it for the difficulty again is possible and will take you more than a weekend. I would recommend playing it in a difficulty other than the very easy one, so that you can experience the thrill of needing to boost your heroes correctly and use your skills wisely to defeat certain enemies, together with the big importance of building/structuring your team's equipment to match your preferred playstyle and also to counter the enemies you are to face. The visual aspect is fantastic, with really well-designed 2D handdrawn-styled environments and chracters, and with fantastic pseudo-3D effects for skills, cutscenes and others. The music is fantastic, and some songs are real earbugs and will stay in your brain for a while. The UI is very smooth, with no bugs and a perfect text and image adjustment, even with the longest texts. A perfect work of testing and adjusting done there, congratulations! If I had to mention stuff that I did not like, that will proably be customization. I believe there was much more room to create different types of builds on each hero that were not exploited completely. Also the fact that, despite the changes due to the story, you play always with the 'same' team, leaves you wondering how else this could have been boosted to actually increase replayability. I do understand that visual novels can have limited replayability and tend to focus on something else, it just felt too good of an opportunity to not exploit it. But I'm sure there will be more about this game developer, and will be as good as this one. I personally miss having this game translated into other languages,especifically to mine (Spanish). Although I know visual novels might lose autenthicity in the process of localization, if the chosen translator is good enough, not only the translation will be good, but it would also immerse the player even more into its story. Plus it would attract people that love visual novels but that do not have a good enough level of English to play it in such a language, which is a fair amount and that usually expose their concerns about wanting a story that feels close to them by using their language. After all, everyone understands UI elements in English nowadays (Attack, Skill, Enemy, Level...), but it is not the same when you write about situations like 'courage', 'respect', 'love' or 'duty', among others, which are very present in this game. Maybe consider it for next one. I'm sure your gaming community will appreciate it. Overall, I think it is well worth it's price, because you are supporting a dev that is deeply engaged with his players, and that keeps developing quality products without the hassles of big companies. In a world where games are not entertainment anymore but just a business (too many games released per month, too little time and money to play them all), this game will allow you to slow down, enjoy a true masterpiece done with the heart, and start loving gaming again. Well done, TD Games! Looking forward for more!

I really liked this game. You can tell the combat was well thought out from the feel of it. Its not another RPG where you mindlessly auto attack. But its also not overly complicated for no reason. And the lack of an open world and more of a visual novel style was pretty nice tbh. No getting lost, just straight to the point. All killer no filler. Likable cast and enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. Really looking forward to what's next from the creator.