View From Below

[h1]Attack and Dethrone the Crimson God[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] Ash is a teenager who has lived a hopeless life, only to get isekai'd into Below, a psychological horror fantasy world. Ash is tasked with slaying the Crimson God, but he has no confidence in himself and there's an evil cult trying to sacrifice him to that god. He does go through quite a compelling hero's journey and really shows his chops in Chapter 5, only to have a crisis of doubt in Chapter 6. IMO, the crisis of confidence in Chapter 6 and 7 would work better if [spoiler]the reveal of the 3 soul pieces' weakening effect on the Crimson God was revealed after the first Crimson God fight, and not in Chapter 2. I guess the point is that the trauma of nearly getting killed is too deeply ingrained in Melody even if she knows about the soul pieces, but it still feels really off that the protagonists would get cold feet despite knowing the Crimson God got nerfed and is no longer capable of oneshotting the party tank. Revealing the soul pieces' true nature later would have better put into perspective how far the protagonists have come and make them realize the power to attack and dethrone God was always with them. Adding to that, it would also make more sense for Peter's secret scene to only be available after the first Crimson God fight, since hearing that he fears the protagonists should be a confidence booster, lol.[/spoiler] I really did like the twist about the Crimson God's true nature of being [spoiler]Jesus, who didn't forgive humanity and lost sight of his past altruism. He's meant to be what Ash could become if the latter gave in to his hatred, which is why the true ending requires Ash to spare and save his friends even though they wronged him, as well as to hold out hope that life can get better.[/spoiler] The game has multiple endings where the true ending requires both correct moral choices and for two tricky sidequests to be completed. The most critical moral choices involving Ash's friends are actually fairly obvious, but there are also other choices in the game that may or may not actually affect the ending and mostly seem to be there for the sake of being there. This caused me more anxiety than it should have, lol. The game does have some NG+/hard mode exclusive lore, which feels like padding. Fortunately, the game does [spoiler]include script files in the folder if you don't feel like doing a second run[/spoiler]. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] This game is an action/turn-based hybrid, but the start of the game has a lot of RNG mechanics that makes the battle system feel unrefined. The hit rate of normal attacks is very low and faster enemies have a chance of denying a dodging minigame to the player characters. This is somewhat balanced by Ash having high ATK growth, the Blessed Ring (boosts accuracy to saner levels), and the exchange of damage being somewhat merciful for a hybrid system. However, I ended up using Blessed Ring for the whole game, since it's the most efficient way to deal damage while saving MP items. I feel like none of the other accessories were worth using, since I prefer having consistency in my attacks. Enemies have some tricky, but very cool-looking attack patterns that makes each one feel unique. Unfortunately, all player attacks are simple slash graphics with different colors, which was a letdown. Even Ash's ultimate attack, Arcane Beam, doesn't have a laser graphic despite several enemies having laser type attacks. The UI feels very dated compared to basic RPG Maker games, since you cannot load your save file during a gameplay session. Instead, you must cold restart the game, which can be annoying if you're trying to redo a certain segment or minigame. The UI for the casino games is also very clunky, since you can't increase your bet in increments higher than 1. Instead, you have to hold down your input button for a long time and watch the number slowly increase. This game features a death count system, which is why there is only one save slot. The intention is for the player to maintain a 0 death run to make sure the statues of might are active, but I never found the trade-off of the statues of might worth it. I would rather the statue system be scrapped so that the player can have multiple save slots, which is necessary in a game with so many choices. I ended up having to manually copy save files to separate folders just to be able to have multiple saves. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 7.5/10 I did enjoy Ash's growth throughout the game and would consider the story better than average. However, I felt like the battle system having such an RNG factor with landing hits and enabling dodge windows defeats the purpose of having skill-based button inputs and evasion minigames in the first place. The exchange of damage is still doable on normal mode, so the game is still overall playable.