izigame.me

Look, I'll be as honest as I can with this review. I was recommended this game by numerous friends who enjoyed it greatly and said it was up my alley...and personally, from reading about/watching trailers I was stoked to give it a run.
The problem is, it literally bores me to sleep. Its so mundane story wise, so repetitive combat wise, with little interaction between the 8 characters and insignificant side missions I skipped almost all the dialogue in the 2nd half of the game for non main story side missions. They are just that sluggish, that trivial, that I just ripped through them. I have no attachment to these characters or their plights. I tried, i really did, and there are so many little plot holes that can annoy some people (like myself) where you're supposed to be a party, a team working towards a goal, but you get "jumped" by 1 person in a custscene and get captured or thrown down a hole. Like, where's my 3 buddies plus their allured/guided followers? Just left my current character to die on their own, eh? Silly, nonsensical. NPC's never to my knowledge even acknowledge that there is more than 1 person in the group. Nobody ever pitches in, and its just silent observation thru all dialogue from the peeps.
The leveling feels ungodly slow. The only thing you can do is "dance" that maybe gives you 2x exp for that battle, or maybe it kills your entire party and loads to the last save point (since you cant manually save, this is quite a gamble) I almost have all 8 main character stories beat and I cannot yet attempt to unlock the 4 "secret" jobs in the game. Either I bash my head into a wall fighting 100 battles in the wilderness pokemon style to get my peeps to level 50 across the board, or just beat the game and never experience these other jobs. Another thing that aggravates me about the battles, even if you're grossly overleveled, the option to flee i feel doesn't increase with level. Your characters can be all level 35 and fail to run from the level 9 monsters. Its faster to just kill everything than to attempt to run so that ability is nigh useless.
Some character classes/personal skills are grossly overpowered and almost forced. The thief in the group opens the only chests in the game with worthy content. Most caves and main missions at least have 1 said chest, which practifcally forces you to have said thief with you at all times or grind your way back thru all these dungeons a 2nd time with him to get the better items the game offers. Might as well be a game about 1 thief plus 3 strangers is how it feels. Not to mention the thief steals with almost no consequence from almost every NPC that makes the merchant's ability to buy the items you're stealing almost entirely irrelevant. The hunter has ability to use monsters, but her main monster doesn't level with her so late game those monsters are trash. Hunter chooses a 1v1 with an NPC and forced to use monsters only, and they suck, the battle goes on forever. Alternatively just use the warrior in said 1v1 and ramrod thru them using items and abilities the hunter cant. Scholar has a % chance to acquire information or piss off the person hes talking to, where the apothecary just gets the info guaranteed with no downside. Like, why would you use the scholar when the apothecary does the same thing with no downside? That's what I mean, there is just clear choices on what classes are better than others.
I am reluctantly beating this game because I've gotten too much time into it I have to finish, If you truly want this game, be prepared to run in circles for hours on end with repetitive, simple combat to level up your characters. There is a ton of grind, bland stories, but pretty decent soundtrack at least. Don't waste your money unless its half off on sale or something. Thanks for reading.