izigame.me

I'm only partway through this game and I'm going to try to finish it, but right now I can't say I recommend it.
First, let me start with the good. The art and music is great. There's a very distinct visual style to the game and lots of interesting camera work to keep things feeling dynamic. Music ranges from "beats to chill and relax to" from genuine bops.
I'd also say the premise/world of the story is very good. Dreamcorp is an interesting entity and the goals of the people in Dreamcorp are interesting. There's also a wide variety of races and cultures that make the world very lived in.
However, this leads me to the first of the things I don't like, which are the main characters. They all feel shallow and one dimensional so far. The characterization of the third character you meet is also all over the place. They start by telling you all about how they've built a life for a whole year on Dreamcorp's planet and that you wouldn't understand what they've been through, but refuse to elaborate and you never meet any of their friends. Then suddenly at the last second when they've been telling you to continue your mission without them, they want to come with you. Then when you arrive at your initial goal, they're mad that they came with you? It makes no sense. This character comes back later after leaving your party for a bit and I find it hard to take them seriously because of this nonsense.
The main character has one goal. Good for him, but he has pretty much no other characterization and it makes him very boring. You meet a couple of other characters as well that join your party, and they have equally vague backstories and characterization. Maybe this will change as I get further into the story but right now, it's hard for me to care about anyone and the only reason I'm playing is because I want to see how the big conflict gets resolved and the true nature of this world.
The second thing I don't like is the combat. It features timed hits similar to Paper Mario or other Mario RPG systems. However, the telegraphing of enemies is very vague at times and I recently encountered one enemy where you have to block them after their attack visually hits you (this is what led me to finally write this review).
There is also a "summoning system" where you can capture creatures and unleash them like pokemon using SP (summoning points). Unfortunately, you have about enough SP to summon 2 creatures and it does not recharge between fights. You can restore it with consumables, but that obviously uses an item and a turn and so I have not done it. Ultimately this means you will rarely use your creatures, which is a shame since you can hold up to 4 at once. If you restored your SP after every fight, I think this could have been much more interesting.
Finally, you have an ability point (AP) system. When you land successful attacks, your AP increases. However, if you miss it decreases by 2. Unfortunately, your accuracy is around 80-85% on average, and somehow it feels a lot worse than that. This is a pain because the only real combat depth in this game is "when an enemy uses a certain move, this specific character has to use this specific move to counter it" which feels both extremely contrived and annoying because it forces you to use certain characters. Not to mention your characters don't gain abilities as they level up, just stats, which means combat is stagnant as you progress. Combat basically turns into

Normal attack a bunch, or don't if you really need AP because you need more than 67% accuracy to land a hit
Sometimes heal with the one character that has a healing skill
Steal from enemies with the two characters that have stealing skills
Negate the enemy's special move with the one character that has the negate skill
Purify special status ailments with the one character that has the purify skill
Maybe use a summon if you're in a tight spot, although most of them are just slightly stronger attacks.

Overall combat just feels in the way of the story most of the time, I don't enjoy it at all. You also have to use a character in battle for them to gain EXP, which is tedious, and the party management menu doesn't show stuff like a summon's summon ability effects and cost or a character's abilities and their effects or cost, making party management and planning difficult.
I'd love to recommend this game because it has great presentation and a good premise, but the poor characterization and accumulation of minor annoyances in the shallow combat system just make it hard to recommend. Still, I'll be trying to finish this one and if my opinion changes after I finish, I'll update my review.
Edit: I finished the game. The combat did get a little better due to being able to switch freely among combat members, and I ultimately found a niche for Boom Boom as a support character using TWO SP Max enhancements and with the third character you meet as a crit DPS. Still though, I primarily used regular attacks for damage until the end, which was disappointing. The game was also shorter than I expected and the ending didn't have a lot of post-climax resolution to it either. Definitely a little shorter than I expected, but a bit of a blessing in the sense that it didn't overstay its welcome either. Still, I can't say I recommend it except maybe if it's on sale.