izigame.me

After playing this game for a little bit, most of my fears for it started to become a reality. The game was designed with a specific way to play in mind and certain parts seemed to be added as a requirement rather than an intended and cared for feature.

Gameplay:
After playing a short bit into the game, I realized this was a colour matching game.
Oh, that enemy has regeneration abilities and is very green? Green magic shreds regen abilities.
Oh, that enemy tends to stay far away, uses shields and ranged attacks, and looks very blue? Use blue magic against them.
I never, made it to finding out what the short ranged red magic is particularly good against, but following the pattern would suggest red enemies that get in your face would likely be weak to my red magic.
I could potentially get past this drawback to the gameplay if switching between magic types felt smooth, but I am used to being able to switch weapons by using the number keys, but theses were assigned to other bigger spell uses. So when suddenly there is an enemy up close and I would like to switch from green to red magic, I feel like I fumble through my magical gauntlets to try to get to what I'm trying to cast.
There is a levelling system and upgrade system that I felt wasn't well thought out, or at least the gameplay made it feel like a necessity rather than something exciting to do. Because you are encouraged (read: darn near forced) to use all forms of magic offered to you, it doesn't feel like you can focus on a "build" and rather, are just trying to strengthen the magic type that feels the weakest for you at the moment. Because you have to use all three types of magic, and if you ignore a type in levelling or upgrading, it feels like your choice in how you play the game has been decided for you, and there's no way for any individual player to truly express their style of play.
A lot of levels are obviously designed to encourage you to come back with new skills, but once you've been through an area, it just feels like a chore to return and play some more there. Not to mention the

Story:
The characters in this game suffer from what a lot of characters in any media seem to suffer from lately, and that is a shallow one-dimensional personality and almost too-predictable actions. (I will say I enjoyed the general character that recruits you, she was portrayed well by her voice actor and her dialogue was written well I felt.) Having flat talk to you almost constantly during story missions makes whatever is being explained a slog to get through, and ultimately uninteresting.
Art and Environment:
The areas in this game are absolutely gorgeous, and the designs of enemies and characters felt inspired. Things sometimes felt too clean, which is weird for me to complain about because usually my complaint is that designers use too much clutter and litter and everything looks too warn down, but this place looks a little too perfect sometimes in my opinion.
After exploring a little bit, I came too realize that the environment I was in often felt very abandoned. There's very little environmental storytelling to explain areas much, like why one town is absolutely bustling but the next town over is abandoned. Yes I may find enemies there but it's like playing a doom level when I get ambushed and I don't find the exploration exciting. I mostly explored levels because of my fear of not having enough upgrade material.