izigame.me

This is probably one of the most monotonous JRPGs I've ever played.
The combat, the exploration, it's a tedious bore with little engagement whatsoever — more often than not, I dread getting into battles because it offers nothing to me in terms of fun or even complexity. Equip any decent items for any characters, and their "special" fighting styles are redundant. You don't need Kensuke's shields, you don't need Ayana's buffs and so on — which is good as it lets you essentially use whoever you want whenever you want with the rare increase in "difficulty" but ultimately means there isn't really anything separating them aside from their semi-unique fighting styles and weapons, as well as their "Catharsis Effect" skills, which are quite literally the only amount of flashy serotonin achievable in the entire game's combat system, yet even those get old quick. Not that I even need flashy visuals if the combat was engaging in some other way, but it isn't, and that's precisely the issue. There's hardly any challenge, literally save your "Catharsis Effect" abilities for the boss and you'll at least half their health in one turn. The only real challenge you can get is if you intentionally go for some overleveled enemy, which isn't exactly fun either.
Combat aside, the dungeon system and exploration is some of the genuinely worst I've played in a while. It can be mindnumbingly easy or infuriatingly tedious with no in-between whatsoever. The repeating soundtrack (which is good) starts to hammer away at your sanity after a while as you traverse from one dead end all the way back to the other side. And that is all you hear because there is no other sound effects, no proper ambience, not even footsteps, nothing. You're just watching characters run from point A to B, tediously taking care of some poor excuse of a puzzle and then getting into an equally tedious combat encounter.
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Those are my main complaints, I guess — at least from the top of my head. I have minor ones as well, like the random NPCs giving me no real reason to care about their existence. They act the same, say the same things up until their level 3 "friendship" with you, despite the fact you just met them a second ago and just spammed "talk", and so on and on but that is less relevant.
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What I want to talk about is how this game is a completely abusive, toxic relationship for me because the story and characters are actually (for the most part) cool, interesting and engaging.
It's almost as if the game is watered down by its gameplay, like it should be a VN or something, because the only reason I can even remotely tolerate speedrunning the dungeons so I don't go full Patrick Bateman is to see what happens next, what happens in Character Scenarios, what route I'm taking, what ending I'll get and etc.
I had this idea in my head where this game reminds me a bit of Deadly Premonition but less charming. As in, the gameplay is the worst part about it, yet something still keeps you coming back. It's fascinating.
So, as of the time of writing this, I haven't yet finished the game. This will probably be redundant by the time anyone even sees this, if that ever happens, but my point is that despite the horrendously monotonous gameplay, I kinda can't stop playing it until I finish it.
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So, all in all, a 10/10 experience would recommend to anyone (to watch on youtube)
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Thorn is mommy. ❤️