At around hour 3.5, I am deeply enjoying this game and have been for most of that time. It’s an RPG with “action” mechanics like Paper Mario (or more accurately Mario RPG - these are pretty straightforward button presses so far). I haven’t found any of these that I like other than the Mario ones, but this one…it’s pretty good.
Specifically, it’s actually very far away from its influences. It’s very rigorous in a way I wasn’t expecting. Missing an action command often means death. Turn order and your own actions matter tremendously as well. The game has a very strange set of stats and status effects, all of which are very important for success. And all of your moves (you can have four offense and four counters) are determined entirely by your equipment, which is really cool.
It’s challenging!! The boss of the first chapter took me somewhere around 15 attempts - which also brings up the point that this game lets you retry battles, which is very nice. The only downside is that you can’t change equipment between, but I get this for balance reasons - the game sometimes throws 2-3 battles in a row at you, and you have to dress appropriate for all of them at once. Being able to change in the middle would ruin that.
(this was right after i asked a little goat why child labor was used even though its illegal)
The writing is really unusual. The characters all have very strong voices, and the main character (Virgo) is quite cold, high-spoken and driven. Her vocabulary is large, as are many of the other important characters. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the strangeness is, so I’ll have to think about it.
But another thing that stands out is that almost every notable thing in the world has flavor text. That is to say, in the Capricorn world there are probably 20 different snowmen throughout, and each of them has its own little bit of text. This goes for anything that looks like you can check it, so I’m talking clocks, strange machines, printers, computers, statues, etc. etc. And they’re often quite cute or funny! This game has given me quite a few sensible chuckles and a couple laugh out loud moments. I’ve taken 30 screenshots already and most are dialogue!!
Oh, and the music is really good too, and there are like 90 songs or something ridiculous.
So far I would recommend this very highly. It’s challenging, compelling, well-written, kinda weird, rough around the edges in spots, and way less cute than “all the Zodiac signs are cute girls who wanna kill each other” belies. It takes its premise quite seriously!
Once I finish it I’ll write a big spoilery post for my blog but i got really excited about this game and wanted to share it with y’all
(thanks to @Grandpa for giving me the key for this game in, uh, May of last year)