I may be overly critical on Caligula Effect here. I picked it up because it was leaving PS Plus within one week. I had to streamline it AND I wanted the platinum. I knew extremely little of the game. I watched the trailer and it looked silly as hell.

The story and gameplay are mid-level in a JRPG. You're trapped in a simulation with a rag tag group. The story itself isn't necessarily memorable; however I do think it's cool you get to hang out and bond with the bad guys. Not many games let you experience both sides. The battles are turn-based but you can predict your combos. Something fairly new to me so that was welcomed. Battles get repetitive, especially when you're constantly pulled into them.

The story deals with heavy subjects. Suicide, bullying, body shaming, it goes on. It's fine to add those in media and I didn't mind the idea at all. However, CE doesn't hold all of those subjects with care. Some received real conversations. Others had constant jokes to the point where it left a bad taste.

My main criticism is much of the game feels bloated. There are 10 characters in your group and 9 baddies. All characters you can hang out with and bond. It's...a lot. Some get character arcs while others feel like they simply exist. Each baddie gets their own dungeon. Again, it feels like their only purpose is to pad the game. The dungeons get more maze like and bland as the game goes on. A great example to cut out what isn't necessary. More does NOT mean better.

While it wasn't a terrible game, I don't know I'd recommend this to others. There's better JRPGs out there.

Good ideas, terrible execution in every regard narratively. Let’s start with what it's good at. The characters are flawed and seem quite real as the game shows the ugly side of the characters and tackles heavy and taboo emotions and topics. Additionally, the characters' problems don’t get magically solved by the power of friendship but by facing their fears and trauma, revealing the worst parts of themselves. The villains are also quite sympathetic and receive their own scenarios, which help flesh them out. Portraying the characters' ugly sides and the refusal to shy away from heavy topics was refreshing.

Now, what do I mean by terrible execution? The main story itself is kinda bad, but it shows some promise with the characters. It felt like the main story was just an excuse for the writers to delve into the character stories. Each of the stories tackles heavy themes but does so to a less than sufficient degree. The themes are often more tell than show. By the end of my playthrough, it felt like I was reading a case study of various psychological profiles instead of relating or feeling something for the characters. The quality of these scenarios ranges from “wow” to downright abysmal, with more scenarios being mediocre to bad than impressive. This leads to the characters being a mixed bag. The inconsistency in writing between character episodes and between the characters themselves is a major issue.

That leads to my biggest problem: the characters are by no means generic or tropey, but they do feel unimpactful. In a character-driven game such as this, it really undermines the entire story.

Honestly, props to the writing team for giving it a go, but I do not recommend the game as there are other media out there that can be more entertaining and informative regarding psychology.

This game is:
1. A port of a vita game that runs like ASS on PS5 (frame drops with a 30fps cap, seriously?)
2. Ugly. The 3D models look bad. The environments look bad. There are only 4 enemy variations of the digihead enemies. The engine has some type of bloom effect that does the visuals no favours at all
3. The dungeon design is awful. Extremely boring mazes that slog for an eternity

Other than that, I felt the characters were a nice change of pace from your typical buddy buddy best friend in JRPGs. Everyone here is just a student that shares a common goal. Internally they are all fucked up in their own way.

The imaginary chain is a very unique battle system. I didn't think I would have a lot of fun choreographing my own fights. I recommend "Hard" mode though, otherwise you don't have an incentive to strategize except spam your first attack.

If you're not into idol JPOP bullshit, avoid this at all costs.

I will definitely be playing the sequel, and it looks better from what I've seen (huge plus: it runs at a locked 60fps on PS5).

The Caligula Effect Overdose is an RPG that was very ambitious and, in some respects, those ambitions were met. The Persona inspiration is very apparent in many aspects due to it coming from former Persona and SMT team members. The writing itself isn't all there but it does tackle it's themes, or at least attempts to sometimes, in a way that's much more interesting, down to earth and human especially in the magician route. It doesn't shy away from the ugliness in it's themes and subject matter which makes it quite mature in it's exploration of them especially in the character episodes. It's not a cardboard clone of Persona and it retains it's own identity but it's clearly influenced despite not fishing for even a remotely similar audience with similar themes albeit tackled quite differently and in a way that I generally prefer despite some of the flaws being present.
I personally found the themes to be explored to a sufficient enough degree with the characters themselves that have enough intrigue to stand on their own despite being slightly shallow at times in the main story. I found it interesting to play as characters that at times felt like the actual villains of the story due to the presentations of the histories and traumas of said characters which is quite a bit more apparent in the magician route.

Gameplay is a mixed bag. A very interesting variation of standard turn based combat that combines some real time elements with an emphasis on team coordination, air time and timing. However at the same time it can be very unbalanced which can either make battles quick and too easy or it can drag. This is especially apparent in the first hour or two of the game where battles can take 5-10 minutes. Dungeons themselves are too long, too samey and the game lacks the reprieve of a hub area so it often feels like back to back dungeons with no real break besides cutscenes which causes the game to feel much faster paced than it should be due to no real down time. Social aspect is a bit mediocre as they went quantity over quality with over 500 NPCs to bond with, and by extension party members, that are mostly the same. The party member character episodes are a lot better causing a jarring disparity in quality.
Graphics, as you could probably tell upon booting the game up, are quite poor. Areas can be samey with just long corridors and mazes, there are a lot of repeated models and animations are extremely robotic/doll-like. The game feels very unfinished in that regard as it was clear that some kind of aesthetic was intended but left and released unfinished.

Overall, The Caligula Effect Overdose is a game with a lot of strengths in it's writing, approach to combat and, unmentioned, music. However it has just as many flaws that stop it from being great despite being quite an obvious improvement over it's original Vita version. It's not an experience that I would mark as either good or bad but it's certainly an interesting one that highlights how safe other JRPGs similar to it, specifically Persona, are when it comes to thematic exploration. I would recommend to someone if they could pick it up at a discount.

Es un juego muy dificil de recomendar. Los desarrolladores tenian 5 pesos y un sueño y se nota mucho por la mala y no carismatica calidad de los modelos y ambientes 3D, ademas el diseño de los dungeons es aburrido (la piramide siendo de los peores que me ha tocado forzarme a terminar)

Una de las cosas que destacan del juego es la musica, que para mi estuvo buena pero algunas pistas de los dungeons se vuelven algo molestas luego de andar por 2 horas en puro dungeon extenso y feo

Fuera de eso me gusto mucho como toca muchos temas personales (aunque algunos no se resuelven con el tacto que se merecen) y como se desarrollan los personajes al pasar la historia y sus escenarios personales. Creo que eso principalmente acarrea el juego ya que precisamente solo lo segui jugando para saber como se desenvuelve la historia y conocer los motivos de los antagonistas

Ayana Amamoto you will always be famous

Probably one of the best JRPGs I've played hindered by a very small budget but the absolute passion put into the game really does show. It's good to know in knowing about the fatphobia present in the 2nd dungeon and transphobia present in the 2nd and 3rd dungeons, but ultimately it does get really good after the 4th dungeon, which honestly isn't asking much from such a short game (25 hours at the longest).

Are you sick of boring, cliche trope characters? Please play this game then. None of the characters are what they seem at first. They for the most part have pretty intense and oftentimes relatable baggage, and the "villains" are all incredibly sympathetic.

It's always worth noting that Tadashi Satomi was the writer for this game, if you are or have ever been a fan of Persona that name should mean something to you (he INVENTED the franchise). I can't recommend the game enough honestly.

The gameplay is busted as hell in a way that makes it a tedious cakewalk. It's incredibly easy but I found myself avoiding combat as much as possible because it'd feel like a chore. There's some good ideas in the writing but the execution leaves much to be desired - for a game that ostensibly asks the player to have empathy for people with all sorts of physical and mental struggles, it thinks fat people are a punchline and trans people are disgusting perverts. That's all that needs to be said, really.

There's a moment in the game where a group of fat women are blocking the way. You get them to move by telling them there's a free buffet table. This causes them to run out of your way, shaking the screen while they move. This is played for laughs but it's delivered in such a lazy way that I can't even say it's a bad joke executed well!

This is an absolute budget gem. Although Caligula Overdose is held back visually (except the god tier art style), it's a game that will hook you with its incredibly interesting story and characters. Everyone has a hidden trauma, and you'll love finding out about it. The music is also god tier, including the way its used.

Gameplay wise, it has a unique combat system called the Imaginary Chain, where you can see a mostly accurate outcome of your actions before commiting. It's jank as hell because of the inconsistency of a lot of moves, so depending on the person it'll be fun or a chore.

The story and music are honestly reason enough to get this game. If thats what matters to you the most, absolutely buy it.

Pudes creer que este álbum llamado "The Caligula Effect" vino con un juego gratis?

Hablando en serio, conocí Caligula Effect hace varios años, creo que un poco antes de su anuncio en switch por la misma razón que la mayoría, por su OST el cual incluso habiendo pasado más de 5 años me sigue pareciendo muy bueno y lo volvi a disfrutar cuando lo estaba jugando. Al final iba a comprármelo pero vi algunas reviews donde decían que el juego era una basura y que no valía la pena, así que nunca lo compre por esa razón.

Tiempo después se anunció y luego salió Caligula 2 y nadie confiaba en ese juego, pero solo con su salida en Japón la gente estaba empezando a hablar bien de él y bueno, si ya han visto mi review sabrán que al final lo jugué y termine hace varios meses y al igual que la mayoria, Caligula 2 me pareció uno de los mejores jrpgs que se han sacado en las últimas décadas, pero... Y entonces Caligula 1 lo iba a dejar de lado?

Luego de terminarme el segundo juego agregue a mi backlog el primero aunque estaba en una muy baja prioridad, ya que sabía que más que nada lo iba a jugar por obligación que por gusto... Pasaron los meses y este mes no sé por qué pero me decidí jugarlo de una vez por todas.

Qué me pareció? Lo termine? Fue insufrible? Tal vez estoy siendo muy bueno con Caligula 1, pero fue una experiencia "correcta"... No es el mejor juego del mundo, ni siquiera le llega a su secuela, pero tampoco es tan mala y si consideramos que salió en la psvita creo que incluso sería un juego que recomendaría bastante si tienes la psvita (aunque tengo enteendido que overdose tiene un sistema de combate totalmente diferente que el original).

No me malinterpretes, no es un juego sobresaliente, pero tampoco diría que es una basura u olvidable. Tiene sus fallos que su secuela arreglo como lo es diseño 3d de algunos personajes o lo raro que es no ver a los personajes mover la boca, pero su gameplay e historia sin ser sobresalientes, si hace el juego como mínimo disfruable (Aunque critico el diseño 3d, el arte 2d sigue siendo excelente, de los mejores estilos y diseño de personaje que he visto en un jrpg). He jugado a peores juegos que Calígula, ni siquiera lo consideraría como malo o algo así y no sé por qué en su momento fue tan duramente criticado.

La historia es más floja y los personajes no se sienten tan humanos ni sus motivos para estar en ese mundo son tan bien llevados como en su secuela, pero la historia entretiene (paso de mencionar como se normaliza aqui la gordofobia, la transfobia y meterse con el fisico de las personas. Como me parece hipócrita por parte del guionista ridiculizar estos temas cuando en sí la obra se atreve a hablar de muchos temas serios de manera madura, pero aun así no trato estos 3 temas con la madurez que trata a los otros temas). Claro, hubo cosas en la historia que se sintieron fuere de lugar y sin hacer spoilers hay 2 escenas (muy similares) en la recta final que me pareció brutal que se arriesgaran y mostraran "eso" en un juego, algo que ni persona que los "fans" se la pasan diciendo que es un juego maduro y trata temas serios y demás mamadas se ha atrevido a hacer y dudo que lo haga. El problema con estas 2 escenas es que son tan importantes y tienen carga emocional, pero que la manera en que lo llevaron fue tan pobre y poco realista que aunque aplaudo por atreverse a mostrar una escena así, al final no supieron darle el toque humano y realista a la escena...

Algo que criticar en ambos juegos es su final. Hablando del true ending solmente, donde veo que no Caligula 2 no fue el único que lo hizo, sino que lo hizo también su precuela que fue lo de crear un final tan poco desarrollado. Esto será spoilers, pero cuando al fin logran salir de ese mundo pasa lo mismo que en su secuela, que no muestran una escena donde veamos a todos reunidos en la vida real... Aunque bueno, al menos la primer entrega nos dieron al menos una "cinemática" de 20 segundos donde vemos al menos el cuerpo de los personajes y un poco de su vida en el mundo real (sí, cuerpo porque no había presupuesto para las caras y salían sombreadas).

Recomiendo jugar Caligula? Si vas a jugar Caligula 2 sí, totalmente, ya que aunque no es necesario puesto que muchos jugamos primero al 2, aun así sé que el 2 tiene muchas referencias al primero, además de que si haces como yo y luego juegas al primero, puede que te resulte incómodo pasar a un sistema de combate menos refinado que el primero (personalmente a mí no me incomoda estas cosas, pero puede que a ti si).