Over 100 hours of gameplay.
Became the most comfy video game I've experienced in my my whole life. Easily my second favorite video game of all time just behind Utawarerumono Futari no Hakuoro. Storywise, it's magnifique, got tears in my eyes. For the gameplay, sure it's a grindfest, especially when you reach the 2nd half of the game, but surprisingly I can't get mad at it. I don't know if it's because this is the first NIS game I've played, but I don't thing that's the reason.
This is truly a great dungeon crawler game.
Became the most comfy video game I've experienced in my my whole life. Easily my second favorite video game of all time just behind Utawarerumono Futari no Hakuoro. Storywise, it's magnifique, got tears in my eyes. For the gameplay, sure it's a grindfest, especially when you reach the 2nd half of the game, but surprisingly I can't get mad at it. I don't know if it's because this is the first NIS game I've played, but I don't thing that's the reason.
This is truly a great dungeon crawler game.
genuinely blown away by this game. incredible ride of a story whose twists and turns keep inventing new ways to hurt you, an all-timer.
the finest jrpg gaming has to offer
Game-play and story wise the game was great, but I really wish the dungeons had a little more variety (having played this soon after Refrain only made it worse)
That said, it was lots of fun and just like in the prequel I ended growing fond of the main characters.
That said, it was lots of fun and just like in the prequel I ended growing fond of the main characters.
With little-to-no experience with the dungeon crawler genre, I had no idea what I was getting into with this game. What compelled me to check it out was mostly the art and funny screenshots of a dozen or so dudes beating up on one enemy. What I didn't expect was to find a dangerously addictive gameplay loop, unforgettable story, and a new obsession that I can share with maybe three people max.
It's not the smoothest on-boarding experience, though. For every mechanic the game teaches you, it expects you to intuit two more. The character creator, while impressively in-depth (and one of my personal favorite parts of the game), can be intimidating to micromanage. Especially in later segments, I don't think there's any shame in using a guide. Yet, when you do figure out an optimal team config, skill setup, or enemy behavior, you really feel like you're taking a step towards mastery.
While I'd love to shill this game to everyone I come across, it does take a certain kind of person to take to it. The somewhat samey dungeons, unclear stat walls, and obscure progression can definitely turn a lot of people off. If you can look past the rough patches, though, you'll find an absolutely impeccable experience.
It's not the smoothest on-boarding experience, though. For every mechanic the game teaches you, it expects you to intuit two more. The character creator, while impressively in-depth (and one of my personal favorite parts of the game), can be intimidating to micromanage. Especially in later segments, I don't think there's any shame in using a guide. Yet, when you do figure out an optimal team config, skill setup, or enemy behavior, you really feel like you're taking a step towards mastery.
While I'd love to shill this game to everyone I come across, it does take a certain kind of person to take to it. The somewhat samey dungeons, unclear stat walls, and obscure progression can definitely turn a lot of people off. If you can look past the rough patches, though, you'll find an absolutely impeccable experience.
Etrian Odyssey, if it had the systems depth of Disgaea, the storytelling of NieR: Automata, and some of the most mechanically engaging, Metroidvania-esque first-person dungeon crawling ever put to code. Pretty easily the greatest blobber of all-time.
Yes, even better than Strange Journey.
Fair warning: this game is incredibly long. Longer than Persona 5, if you're doing what you're supposed to. When reviewers (and even NIS) were saying this is about 40-50 hours, that's for part 1. Parts 2 and 3 are locked behind specific, not necessarily obvious requirements and part 2 is quite a bit longer than part 1. These ARE NOT post-game. They are the continuation of the story, unlock brand new mechanics and classes, etc. They are essential to the experience. You do have to play this game with a completionist mindset, or you will miss out on the vast majority of this game. Nippon Ichi, even with the marketing, were on a mission to swerve people hard with this one. I won't say exactly how, but bear it in mind so you don't miss out.
Might do a more thorough review at some point, but honestly, there's so much to talk about that the task feels daunting, not to mention that getting into the weeds with this would mean some massive spoilers. Play this game.
Yes, even better than Strange Journey.
Fair warning: this game is incredibly long. Longer than Persona 5, if you're doing what you're supposed to. When reviewers (and even NIS) were saying this is about 40-50 hours, that's for part 1. Parts 2 and 3 are locked behind specific, not necessarily obvious requirements and part 2 is quite a bit longer than part 1. These ARE NOT post-game. They are the continuation of the story, unlock brand new mechanics and classes, etc. They are essential to the experience. You do have to play this game with a completionist mindset, or you will miss out on the vast majority of this game. Nippon Ichi, even with the marketing, were on a mission to swerve people hard with this one. I won't say exactly how, but bear it in mind so you don't miss out.
Might do a more thorough review at some point, but honestly, there's so much to talk about that the task feels daunting, not to mention that getting into the weeds with this would mean some massive spoilers. Play this game.
Review on Reddit with Images
KEY NOTES
-First Person Dungeon Crawler
-Enemies Appear on the Map, No Random Battles
-ENG/JP Voiced Audio
-Battle Party consists of generics only
-Lengthy game 90+ hours to beat
-New Game+ available
INTRODUCTION
In 2016, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) released the DRPG, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk. Despite NIS' first attempt at a DRPG, the game was a solid game with an unusual heavy story focus for a DRPG. The game didn't sell many copies at first, but has since sold a decent amount. 4 years later, a sequel titled Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society was released (3 more years for a western release).
STORY
Galleria's story begins with a young girl named Eureka who was dropped off at Galleria Manor. Despite being part of nobility, her family's financial situation is dire so she sought employment at Galleria Manor. The employer was an old woman named Madame Marta who was looking for someone great at "searching" for things. Marta is a witch tasked by Galleria Manor's owner to search for special treasures in a labyrinth below the manor.
The problem is that not just anybody can explore the labyrinth. Any live human will die trying to return from it. To remedy that issue, Marta summons a Wandering Spirit using Eureka as a medium. The Wandering Spirit is able to control puppets to explore and combat the monsters in the labyrinth. Thus begins their work in retrieving the many special treasures in the mysterious vast labyrinth.
Galleria's story is unusually presented since despite spending the vast majority of game time within the labyrinth and dungeons, most of the story actually occurs in the outside world. Reaching specific checkpoints in the dungeons will trigger a new cutscene in the outside world and advance the story. You have to leave the dungeon to view the cutscenes. The cutscenes are not always directly related to the triggering checkpoints however. This creates a certain disconnect with the story and what goes on within the dungeons. This is actually something that's seen in Refrain as well although that game had notable story content in the dungeons too.
Early on, the story appears to be directionless, but all of the random story bits will converge together into intense moments as more of the mystery gets revealed. It does however start off slow since the first major story event doesn't happened until about 30 hours into the game when it goes from 0 to 100 in a span of minutes. Galleria has a number of exciting moments, but there's also a lot of mundane moments in between. It may be difficult to keep the same level of interest throughout, but it's worth pushing through for the interesting plot twists and revelations.
One aspect of Refrain's story that left a strong impression on people were the many surprising dark and disturbing moments it had. Galleria has many dark moments as well, but there aren't many that I would call disturbing. Uneasy at times, but overall, a lot more tolerable and easier to sit through in compared to Refrain. Of course, there are still humorous and comedic moments throughout to lighten the mood.
In comparison to the two Labyrinth games, I think Refrain had the more memorable and stronger story of the two. Especially when it came to the dungeon stories which made the overall story package more interesting. With that said, Galleria's story was still an enjoyable experience for me and some of its narrative is quite ambitious.
It's worth noting that Galleria takes place in the same universe as not only Refrain, but also the two "The Witch and the Hundred Knight" games. Fortunately, you don't need any prior knowledge of those games to understand Galleria.
CHARACTERS
Galleria has a large assortment of characters. The main core group of characters are well developed and interesting. They are also likable too for the most part which contrasts with Refrain where there's less likable characters. One issue with Galleria is that there are many side characters that don't contribute much to the plot and are just there. Then there's some more story relevant characters who don't get enough screentime to properly develop those characters.
Overall, nearly of the characters have layers to their characters and you won't be able to really know and understand them early on.
MUSIC
NIS Veteran Tenpei Sato returns to compose Galleria's soundtrack. The soundtrack is similar to Refrain where instead of Sato's usual bombastic style found in the Disgaea games, the songs here are more subdued. With Galleria, the only time where the soundtrack gets particularly intense are during some boss fights. While the music overall fit well with the game's tone and style and sounds nice in general, the songs don't really stick out much for me. Outside of the game, it's difficult to recall specific tracks at times.
GRAPHICS AND ART DIRECTION
The graphics and artstyle in Galleria haven't changed much from Refrain. The character portraits during the Visual Novel style cutscenes are nice to look at and come with various different expressions. The backgrounds are surprisingly beautiful and detailed at times. The dungeons don't stand out much most of the time and the textures are less detailed, but they don't stick out to be all that noticeable most of the time.
The monsters in the dungeons have good variety and not only do their models look good, they have decent animation during battle as well. Being a DRPG, the animations aren't anything sophisticated, but the idle movements look great compared to other DRPGs where the enemy sprites are static or in the case of 3D models, just don't look all that great.
Overall, Galleria is one of the most beautiful looking DRPG I've seen.
GAMEPLAY
Other than the notable story emphasis, Galleria shines with its gameplay. The gameplay loop with the dungeon exploration is fun. The battles are interesting and and there's a deep layer of customization.
DUNGEON EXPLORATION
Galleria has seen a few changes and additions to dungeon exploration compared to Refrain. Before, there weren't many dungeon exploration option or mechanics to deal with. Falling off a ledge is as bad as it gets there, but that is easily avoidable. Poison floors make up the other major obstacle and trap. Galleria now has invisible floor panels, pitfalls, underwater traversal, long distance jumping, fake walls, swamp water and something like an enclosed miasma space.
The game gives you options to deal with all of them making the dungeon traversal more interesting and keeping it from being annoying and frustrating compared to some other DRPGs out there. One new good ability is the Fog cloak that not only negates swamp water damage, but also makes you invisible to enemies for a set amount of turns.
In regards to enemies, they appear as floating giant eyeballs on the screen called Enemy Symbols. Touching them will trigger a battle so there's no random battles in the game. The Purple eyeballs are the powerful monsters that roam the area. They are generally best avoided until later in the game. The Enemy Symbols move as you move like a turn based scenario. With such a system, you can plan and avoid certain Enemy Symbols by doing some simple calculations.
The wall break ability returns in Galleria which allows you to break down most walls and open up new paths or create shortcuts. It's a unique mechanic that I don't recall ever seeing in another DRPG before or at least as commonly used here. The wall break ability and other dungeon abilities make use of Reinforce Points. The starting value is 100 when you dive into a dungeon, but gets deducted base on your current Pact points (more on this later). Reinforce is an important resource not just for exploration, but also provides various benefits during combat. You can acquire more Reinforce by finding mana bubbles and mana stuck on walls.
The dungeon structures are well crafted like a puzzle. There are many floors with many staircases that connect to various parts of the dungeons. Oftentimes, exploring the dungeons are not straightforward and requires careful thinking on how to proceed. Jumping down pitfalls (and taking damage) might sometimes be needed to reach new areas.
Overall, the dungeon exploration and the structure of the dungeons are very good. That said, I do find myself missing the thematic dungeons that Refrain had. Each dungeon felt like a completely new world populated with actual characters at times so they felt more interesting compared to Galleria's dungeons which felt more in-line as a single dungeon. The designs are less visually appealing in comparison. The dungeons in Galleria also lack notable story events too.
New to Galleria are the randomly generated dungeons. There's a few of these in the game and they are all pretty similar to each other. Each floor is small in scale compared to the static dungeons, but they do make progressing much easier. The goal is to reach the staircase to the next floor and finding them isn't nearly as complicated as progressing in the other dungeons. This makes the experience not as interesting, but these dungeons are great if you just want to farm for new equipment and going through areas that are a bit more dynamic than static dungeons.
CUSTOMIZATION
Galleria has a surprisingly large amount of customization for the puppet party members. The customization options during creation includes, voice options, character portraits, the dominant hand, lucky number, favorite item, personality trait, stat growth to emphasize primary stats or a more balance growth, and a general stance to emphasize more power in place of defense and health. You can also pick a learnable starting skill right off the bat too. The options that don't affect stats directly tend to play a role in resonating with your other characters during battle.
There are a decent amount of classes (Facets) in the game totaling twelve. All of them have Alternate Facets that are similar at its core, but have different skills, stat growths and weapon efficiencies which makes the total amount of classes much more than just twelve.
One of Galleria and even Refrain's standout feature are the very large party size. The battle party (Brigade) consists of up to five Covens which are sort of like small squads. Each Coven can fit up to three attackers during battle and up to five more in the support slots. Those in the support slots don't normally actively participate in battle (other than followup attacks), but they do provide various passive effects to the Coven's attackers. Some support slots have passive effects just for filling the slot while other times, a character might have a "support skill" that is in effect only as a supporter role. Therefore, you can manage up to 45 characters to provide some use during battles. For those that like to manage a large amount of characters, this is a rare treat.
Unfortunately, you can't just start adding 45 characters to the brigade right away. The number of open slots for both attackers and supports depends on the Pact. Before you can add any characters to a Coven, it needs a specific Pact item which provides the number of open slots, the Donum (spells) available for it and the various stat and effect bonuses each slot has. Having a full 45 character brigade won't be available until much later in the game. A Coven's maxed DP (Donum Points) is based on the combined attackers' maxed DP in the Coven.
As developers of Disgaea, it wasn't any surprise that NIS added extensive leveling and grinding mechanics. While the max level is technically 99, you can transfer a puppet's soul and reincarnate them into another puppet body. Their level resets back to 1 when that happens, but they will gain more stats on level up than before. The amount of stats gained are determined by their "Soul Clarity". Soul transfers will increase the Soul Clarity amount and the amount increase is depended on the puppet's level when it did the transfer.
Skills inheriting is a bit different than in Refrain. For Galleria, puppets keep all of the skills they learn, but only a certain number of them can be turned on depending on the skill cost. This allows for easier creation of builds by carrying over all of the skills you have learned. Turning each skill off and on is simply done in the camp menu.
It's important to note that skills are mostly passive ones. Only a few characters learn Donum spells which are otherwise only available based on the Pact you have equipped.
COMBAT
Like many DRPGs, the combat system is a turn based one. Despite the possible 15 attackers available during battles, you don't issue individual commands to each member normally. You only issue commands to each Coven so that one command will apply to the all of the attackers in the Coven. You can however give orders to individuals for one turn by spending one Reinforce point which opens up additional options such as item usage and equipment change.
The battle sequence doesn't start until all commands are given. When that happens, your characters and the enemies' turns are queued together with the fastest characters/enemies acting first.
Both characters and enemies have a stun gauge which if depleted, they will be unable to act for one turn. The Special Gore Hits return which are like super critical damages. Gore Hits on the party members mean a body part is destroyed thus rendering the equipment on that part null. If you were very unfortunate that the head is destroyed, the puppet is permanently KO'd until you repair them back in the outside world.
New to Galleria are the Liberation gauge and skills. Each Coven has a Liberation gauge that fills up during battle from attacking and receiving damage. Once it is completely filled, the Coven has accessed to the Liberation skill that is based on the Pact. The skills are varied and includes an attack that damages a whole group of enemies, stat buffs or healing.
On the Normal difficulty, many battles aren't difficult so auto battle can clear the majority of fights. That's assuming that party members' equipment and stats are at least up to speed. Bosses and also the Purple Powerful Enemies will be more challenging that it requires more player attention and the use of buffs/debuffs.
CLOSING REMARKS
Labyrinth of Galleria is a solid followup to Labyrinth of Refrain and improved on the gameplay in many ways. There are more dungeon mechanics, more Facets to use, and an easier to use skill inheritance system. While the story and the lack of story in dungeons aren't as strong as Refrain, it is still had an enjoyable one with many twists and turns. Galleria does benefit on having more likable characters as well.
While there is an emphasis on the story, the vast majority of the game time is spent going through dungeons.
Combat is one the easy side for most of the game, but some bosses can be quite challenging.
Galleria overall is a very lengthy game that can take more than 90 hours just to complete all of the story and is rich in content. The random generated dungeons can add more game time for those that just want to farm for good equipment.
For those new to the Labyrinth games, Galleria is a good starting place considering that the connections with Refrain are very minor for the most part.
KEY NOTES
-First Person Dungeon Crawler
-Enemies Appear on the Map, No Random Battles
-ENG/JP Voiced Audio
-Battle Party consists of generics only
-Lengthy game 90+ hours to beat
-New Game+ available
INTRODUCTION
In 2016, Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) released the DRPG, Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk. Despite NIS' first attempt at a DRPG, the game was a solid game with an unusual heavy story focus for a DRPG. The game didn't sell many copies at first, but has since sold a decent amount. 4 years later, a sequel titled Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society was released (3 more years for a western release).
STORY
Galleria's story begins with a young girl named Eureka who was dropped off at Galleria Manor. Despite being part of nobility, her family's financial situation is dire so she sought employment at Galleria Manor. The employer was an old woman named Madame Marta who was looking for someone great at "searching" for things. Marta is a witch tasked by Galleria Manor's owner to search for special treasures in a labyrinth below the manor.
The problem is that not just anybody can explore the labyrinth. Any live human will die trying to return from it. To remedy that issue, Marta summons a Wandering Spirit using Eureka as a medium. The Wandering Spirit is able to control puppets to explore and combat the monsters in the labyrinth. Thus begins their work in retrieving the many special treasures in the mysterious vast labyrinth.
Galleria's story is unusually presented since despite spending the vast majority of game time within the labyrinth and dungeons, most of the story actually occurs in the outside world. Reaching specific checkpoints in the dungeons will trigger a new cutscene in the outside world and advance the story. You have to leave the dungeon to view the cutscenes. The cutscenes are not always directly related to the triggering checkpoints however. This creates a certain disconnect with the story and what goes on within the dungeons. This is actually something that's seen in Refrain as well although that game had notable story content in the dungeons too.
Early on, the story appears to be directionless, but all of the random story bits will converge together into intense moments as more of the mystery gets revealed. It does however start off slow since the first major story event doesn't happened until about 30 hours into the game when it goes from 0 to 100 in a span of minutes. Galleria has a number of exciting moments, but there's also a lot of mundane moments in between. It may be difficult to keep the same level of interest throughout, but it's worth pushing through for the interesting plot twists and revelations.
One aspect of Refrain's story that left a strong impression on people were the many surprising dark and disturbing moments it had. Galleria has many dark moments as well, but there aren't many that I would call disturbing. Uneasy at times, but overall, a lot more tolerable and easier to sit through in compared to Refrain. Of course, there are still humorous and comedic moments throughout to lighten the mood.
In comparison to the two Labyrinth games, I think Refrain had the more memorable and stronger story of the two. Especially when it came to the dungeon stories which made the overall story package more interesting. With that said, Galleria's story was still an enjoyable experience for me and some of its narrative is quite ambitious.
It's worth noting that Galleria takes place in the same universe as not only Refrain, but also the two "The Witch and the Hundred Knight" games. Fortunately, you don't need any prior knowledge of those games to understand Galleria.
CHARACTERS
Galleria has a large assortment of characters. The main core group of characters are well developed and interesting. They are also likable too for the most part which contrasts with Refrain where there's less likable characters. One issue with Galleria is that there are many side characters that don't contribute much to the plot and are just there. Then there's some more story relevant characters who don't get enough screentime to properly develop those characters.
Overall, nearly of the characters have layers to their characters and you won't be able to really know and understand them early on.
MUSIC
NIS Veteran Tenpei Sato returns to compose Galleria's soundtrack. The soundtrack is similar to Refrain where instead of Sato's usual bombastic style found in the Disgaea games, the songs here are more subdued. With Galleria, the only time where the soundtrack gets particularly intense are during some boss fights. While the music overall fit well with the game's tone and style and sounds nice in general, the songs don't really stick out much for me. Outside of the game, it's difficult to recall specific tracks at times.
GRAPHICS AND ART DIRECTION
The graphics and artstyle in Galleria haven't changed much from Refrain. The character portraits during the Visual Novel style cutscenes are nice to look at and come with various different expressions. The backgrounds are surprisingly beautiful and detailed at times. The dungeons don't stand out much most of the time and the textures are less detailed, but they don't stick out to be all that noticeable most of the time.
The monsters in the dungeons have good variety and not only do their models look good, they have decent animation during battle as well. Being a DRPG, the animations aren't anything sophisticated, but the idle movements look great compared to other DRPGs where the enemy sprites are static or in the case of 3D models, just don't look all that great.
Overall, Galleria is one of the most beautiful looking DRPG I've seen.
GAMEPLAY
Other than the notable story emphasis, Galleria shines with its gameplay. The gameplay loop with the dungeon exploration is fun. The battles are interesting and and there's a deep layer of customization.
DUNGEON EXPLORATION
Galleria has seen a few changes and additions to dungeon exploration compared to Refrain. Before, there weren't many dungeon exploration option or mechanics to deal with. Falling off a ledge is as bad as it gets there, but that is easily avoidable. Poison floors make up the other major obstacle and trap. Galleria now has invisible floor panels, pitfalls, underwater traversal, long distance jumping, fake walls, swamp water and something like an enclosed miasma space.
The game gives you options to deal with all of them making the dungeon traversal more interesting and keeping it from being annoying and frustrating compared to some other DRPGs out there. One new good ability is the Fog cloak that not only negates swamp water damage, but also makes you invisible to enemies for a set amount of turns.
In regards to enemies, they appear as floating giant eyeballs on the screen called Enemy Symbols. Touching them will trigger a battle so there's no random battles in the game. The Purple eyeballs are the powerful monsters that roam the area. They are generally best avoided until later in the game. The Enemy Symbols move as you move like a turn based scenario. With such a system, you can plan and avoid certain Enemy Symbols by doing some simple calculations.
The wall break ability returns in Galleria which allows you to break down most walls and open up new paths or create shortcuts. It's a unique mechanic that I don't recall ever seeing in another DRPG before or at least as commonly used here. The wall break ability and other dungeon abilities make use of Reinforce Points. The starting value is 100 when you dive into a dungeon, but gets deducted base on your current Pact points (more on this later). Reinforce is an important resource not just for exploration, but also provides various benefits during combat. You can acquire more Reinforce by finding mana bubbles and mana stuck on walls.
The dungeon structures are well crafted like a puzzle. There are many floors with many staircases that connect to various parts of the dungeons. Oftentimes, exploring the dungeons are not straightforward and requires careful thinking on how to proceed. Jumping down pitfalls (and taking damage) might sometimes be needed to reach new areas.
Overall, the dungeon exploration and the structure of the dungeons are very good. That said, I do find myself missing the thematic dungeons that Refrain had. Each dungeon felt like a completely new world populated with actual characters at times so they felt more interesting compared to Galleria's dungeons which felt more in-line as a single dungeon. The designs are less visually appealing in comparison. The dungeons in Galleria also lack notable story events too.
New to Galleria are the randomly generated dungeons. There's a few of these in the game and they are all pretty similar to each other. Each floor is small in scale compared to the static dungeons, but they do make progressing much easier. The goal is to reach the staircase to the next floor and finding them isn't nearly as complicated as progressing in the other dungeons. This makes the experience not as interesting, but these dungeons are great if you just want to farm for new equipment and going through areas that are a bit more dynamic than static dungeons.
CUSTOMIZATION
Galleria has a surprisingly large amount of customization for the puppet party members. The customization options during creation includes, voice options, character portraits, the dominant hand, lucky number, favorite item, personality trait, stat growth to emphasize primary stats or a more balance growth, and a general stance to emphasize more power in place of defense and health. You can also pick a learnable starting skill right off the bat too. The options that don't affect stats directly tend to play a role in resonating with your other characters during battle.
There are a decent amount of classes (Facets) in the game totaling twelve. All of them have Alternate Facets that are similar at its core, but have different skills, stat growths and weapon efficiencies which makes the total amount of classes much more than just twelve.
One of Galleria and even Refrain's standout feature are the very large party size. The battle party (Brigade) consists of up to five Covens which are sort of like small squads. Each Coven can fit up to three attackers during battle and up to five more in the support slots. Those in the support slots don't normally actively participate in battle (other than followup attacks), but they do provide various passive effects to the Coven's attackers. Some support slots have passive effects just for filling the slot while other times, a character might have a "support skill" that is in effect only as a supporter role. Therefore, you can manage up to 45 characters to provide some use during battles. For those that like to manage a large amount of characters, this is a rare treat.
Unfortunately, you can't just start adding 45 characters to the brigade right away. The number of open slots for both attackers and supports depends on the Pact. Before you can add any characters to a Coven, it needs a specific Pact item which provides the number of open slots, the Donum (spells) available for it and the various stat and effect bonuses each slot has. Having a full 45 character brigade won't be available until much later in the game. A Coven's maxed DP (Donum Points) is based on the combined attackers' maxed DP in the Coven.
As developers of Disgaea, it wasn't any surprise that NIS added extensive leveling and grinding mechanics. While the max level is technically 99, you can transfer a puppet's soul and reincarnate them into another puppet body. Their level resets back to 1 when that happens, but they will gain more stats on level up than before. The amount of stats gained are determined by their "Soul Clarity". Soul transfers will increase the Soul Clarity amount and the amount increase is depended on the puppet's level when it did the transfer.
Skills inheriting is a bit different than in Refrain. For Galleria, puppets keep all of the skills they learn, but only a certain number of them can be turned on depending on the skill cost. This allows for easier creation of builds by carrying over all of the skills you have learned. Turning each skill off and on is simply done in the camp menu.
It's important to note that skills are mostly passive ones. Only a few characters learn Donum spells which are otherwise only available based on the Pact you have equipped.
COMBAT
Like many DRPGs, the combat system is a turn based one. Despite the possible 15 attackers available during battles, you don't issue individual commands to each member normally. You only issue commands to each Coven so that one command will apply to the all of the attackers in the Coven. You can however give orders to individuals for one turn by spending one Reinforce point which opens up additional options such as item usage and equipment change.
The battle sequence doesn't start until all commands are given. When that happens, your characters and the enemies' turns are queued together with the fastest characters/enemies acting first.
Both characters and enemies have a stun gauge which if depleted, they will be unable to act for one turn. The Special Gore Hits return which are like super critical damages. Gore Hits on the party members mean a body part is destroyed thus rendering the equipment on that part null. If you were very unfortunate that the head is destroyed, the puppet is permanently KO'd until you repair them back in the outside world.
New to Galleria are the Liberation gauge and skills. Each Coven has a Liberation gauge that fills up during battle from attacking and receiving damage. Once it is completely filled, the Coven has accessed to the Liberation skill that is based on the Pact. The skills are varied and includes an attack that damages a whole group of enemies, stat buffs or healing.
On the Normal difficulty, many battles aren't difficult so auto battle can clear the majority of fights. That's assuming that party members' equipment and stats are at least up to speed. Bosses and also the Purple Powerful Enemies will be more challenging that it requires more player attention and the use of buffs/debuffs.
CLOSING REMARKS
Labyrinth of Galleria is a solid followup to Labyrinth of Refrain and improved on the gameplay in many ways. There are more dungeon mechanics, more Facets to use, and an easier to use skill inheritance system. While the story and the lack of story in dungeons aren't as strong as Refrain, it is still had an enjoyable one with many twists and turns. Galleria does benefit on having more likable characters as well.
While there is an emphasis on the story, the vast majority of the game time is spent going through dungeons.
Combat is one the easy side for most of the game, but some bosses can be quite challenging.
Galleria overall is a very lengthy game that can take more than 90 hours just to complete all of the story and is rich in content. The random generated dungeons can add more game time for those that just want to farm for good equipment.
For those new to the Labyrinth games, Galleria is a good starting place considering that the connections with Refrain are very minor for the most part.
A sequel to a game that I played recently and absolutely loved, Labyrinth of Galleria is really a phenomenal experience that is a bit hard to talk about without spoiling some of its intricacies. While I won't include any story spoilers, I'm going to mention some aspects of its structure, so be warned in case you want to go completely blind.
It wouldn't really be an overstatement to say that the most important part of this game is the story, as the narrative plays an integral role to everything, and it's probably one of the most ambitious JRPG stories I've had the pleasure to experience. The start is quite straightforward, charming but with hints of a darker side to every little thing, but as things continue to escalate, context is provided, and twists start to unfold, a lot of the fundamentals of the game completely change, and some of those changes were an absolute shock to me. I think the tone is very similar to Labyrinth of Refrain overall, which is something I adore, but the game's novelties make it a very different experience. While the story is probably a bit too ambitious, and some parts are definitely a bit messy for what it's worth, I found the emotional impact of the finale very deserved, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Nice cast that I really became attached to, especially Eureka and Nachiroux, and the music accompanying it is really great as well.
The game is also significantly longer than Refrain, with a good amount of that extra time belonging to the endgame. As a proper sequel to it, Galleria has a lot of QoL improvements and a more proper vision of what its endgame should be. Both the normal and the true ending basically require you to do everything up to this point, and both of them felt like big difficulty spikes to a relatively easy game otherwise. You basically need to have a good understanding of how to raise and set up your team, what are all those systems the game has, and how to be able to efficiently farm equipment and exp later. And yeah, Galleria has a lot of mechanics, probably more than your average JRPG, it's definitely a bit intimidating seeing all those stats and options, but on the other hand, it's absolutely satisfying when you manage to master them, understand what the game asks you to accomplish and make use of everything to successfully reach its beautiful finale. I also had a ton of fun trying different team combinations, as there's a really big amount of units to play around with.
And yet there's another time consuming aspect that I'm really conflicted about, and it's probably the biggest addition to Galleria over its prequel. The devs seemed to really love the idea of randomized floors, a mechanic new to the series that is used in several dungeons. What I really loved about Labyrinth of Refrain was the handcrafted dungeons, full of personality, cool encounters and their own themes and stories. Sadly, while there are some decent dungeons in Galleria, I wouldn't say that any of them are like that. The aforementioned randomized dungeons are a big part of the game, and the non-random ones, while they introduce a metroidvania-esque style of exploration that I really liked, are kind of a drag in this. There's really not enough variety or interesting ideas, and sadly, this creeps into the presentation and the pacing of the story, multiple times even. The randomized dungeons especially, while they introduce a very different way to play a familiar DRPG, are a bit too long sometimes, and full of traps and deadly encounters that can easily make you lose a lot of progress if RNG isn't on your side.
Overall, despite a definite feeling of exhaustion after managing to reach its finale, clocking almost 100 hours, I absolutely loved it and I can't recommend both of the Labyrinth games enough to fans of JRPGs that are searching for a good story and mechanically rich games. I was never interested in dungeon crawlers, but I'm a big fan of the genre after them. Galleria oozes style and personality that you rarely see. I really hope more people will play them, as they feel somewhat underrated in my opinion, but the complex and tiring aspects of them probably don't help. But if that's a barrier of entry that you can surpass, definitely go for it, and I feel you'll find the experience really rewarding.
It wouldn't really be an overstatement to say that the most important part of this game is the story, as the narrative plays an integral role to everything, and it's probably one of the most ambitious JRPG stories I've had the pleasure to experience. The start is quite straightforward, charming but with hints of a darker side to every little thing, but as things continue to escalate, context is provided, and twists start to unfold, a lot of the fundamentals of the game completely change, and some of those changes were an absolute shock to me. I think the tone is very similar to Labyrinth of Refrain overall, which is something I adore, but the game's novelties make it a very different experience. While the story is probably a bit too ambitious, and some parts are definitely a bit messy for what it's worth, I found the emotional impact of the finale very deserved, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Nice cast that I really became attached to, especially Eureka and Nachiroux, and the music accompanying it is really great as well.
The game is also significantly longer than Refrain, with a good amount of that extra time belonging to the endgame. As a proper sequel to it, Galleria has a lot of QoL improvements and a more proper vision of what its endgame should be. Both the normal and the true ending basically require you to do everything up to this point, and both of them felt like big difficulty spikes to a relatively easy game otherwise. You basically need to have a good understanding of how to raise and set up your team, what are all those systems the game has, and how to be able to efficiently farm equipment and exp later. And yeah, Galleria has a lot of mechanics, probably more than your average JRPG, it's definitely a bit intimidating seeing all those stats and options, but on the other hand, it's absolutely satisfying when you manage to master them, understand what the game asks you to accomplish and make use of everything to successfully reach its beautiful finale. I also had a ton of fun trying different team combinations, as there's a really big amount of units to play around with.
And yet there's another time consuming aspect that I'm really conflicted about, and it's probably the biggest addition to Galleria over its prequel. The devs seemed to really love the idea of randomized floors, a mechanic new to the series that is used in several dungeons. What I really loved about Labyrinth of Refrain was the handcrafted dungeons, full of personality, cool encounters and their own themes and stories. Sadly, while there are some decent dungeons in Galleria, I wouldn't say that any of them are like that. The aforementioned randomized dungeons are a big part of the game, and the non-random ones, while they introduce a metroidvania-esque style of exploration that I really liked, are kind of a drag in this. There's really not enough variety or interesting ideas, and sadly, this creeps into the presentation and the pacing of the story, multiple times even. The randomized dungeons especially, while they introduce a very different way to play a familiar DRPG, are a bit too long sometimes, and full of traps and deadly encounters that can easily make you lose a lot of progress if RNG isn't on your side.
Overall, despite a definite feeling of exhaustion after managing to reach its finale, clocking almost 100 hours, I absolutely loved it and I can't recommend both of the Labyrinth games enough to fans of JRPGs that are searching for a good story and mechanically rich games. I was never interested in dungeon crawlers, but I'm a big fan of the genre after them. Galleria oozes style and personality that you rarely see. I really hope more people will play them, as they feel somewhat underrated in my opinion, but the complex and tiring aspects of them probably don't help. But if that's a barrier of entry that you can surpass, definitely go for it, and I feel you'll find the experience really rewarding.
This review contains spoilers
Dawg whenever Nachiroux or Eureka told one another that they were so happy they've met one another and when Nachiroux said that she was finally happy with the person she became, I've never cried or clapped harder man, that shit I FUCKING FELT IN MY HEART.
"I've never been very brave. I lived my whole life following other people's orders, blaming them, and hiding behind my lost memories. You taught me that a future exists, one that isn't decided by those sort of things. For the first time, I finally like the person I am."
"My life has been full of mistakes, but thanks to you, Eureka, I feel as though it had meaning."
"The world Nachiroux and I made... I'm so happy I was able to meet you, Nachi. And- Let's go see the flowers when you wake up..."
To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair.
it was quite literally peak like that.
"I've never been very brave. I lived my whole life following other people's orders, blaming them, and hiding behind my lost memories. You taught me that a future exists, one that isn't decided by those sort of things. For the first time, I finally like the person I am."
"My life has been full of mistakes, but thanks to you, Eureka, I feel as though it had meaning."
"The world Nachiroux and I made... I'm so happy I was able to meet you, Nachi. And- Let's go see the flowers when you wake up..."
To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair.
it was quite literally peak like that.
Plot and main characters are some of the best you'll ever get to see in a drpg. Same goes for the massively intricate level design (at least for the first part). I also like how Takehito's art style brings out the expressive personalities of the characters better than a certain tree maze exploring game despite similar aesthetics.
The monotone grinding and stupid amount of micromanaging menus late into the game makes me not put this game on a higher pedestal than it should though.
The monotone grinding and stupid amount of micromanaging menus late into the game makes me not put this game on a higher pedestal than it should though.
Features a strong and very human story about desire and the lengths of destructive impulses it can lead people to, but it fails in the actual "game" part due to the obnoxious level design, the pointlessly complex, obtuse, and uninteresting team building systems and overly simple, limited, and repetitive combat.
Hoy esta lloviendo y mucho. ;W;
I hate disgaea. The dungeon crawling in this game is super rewarding and fun, be it the hand-crafted levels or the mad rush of the procedural ones, it does a good mix and keeping you on your toes and getting into the flow state. It's a shame its also a disgaea game with its like ten pointless character progression systems and generally useless way of making you have 40 dudes to do those 10 systems on. That part is not fun. The lack of QOL with the battle system also increases this, to the very end of the day I had no idea what was actually going on in most battles because there was no way to tell what was going on, or what the enemy was doing when they did action X or Y. One late-game grinding enemy would sometimes cast the same spell and instakill some of my dudes, and sometimes do nothing, and it wasn't because the spell was rng I think. Just baffling design.
Otherwise, its a very exciting story that falters only slighty in tone and writing juuust at the end. I don't even hate the way it took the ending or post-ending stuff, I like the thought of it. Just executed a bit poorly. What stuck out to me the most was the sort of quiet emotionalism of the writing. The game is really good at drawing feelings out of you in its scenes, it recognizes that people are often irrational horrible people but also sometimes...maybe not, in a good way.
It's also not afraid to take on heavy topics, but with a light enough flair to not feel lurid or casualizing. Watching Nachiroux deal with her very real teenage problems like loving her mom but also hating to be around her due to reasons she struggles to say aloud, or how she's trying to relate to another girl who has so many of her own issues that she struggles to communicate her thoughts is wonderful and all too real. Eureka is no slouch either, she has her own big ball of Issues that her airheaded optimism only just barely conceal from going out of control. It's hard not to love them as you watch them go through the labyrinthine plot so much larger and also smaller than the both of them. I felt it stumbled just a little at the finish mark, where it really felt like the writer's ambition got the best of them juuust a little, but not enough to meaningfully take away from.
Altogether, probably Nippon Ichi's best game, but that's damning it with faint praise because what is there of Galleria is very good, and the things I don't like about it are more the things you get with the studio.
Otherwise, its a very exciting story that falters only slighty in tone and writing juuust at the end. I don't even hate the way it took the ending or post-ending stuff, I like the thought of it. Just executed a bit poorly. What stuck out to me the most was the sort of quiet emotionalism of the writing. The game is really good at drawing feelings out of you in its scenes, it recognizes that people are often irrational horrible people but also sometimes...maybe not, in a good way.
It's also not afraid to take on heavy topics, but with a light enough flair to not feel lurid or casualizing. Watching Nachiroux deal with her very real teenage problems like loving her mom but also hating to be around her due to reasons she struggles to say aloud, or how she's trying to relate to another girl who has so many of her own issues that she struggles to communicate her thoughts is wonderful and all too real. Eureka is no slouch either, she has her own big ball of Issues that her airheaded optimism only just barely conceal from going out of control. It's hard not to love them as you watch them go through the labyrinthine plot so much larger and also smaller than the both of them. I felt it stumbled just a little at the finish mark, where it really felt like the writer's ambition got the best of them juuust a little, but not enough to meaningfully take away from.
Altogether, probably Nippon Ichi's best game, but that's damning it with faint praise because what is there of Galleria is very good, and the things I don't like about it are more the things you get with the studio.
This review contains spoilers
"1. OOO is authorized to carry out the duties stipulated in articles 2-6, and XXX is in agreeance. 2. XXX shall perform the duties requested of OOO with their true name as collateral. 3. In return, OOO is not obligated to pay XXX in any form. 4. XXX shall bear the cost of any items required to fulfill requests. 5. This agreement shall remain strictly confidential. 6. This agreement shall remain in effect as long as XXX chooses to remain in this world. Revealing your true name will constitute as agreement, regardless of whether you accept the aforementioned articles. If you do not consent to this agreement, you must destroy this document and immediately cease interference within OOO's world."
While the review inherently has a spoiler warning through Backloggd, I'll digress that this review does have spoilers. Don't read it if you want to go in blind: just trust me and play through it. I absurdly reccomend it.
I'll be frank and start this review with the easiest way to display my affinity for this game immediately: I played around 10 hours straight of this game since release, every day, with some exceptions by the last few days. My college was on strike, and I had no assignments due since release, and with my entire family busier than ever due to the nature of the extended weekend, it was a blessing that I was able to have so much free time that I could sink my teeth into this game with extremely minimal breaks, usually just to sleep and occasionally eat. It's rare for me to do something like this: I absolutely abhor binging, and I'm not made for it. I need a few minutes in-between anything or I'll just get extremely tired. None of this applies to Izumi and NIS's latest entry in the Coven series, Labyrinth of Galleria, a game I've been immensely excited for since before the translation was announced. The amount of praise I've heard, not just in Backloggd reviews but overall through the few but avid fans of the game piqued my interest, and while I enjoyed what I played of Labyrinth of Refrain in terms of its dungeon crawling and gameplay, the writing threw me off due to some of the "fanservice"; I intend to return to the game, but for my original playthrough, it was hard to sit through. And it's obvious by this point, but the excitement I had for this work delivered and more, not just in terms of its overall gameplay, but the story of it as well.
"[Pleasure] Good feelings. One of life's purposes. A gift."
The gameplay of Labyrinth of Galleria is exceedingly similar to Refrain's in pure mechanics, as the combat, exploration, and character building at its core are exactly the same as Refrain's, with just some improvements such as the addition of stunning, and the additional facets; adding up to 24 different classes. I'm personally a fan of Gothic Grattonia, the cannon catmaid, and the Am series, the intersex bishoujo damage dealers and tanks. Their designs are very nice, and their style of gameplay was great as well. This adds a lot of variety to character building, thanks to the main slots of the party being 15, compared to Refrain's 10 classes; while it's not a major issue in Refrain, I applaud the variety.
Regardless, while the gameplay at its core is simply an improved version of Refrain's mechanics, the dungeon design is an entirely different beast. Refrain's dungeons are standard; in the sense of an Etrian Odyssey, where it's required to simply climb to the lowest depths, and the mechanics and aesthetics of each strata are varied. The titular Labyrinth of Galleria's dungeons are entirely different, thanks to the design philosophy that this game embarks. Narthex is extremely similar to Refrain's first dungeon, with the first floor having a near 1:1 layout, with a few differences to allow for new mechanics. Apse, however, is where the game completely changes focus. It is a behemoth, working much more as a pseudo-hub where smaller dungeons offshoot from it, teaching you more mechanics to get deeper into Apse. While the aesthetics may get stale as the dungeon itself can take you a good 20 hours, the actual mechanics of it make it so that it's always fresh, as discovering more loot, Curios, and story the longer the player spends in there makes it a much more expansive dungeon than one would believe at first. I never really got tired of backtracking with the sole exception being the Indigo dungeon, because it's a pain in the ass to return to that B3 for whichever needs necessary. Regardless, things such as the Moon Crest hunt had small rewards tied to it, and I enjoyed the way it continued to develop and change as I continued to unlock more mobility.
Outside of that, the other dungeons are also well designed. While Apartments may be disliked due to the procedurally generated nature of it, I had a similar but different feeling to Apse, where the grind to climb these floors was rewarded by the plot. The endgame dungeons are also fun treks, and the postgame dungeon is intentionally designed to be as grueling and long as possible, but the deeling when you've reached the top is unmatched.
"[Courage] To stand up against danger and difficulties. May lead to reckless demise pursuing success."
But regardless, the gameplay is an aspect of Labyrinth of Galleria; its true appeal relies on its plot. While I could happily have played this game without its cutscenes in an Etrian-styled trek for whatever reasons I imagine the puppets and I make, the true motivator and why I stuck so hard with it during that long weekend was thanks to the cast of characters. I loved to see Eureka in action; saying hello to me and making me lunch. I loved to bring Nachiroux her shit, and help her make that fat stack of money. I loved helping Madam Marta struggle through Galleria Manor, to complete her plan. Because at the end of the day, Labyrinth of Galleria is a game about struggles.
Both in pure gameplay and in story, this game is an immense struggle. It's easy to just get completely destroyed in the titular Labyrinth of Galleria, or to have some terrible luck and have your party incapacitated by broken limbs. It's common to fall down a pitfall and get ambushed by 5 consecutive battes. In the same way we struggle to achieve our goals, the cast struggles. Eureka struggles with her insecurities, not being skilled enough to appear worthy to anyone, especially her father, and doing anything to appear useful. Nachiroux struggles with herself, balancing her mother and her magic, which results to one of the most depressing and heart wrenching series of plot beats. And when it eventually spirals out of control, with an unimaginable scale, with multiple issues that these characters just aren't equipped to deal with, at the end of the day, Eureka and Nachiroux work to try and stay together. And that success relies on us, the player.
"[Conviction] The belief in one's righteousness. The will to believe. Eliminate all other possibilities."
Outside the exquisite combination of plot and gameplay, the aesthetics that Labyrinth of Galleria has are beautiful. This one's kind of obvious, frankly; most NIS games are beautiful, thanks to Takehito Harada's art and art direction, but the designs and music this game provides are the best it has gotten. Shoutout to Club Coven, and Emi Evans's tracks. They're definetly the standouts.
A small problem I did have with the presentation was the UI, more specifically, the wording and presentation of some skills and donum abilities. The text box for them is a little small and it's somewhat hard to understand how exactly do they work, and the wording is often vague. There's a couple notes in the GameFAQs guide that points out the hilarity of it, but it wasn't too much of a problem.
Regardless, though, the issues I have with this game are minimum. To other players, I'm sure things such as the insane difficulty and the postgame dungeon are very much terrible with no redemption. But personally speaking? I really loved it all. I loved the grind, the trial and error, the struggle to surpass these difficult foes. At the end of the day, I wanted to persevere.
I wanted to persevere because I wanted to reach Eureka and Nachiroux's happiness. I wanted them to surpass this time of misery and despair, and be able to create their own world: not Alstella or Alluna, but Uru. Not lives full of misery, but lives of joy that could have them live together.
Eureka was willing to work for three thousand years to reunite with Nachiroux. Why shouldn't I dedicate some hours for that?
"[Hope] To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair."
While the review inherently has a spoiler warning through Backloggd, I'll digress that this review does have spoilers. Don't read it if you want to go in blind: just trust me and play through it. I absurdly reccomend it.
I'll be frank and start this review with the easiest way to display my affinity for this game immediately: I played around 10 hours straight of this game since release, every day, with some exceptions by the last few days. My college was on strike, and I had no assignments due since release, and with my entire family busier than ever due to the nature of the extended weekend, it was a blessing that I was able to have so much free time that I could sink my teeth into this game with extremely minimal breaks, usually just to sleep and occasionally eat. It's rare for me to do something like this: I absolutely abhor binging, and I'm not made for it. I need a few minutes in-between anything or I'll just get extremely tired. None of this applies to Izumi and NIS's latest entry in the Coven series, Labyrinth of Galleria, a game I've been immensely excited for since before the translation was announced. The amount of praise I've heard, not just in Backloggd reviews but overall through the few but avid fans of the game piqued my interest, and while I enjoyed what I played of Labyrinth of Refrain in terms of its dungeon crawling and gameplay, the writing threw me off due to some of the "fanservice"; I intend to return to the game, but for my original playthrough, it was hard to sit through. And it's obvious by this point, but the excitement I had for this work delivered and more, not just in terms of its overall gameplay, but the story of it as well.
"[Pleasure] Good feelings. One of life's purposes. A gift."
The gameplay of Labyrinth of Galleria is exceedingly similar to Refrain's in pure mechanics, as the combat, exploration, and character building at its core are exactly the same as Refrain's, with just some improvements such as the addition of stunning, and the additional facets; adding up to 24 different classes. I'm personally a fan of Gothic Grattonia, the cannon catmaid, and the Am series, the intersex bishoujo damage dealers and tanks. Their designs are very nice, and their style of gameplay was great as well. This adds a lot of variety to character building, thanks to the main slots of the party being 15, compared to Refrain's 10 classes; while it's not a major issue in Refrain, I applaud the variety.
Regardless, while the gameplay at its core is simply an improved version of Refrain's mechanics, the dungeon design is an entirely different beast. Refrain's dungeons are standard; in the sense of an Etrian Odyssey, where it's required to simply climb to the lowest depths, and the mechanics and aesthetics of each strata are varied. The titular Labyrinth of Galleria's dungeons are entirely different, thanks to the design philosophy that this game embarks. Narthex is extremely similar to Refrain's first dungeon, with the first floor having a near 1:1 layout, with a few differences to allow for new mechanics. Apse, however, is where the game completely changes focus. It is a behemoth, working much more as a pseudo-hub where smaller dungeons offshoot from it, teaching you more mechanics to get deeper into Apse. While the aesthetics may get stale as the dungeon itself can take you a good 20 hours, the actual mechanics of it make it so that it's always fresh, as discovering more loot, Curios, and story the longer the player spends in there makes it a much more expansive dungeon than one would believe at first. I never really got tired of backtracking with the sole exception being the Indigo dungeon, because it's a pain in the ass to return to that B3 for whichever needs necessary. Regardless, things such as the Moon Crest hunt had small rewards tied to it, and I enjoyed the way it continued to develop and change as I continued to unlock more mobility.
Outside of that, the other dungeons are also well designed. While Apartments may be disliked due to the procedurally generated nature of it, I had a similar but different feeling to Apse, where the grind to climb these floors was rewarded by the plot. The endgame dungeons are also fun treks, and the postgame dungeon is intentionally designed to be as grueling and long as possible, but the deeling when you've reached the top is unmatched.
"[Courage] To stand up against danger and difficulties. May lead to reckless demise pursuing success."
But regardless, the gameplay is an aspect of Labyrinth of Galleria; its true appeal relies on its plot. While I could happily have played this game without its cutscenes in an Etrian-styled trek for whatever reasons I imagine the puppets and I make, the true motivator and why I stuck so hard with it during that long weekend was thanks to the cast of characters. I loved to see Eureka in action; saying hello to me and making me lunch. I loved to bring Nachiroux her shit, and help her make that fat stack of money. I loved helping Madam Marta struggle through Galleria Manor, to complete her plan. Because at the end of the day, Labyrinth of Galleria is a game about struggles.
Both in pure gameplay and in story, this game is an immense struggle. It's easy to just get completely destroyed in the titular Labyrinth of Galleria, or to have some terrible luck and have your party incapacitated by broken limbs. It's common to fall down a pitfall and get ambushed by 5 consecutive battes. In the same way we struggle to achieve our goals, the cast struggles. Eureka struggles with her insecurities, not being skilled enough to appear worthy to anyone, especially her father, and doing anything to appear useful. Nachiroux struggles with herself, balancing her mother and her magic, which results to one of the most depressing and heart wrenching series of plot beats. And when it eventually spirals out of control, with an unimaginable scale, with multiple issues that these characters just aren't equipped to deal with, at the end of the day, Eureka and Nachiroux work to try and stay together. And that success relies on us, the player.
"[Conviction] The belief in one's righteousness. The will to believe. Eliminate all other possibilities."
Outside the exquisite combination of plot and gameplay, the aesthetics that Labyrinth of Galleria has are beautiful. This one's kind of obvious, frankly; most NIS games are beautiful, thanks to Takehito Harada's art and art direction, but the designs and music this game provides are the best it has gotten. Shoutout to Club Coven, and Emi Evans's tracks. They're definetly the standouts.
A small problem I did have with the presentation was the UI, more specifically, the wording and presentation of some skills and donum abilities. The text box for them is a little small and it's somewhat hard to understand how exactly do they work, and the wording is often vague. There's a couple notes in the GameFAQs guide that points out the hilarity of it, but it wasn't too much of a problem.
Regardless, though, the issues I have with this game are minimum. To other players, I'm sure things such as the insane difficulty and the postgame dungeon are very much terrible with no redemption. But personally speaking? I really loved it all. I loved the grind, the trial and error, the struggle to surpass these difficult foes. At the end of the day, I wanted to persevere.
I wanted to persevere because I wanted to reach Eureka and Nachiroux's happiness. I wanted them to surpass this time of misery and despair, and be able to create their own world: not Alstella or Alluna, but Uru. Not lives full of misery, but lives of joy that could have them live together.
Eureka was willing to work for three thousand years to reunite with Nachiroux. Why shouldn't I dedicate some hours for that?
"[Hope] To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair."
Edit: It's peak.
While it sounds crazy enough to write a review about a game thats not even OUT LMAO. I why I can 100% confirm that this game will be my favourite game ever when it gets localized.
Labyrinth of Galleria from a series I'm genuinely not that familiar with. beside playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS 10 years ago. Having played a few hours of Disgaea on the PS2 and having watched like 7 episodes of Little Witch Academia and then dropping it out of boredom. You would genuinely be insane from a series where your intertest was never fully captured nor grasped to have the latest entry be your FAVOURITE GAME EVER?! Well here I will try to concretely enough explain my "My insanity" or for some of you guys "Stupidity" I'm assuming.
I found out about Labyrinth of Galleria pretty late actually the game was revealed on the NIS Youtube channel in 2019. I accidentally stumbled upon the game in march pure on whim. I was watching videos about JRPGs and I saw the games Trailer in my recommendations. I didn't even wanna click on the trailer nor did I want it to play YouTube Autoplayed it for me when I went to the toilet lol... but when I came back I was like "fuck it why not" and pressed replay and my mind was blown away... to most it's a standard trailer nothing outstanding or experimental enough for someone to lose their shit over it but man... I WAS IN. From the SFX of Eureka her ahoge the silent build up and the narrator to the strong fantasy athmosphere but with a striking distinct visual style. It reminded so much of every favourite Fantasy series I love and it happens so rarely that I ever have such a strong sense of nostolgia from past of something in the present that I have no strong knowledge. But from the previously mentioned things and flashy gameplay and strong and striking character designs. I just knew it was the one. The First-Person Dungeon Crawling genre is a VERY important genre to me because it helped me allot as a person throughout my life and I honestly watched allot of dungeon media but super rarely has this same feeling been matched before. I literally searched up every information about the game since and don't think I've ever been as hype for something as this game. The latest Info dump just made me even more confident in my feelings. I rewatched each trailer over 10x and watched the gameplay showcases over 10x. Did as much research as I can on the people working on it. Theorize heavy about future characters , environments and potential story beats. I genuinely have 100% trust in this game and don't think I can get dissapointed really.
So it really a case of pure feelings of nostolgia , charm and trust that makes me so sure. I know this seems goofy asf to write this but I know myself the best so I know best what my true feelings on the game will be.
( P.S I've done this before and know how my expectations work so I really cannot be dissapointed. also I will do a follow up in 2023 on this when I play it.
While it sounds crazy enough to write a review about a game thats not even OUT LMAO. I why I can 100% confirm that this game will be my favourite game ever when it gets localized.
Labyrinth of Galleria from a series I'm genuinely not that familiar with. beside playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS 10 years ago. Having played a few hours of Disgaea on the PS2 and having watched like 7 episodes of Little Witch Academia and then dropping it out of boredom. You would genuinely be insane from a series where your intertest was never fully captured nor grasped to have the latest entry be your FAVOURITE GAME EVER?! Well here I will try to concretely enough explain my "My insanity" or for some of you guys "Stupidity" I'm assuming.
I found out about Labyrinth of Galleria pretty late actually the game was revealed on the NIS Youtube channel in 2019. I accidentally stumbled upon the game in march pure on whim. I was watching videos about JRPGs and I saw the games Trailer in my recommendations. I didn't even wanna click on the trailer nor did I want it to play YouTube Autoplayed it for me when I went to the toilet lol... but when I came back I was like "fuck it why not" and pressed replay and my mind was blown away... to most it's a standard trailer nothing outstanding or experimental enough for someone to lose their shit over it but man... I WAS IN. From the SFX of Eureka her ahoge the silent build up and the narrator to the strong fantasy athmosphere but with a striking distinct visual style. It reminded so much of every favourite Fantasy series I love and it happens so rarely that I ever have such a strong sense of nostolgia from past of something in the present that I have no strong knowledge. But from the previously mentioned things and flashy gameplay and strong and striking character designs. I just knew it was the one. The First-Person Dungeon Crawling genre is a VERY important genre to me because it helped me allot as a person throughout my life and I honestly watched allot of dungeon media but super rarely has this same feeling been matched before. I literally searched up every information about the game since and don't think I've ever been as hype for something as this game. The latest Info dump just made me even more confident in my feelings. I rewatched each trailer over 10x and watched the gameplay showcases over 10x. Did as much research as I can on the people working on it. Theorize heavy about future characters , environments and potential story beats. I genuinely have 100% trust in this game and don't think I can get dissapointed really.
So it really a case of pure feelings of nostolgia , charm and trust that makes me so sure. I know this seems goofy asf to write this but I know myself the best so I know best what my true feelings on the game will be.
( P.S I've done this before and know how my expectations work so I really cannot be dissapointed. also I will do a follow up in 2023 on this when I play it.
PEAK
having waited for the localisation for SO DAMN LONG, this game should be allowed to be considered for GOTY 2023.
I have Thoughts on this game:
• The first of the three sections of the game (Alluna) is genuinely one of the best things I've played in a long time. A really touching story of bonding through trauma and societal oppression.
It's generally less dark than the other two sections of the game, but only because the darkness of its themes bubbles underneath the surface ominously, rather than being directly used for shock (something that can't always be said about the second section of the game). While presenting extremely likeable characters, this whole game segment is permeated by an almost constant fear and sense of dread, that is poignantly coupled with the slow reveal of the traumatic experiences its protagonists have gone through.
It'd almost be a hopeful little self-contained tale about women finding community even through their lingering trauma and a hostile world, if it wasn't for its incredibly dark ending that sets ups the rest of the game.
• Alluna is also perfectly paced. I was sceptical of the "play 30 minutes of a dungeon crawler to get 5 minutes of visual novel" structure, but, especially this section, and to a point the whole game, uses the odd dungeon crawler/visual novel dichotomy to dictate pace in really effective and poignant ways.
• The second section (Alstella) is... messier. This game touches on some extremely dark themes, including sexual assault, and while the first section does that subtly and in a way that supports the game's themes; the Alstella section does seem to fall in gratuitous territory in a couple of instances. While I still want to believe that most of the storytelling in Labyrinth of Galleria is done in good faith, a couple of moments are definitely mishandled/unnecessary.
• The grand overarching plot does eventually kinda fall into anime/visual novel tropes. Aside from the shift to high stakes Sci-Fi/Fantasy (which I don't hate but also don't find as effective as the timeless abstract fantasy tone of the Alluna section), there's just so much... minute exposition of things that don't really matter to the emotional core of the story? Storytelling with this amount of moving parts can work, but in this case it just seems to run against the main strength of the writing, which is characters. This also ends up tanking the pacing during the second third of the game, as there end up being very long stretches of game where nothing interesting/engaging happens.
• I believe an amount of odd/spurious details are there to connect this game to other games in the series and... I'm just so tired of lore? Can we just stop?
• The problem with this kind of grand plot is also that, out of necessity, it tends to always end in the same kind of story beats. The likeable and well-written characters give Galleria a strong emotional resonance throughout its whole length, but still, a lot of the Alstella and Grand Cathedral endings feel a bit... uninspired. I'm just not sure how many jrpg speeches about "a flawed but alive world is better than a perfect static one" I can still take. Especially because the rest of the game, is like, very good, and not about that stuff at all. But once you add world-creation powers in the mix you can't really go anywhere else.
• It can't be overstated that the character writing is honestly incredibly good. A lot of the trauma explored in it hits a bit too close to home tbh. But, yeah, it's really good stuff.
• One exception to this is the big villain of the game. A lot of her motivation just... didn't make a lot of sense nor had any real emotional payoff. I get what they were trying to do with her (and with one of the final reveals, which gives a justification to her often bizarrely misaligned plans), but I feel like maybe this game didn't really need a grandiose villain at all. As mentioned, all other characters are complex and compelling and very empathetically written, so I don't think that the forces causing conflict in the world necessarily needed to have a "face" for the core conflicts presented in the story to work.
• Most of the dungeon crawling is excellent. The combat is deliberately designed to have an auto-battle focus, with most abilities being passive or automatic triggers. This is not something I've seen before, and it works really well for a game that's 100+ hours long but doesn't want to be a purely mechanically focused experience.
• The focus on navigation is something less uncommon, but still very well realized. The wall-break mechanic being one of the first things the player unlocks is specifically a really clever move. A huge part of the game is a pseudo-tutorial, which slowly introduces all of the game's mechanics, but being able to explore non-linearly and reveal secrets by breaking walls, makes the exploration feel organic and way less guided than it would otherwise be.
• The art of some of the later unlocked Facets is... problematic? not great? I dunno, it's not really a main aspect of the game, and it's easily ignorable, so I don't want to spend too many words on it, but still, shit like that still kinda undermines the drama of the game for me.
• I love the soundtrack. It follows the usual Disgaea/Tenpai Sato vibes, but with a more dramatic twist. Specifically, the boss theme and the apartment theme are absolute bops.
• Oh! The framing device, wherein the player plays as a phantom who is summoned by the various witches in the game, and not as the witches themselves, is quite clever. It creates a sort of effective detachment from the story which plays well with the visual novel-dungeon crawler dichotomy. I'm also glad that it's mostly an aesthetic and it never really becomes a heavy plot element. It's just a neat aesthetic choice and I can get on board with that.
Ultimately Labyrinth of Galleria is honestly great. I spent a lot of time focusing on the negatives, but overall this is a very powerful story told in an extremely creative and well-crafted way. It had me in genuine tears in multiple instances, and as much as I'm a bit of a crybaby, that's still an impressive task for what could have otherwise been dismissed as "just another mechanically dense dungeon crawler". But at the same time, it Is difficult to ignore this game's many contradictions, which often end up undermining its drama. Playing it definitely requires a high tolerance for this kind of uneven media, and of course, the willingness to play a 100+ hours-long dungeon crawler, but I can say that if you can get through that, it is a very worthwhile experience.
• The first of the three sections of the game (Alluna) is genuinely one of the best things I've played in a long time. A really touching story of bonding through trauma and societal oppression.
It's generally less dark than the other two sections of the game, but only because the darkness of its themes bubbles underneath the surface ominously, rather than being directly used for shock (something that can't always be said about the second section of the game). While presenting extremely likeable characters, this whole game segment is permeated by an almost constant fear and sense of dread, that is poignantly coupled with the slow reveal of the traumatic experiences its protagonists have gone through.
It'd almost be a hopeful little self-contained tale about women finding community even through their lingering trauma and a hostile world, if it wasn't for its incredibly dark ending that sets ups the rest of the game.
• Alluna is also perfectly paced. I was sceptical of the "play 30 minutes of a dungeon crawler to get 5 minutes of visual novel" structure, but, especially this section, and to a point the whole game, uses the odd dungeon crawler/visual novel dichotomy to dictate pace in really effective and poignant ways.
• The second section (Alstella) is... messier. This game touches on some extremely dark themes, including sexual assault, and while the first section does that subtly and in a way that supports the game's themes; the Alstella section does seem to fall in gratuitous territory in a couple of instances. While I still want to believe that most of the storytelling in Labyrinth of Galleria is done in good faith, a couple of moments are definitely mishandled/unnecessary.
• The grand overarching plot does eventually kinda fall into anime/visual novel tropes. Aside from the shift to high stakes Sci-Fi/Fantasy (which I don't hate but also don't find as effective as the timeless abstract fantasy tone of the Alluna section), there's just so much... minute exposition of things that don't really matter to the emotional core of the story? Storytelling with this amount of moving parts can work, but in this case it just seems to run against the main strength of the writing, which is characters. This also ends up tanking the pacing during the second third of the game, as there end up being very long stretches of game where nothing interesting/engaging happens.
• I believe an amount of odd/spurious details are there to connect this game to other games in the series and... I'm just so tired of lore? Can we just stop?
• The problem with this kind of grand plot is also that, out of necessity, it tends to always end in the same kind of story beats. The likeable and well-written characters give Galleria a strong emotional resonance throughout its whole length, but still, a lot of the Alstella and Grand Cathedral endings feel a bit... uninspired. I'm just not sure how many jrpg speeches about "a flawed but alive world is better than a perfect static one" I can still take. Especially because the rest of the game, is like, very good, and not about that stuff at all. But once you add world-creation powers in the mix you can't really go anywhere else.
• It can't be overstated that the character writing is honestly incredibly good. A lot of the trauma explored in it hits a bit too close to home tbh. But, yeah, it's really good stuff.
• One exception to this is the big villain of the game. A lot of her motivation just... didn't make a lot of sense nor had any real emotional payoff. I get what they were trying to do with her (and with one of the final reveals, which gives a justification to her often bizarrely misaligned plans), but I feel like maybe this game didn't really need a grandiose villain at all. As mentioned, all other characters are complex and compelling and very empathetically written, so I don't think that the forces causing conflict in the world necessarily needed to have a "face" for the core conflicts presented in the story to work.
• Most of the dungeon crawling is excellent. The combat is deliberately designed to have an auto-battle focus, with most abilities being passive or automatic triggers. This is not something I've seen before, and it works really well for a game that's 100+ hours long but doesn't want to be a purely mechanically focused experience.
• The focus on navigation is something less uncommon, but still very well realized. The wall-break mechanic being one of the first things the player unlocks is specifically a really clever move. A huge part of the game is a pseudo-tutorial, which slowly introduces all of the game's mechanics, but being able to explore non-linearly and reveal secrets by breaking walls, makes the exploration feel organic and way less guided than it would otherwise be.
• The art of some of the later unlocked Facets is... problematic? not great? I dunno, it's not really a main aspect of the game, and it's easily ignorable, so I don't want to spend too many words on it, but still, shit like that still kinda undermines the drama of the game for me.
• I love the soundtrack. It follows the usual Disgaea/Tenpai Sato vibes, but with a more dramatic twist. Specifically, the boss theme and the apartment theme are absolute bops.
• Oh! The framing device, wherein the player plays as a phantom who is summoned by the various witches in the game, and not as the witches themselves, is quite clever. It creates a sort of effective detachment from the story which plays well with the visual novel-dungeon crawler dichotomy. I'm also glad that it's mostly an aesthetic and it never really becomes a heavy plot element. It's just a neat aesthetic choice and I can get on board with that.
Ultimately Labyrinth of Galleria is honestly great. I spent a lot of time focusing on the negatives, but overall this is a very powerful story told in an extremely creative and well-crafted way. It had me in genuine tears in multiple instances, and as much as I'm a bit of a crybaby, that's still an impressive task for what could have otherwise been dismissed as "just another mechanically dense dungeon crawler". But at the same time, it Is difficult to ignore this game's many contradictions, which often end up undermining its drama. Playing it definitely requires a high tolerance for this kind of uneven media, and of course, the willingness to play a 100+ hours-long dungeon crawler, but I can say that if you can get through that, it is a very worthwhile experience.
One of the best damn games I've read and played period. Its a ball-busting fun time going through the labyrinth underneath Galleria Manor as you unravel the story and experience just amazing twists, references to its last game of Labyrinth of Refrain, and see some great character development.
This is one of my first legitimate dungeon crawlers I've completed and let me say it is very grindy if you're going to commit to the true ending (which you definitely should otherwise you won't truly beat the game--yes, I'm going there) and it is wonderfully designed in terms of gameplay. It is pretty simple at first but puppet reincarnation is the most fun part the Labyrinth games have to offer as you can build the most cracked character of all time. The name of the game in the long run is character building because if you understand how and what you are going to build your character to the game becomes extremely fun. Aside from that, you can gain various tools and powerups from exploration and progression making the journey feel much fun as you are able to explore more parts of the Labyrinth.
Compared to Refrain, from what I know, this game is much more polished. Its tutorial and hints are actually helpful and it is paced properly with its difficulty. Sure, you may need to look up a few things in terms of true ending requirements but I can guarantee you it is 100% worth it to do if you want the full experience. Galleria is, simply put, one of the best games up there for me and I think many more people who just love a dungeon-crawling grind should play this.
This is one of my first legitimate dungeon crawlers I've completed and let me say it is very grindy if you're going to commit to the true ending (which you definitely should otherwise you won't truly beat the game--yes, I'm going there) and it is wonderfully designed in terms of gameplay. It is pretty simple at first but puppet reincarnation is the most fun part the Labyrinth games have to offer as you can build the most cracked character of all time. The name of the game in the long run is character building because if you understand how and what you are going to build your character to the game becomes extremely fun. Aside from that, you can gain various tools and powerups from exploration and progression making the journey feel much fun as you are able to explore more parts of the Labyrinth.
Compared to Refrain, from what I know, this game is much more polished. Its tutorial and hints are actually helpful and it is paced properly with its difficulty. Sure, you may need to look up a few things in terms of true ending requirements but I can guarantee you it is 100% worth it to do if you want the full experience. Galleria is, simply put, one of the best games up there for me and I think many more people who just love a dungeon-crawling grind should play this.
This review contains spoilers
Finished Part 2, still have to do the final dungeon + ending, but this game is truly a spectacular story. Even just up to this point, it's one of my favorite game stories.
120 goddamn hours, and i've just now started the postgame. this story may seem hopeless at the beginning, but the way the game shows the fraternity between women that makes them persist and be stronger is extremely beautiful and pervasive throughout the experience, both in the light and extremely heavy scenes throughout. maybe my favorite game of all time?? let's see after the postgame!
Everyone's favorite lesbian anime dungeon crawling RPG! I loved this entry overall. They took the systems and mechanics from Refrain and continued to build on them in interesting ways. I really enjoyed all the perspective shifts throughout the game. There is one really painful boss that basically requires you to do a bunch of tedious fetch quests. I found this and a couple other parts frustrating. Still really enjoyed the game as a whole and I hope we get another entry.
The game parcels out its mechanics at an agonizing drip, and that's about the only drip it's got. The dungeon feels like it's procgenned out of Legend of Grimrock assets, the female class portraits range from hypersexualized adult women to hypersexualized children, and the consistently clowncore tone of the soundtrack did not agree with me. Didn't play long enough to find out if the cute anime girl was traumatized or not.
Been expecting this game for a while and i absolutely loved it! The story is as good or better than the last game's. Unfortunately the game lacks a lot of originality on the labyrinths, and the combat becomes way too complex for me. A lot of things are RNG based too.
But welp, the good things surpass the bad ones by a lot! I really recommend it if you liked Labyrinth of Refrain, but if you haven't played that one you should start there.
But welp, the good things surpass the bad ones by a lot! I really recommend it if you liked Labyrinth of Refrain, but if you haven't played that one you should start there.
Edit: I dropped this fuckin thing after 100 hours because I had too many other games to play but there was STILL MORE STORY???!?!?!??! This thing is wild. BEWARE.
Something about NIS games and having way too many systems stuffed into 'em. Thankfully, the mechanics which do matter still make for a wonderful search-action RPG.
Can't wait to see what the deal with all this "endgame" stuff is.
Something about NIS games and having way too many systems stuffed into 'em. Thankfully, the mechanics which do matter still make for a wonderful search-action RPG.
Can't wait to see what the deal with all this "endgame" stuff is.
This review contains spoilers
four kid heads in a bag out of five. the most draining and demanding single-player game i've played in a long time and i highly doubt i'll ever replay it, but overall i was shocked how much i enjoyed it as a DRPG newbie. while it has its issues, the whole package made for a very memorable experience. i love pericot. and nachi. and mom. and everyone. and my PUPPETS.
This review contains spoilers
"Inside the butchered goose was nothing but it's bloody entrails.
Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.
That is the moral of this tale. But if you ask me, it's a silly one. A woman seeking to better her life? Who did so at her own peril?
And I wonder if I were her..
Would I have done the same thing?
Would I then be the one scorned?
If that's the case, I..."
Labyrinth of Galleria is an interesting game. While I initially did not hold much interest towards it as the previous entry in the Majo series before it, Refrain did not engage me that much in the few hours of it I tried, once I had actually opened Galleria it took very little for me to be immediately immersed into it's world.
Right from the very first scene, we're thrown into an story that while seemingly simple at first glance, gradually becomes more complex as the mysteries behind Galleria Manor and the labyrinth that rests underneath it begin to unravel. Before I talk more about the plot though, I would first like to discuss the gameplay, as that is foremost the crux and foundation of the game before the story.
Galleria's gameplay is very similar to Refrain's, only with there now being several QOL improvements, with the biggest one being that there is now 15 classes instead of 10 to choose from, giving the player a much more varied set to build their party off of.
However, that is where the similarities with Refrain end. Unlike Refrain, which had very standard dungeon design by DRPG standards, Galleria opts to go in the opposite direction, with it having rather more unorthodox design choices that distinguish it from it's predecessor, for better or worse. The most noticeable of these is the procedurally generated dungeons that are laid within the back half of the game. Despite how length consuming these might get (with the post game version of it being a whole 3k+ floors long), I never particularly found much issue with them, as I found the struggle in having to venture through them thematically relevant to the game's plot, especially in the case of the last one. What I moreso had an issue with is the game's insistence on backtracking. This usually isn't a problem for me in games, however in Galleria I honestly found it to be a pain in the ass purely cause of how obtuse and confusing dungeons like Narthex and Apse are to navigate when you're made to come back to them in the second half of the game to obtain random loot that the plot dictated as important. Regardless of my issues with it, I still found Galleria's dungeon crawling to be a rewarding experience that was worth my time.
There isn't much that I have to say about the combat system as I found it to be satisfactory enough, only that while it is fun at first, grinding in this game gradually starts to feel like a chore more than anything cause of how excessive it is, and I wouldn't blame anyone for not vibing with it.
The last real thing I have to comment on is the requests. Oh god, the requests. For part 1 of the game, you're required to do every request listed to get a certain item, or else you will be locked into the bad ending. This in itself I didn't find too bad, as most of the loot required for the requests in this part of the game are very common to find and you should find that any leftover requests will be dealt with rather quickly. No, what I really have an issue with is the requests in part 2, specifically Bocklin's.
For part 2, none of the requests are required for completion except for Bocklin's who you first meet in Narthex B7 in part 1, and who tells you to meet him again once the time is right. Completion of his requests is required in order to unlock the true ending as well as obtain items that will weaken the final boss, as without them you're basically powerless to it. This would be fine by itself if it wasn't for the fact that his requests for procuring such items in the first require you to obtain extremely rare loot that can take HOURS of your time to even find. This was the part of the game that frustrated me the most, as it was completely dependant on luck, and as such if you didn't find the loot on your first trek of a dungeon you would have to go back there again and again until you did. Once again, I do not blame anyone for thinking that this segment of the game is bullshit, because it is.
Overall, whilst Galleria's gameplay has alot of flaws to it in my eyes, it was all worth it in the end because of what I am going to discuss next; the story.
"Remember the past, present, and future... Remember your presence exists today, yesterday, and...tomorrow..! Right, you should be well aware of it now. You are ever present and nowhere present. You exist nowhere and everywhere."
The plot of Galleria largely follows the journeys of Eureka de Soleil and Nachiroux, two protagonists who much like the sun and the moon, are complete opposites of eachother, yet end up being drawn towards one another regardless. Eureka is happy go lucky and optimistic to a fault, to a point where she will help literally anyone if they ask her to, even if what she's being made to do is morally questionable, simply because her upbringing in an extremely strict family made her too scared of being thought of as useless to say no. Nachiroux, in contrast is the prime example of a shut-in; with her often pushing away people like Eureka and her mom away from her because of how much she can't stand to be with them due to her standoffish nature. Behind this mask though, is a very kind person that cares about both of the afforementioned people alot.
The reason why I brought these two up first is cause for me they were the focal point of Galleria's story, with me having endured through all of the trials and tribulations that the gameplay has purely to see them get a happy conclusion. That isn't to say I found the other plot elements to be subpar, no, far from it. I also thoroughly enjoyed plot threads such as the relationship between the main antag of the game Cecilia and tortured artist Bisto, whose tumultuous actions can be said to be what kickstarted this series of events in the first place. There is also the Moon Society, the secret group of witches who serve both as Nachi's mentors and friends as they struggle to fight against the phenomena that threatens to annihilate their world. From it, I found the relationship between Kitcat and Eureu (the Alstella world version of Eureka as well as the Oracle) to be especially touching. There is obviously much, much more to pick apart and analyse here, but these are just some of the examples that touched my heart personally. The last main thing that I would like to remark upon is Fantie, the player insert character for this game. Generally I find insert characters in games to be cheap and lazy, but Galleria does it perfectly. The way Fantie is handled within it's role to the plot is through it being an impartial observer in the form of a green slime lantern that follows Eureka and Nachi on their journey as well as commanding the Witch Brigade of puppets, which ensures that the player is given agency in the plot, but not too much that it feels like self gratification as is the case with self insert characters in other games.
"But this unparalleled scene of despair... after everything you've witnessed, doesn't this seem like a starting point toward hope to you now?"
At the end of the day Galleria is a game about overcoming struggles. It is a game about overcoming an impossible future, about slicing the goose open to reach the best conclusion possible no matter what it takes. And that is exactly why despite my complaints about it, the unforgiving gameplay it has is extremely fitting for this type of narrative. Just as Eureka is made to endure thousands of years to save Nachi, so does the player have to struggle for hours in the 3651 floor postgame dungeon, to see that happy ending come to light no matter what. And that is what I find so beautiful about Galleria.
"Let's go see the flowers when you wake up... It's a promise."
Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.
That is the moral of this tale. But if you ask me, it's a silly one. A woman seeking to better her life? Who did so at her own peril?
And I wonder if I were her..
Would I have done the same thing?
Would I then be the one scorned?
If that's the case, I..."
Labyrinth of Galleria is an interesting game. While I initially did not hold much interest towards it as the previous entry in the Majo series before it, Refrain did not engage me that much in the few hours of it I tried, once I had actually opened Galleria it took very little for me to be immediately immersed into it's world.
Right from the very first scene, we're thrown into an story that while seemingly simple at first glance, gradually becomes more complex as the mysteries behind Galleria Manor and the labyrinth that rests underneath it begin to unravel. Before I talk more about the plot though, I would first like to discuss the gameplay, as that is foremost the crux and foundation of the game before the story.
Galleria's gameplay is very similar to Refrain's, only with there now being several QOL improvements, with the biggest one being that there is now 15 classes instead of 10 to choose from, giving the player a much more varied set to build their party off of.
However, that is where the similarities with Refrain end. Unlike Refrain, which had very standard dungeon design by DRPG standards, Galleria opts to go in the opposite direction, with it having rather more unorthodox design choices that distinguish it from it's predecessor, for better or worse. The most noticeable of these is the procedurally generated dungeons that are laid within the back half of the game. Despite how length consuming these might get (with the post game version of it being a whole 3k+ floors long), I never particularly found much issue with them, as I found the struggle in having to venture through them thematically relevant to the game's plot, especially in the case of the last one. What I moreso had an issue with is the game's insistence on backtracking. This usually isn't a problem for me in games, however in Galleria I honestly found it to be a pain in the ass purely cause of how obtuse and confusing dungeons like Narthex and Apse are to navigate when you're made to come back to them in the second half of the game to obtain random loot that the plot dictated as important. Regardless of my issues with it, I still found Galleria's dungeon crawling to be a rewarding experience that was worth my time.
There isn't much that I have to say about the combat system as I found it to be satisfactory enough, only that while it is fun at first, grinding in this game gradually starts to feel like a chore more than anything cause of how excessive it is, and I wouldn't blame anyone for not vibing with it.
The last real thing I have to comment on is the requests. Oh god, the requests. For part 1 of the game, you're required to do every request listed to get a certain item, or else you will be locked into the bad ending. This in itself I didn't find too bad, as most of the loot required for the requests in this part of the game are very common to find and you should find that any leftover requests will be dealt with rather quickly. No, what I really have an issue with is the requests in part 2, specifically Bocklin's.
For part 2, none of the requests are required for completion except for Bocklin's who you first meet in Narthex B7 in part 1, and who tells you to meet him again once the time is right. Completion of his requests is required in order to unlock the true ending as well as obtain items that will weaken the final boss, as without them you're basically powerless to it. This would be fine by itself if it wasn't for the fact that his requests for procuring such items in the first require you to obtain extremely rare loot that can take HOURS of your time to even find. This was the part of the game that frustrated me the most, as it was completely dependant on luck, and as such if you didn't find the loot on your first trek of a dungeon you would have to go back there again and again until you did. Once again, I do not blame anyone for thinking that this segment of the game is bullshit, because it is.
Overall, whilst Galleria's gameplay has alot of flaws to it in my eyes, it was all worth it in the end because of what I am going to discuss next; the story.
"Remember the past, present, and future... Remember your presence exists today, yesterday, and...tomorrow..! Right, you should be well aware of it now. You are ever present and nowhere present. You exist nowhere and everywhere."
The plot of Galleria largely follows the journeys of Eureka de Soleil and Nachiroux, two protagonists who much like the sun and the moon, are complete opposites of eachother, yet end up being drawn towards one another regardless. Eureka is happy go lucky and optimistic to a fault, to a point where she will help literally anyone if they ask her to, even if what she's being made to do is morally questionable, simply because her upbringing in an extremely strict family made her too scared of being thought of as useless to say no. Nachiroux, in contrast is the prime example of a shut-in; with her often pushing away people like Eureka and her mom away from her because of how much she can't stand to be with them due to her standoffish nature. Behind this mask though, is a very kind person that cares about both of the afforementioned people alot.
The reason why I brought these two up first is cause for me they were the focal point of Galleria's story, with me having endured through all of the trials and tribulations that the gameplay has purely to see them get a happy conclusion. That isn't to say I found the other plot elements to be subpar, no, far from it. I also thoroughly enjoyed plot threads such as the relationship between the main antag of the game Cecilia and tortured artist Bisto, whose tumultuous actions can be said to be what kickstarted this series of events in the first place. There is also the Moon Society, the secret group of witches who serve both as Nachi's mentors and friends as they struggle to fight against the phenomena that threatens to annihilate their world. From it, I found the relationship between Kitcat and Eureu (the Alstella world version of Eureka as well as the Oracle) to be especially touching. There is obviously much, much more to pick apart and analyse here, but these are just some of the examples that touched my heart personally. The last main thing that I would like to remark upon is Fantie, the player insert character for this game. Generally I find insert characters in games to be cheap and lazy, but Galleria does it perfectly. The way Fantie is handled within it's role to the plot is through it being an impartial observer in the form of a green slime lantern that follows Eureka and Nachi on their journey as well as commanding the Witch Brigade of puppets, which ensures that the player is given agency in the plot, but not too much that it feels like self gratification as is the case with self insert characters in other games.
"But this unparalleled scene of despair... after everything you've witnessed, doesn't this seem like a starting point toward hope to you now?"
At the end of the day Galleria is a game about overcoming struggles. It is a game about overcoming an impossible future, about slicing the goose open to reach the best conclusion possible no matter what it takes. And that is exactly why despite my complaints about it, the unforgiving gameplay it has is extremely fitting for this type of narrative. Just as Eureka is made to endure thousands of years to save Nachi, so does the player have to struggle for hours in the 3651 floor postgame dungeon, to see that happy ending come to light no matter what. And that is what I find so beautiful about Galleria.
"Let's go see the flowers when you wake up... It's a promise."
I understand the lady owner of the goose that laid golden eggs, I do.
122 hours later and I've never been less ready to say goodbye. A beautiful celebration of games and art and creation and people in all its messy complexity; one of the great stories yet told in the medium and an absolute highpoint of its genre.
Oh Galleria... Where do you even begin with such a massive accomplishment. It's unbelievable that a game of this scale and ambition came out in 2020. Most games just pale in comparison to how much Galleria reaches for the stars, and actually succeeds(for the most part). It's also incredibly hard to overstate how powerful and well written its character writing and emotional arcs are. I think Refrain had vestiges of a plot of this scale(even if Galleria massively exceeds it) but it failed in engaging me to its characters. Galleria fixes this issue and more. I actually ended up liking most of the cast, but especially Natyl and Eureka. Their arcs and relationship are incredibly well-realized and beautiful. Half the reason I was so invested into this game was because i loved them so much. It's genuinely impressive how much the game ties up its massive amount of disparate elements and setting with these two.
Most story heavy jrpg's have gameplay that is either shallow fun or a chore to get through for more cutscenes. Galleria bucks this trend by having a loop that is extremely demanding of the player(I played the game on easy, and I was still forced to learn 90% of its systems to beat the game), and oftentimes frustrating. I think this is a great thing, though, because it only makes the game even more satisfying when you think back about what exactly you had to do to earn the story(like grinding or item farming). This isn't a meta-narrative thing, either. The player character is a direct avatar of the player behind the screen which might sound cheesy, but it's executed well and the characters acknowledge what you are doing for them in a touching way. The post game is the best success of this, though. You have to trek through a 3651 floor dungeon with a ton of rng elements like random checkpoints and elevators. It's a daunting task but it serves great purpose in asking the player how far are you willing to go to see the best ending for the characters. It's one of the most interesting experiences I've seen in a video game, and I am glad to see that so many people ended up completing it according to psn achievements. The absurd challenge of the final dungeon makes the already rewarding story even moreso. The very design of the game is great as well, i should mention. The level design is fantastic and it changes how the gameplay works multiple times despite staying in a DRPG framework. The balance is pretty wack and there is a lot of elements i can only describe as kuso but it's honestly endearing to me and i still appreciate them(except for the UI, that needs a lot of work)
I wonder how Galleria will fare once it hits more mainstream audiences in the west. I think most people won't be able to stick through it or give enough engagement for it to really payoff. I think the story is as demanding of the player as the gameplay, it just expects you to remember and appreciate its foreshadowing from 60 hours past. But for those willing to give the attention and dedication this game demands then it's one of the best and most rewarding video game experiences out there. It's not without its flaws, of course. In addition to the aforementioned gameplay hiccups I think the story falters with some characters and setting ideas. But considering the development hell this game went through this is one hell of an accomplishment. There's more to cover about this game(especially the themes it has, but it's difficult to talk about them without giving away plot beats) , but I want to respect the game's marketing and let people discover it for themselves. Izumi should be proud of himself, it might not have came out like he wanted but it's still one of the best games I've played.
Most story heavy jrpg's have gameplay that is either shallow fun or a chore to get through for more cutscenes. Galleria bucks this trend by having a loop that is extremely demanding of the player(I played the game on easy, and I was still forced to learn 90% of its systems to beat the game), and oftentimes frustrating. I think this is a great thing, though, because it only makes the game even more satisfying when you think back about what exactly you had to do to earn the story(like grinding or item farming). This isn't a meta-narrative thing, either. The player character is a direct avatar of the player behind the screen which might sound cheesy, but it's executed well and the characters acknowledge what you are doing for them in a touching way. The post game is the best success of this, though. You have to trek through a 3651 floor dungeon with a ton of rng elements like random checkpoints and elevators. It's a daunting task but it serves great purpose in asking the player how far are you willing to go to see the best ending for the characters. It's one of the most interesting experiences I've seen in a video game, and I am glad to see that so many people ended up completing it according to psn achievements. The absurd challenge of the final dungeon makes the already rewarding story even moreso. The very design of the game is great as well, i should mention. The level design is fantastic and it changes how the gameplay works multiple times despite staying in a DRPG framework. The balance is pretty wack and there is a lot of elements i can only describe as kuso but it's honestly endearing to me and i still appreciate them(except for the UI, that needs a lot of work)
I wonder how Galleria will fare once it hits more mainstream audiences in the west. I think most people won't be able to stick through it or give enough engagement for it to really payoff. I think the story is as demanding of the player as the gameplay, it just expects you to remember and appreciate its foreshadowing from 60 hours past. But for those willing to give the attention and dedication this game demands then it's one of the best and most rewarding video game experiences out there. It's not without its flaws, of course. In addition to the aforementioned gameplay hiccups I think the story falters with some characters and setting ideas. But considering the development hell this game went through this is one hell of an accomplishment. There's more to cover about this game(especially the themes it has, but it's difficult to talk about them without giving away plot beats) , but I want to respect the game's marketing and let people discover it for themselves. Izumi should be proud of himself, it might not have came out like he wanted but it's still one of the best games I've played.