An obscure and underrated boss rush game I got from a big itch.io bundle, a good time but with a lot of rough edges. Due to the shield system your characters will die in one hit if you aren't careful, which makes for engaging fights most of the time but gets a little tedious when there's a long opening cutscene at the start of a fight. The gameplay is challenging in a fairly unique way since you have to track blocking and attacking with 2 separate characters at the same time in order to keep up your combo, which takes getting used to but is really fun once you get the hang of it.
The music is mostly just okay, and the undertale-inspired sprites range from great to alright. A lot of the plot is very similar concepts and themes wise to "We Know the Devil", but there's still plenty of unique stuff here, even if I didn't enjoy how some of the plot beats were handled. The final boss and the Sams were especially fun, and I loved the unlockable dev commentary for each boss! More games should do that. Absurdly high quality for a mobile game.
The music is mostly just okay, and the undertale-inspired sprites range from great to alright. A lot of the plot is very similar concepts and themes wise to "We Know the Devil", but there's still plenty of unique stuff here, even if I didn't enjoy how some of the plot beats were handled. The final boss and the Sams were especially fun, and I loved the unlockable dev commentary for each boss! More games should do that. Absurdly high quality for a mobile game.
An interesting little boss-rush action game developed for mobile (although I played the PC port using a controller, which was perfectly fine) where there is no movement or positioning, so it's strictly about choosing when to light/heavy attack and when to block, while conserving enough stamina that you don't run out while doing the latter. Complicating this is the fact that you control two characters at once; I am unfortunately very bad at multitasking so I tended to let up on the offensive entirely when either character was being attacked, but fortunately the game isn't terribly difficult if you aren't playing super aggressively to push for fast level clear times.
Story-wise, the game doesn't take any particularly big swings, but it's cute and gay and has fun leaning into some really over-the-top anime nonsense towards the end. (The credits list Promare and the Kirby games among its inspirations, if that tells you anything).
Story-wise, the game doesn't take any particularly big swings, but it's cute and gay and has fun leaning into some really over-the-top anime nonsense towards the end. (The credits list Promare and the Kirby games among its inspirations, if that tells you anything).
This review contains spoilers
My favorite part is when Sophie turns on her now-evil maternal figure and the organization that is essentially her family but isn't confident enough in beating the shit out of her 2 seconds after that revelation so the rest of the game is spent having her apologize to everyone and grapple with how terrible she was to everyone for daring to have any hesitation whatsoever.
There's a single moment of empathy with Anna mentioning that it must have been hard for her but Sophie's still made out to be this offender who has countless sins she needs to be forgiven for and it makes me pretty angry. The single most abused and manipulated character in this story who is constantly doing her best is the one who all this needless blame rests on.
Sophie deserves better friends and a better lover but the writing seems oblivious to this.
...
This game is clearly well-intentioned and its approach to simplified liberatory politics works far better when Donovan the rich asshole is on screen and being shit on left and right. I can get with most of what this game is getting at apart from its awful treatment of Sophie which I honestly believe was more caused by negligence and a preference for witchy aesthetic moodboard shit than malice.
The Undertale-esque art is lovely, the combat is engaging though not expertly balanced (and I'm of the belief that sliders for everything in your game is a bit of a cop-out in this regard), the control scheme is excellent at working within the limitations of touch screen controls, and they get a lot of extra points for putting this in the Palestinian Relief Bundle. And despite my problems with the writing, there are still a good few cute gay moments that I love.
Of course, I wish everyone involved in this the best. They're clearly good at what they do and could absolutely make something great.
There's a single moment of empathy with Anna mentioning that it must have been hard for her but Sophie's still made out to be this offender who has countless sins she needs to be forgiven for and it makes me pretty angry. The single most abused and manipulated character in this story who is constantly doing her best is the one who all this needless blame rests on.
Sophie deserves better friends and a better lover but the writing seems oblivious to this.
...
This game is clearly well-intentioned and its approach to simplified liberatory politics works far better when Donovan the rich asshole is on screen and being shit on left and right. I can get with most of what this game is getting at apart from its awful treatment of Sophie which I honestly believe was more caused by negligence and a preference for witchy aesthetic moodboard shit than malice.
The Undertale-esque art is lovely, the combat is engaging though not expertly balanced (and I'm of the belief that sliders for everything in your game is a bit of a cop-out in this regard), the control scheme is excellent at working within the limitations of touch screen controls, and they get a lot of extra points for putting this in the Palestinian Relief Bundle. And despite my problems with the writing, there are still a good few cute gay moments that I love.
Of course, I wish everyone involved in this the best. They're clearly good at what they do and could absolutely make something great.