Its quite good as a character-driven story, but often struggles between balancing its various parts.

There are three main story beats that Fate is juggling. First you have the more lighthearted daily life stuff with going to school, running errands, and other activities not really related to the Grail War. This is mostly packed in the beginning of each route but often continues for too long or crops up later in the story where it cuts into the better content.

Second there's the character-driven core of the story. Shirou's inner tensions about heroism, the motivations and struggles of the Grail War's various participants, and the many conflicts where these interests collide. This is easily where Fate is at its strongest.

And finally, there's the more magic and lore-focused elements of the story where the writers are trying to explain how everything functions and why the Grail War operates the way that it does. This ends up being a mixed bag as, while some explanation is necessary, it often ends up getting bogged down in unnecessary and time-consuming details that end up being the magical equivalent of technobabble. It gets even worse in Heaven's Feel where Fate begins exploring the Grail War's origins and history, pulling a whole bunch of stuff from thin air that was never hinted at before and bombarding the reader with endless explanations that only marginally help make sense of it all.

Fate has a very strong core and I think its character-driven conflict alone makes it worth reading. But it often strays away from its strengths in ways that undermine the experience. Sometimes its just a distraction that interrupts the flow of everything else happening, but at other times it grinds the story to an awkward pause and muddles the core focus rather than giving it additional clarity.

Still, give it a shot. I can absolutely see why the series became so popular in the first place and its reputation is well deserved. Just know that you may have to put up with a handful of rough patches along the way.

Will never understand why this is as acclaimed as it is, because I've never seen a more unredeeming piece of garbage. The promise of "it gets SO GOOD" is one that goes unfulfilled. There's maybe 3 hours of interesting content in this 50 hour waste of life. This is time I will never get back. I should've just read GANTZ or Berserk again. The absolute most dryly written VN I've ever stumbled onto. Huge exposition dumps & redundancy. The protagonist's rambling drivel made me want to end it all. Any time lore is brought up it fizzles out so you can read forty paragraphs of the protagonist making something up the spot. "To be honest, the reason I felt the way I felt is that I learned to feel differently because I watched you look around and accomplish a goal one time, like that time you made a sandwich. And honestly I may be in the wrong here but I'm just thinking you thought a certain way I didn't agree with." It's just endless mindless ranting. I just kept hoping something interesting would happen. It really never did. The only reason I am ok with giving this half a star is because Meiya is a cool character, and also it inspired Attack on Titan, which does every single theme this tries to do infinitely better. I loathed this VN from start to finish. Wild that I enjoyed the first part more because, at least it was sometimes funny lmao.

Story: -
Sound: 5
Concept: 6
Graphics: 7
Gameplay: 1
Characters: -
Replay Value: none
Overall Enjoyment: 1

I give Skull and Bones a 1!

Skull and Bones fucking sucks. This game is an embarrassment to the industry, and I don't find many people loving it. I maxed out my 8 hours in the open beta and got nothing but a dry, hollow, and boring experience out of it. I LOVE pirates. I love video games. This game has been shaking through development for 11 YEARS. That is embarrassing. I've never even played Black Flag, and it's still a let down for me. The no combat on land realization sucked, and overall this felt so dull. If it was not live service, and catered to just playing with my friends, and not 70 dollars, it'd be alright. Instead, we got this typical Ubisoft L of a game, and easily my current worst game of 2024.

Review on Reddit with images

KEY NOTES:

- Turn-based combat
- JP/ENG voiced audio options
- Multiple Endings
- No Random Battles
- Heavy focus on Relationship building

Loop8 was developed by Sieg Games which has been around since 2014, but doesn't have a large track record of developed games. The games prior to Loop8 were limited to the mobile games, Bound Boyfriend and Mashiro Witch. Despite their brief development history, Sieg Games does have a few veterans on its team including producer Yoichi Miyaji who was one of Game Arts founders and was a producer of the Grandia and Lunar games.

On the outset, Loop8 appears to be an ambitious game from art direction to its sim relationship gameplay, but unfortunately, the game as a whole doesn't quite live up to its potential.

STORY

In a world devastated by demonic entities called Kegai, the main character Nini returns from space to spend his summer with his relative in one of the few remaining sanctuaries on Earth, the town of Ashihara.

The town had been safe from Kegai attacks for many years due to its barrier keeping the Kegai out, but as luck would have it, the barriers weakened upon Nini's return. From there, the Kegai would sneak into town and possess one of their own before retreating to the world between the underworld and Ashihara. Nini is blessed with the Demon Sight and along with a few allies, attempt to defeat the Kegai, but is ultimately defeated themselves. Instead of breathing his final breath, Nini's connection with the gods had allowed him to reset the world to when he first came to Ashihara at the beginning of the month. From there, he tries to avoid a repeat of what happened in the prior loop.

Loop8 has an interesting post apocalyptic setting where a large part of mankind had escaped to space and created livable stations there. Many Japanese Shinto gods exists and influence the world in various ways including creating connections with the Ashihara townspeople. The story gets to a strong start with the quick world annihilation by the Kegai and Nini gets looped back to a prior day setting up for an intriguing different outcome. Yet, despite the interesting background story and initial build up, Loop8's remaining story isn't very compelling.

The story is very formulaic without much variance in story development. Each segment starts with a Kegai sneaking pass the barrier. Once you identify the Kegai, they will retreat to the Mirror underworld where they will wait. Nini and his allies will have a few days to defeat that Kegai or the world will be annihilated. If you are able to defeat the Kegai, then the world is saved for a few more days. A new Kegai then sneaks pass the barrier thus starting the formulaic story loop over again. This process will repeat for nearly the entire game.

Once you experienced one Kegai story and battle event, the remaining ones start to feel just about the same. Other than these events, there really isn't any other set story events in the game to experience until the end. This is in contrast with something like Persona where you have a lot of free time to do whatever you want during a month, but there are set story events that occur on specific days. Loop8 doesn't have any such events. The formulaic story loop gets stale quickly as a result.

It's a shame considering that there's a lot of interesting background information found in the manual, but Loop8 doesn't take advantage of it and develop the story into an interesting direction.

CHARACTERS

There are 12 total characters in the game (13 if you count the squirrel mascot) and most of them are playable characters that can join you in the fight against the Kegai. Only a few of them are directly connected to the main story however.

Nini is mostly a silent protagonist and you get to select the dialogue options for him. In a few very limited instances, you can hear his thoughts and feelings during his monologues, but other than that, he doesn't speak at all. Due to his mostly silent nature, Nini does come off as a bland character which is a shame since his monologue early in the game does give you a glimpse of a more established character.

The remaining main characters come off as very anime tropey at the outset. They do have some depth to them with some interesting backstories so they aren't completely one note characters, but most of their development isn't that amazing and are somewhat predictable.

My other issue with them is that their development isn't really tied to the story. You mostly learn about them by simply talking to them and watching special character events after reaching a certain friendship level. All of these are optional and can actually be missed if you choose to simply ignore them.

The bond between Nini and the other main characters aren't the only focus since there are other friendship levels between the other characters themselves. They have varying friendship, affection and hate levels depending on the person and can be adjusted.

With a mechanic such as this, I would assume the character interactions outside of Nini would be great, but that's not really the case. You might see Character A standing with Character B at times, but you will never see Character A and B actually talk to each other or do things together in a cutscene. Character A might reference Character B if you speak to Character A, but that's the extent of the connections you will get. Even after each Kegai event, a character might mention it once afterwards, but otherwise, nothing changes for them or the town. This creates a jarring experience where the character relationships between each other just feels hollow.

The characters are probably supposed to be a highlight of the game, but the game's handling of them aren't particularly great and just bad at times regarding the non-Nini relationships. Getting to learn more about a specific character can be interesting at times, but they aren't nearly as compelling when compared to something like the Sakura Wars games which also had a strong focus on characters and character relationships.

MUSIC

Other than the opening theme, Noriyuki Iwadare composed the entire soundtrack. Many of the songs have a traditional Japanese flair to them especially the battle tracks. Pianos make up many of the melancholy and emotional songs. These all sound great, but the regular town themes and character events songs sound unremarkable and generic. With that said, the soundtrack still remained a highlight of the game for me.

GRAPHICS AND ART DIRECTION

At the outset, Loop8's art direction is what help made it stood out. It was as if the developers were attempting to make an anime in motion. The game is colorful and and some of the battle skill animations look pretty good. They make a lot of use of dynamic camera movements and angles for the skills so it feels like a good portion of the budget went into those. Most character designs are fairly generic however as are the environments. While disappointing, they didn't bother me too much.

What did bothered me was the low frame rate when characters walk and run. It just looks very jarring to see it in action and it's very noticeable once you get control of Nini at the beginning of the game. Fortunately, it was something I got used to after a while.

SETTING

Loop8 takes place entirely on a rural island. It's a place that feels cozy, but there's just not much variety for scenery and only has a few locations on the island that are accessible. You can visit and explore nearly every location in the game on the first day. Each area is also small in size so it actually doesn't take very long going from the farthest point to the farthest one on the other end. The Mirror World that acts as the "dungeon" of the game is merely a darker distorted version of the town so it doesn't help in providing more diverse locations to see and explore.

To make matters worse, the island just feels hollow and dead. The only characters you see around town are the 11 other main characters. I assumed that there are other people in the town as well, but you don't meet any such people. You don't see any NPCs walking around and of the few eateries you can enter like a cafe or restaurant, you don't ever see anybody running those places.

GAMEPLAY

Loop8's gameplay consists of two main parts, but you spend significant more time on one part over the other. The sim part of the game has more focus, but most of its relevance is done for the sake of improving the characters for combat.

COMBAT AND CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

There is very little character customization in the game. There aren't any equipment to buy, find or equip. Characters don't even have levels or experience in the general sense. They do have some commonly found stats though.

For Nini, he can increase these stats by engaging in various activities across the town such as doing pull ups on the bars found in the school courtyard.

After reaching a certain friendship level with another character, you can spend time working out together so that both characters will increase their strength stat. Finding Blessings in objects around town will also increase Nini or another character's stats.

Skills can be learned at various stat thresholds. The status screen will reference a new skill and the stats required to learn them so it gives you an idea of what to prioritize at times.

Combat utilizes a turn-based system, but at a very basic level. There's no visible turn orders that are somewhat common these days. The max battle party size is 3 and the only controllable one is Nini himself. The rest runs on auto pilot.

Other than his offensive skills, Nini's other actions include shielding another party member, expending EN (Energy) to recover STM (Stamina), and recover EN. Every action in the game uses EN except for the skill that recovers EN itself. The other party members have similar skillsets which includes buffs, but noticeably don't have the self STM recovery skill which makes drawn out fights dangerous. There isn't a whole lot of strategy to the combat since it usually involves continuous attacking until EN is low. Use a turn to recover EN and repeat. If STM drops to critical levels, use EN to recover it. There is an additional layer of strategy due to the cover system though. You can tell which party member is going to be targeted on that turn so having Nini cover that member is an option.

Overall, the complete lack of control over the other party members make the battles more burdensome then necessary. There isn't any A.I. tactic options like in the original Persona 3 so there's no way to influence party member actions.

Loop8 also lacks enemy variety to an extreme degree. You can fight the mob enemies roaming around the mirror world by manually initiating the fight yourself. They all share the same design except for recolors. Bosses all look different and unique in comparison though, but there aren't many in general.

It's important to note that if a party member dies in battle, they are permanently dead in the story and you won't be able to use them again for the duration of the current loop.

There's just isn't a lot of positives for the combat system which fortunately, makes up only a very small portion of the game. Since you don't get EXP, items or money in the game, there's very little reason to fight the regular mob enemies other than to get a chance at a Blessing, but there's a limit on how much you can get from it.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING AND BONDS

When you're not dealing with the battles, you're going to be moving around town and talking to the characters. Time constantly ticks away and quite fast in general. Some actions will move time forward a few hours like the stat boosting activities.

When talking to the other characters, you get various "dialogue" options. There's only a few at first, but more options will open up once their relationship further improves with you. Such options include working/hanging out to mutually increase stats and to view special bonding romance events.

Certain dialogue options will improve their relationship, but all of them have a chance to fail. You get an idea on the chances so it's not complete guesswork. If you fail, the relationship slightly sours. You can repeatedly spam the same dialogue option back to back to increase the relationship, but the success chance decreases each time until the next day. It's also worth noting that each dialogue choice uses up STM and EN so that also limits how much you can spam the choices too.

The special events are decent to view and comes with new dialogue compared to the repeated generic ones you get from the other dialogue options. In addition to these special events, you can initiate special cutscenes from talking to them after getting the friendship level high enough. These cutscenes often reveal important character information.

Overall, this Relationship building element is one of the better parts of the game, but it's far from amazing or satisfying. The special events are good, but grinding enough friendship points to unlock them isn't particularly fun especially when you're getting the same reaction dialogue repeatedly. It also doesn't really help that Nini is a silent character and doesn't have proper dialogue for these scenes. It's like a character is having a one-sided conversation.

GAMEPLAY LOOP

The main obstacle for most of the game are the special Kegai bosses that appear every few days. Their appearance order is random each time, but each subsequent ones that appear get stronger than the one before. To be sufficiently prepared for these fights, you will need to engage in stat training so a daily schedule involves doing the stat boosting activities and finding Blessings. You have to do stat boosting activities together with your party members as well.

With just a few days allowed to defeat each Kegai, the key is to balance getting consistent stat boosts while improving the bonds with other characters. You have free rein to do whatever you want since there's no fixed daily activity in the game other than the morning study session at the school (which is optional).

TIME LOOP

A key element of the game is the Time Loop. There are two ways to go back in time to the first day. The first is if you get defeated in battle by the Kegai boss. The second is forcing the time loop by talking to a specific character.

If you do revert back, almost everything resets back to the original such as stats and friendship levels. The big exception is that all of the stats gained from Blessings are permanent and are retained on subsequent loops. You also gain a bonus to stat gains until you hit the amount you had in the prior loop. This applies to friendship levels too so the subsequent loop will be easier to deal with. You might have to Loop back several times to reach the final boss whether by falling in battle or by intentionally reverting back to recover a prior dead party member.

CLOSING REMARKS

Loop8 had some interesting concepts from its art direction to its focus on relationship building, but ultimately, the game as a whole feels unpolished that fails to live up to its potential.

The story doesn't have interesting developments or much of development in general. The ending itself doesn't get the proper buildup for what it was going for.

The town setting is sort of bland and feels empty. Characters move from places to places without any real purpose for being at specific locations. The characters themselves don't really connect with the story and feels like they are just there for the ride.

The relationship building element is decent and there is some entertainment in learning more about the characters, but the one sided dialogue leaves a lot to be desired.

Combat and character customization are too basic in general and the uncontrollable party members make the battles even more of a drag.

Outside of engaging in the social sim conversations, there isn't much to do despite getting so much free reign in the game.

Fortunately, the game isn't too long. One full playthrough without any major time loop reversion is about 10-15 hours. There are multiple endings including character endings in the game which does provide additional replay value.

The second Great Ace Attorney is a pretty good and straightforward continuation of the first game. It doesn’t really add much of anything new, nor does it change anything in terms of gameplay/mechanics, so I don’t have as much to say about it as I did regarding the previous game.

The story is very consistent with the first game in terms of quality. However, I do feel like the plot can progress at an agonizingly slow pace at times. It can also get very repetitive, as it constantly teases and hints at the bigger mystery that needs to be unfolded over, and over, and over again while it drip-feeds tiny pieces of information regarding that mystery up until the very end of the game. It doesn’t help that the first two episodes are mostly unrelated to said big mystery. In fact, the second episode takes place during the events of the previous game, and feels largely out of place. It makes me wonder if the only reason the second episode exists is so that the game could meet a five episode quota, because in all honesty, I don’t really think that the second episode was truly necessary given how long the subsequent episodes are. Personally, I feel like they could’ve split Episode 3 in half to meet the five episode quota if they really wanted to. I was hooked when the game finally started to pick up and unravel the great mystery during Episode 3, but it took a really long time to get there.

Slow pacing aside, the game is still just as comfy and enjoyable as its prequel, with even more colorful characters to enjoy. I had a pretty decent time with it, and wouldn’t mind another entry featuring these characters, as they’re all rather delightful.