Loop8 is a lot like YIIK, in that they're both filled to the brim with such great and fantastic ideas, and yet not a single one is implemented well. The only truly good thing about it are the graphics, which are actually so incredibly pretty. So why am I giving it a good score? Because it's PEAK KUSOGE. Here's a few things worth pointing out:
The combat is slow. Characters move independently of you and love buffing to the point where they almost rarely actually attack. You only fight this one generic orb as a generic enemy and there are no other enemies (aside from bosses). Combat scales depending on how many characters you have with you which means it's actually easier to fight everything alone than taking any party members who'll just waste time buffing everyone. There is no resource management, because you heal to full right as you get to the boss anyway. No items either. An interesting design choice is that bosses will be easier if the person being possessed likes you, but then they make it legitimately impossible if they hate you, meaning you have to loop (more on that later). "Thankfully" only like 2% of your total time is spent actually in combat.
The walking is slow (saving grace being a fast travel system that doesn't work in the mirror world). Every second irl is a minute ingame so time flies by mad fast, making the slow walking even more arduous.
There's barely any story. The game lore dumps at you at the start and then the rest of the game is pure vagueposts.
The characters have such, suuuch potential to be good, which makes it a shame that the game doesn't even bother showing it to you for whatever reason? Like the character will say something super important to their character arc and then it gets swept under the rug and it's never mentioned again. If there's a character growth, that happens off-screen... Most of your time is spent talking to them, skipping their one line, selecting the one suggestion you want to pick, skipping their one line again, get affection, repeat ad infinitum. Not very engaging.
The loop mechanic, while sounding cool, is implemented like butt. You reset the timeline, make everyone you failed to save alive again, except nobody remembers it, INCLUDING your character. Your stats and relationships get reset but you get them back twice as fast, so oh joy, more grinding and repeating dialogue. Speaking of repeating dialogue, EVERY line resets. That one time a character threw a wall of text at you? Gotta fast foward that again, and trust me, that shit PILES ON. Your blessings carry over though, so you don't need to grind as much.
BUT the reason I find it so fun is how accidentally ridiculous it is. Like why does my guy so desperately want to pork his cousin? Why can I date grandma? Why is there an epilogue if you ended up romancing your cousin, that is just her talking for a good 10 minutes with a still image? Why is there a character that will actually give you a game over if you talk to them while they're happy? What the FUCK is Demon Sight???
All in all 8/10 recommended for kusoge enjoyers.
The combat is slow. Characters move independently of you and love buffing to the point where they almost rarely actually attack. You only fight this one generic orb as a generic enemy and there are no other enemies (aside from bosses). Combat scales depending on how many characters you have with you which means it's actually easier to fight everything alone than taking any party members who'll just waste time buffing everyone. There is no resource management, because you heal to full right as you get to the boss anyway. No items either. An interesting design choice is that bosses will be easier if the person being possessed likes you, but then they make it legitimately impossible if they hate you, meaning you have to loop (more on that later). "Thankfully" only like 2% of your total time is spent actually in combat.
The walking is slow (saving grace being a fast travel system that doesn't work in the mirror world). Every second irl is a minute ingame so time flies by mad fast, making the slow walking even more arduous.
There's barely any story. The game lore dumps at you at the start and then the rest of the game is pure vagueposts.
The characters have such, suuuch potential to be good, which makes it a shame that the game doesn't even bother showing it to you for whatever reason? Like the character will say something super important to their character arc and then it gets swept under the rug and it's never mentioned again. If there's a character growth, that happens off-screen... Most of your time is spent talking to them, skipping their one line, selecting the one suggestion you want to pick, skipping their one line again, get affection, repeat ad infinitum. Not very engaging.
The loop mechanic, while sounding cool, is implemented like butt. You reset the timeline, make everyone you failed to save alive again, except nobody remembers it, INCLUDING your character. Your stats and relationships get reset but you get them back twice as fast, so oh joy, more grinding and repeating dialogue. Speaking of repeating dialogue, EVERY line resets. That one time a character threw a wall of text at you? Gotta fast foward that again, and trust me, that shit PILES ON. Your blessings carry over though, so you don't need to grind as much.
BUT the reason I find it so fun is how accidentally ridiculous it is. Like why does my guy so desperately want to pork his cousin? Why can I date grandma? Why is there an epilogue if you ended up romancing your cousin, that is just her talking for a good 10 minutes with a still image? Why is there a character that will actually give you a game over if you talk to them while they're happy? What the FUCK is Demon Sight???
All in all 8/10 recommended for kusoge enjoyers.
jackindisguise
2 months ago
I honestly have a lot of good things to say about the way the story is told in this game, but it's hard to really care because the actual gameplay part of the game is just not salvageable. The game reveals its story elements in such an impressive way, constantly leading you on with little inconsistencies. The first one I noticed was that I actually didn't know what my character's name was. Everyone somehow had their own way of calling the main character, which in itself tells us something about these characters and their relationships. They clearly aren't strangers, even though they are presented as strangers.
Loop8 would find a much more receptive audience in the 90s on PC. I really don't know how these developers got the greenlight for this title in the 2020s. I'm glad it did, even though I probably will not only never play it again, I will not even recommend it. But I enjoyed it, I suppose.