Hapiste
2001
Nice short story, Seo is a good character but this is just another version of a KnK character
The Sacchin concept art collection was absolute peak, praise be the remake to finally give us her route
The Sacchin concept art collection was absolute peak, praise be the remake to finally give us her route
Very short (less than 1h) with very limited interactions, they are funny though. For a budget game, the campsite was beautiful and the OST are comfy.
But more than that, camping with my wife Shimarin is a dream come true so it's totally worth it.
But more than that, camping with my wife Shimarin is a dream come true so it's totally worth it.
2024
This review contains spoilers
Could have been great, if not for that absolutely horrendous 2nd chapter, which takes half of the game if not more.
Played on a Galaxy S21 FE on version 1.1.0. From what I understand it fixed a lot of issues and I didn't have any particular one. Optimization seems "fine" in most case except for some stuttering on 60FPS mode, which is better than the 30FPS mode having huge FPS drops to nearly freezing for no reason. If your phone supports it, use 60.
Artistic direction is the big pro of this game (not for chap2), especially during chapter 3 where they've gone all out to impress you, and it worked. Beautiful sceneries, zones/towns and that final boss was ART.
Story and OST are "ok". OST doesn't stand out and is forgettable but does its job as nice background noises. Only memorable ones are final boss last phase and the opening (it spoils a lot so I advise you to skip it before you begin the game).
Story is a little confusing, nothing big, you follow it pretty nicely (again, not for chap2) but you'll surely forget it one week later .
Characters are bland. You have 6 main characters, half of which are absolutely useless. Zero² have nearly 0 dialogue after chapter 1. Deterrant joins very late and is a walking wikipedia, you will have no interaction with him except when he is explaining something. And Manganese is a bird I nearly forgot existed because you never see him too, but even less than Zero².
Yan, Roy and Vi² are ok. Pretty bland but they have nice interactions with each other’s and Vi is cute.
Combat is pretty good. When it works.
You'll altern between two phases: attack and defense.
You attack by using (=button mashing) skills. You defend by clicking the big red (dodge) or blue (parry) circle when an enemy attack, both of them having their own advantage and some attacks being only countered by one of those two. Each character either dodge or parry so you'll have to change which one you want at the front to tank the enemies’ attacks. Pretty simple. Pretty fun. If only it would read your tapping correctly. Attack combos suddenly stop for no reason, meaning you just wasted a turn. And it's even worse when you need to defend because sometimes you tap the big button but your character decides to do absolutely nothing and you take damages. Or even worse, when you need to swape character but the game just doesn't want to let you change the frontliner and the enemy use a "only dodgeable/parry attack" with you have the wrong character for that type of attack, meaning you literally just CAN'T DO ANYTHING against it. Really cool when your enemy suddenly change its attack type.
Other than that, game is actually easy and even tell you when to exactly use the defend button, never had a game over during my whole playthrough. The only difficulty is the platforming, especially when the platforms are moving and Yan needs 10 seconds to gather her courage, jump aaaand too bad the platform already left you jumped into the void too bad lol my god who thought it was a good idea.
You'll use the same party and the same skills combos for the whole game after chap1 but it's pretty dynamic so you won't get easily bored. Doesn't need to farm too, you can max level your 3 characters without problems. Relics for the Conjugate systems are useless, you can beat the game with the early one because even the late-game ones aren't that great.
Now. Chapter 2.
This is HORRIBLE. I was pretty hyped when I learnt Arknights dev were doing a premium, paid, no gacha money grabbing scheme game. Chapter 1 was cool, I was hooked. And then it came.
The zones are uninspired, bland, not look-worthy. Everything is sand, sand and more sand. And then came the 3 towers. Also bland, but you'll climb the same towers THREE TIMES. And THREE TIMES you do that for nothing because the scenario decided that "oopsie you were too late the big villain (he is a villain because...stuff? The justification was nearly inexistant like the whole scenario in that chapter) already escaped lmao". Which leads you to the final dungeon (with the same uninspired bland interior as the 3 towers) and the peoples who made it needs to be fired. Extremely long for nothing. I said chap2 was half the game? This is half of chapter2.
Lots of random mobs because you need battles and even more shitty puzzles. Everywhere. At every rooms. And there is only one type of puzzle : you need to move big blocks to specific locations, that's it, do that every 2 minutes now. There is also one where you can get softlocked and you don't even know it until the last step. If you really like puzzles, some of them have little side challenge where you can unlock bonus chests buuuut they are impossible, and I don't say that because I'm a brainlet but because they REALLY ARE impossible due to how they are constructed. At least 3 of them were like that. They didn't even test them.
Chapter 2 really killed my whole hype about the game. Chapter 3 is way, way better and you can see that’s where all the work has gone, but it can’t salvage all the damage ch2 did before.
Is it worth? If you want a short (~15h) mobile JRPG for $10 and can stomach an awful half of the game, why not. I hope they’ll learn from their mistake and not just say “we failed, we’re going back to gachas” because there is room for improvement, and seeing chapter1 and 3, they can make really good things.
Played on a Galaxy S21 FE on version 1.1.0. From what I understand it fixed a lot of issues and I didn't have any particular one. Optimization seems "fine" in most case except for some stuttering on 60FPS mode, which is better than the 30FPS mode having huge FPS drops to nearly freezing for no reason. If your phone supports it, use 60.
Artistic direction is the big pro of this game (not for chap2), especially during chapter 3 where they've gone all out to impress you, and it worked. Beautiful sceneries, zones/towns and that final boss was ART.
Story and OST are "ok". OST doesn't stand out and is forgettable but does its job as nice background noises. Only memorable ones are final boss last phase and the opening (it spoils a lot so I advise you to skip it before you begin the game).
Story is a little confusing, nothing big, you follow it pretty nicely (again, not for chap2) but you'll surely forget it one week later .
Characters are bland. You have 6 main characters, half of which are absolutely useless. Zero² have nearly 0 dialogue after chapter 1. Deterrant joins very late and is a walking wikipedia, you will have no interaction with him except when he is explaining something. And Manganese is a bird I nearly forgot existed because you never see him too, but even less than Zero².
Yan, Roy and Vi² are ok. Pretty bland but they have nice interactions with each other’s and Vi is cute.
Combat is pretty good. When it works.
You'll altern between two phases: attack and defense.
You attack by using (=button mashing) skills. You defend by clicking the big red (dodge) or blue (parry) circle when an enemy attack, both of them having their own advantage and some attacks being only countered by one of those two. Each character either dodge or parry so you'll have to change which one you want at the front to tank the enemies’ attacks. Pretty simple. Pretty fun. If only it would read your tapping correctly. Attack combos suddenly stop for no reason, meaning you just wasted a turn. And it's even worse when you need to defend because sometimes you tap the big button but your character decides to do absolutely nothing and you take damages. Or even worse, when you need to swape character but the game just doesn't want to let you change the frontliner and the enemy use a "only dodgeable/parry attack" with you have the wrong character for that type of attack, meaning you literally just CAN'T DO ANYTHING against it. Really cool when your enemy suddenly change its attack type.
Other than that, game is actually easy and even tell you when to exactly use the defend button, never had a game over during my whole playthrough. The only difficulty is the platforming, especially when the platforms are moving and Yan needs 10 seconds to gather her courage, jump aaaand too bad the platform already left you jumped into the void too bad lol my god who thought it was a good idea.
You'll use the same party and the same skills combos for the whole game after chap1 but it's pretty dynamic so you won't get easily bored. Doesn't need to farm too, you can max level your 3 characters without problems. Relics for the Conjugate systems are useless, you can beat the game with the early one because even the late-game ones aren't that great.
Now. Chapter 2.
This is HORRIBLE. I was pretty hyped when I learnt Arknights dev were doing a premium, paid, no gacha money grabbing scheme game. Chapter 1 was cool, I was hooked. And then it came.
The zones are uninspired, bland, not look-worthy. Everything is sand, sand and more sand. And then came the 3 towers. Also bland, but you'll climb the same towers THREE TIMES. And THREE TIMES you do that for nothing because the scenario decided that "oopsie you were too late the big villain (he is a villain because...stuff? The justification was nearly inexistant like the whole scenario in that chapter) already escaped lmao". Which leads you to the final dungeon (with the same uninspired bland interior as the 3 towers) and the peoples who made it needs to be fired. Extremely long for nothing. I said chap2 was half the game? This is half of chapter2.
Lots of random mobs because you need battles and even more shitty puzzles. Everywhere. At every rooms. And there is only one type of puzzle : you need to move big blocks to specific locations, that's it, do that every 2 minutes now. There is also one where you can get softlocked and you don't even know it until the last step. If you really like puzzles, some of them have little side challenge where you can unlock bonus chests buuuut they are impossible, and I don't say that because I'm a brainlet but because they REALLY ARE impossible due to how they are constructed. At least 3 of them were like that. They didn't even test them.
Chapter 2 really killed my whole hype about the game. Chapter 3 is way, way better and you can see that’s where all the work has gone, but it can’t salvage all the damage ch2 did before.
Is it worth? If you want a short (~15h) mobile JRPG for $10 and can stomach an awful half of the game, why not. I hope they’ll learn from their mistake and not just say “we failed, we’re going back to gachas” because there is room for improvement, and seeing chapter1 and 3, they can make really good things.