This game was brutal and punishing. I really wanted to give this game 4 stars, but having multiple party wipes in the final missions of the game after spending dozens of hours building up a roster was incredibly demoralizing. I ended up googling guides for the final missions because I was so averse to the thought of losing more party members and having to fully remake a roster. And on that note, the gameplay, while fun at first when you're still seeing new enemy types and experimenting with different party compositions, quickly became incredibly grindy and more of a chore than anything.

But on the same token though, the game was in fact very fun in the beginning. The alure of honing in on and perfecting your idea of the ideal party composition and build amidst the adversity and hardship that the game so proudly touts and shoves in your face was satisfying enough to make me want to see this game to its end. The art style was a treat, the narrator was charming, and the game nailed the atmosphere it was going for, grim and foreboding.

After my fourth party wipe in the last few levels and losing over half my roster, I was on the verge of just dropping the game completely, but I'm glad I saw it through. Expect an engaging, but grindy experience that has the potential to destroy your resolve.

It was an interesting game that was fun and challenging initially, but once I had "figured it out," it turned into somewhat of a chore. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay was very addicting, but I didn't really get a sense of fulfillment from playing, more so just a means to pass time. My biggest gripe was that the game failed to explain quite a few mechanics and I just had to find out about them in passing or by looking them up. Which for some games is the fun part, but for this game it didn't really feel that way. The characters were cute and quirky, but the story was rather lackluster and not very compelling. I probably put a lot more time into the game than was warranted, just because I wanted to be a completionist and fully upgrade my village as well as fill out the encyclopedia. Beating the final boss took about ~14 hours, the remainder of my 30 hours in the game were spent either afk or farming materials to achieve my aforementioned goals.