I went in with little idea of what to expect, asides from "rats." I came out of it with mixed feelings.

First, let me start with what I consider to be the best element—the soundtrack and sound design. I was not expecting it to be this good. Throughout the entire adventure, my ears were treated with a sensory delight as the music met the challenge of fitting alongside the dark fantasy of a plague from centuries ago. What was even more of a surprise, however, is the sound design. Your every move was met with an appropriate sound in response, really adding to that tension and danger you were in. Overall, the game does an excellent job making you feel small among the real dangers of this world.

The excellent soundtrack only makes me sadder to feel a lot more mixed with its other elements, ranging from "flawed but still enjoyable" to "oh god why." The story falls into that former category. We have a range of grand storytelling that sucks you in to wooden stereotypes and let-downs. Let me dive into examples of this weird mix of phenomenal storytelling and disconnected pieces.

A good example of the fantastic storytelling is the worldbuilding they have set up as we explore the horrors of a world overrun by a plague... even if it's rats, which I found more funny than anything due to how the rats often freaked out (the sheer number of rats on screen was still very impressive, nonetheless). That, or it was all an elaborate Jerma reference, not helping things. But back to the point, the devastation of this plague feels very real, and the way it destroys entire villages is haunting. Amicia and Hugo are thrown into a harsh world without warning, everything they loved stripped from them.

Onto a bad example. Let's look at the character Arthur, a character introduced around the middle of the game and officially joins the main party later. Except you do not care for him even slightly. We never get much time to spend with him to build up to his inevitable death, which at least could have made the moment tragic and given us more of a motivation to get revenge. However, even his death is seen from a mile away. That moment where he happens to look away for a good amount of time after having thought he killed Lord Nicolas. This entire sequel was such a let-down, from his death to the final encounter with the man who led the charge to the kids' home. They wasted not one, but two characters in a single fell swoop. This isn't to mention how Vitalis, the actual main antagonist, is randomly introduced and given not much to do asides from being an evil Pope. While the worldbuilding is solid, the characters and their interactions certainly were not, leaving much to be desired.

Ending things off with something I consider to be the biggest thing which drags the entire experience down—the gameplay. Good lord, this was not playtested at all. I hate to say this as I like when games focus on a smaller element to flesh out and bring out its full potential, but that is not what happens here. We sadly have a gameplay system that is woefully shallow. Scattered throughout are painful stealth sections that centre around two or three repetitive strategies. Every single boss battle is either anti-climactic or painfully frustrating. They are always throwing at you some new mechanic that was thought of over the course of ten minutes and never re-visited in whatever playtesting they may have done. Shoutout to the cart section in chapter XVI.

I want to love this game. There are some very high highs, but massive lows to counteract this game's potential. Do I regret playing it? No. However, I cannot see myself revisiting, at least not for a very long time. What it does right makes it even more painful to be so negative about elements regarding it. Here's hoping the sequel remedies some of my issues.

There is a lot of potential here. Where this game shines the most is when it tries to be its own thing instead of attempting to be edgy Pokémon. Unfortunately, the aspects that do try to be Pokémon fall flat. While the creature designs are going to be completely subjective, I wasn't too impressed with many of them. Many of them have that standard "cartoon but in HD" look to them. As an example, the eyes. Many of them use the exact same copy-and-pasted generic anime style, leading to many of the Pals feeling either generic or out of place. And while I by in large don't think the majority of the Pals are ripoffs of existing Pokémon, there are a handful which raise a lot of questions.

The good thing is, this entire game isn't Pokémon. The world is decently fun to explore, albeit fairly buggy. There exists an entire crafting system that adds depth to the overall experience, and... slavery? Okay, yeah, the edginess of the game isn't for me. I would love to see a version of this game without all that edge. Because it really is cringe and made for that 12 year old boy who thinks he is deep. There are ways to do maturity: this isn't it.

One thing I do want to mention is how this game blew up online, not doing it any favours. It's led to a lot of arguments and, unfortunately, unrealistic expectations. This is a fine game with a lot of potential, and right now is in a state where a lot of work still needs to be implemented. And I hope it can reach a point where it becomes a lot more enjoyable to play.

Realised I never gave this a review to finalise my history with this game. So here goes.

This is a good game with some horrible choices. If you wonder why I will likely never finish this game in its entirety, it's because of how the entire story is spread out across multiple playthroughs where one has to repeat many things they did in past playthroughs, and yes, it is a massive slog. I've played through Edelgard's route and most of Dimitri's, and by that point I lost all motivation to experience all there is to offer. I couldn't stand the Monastery, which loses all of its novelty after that first playthrough as you are forced to go through if you want all those bonuses.

Speaking of the Monastery. It's awful. It's one of those things that looks impressive at first, but ultimately the areas you get to explore are so devoid of anything interesting that making it a streamlined process probably would have made for a better, and less tedious, game. Combined with the game's awful graphics and textures, and you have a recipe for something that needed to be cooked for longer.

The saving grace for this game is the story, the characters especially. These are some of the most memorable in the entire franchise. The conflict between Edelgard and Dimitri felt natural, while Claude was... nice, I guess? I dunno, it was more about the former two for me. If I had to be more critical, Dimitri was probably the best character while Edelgard the personal favourite, despite issues I have with the way they handled her narrative. Those issues asides, we have here an engaging narrative that gives a reason to slog through all the unnecessary filler. Sadly, it wasn't enough a reason for me.

This could have been an easy 5/5 had this game not made some crucial mistakes. Not having the motivation to see a good chunk of the story all because of its horrid pacing and requirement of going through the exact same content is a massive issue. I'm sure it won't bother many others as it does me, but I do have trouble with attention span, which this game reasonably stretches and asks too much of. An option to skip or streamline that experience would go a long way to making it much more accessible to someone like me.