When I saw this and gave the description a read I was excited. I thought I was in for a real unpolished gem, an ambitious work born of passion. Sadly, while I certainly don't doubt the love behind is here the end product just doesn't work.
The initial impressions are very strong. The spritework, particularly on the prehistoric critters themselves, is fantastic. The music slaps and there's a great variety in the tracks, particularly in battle themes.
And then you have a couple of fights and realise they're all the same, they're all going to be the same. Encountering a menagerie of dinosaurs very quickly loses its luster when you realise all of them have the same two moves: attack and stare menacingly. I'm not expecting a hadrosaur to bust out a firaga or grand cross, but if the only way you have to interact with these ancient creatures is turn-based RPG combat then the experience of that should be engaging and offer a range of different tactical situations. Even ignoring the sameness of these encounters, the fundamentals are also off, with missed attacks by both sides frequent and status effects and weaknesses that don't feel like they warrant much use.
The world, once you get past the first four "chapters" opens up and you can explore it however you like. This would be a great set up if it were a better place to explore. Many sections are just too large and have nothing to do but find keys to other areas and dodge the dinos that will charge you as soon as notice you. The story is extremely flat, the characters half note. Some of that may come down to translation issues, but clearly not all of it.
Now, I would have persevered despite all this, but sadly the technical problems just got too much. Crashes were semi-frequent, button prompts like running or opening the menu wouldn't work and when one of my characters got a bleed condition I just couldn't bring myself to continue.
A real shame.
The initial impressions are very strong. The spritework, particularly on the prehistoric critters themselves, is fantastic. The music slaps and there's a great variety in the tracks, particularly in battle themes.
And then you have a couple of fights and realise they're all the same, they're all going to be the same. Encountering a menagerie of dinosaurs very quickly loses its luster when you realise all of them have the same two moves: attack and stare menacingly. I'm not expecting a hadrosaur to bust out a firaga or grand cross, but if the only way you have to interact with these ancient creatures is turn-based RPG combat then the experience of that should be engaging and offer a range of different tactical situations. Even ignoring the sameness of these encounters, the fundamentals are also off, with missed attacks by both sides frequent and status effects and weaknesses that don't feel like they warrant much use.
The world, once you get past the first four "chapters" opens up and you can explore it however you like. This would be a great set up if it were a better place to explore. Many sections are just too large and have nothing to do but find keys to other areas and dodge the dinos that will charge you as soon as notice you. The story is extremely flat, the characters half note. Some of that may come down to translation issues, but clearly not all of it.
Now, I would have persevered despite all this, but sadly the technical problems just got too much. Crashes were semi-frequent, button prompts like running or opening the menu wouldn't work and when one of my characters got a bleed condition I just couldn't bring myself to continue.
A real shame.