I saw this when it was revealed for Switch and thought it looked cool but I wasn't sure what it was, it looked like a Visual Novel that you could move around in which I'm all about. It's got rave reviews and has been out on PlayStation for quite some time now so why not?
The actual combat is kind of basic, it's kind of just commands but it doesn't really matter where you are on the map, there are no "turns" per say but there are cooldown periods and expense (not MP but it works the same way) so there are breaks in between your attacks which is understandable, you'd be op otherwise.
You can also long range attack with your guns. Different characters have different attacks, you don't choose your party at first though. The prologue is split into seven parts and once you finish it, it opens up way more than I expected. You get to choose party members and how you want to go about playing, do you want more mech sections? Do you want more character sections? You take on whatever amount you want at any given time from any character. You want to upgrade those abilities and or unlock more for any given character? A demo really wouldn't do this game justice because of that.
It makes sense that there are more than 13 numbers but there are only 13 sentinels (ones that failed) but it just gets confusing who is what number (it does shows you every time they talk on this Codec comm type thing) but I guess it's not important, just overwhelming.
I heard the story described as all sorts of things mashed into one but it works and really that's the best way I can describe it. I went into this pretty much blind but I can tell you that it has to do with mechs, aliens, and time travelling, so the characters all have something to offer as a protagonist and make references to stuff like War of the Worlds and Men in Black and the fact that some of it takes place in '84-'85 could reflect a number of things. You see everything more or less revolves around these characters, the story, the gameplay and the style is displayed in 2D (except for mech secs) with a painted flair to them that makes the lighting look really pleasing.
There are multiple routes but it sort of makes itself into the game because you play different characters' stories in different scenarios so you really just fulfill all those and it gets you to the final ending. It's weird though because you don't have a specific order so you go from character to character to progress which I can't help but feel that I'm making the wrong decision sometimes. I ended up just trying to keep them all around the same percentage. You might be asking yourself "Then why can't you just do it one character at a time and then move onto the other characters?"
It does however lock some "remembrance" (which are the walking story sections) until after you beat certain missions so I'm wondering what the threshold was for how you figured out about specific events (because sometimes different characters will cover multiple sides to the same event). It just all gets very confusing so I might've preferred if it forced you to play a specific character order and then only choose routes. But I guess at least it doesn't require you to play it in different orders EVERY time; Every story is the same story, no matter what you've done thus far, routes are contained within each character so another doesn't have an impact on that.
On top of that, like the mech secs and story, there's a third option, "Analytics", when I say this game is packed, it's packed. So, the analytics provide a database of everything you've done thus far, you want to revisit cutscenes? Read summaries on the characters? It's pretty much all there but you also get newfound context along with it. When you go back to play a section, it doesn't seem like backtracking because everything you've done carries over, like keywords, which I'll get to in a moment, but once you complete a chapter, you don't even have the option to do that route again, so you don't have to worry about making a mistake and just getting the same cutscene. Instead, all the previously viewed cutscenes are in those "Analytics". There's even a chart that guides you to what you haven't gotten. So, for as complicated as it seems, it's pretty user-friendly.
Who is my favorite though? Well I started finding reasons to like all of them and felt very similar things with them. For instance, a character that I didn't think I'd like ended up being really good and a character that I thought would be my favorite, didn't. So, it does a pretty decent job with its characters but some routes still seemed a bit more interesting than others. I also took notes when I was first playing it to try and follow along so I included the nicknames I gave them.
CHARACTERS:
Fuyusaka-Flower hair. I like her but I'm conflicted. She probably netted me the most damage in mech secs but her gameplay in her story secs bother me because she's the one where you do the same task over and over again to get "a keyword" which is used to unlock the next route but it just seems like jumping through hoops, like it'll ask you "Do you want Hot Dogs or Nikuman?" (meat filled buns) but it's just a stupid cover to get that keyword and sometimes you find yourself doing it over and over again.
Kurabe-Main. I don't really have much to say about him, not because he's a bad character but because I feel like he's the "middle" character, a standard, plain, run of the mill main character.
Kisaragi-Cassandra Lee Morris. She looks unlikeable, but she's actually a really decent character and friend. She's also probably the funniest, but normally with her is Miwako, who is kind of annoying.
Amiguchi-Talks to the TV. I like his bad boy style because in a way it says a lot about what he's into. He's like Kurabe but cooler.
Natsuno-ET. I found her storyline to be a bit cliche but I found her impact on other characters to be enjoyable. She also has probably one of the most memorable moments of the whole game for me.
Miura-Old, has a sister, dude with the hat/Hemborgerlar. Is his name just a play on Kentaro Miura? The creator of Berserk?
Sekigahara-Doesn't remember squat. He's kind of rounded out because he seems to be one of the ones that always has a hand in the pot.
Yakushiji-Marinette. I think I like her character but not so much her story, I'm just not one for typical cat stories. I wish they would've focused on her and Juro's past a little more so that both her goal and the ending would be more rewarding but I still like her a lot.
Ogata-Shield hero. He's kind of just roped into this, showing the variety with these characters. He has a similar formula to Fuyusaka but I liked his a lot more, it had a stronger story and he was aware of what he was doing, there was a reason for why it was the way it was and it wasn't annoying to figure out.
Gouto- Boss. So little is known about him until the end, he actually has a prologue mission and then you need to get everybody to 80% in order to get any more. Once you do, he's kind of how you imagined, just a know it all.
Shinonome- Bandaid. I'm a fan of the "I don't care if I have no clue what's going on, nobody knows what they're talking about." type thing that she has going on.
Hijiyama-Long hair/old style/obsessed with sandwiches. He just can't win and is part of what makes his character so funny. I think they really drove on the friendship factor with both him and Kisaragi (not together) so they both seem very fleshed out.
Takamiya- Black skirt chick. I like the idea that she's just trying to make sense of it all, going around and interrogating people and she also has a thing with Amiguchi…well kind of, there's a lot of things you could argue in terms of shipping (until the end). In fact, her route was the first I finished.
How will you know if you'll like this? If you're tolerant to complicated anime storylines and time travel then I think you'll like it.
It's interactive, there are some moments where I was shocked like standing in front of the tv makes this guy say "I can't see!" or picking up a can of cat food and putting it too far makes him say "Did you have to put it so far?" And yes, the cat talks.
I will say this though, if it was just the mech sections, it would get annoying. If it was just the Walk through sections, it'd be kind of bare so doing one after the other is pleasant but towards the end it kind of requires you to do one at a time in order to unlock the next stage which makes it seem like it runs a little too long. Because of all these factors, it was a pretty stellar product towards the beginning but eventually middled itself out for me so I'm going to give it a 7/10 or a 3/5. I spent about 27 hours on it so there's an avg runtime.
I wouldn't call it overrated because I don't hear much about it but whenever I do, I hear the moon about it and it's just "good".
The actual combat is kind of basic, it's kind of just commands but it doesn't really matter where you are on the map, there are no "turns" per say but there are cooldown periods and expense (not MP but it works the same way) so there are breaks in between your attacks which is understandable, you'd be op otherwise.
You can also long range attack with your guns. Different characters have different attacks, you don't choose your party at first though. The prologue is split into seven parts and once you finish it, it opens up way more than I expected. You get to choose party members and how you want to go about playing, do you want more mech sections? Do you want more character sections? You take on whatever amount you want at any given time from any character. You want to upgrade those abilities and or unlock more for any given character? A demo really wouldn't do this game justice because of that.
It makes sense that there are more than 13 numbers but there are only 13 sentinels (ones that failed) but it just gets confusing who is what number (it does shows you every time they talk on this Codec comm type thing) but I guess it's not important, just overwhelming.
I heard the story described as all sorts of things mashed into one but it works and really that's the best way I can describe it. I went into this pretty much blind but I can tell you that it has to do with mechs, aliens, and time travelling, so the characters all have something to offer as a protagonist and make references to stuff like War of the Worlds and Men in Black and the fact that some of it takes place in '84-'85 could reflect a number of things. You see everything more or less revolves around these characters, the story, the gameplay and the style is displayed in 2D (except for mech secs) with a painted flair to them that makes the lighting look really pleasing.
There are multiple routes but it sort of makes itself into the game because you play different characters' stories in different scenarios so you really just fulfill all those and it gets you to the final ending. It's weird though because you don't have a specific order so you go from character to character to progress which I can't help but feel that I'm making the wrong decision sometimes. I ended up just trying to keep them all around the same percentage. You might be asking yourself "Then why can't you just do it one character at a time and then move onto the other characters?"
It does however lock some "remembrance" (which are the walking story sections) until after you beat certain missions so I'm wondering what the threshold was for how you figured out about specific events (because sometimes different characters will cover multiple sides to the same event). It just all gets very confusing so I might've preferred if it forced you to play a specific character order and then only choose routes. But I guess at least it doesn't require you to play it in different orders EVERY time; Every story is the same story, no matter what you've done thus far, routes are contained within each character so another doesn't have an impact on that.
On top of that, like the mech secs and story, there's a third option, "Analytics", when I say this game is packed, it's packed. So, the analytics provide a database of everything you've done thus far, you want to revisit cutscenes? Read summaries on the characters? It's pretty much all there but you also get newfound context along with it. When you go back to play a section, it doesn't seem like backtracking because everything you've done carries over, like keywords, which I'll get to in a moment, but once you complete a chapter, you don't even have the option to do that route again, so you don't have to worry about making a mistake and just getting the same cutscene. Instead, all the previously viewed cutscenes are in those "Analytics". There's even a chart that guides you to what you haven't gotten. So, for as complicated as it seems, it's pretty user-friendly.
Who is my favorite though? Well I started finding reasons to like all of them and felt very similar things with them. For instance, a character that I didn't think I'd like ended up being really good and a character that I thought would be my favorite, didn't. So, it does a pretty decent job with its characters but some routes still seemed a bit more interesting than others. I also took notes when I was first playing it to try and follow along so I included the nicknames I gave them.
CHARACTERS:
Fuyusaka-Flower hair. I like her but I'm conflicted. She probably netted me the most damage in mech secs but her gameplay in her story secs bother me because she's the one where you do the same task over and over again to get "a keyword" which is used to unlock the next route but it just seems like jumping through hoops, like it'll ask you "Do you want Hot Dogs or Nikuman?" (meat filled buns) but it's just a stupid cover to get that keyword and sometimes you find yourself doing it over and over again.
Kurabe-Main. I don't really have much to say about him, not because he's a bad character but because I feel like he's the "middle" character, a standard, plain, run of the mill main character.
Kisaragi-Cassandra Lee Morris. She looks unlikeable, but she's actually a really decent character and friend. She's also probably the funniest, but normally with her is Miwako, who is kind of annoying.
Amiguchi-Talks to the TV. I like his bad boy style because in a way it says a lot about what he's into. He's like Kurabe but cooler.
Natsuno-ET. I found her storyline to be a bit cliche but I found her impact on other characters to be enjoyable. She also has probably one of the most memorable moments of the whole game for me.
Miura-Old, has a sister, dude with the hat/Hemborgerlar. Is his name just a play on Kentaro Miura? The creator of Berserk?
Sekigahara-Doesn't remember squat. He's kind of rounded out because he seems to be one of the ones that always has a hand in the pot.
Yakushiji-Marinette. I think I like her character but not so much her story, I'm just not one for typical cat stories. I wish they would've focused on her and Juro's past a little more so that both her goal and the ending would be more rewarding but I still like her a lot.
Ogata-Shield hero. He's kind of just roped into this, showing the variety with these characters. He has a similar formula to Fuyusaka but I liked his a lot more, it had a stronger story and he was aware of what he was doing, there was a reason for why it was the way it was and it wasn't annoying to figure out.
Gouto- Boss. So little is known about him until the end, he actually has a prologue mission and then you need to get everybody to 80% in order to get any more. Once you do, he's kind of how you imagined, just a know it all.
Shinonome- Bandaid. I'm a fan of the "I don't care if I have no clue what's going on, nobody knows what they're talking about." type thing that she has going on.
Hijiyama-Long hair/old style/obsessed with sandwiches. He just can't win and is part of what makes his character so funny. I think they really drove on the friendship factor with both him and Kisaragi (not together) so they both seem very fleshed out.
Takamiya- Black skirt chick. I like the idea that she's just trying to make sense of it all, going around and interrogating people and she also has a thing with Amiguchi…well kind of, there's a lot of things you could argue in terms of shipping (until the end). In fact, her route was the first I finished.
How will you know if you'll like this? If you're tolerant to complicated anime storylines and time travel then I think you'll like it.
It's interactive, there are some moments where I was shocked like standing in front of the tv makes this guy say "I can't see!" or picking up a can of cat food and putting it too far makes him say "Did you have to put it so far?" And yes, the cat talks.
I will say this though, if it was just the mech sections, it would get annoying. If it was just the Walk through sections, it'd be kind of bare so doing one after the other is pleasant but towards the end it kind of requires you to do one at a time in order to unlock the next stage which makes it seem like it runs a little too long. Because of all these factors, it was a pretty stellar product towards the beginning but eventually middled itself out for me so I'm going to give it a 7/10 or a 3/5. I spent about 27 hours on it so there's an avg runtime.
I wouldn't call it overrated because I don't hear much about it but whenever I do, I hear the moon about it and it's just "good".