This review contains spoilers
I really wish I could have finished and enjoyed this game all the way through, but sadly, it overstays it's welcome around the 20 Hours mark and becomes an extremely boring slog until you give up, which is a shame since I really loved the story and characters! Gameplay is the real let down.
The game basically consists of walking straight on a big hallway, fighting enemies along the way and watching cutscenes. Really, that's pretty much it. No puzzles, no exploration, no side quests (Until chapter 11, but even them are boring), just these 3 things, And here's the thing, it actually works for the first 20 hours because of the story, the prospect of becoming stronger through Gear and the Crystal System keeps you engaged. However, these two progression systems (Crystal and Gear) end up falling flat because of how they depend on grinding boring battles over and over and over again.
At a first glance, the weapon/accessory upgrade system seems kinda interesting. You collect monster drops to stack a multiplier on your gear, to then use scrap parts to add a big amount to XP to it and level it up. However, the balance around it felt very weird to me, battles rarely dropped any items and when they do, it was only about 1 to 2 items, since battles don't reward money, you can't even buy more materials, in addition to battles rewarding crystal points to level your skill tree, it feels like the game really wants you to keep doing repetitive battles for a long time to be able to feel like you are progressing, which makes sense I guess, since the game doesn't offer any other thing to do. I also felt like I was completely locked in a singular weapon upon leveling it up, making any other weapon you find being just a way to get a small amount of money. Maybe there was something I missed, but I don't think so.
I stopped playing in the middle of chapter 11, once you get to Gran Pulse, the place where you actually have side quests and not just a hallway to keep walking forward... at least that's what i though, Gran Pulse ended up being just a singular large area leading to even more hallways with semi-bosses to fight and complete the quests, I just could not do it anymore.
The story really is the only thing that make you want to keep playing, but since the gameplay just becomes extremely boring, watching the rest of it online was the best decision to me. I really wished I could have experienced it to the end, such a beautiful story.
The game basically consists of walking straight on a big hallway, fighting enemies along the way and watching cutscenes. Really, that's pretty much it. No puzzles, no exploration, no side quests (Until chapter 11, but even them are boring), just these 3 things, And here's the thing, it actually works for the first 20 hours because of the story, the prospect of becoming stronger through Gear and the Crystal System keeps you engaged. However, these two progression systems (Crystal and Gear) end up falling flat because of how they depend on grinding boring battles over and over and over again.
At a first glance, the weapon/accessory upgrade system seems kinda interesting. You collect monster drops to stack a multiplier on your gear, to then use scrap parts to add a big amount to XP to it and level it up. However, the balance around it felt very weird to me, battles rarely dropped any items and when they do, it was only about 1 to 2 items, since battles don't reward money, you can't even buy more materials, in addition to battles rewarding crystal points to level your skill tree, it feels like the game really wants you to keep doing repetitive battles for a long time to be able to feel like you are progressing, which makes sense I guess, since the game doesn't offer any other thing to do. I also felt like I was completely locked in a singular weapon upon leveling it up, making any other weapon you find being just a way to get a small amount of money. Maybe there was something I missed, but I don't think so.
I stopped playing in the middle of chapter 11, once you get to Gran Pulse, the place where you actually have side quests and not just a hallway to keep walking forward... at least that's what i though, Gran Pulse ended up being just a singular large area leading to even more hallways with semi-bosses to fight and complete the quests, I just could not do it anymore.
The story really is the only thing that make you want to keep playing, but since the gameplay just becomes extremely boring, watching the rest of it online was the best decision to me. I really wished I could have experienced it to the end, such a beautiful story.