Solid door-checking simulator.
It's an interesting story but it feels very padded out with unnecessary/uninteresting gameplay that ranges from dull to frustrating. If someone could turn this into a good novel that would be ideal.
All that being said, there's something to the depth and complexity of the characters and their motivations and the way these are metaphorically manifested that I just can't shake. I find the voices, dialog, and animations to be wonderfully weird and indelible. I like to think that the fatal act at the center of the story is not to be taken literally. James has enough to feel guilty about.

Starting my "replay" of Termina I did not really expect to glean much more than I had from my first playthrough of this game. I absolutely adored the game more than I have most other games and I've viewed as much content as I could find online for it. I thought I knew every inch of this game, every single intricate mechanic, character interaction, etc.

And this couldn't be any further from the truth.

My most recently completed run was with Abella, I got endings B and C on the same save file and I have so much more to appreciate this game for in this run now that I've seen all of the general endings firsthand. The sheer level of labour put into this game is inconcievable to me. Just the quality put into an rpgmaker game alone leaves me dumbfounded. Building upon the world, mechanics, and systems present in the first game in such a splendid manner. I have spent many hours merely thinking about this game and truly I cannot find anything to complain about.

Diversity in this game just breathes so much life and uniqueness to the world of Fear & Hunger. Just within the 8 playable characters, there's so many attributes that give each character their own distinict feel. In design, combat, and even just how you go about the navigating the world. Every playthrough feels magnitudally different just by the starting character alone. The soul absorbption mechanic adds on to this and creates so much depth for the progression system and understanding of the lore and game world. I've poured so many hours into perusing the wiki and watching too many a video covering unique interactions between the cast members and how they interact with the world. Mind Read, Diagnosis, and the Party Talk are all so intricately created it genuinely breaks my fucking mind to think that this game was produced by one person.

Combat once again follows in the foundation established by Funger 1. Though remaining more-or-less the same, the new REV system brings so much more depth to combat and I love it. The already complicated puzzle that is within each encounter now has an additional layer of which has heavy impact on the outcomes. Management of REV points could be the make or break for an encounter, and being so limited on how many you can store in your backend at a time PLUS being forced to commit to REV point usage adds so much stress to the gameplay itself. It really does wonders for establishing the brutal and ruthless resource management that this game has.

Style is something that I will infinitely praise this game for. I've watched some of the speedpainting videos, listened to every track (some hundreds of times over), and read through just about all of the dev's comments to other people regarding the music. Thematically the game never falls short and everything feels just so perfect. Again, it's so fucking mindblowing to me that this game even came to exist.

Funger's in-game world captivates me the most. All of the textbooks, flyers, papers, diaries, newspapers, everything. Nothing feels cheap in its delivery and nothing feels superfluous in its inclusion. I've read all of the pocketcat tales, all of the bibles, I cannot understate just how much I love how everything ties together both from the prior entry and from this one. Dialogues aside, the actual spritework and level design for the game itself is so magnificent and beautiful. Environments are put together and tracks are paired together like a match made in heaven. I cannot recall a moment where I've felt underwhelmed with the music and environment or annoyed with the design of an area. It's beautiful through and through. Character's and their relations to the world also do much to add depth and vibrancy to the characters themselves and those surrounding them. Again, the Party Talk and Mind Read mechanics are so perfectly executed and insanely deep. Nearly 3 hours of party talking paired with the mind reading ability (spoilers for obvious reasons). There's so much that you will miss out on sheerly because you don't play the game a certain way or don't unlock whatever skill. Characters in your party are also important because the Party Talk has unique dialogue based on those present/absent from the party. Words cannot express how much I love this system and how quite frankly fucking insane you have to be to put together all of this dialogue singlehandedly knowing that 90% of the playerbase won't even read a fraction of the interactions.

Miro has done a wonderful job with putting together such a game nearly singlehandedly. It's this game and Metal Gear Solid 2 that I believe are truly works of art. I'll admit I'm cranking out this "review" as something of a obligation because I want to write something of much grander scale but I lack the first-hand experience to do so. Think of this as something of a prelude if you would.

I'm currently 43 hours in and starting another run as Marina. This shit is crack. Help me.


STEAMDECK ADDENDUM:
I played this game on Steam Deck and it runs pretty OK. I'd suggest playing this on windows if possible. Unless you are running the latest protonGE version & the protondb fix for the game, you'll be fighting against massive fps drops very often.

### Stopped playing after a couple chapters ###

+ Great music
+ Good art
+ Weird murder puzzles
- Writing is soooo boring
- Pacing is awful
- Framerate is distractingly low
- Literally none of the suspects are even named characters; the stakes are so low
- Everyone from ch.0 goes away and the new cast is even less interesting with less setup
- ch.2 is just the same gimmick so many times
- Shinigami is soooo fucking annoying she needs to talk like 75% less
- Main character is overly stupid in a way that feels annoying rather than just being a stand-in for the player not knowing answers
- Amnesiac MC is so overdone and really doesn't do anything to endear me to him

Um jogo com uma proposta interessante, mas que carrega os problemas que infestam Danganronpa sem ter o mesmo apelo. Para fãs do gênero, é uma boa recomendação, contanto que se preparem para um polimento pobre e um preço salgado.

Conta com um mistério intrigante o suficiente e que possui resoluções altamente satisfatórias; os personagens são, em maioria, charmosos, mas não possuem o mesmo ênfase que seus “predecessores”. Em vez disso, a estrela é a cidade de Kanai Ward, que é viva, idealizada e a verdadeira protagonista da história.

Falando em protagonista, Yuma Kokohead (sim, esse é o nome dele) é digno de seu cargo, tendo um desenvolvimento bem idealizado ao longo da narrativa, graças à dinâmica com sua companheira, Shinigami, que consegue ser encantadora e irritante em doses parecidas. Por si sós, ambos deixam a desejar, mas suas personalidades se completam muito bem, tornando-os inseparáveis.

O resto do elenco também e forte, mas em é, em maioria, mal utilizado. Causam uma primeira impressão forte, e cada um é enfatizado em um capítulo “próprio”, mas em geral ficam em segundo plano dando espaço a personagens menores e menos interessantes.

A gameplay é simples e dividida em três fases: exploração, investigação, e mystery labyrinth. A primeira fase , com um mapa pequeno mas rico em detalhes e bem povoado, com missões secundárias criativas que ajudam na construção do mundo. A segunda fase é um híbrido entre a primeira e uma gameplay clássica point and click, onde o protagonista analisa cenários e coleta evidências. A terceira fase é a mais louca, e envolve caminhar por uma “materialização do mistério”, em formato de um labirinto linear (e psicodélico). Lá, as evidências coletadas ao longo da investigação são discutidas em minigames variados e envolvidos, similares aos de Danganronpa mas mais bem-trabalhados. Em contrapartida, a lógica é simples e carente de claridade, e consiste em refutar fatos que são óbvios mas apresentados de forma contra-intuitiva.


Rain Code é um daqueles jogos que acerta nos ingredientes mas erra no preparo; é cru e inconsistente. É possível ignorar as partes sujas para aproveitar o diamante que está escondido, mas o custo pode ser alto para alguns. No meu caso, valeu a experiência e meu tempo.

Growlanser II: The Sense of Justice expanded the debut's idea in all sorts of different directions. Firstly, it introduced an additional layer of complexity with its weapon augments system, as the template evolved to a mission-oriented progression similar to Tactics Ogre. This change created a vast space for plenty of story choices, branching storylines, subplots, relationships, side quests and endings. Despite the heavy war themes, its many scenes still held a fair bit of comedic personality and boasted character/world building in spades, acheiving a sort of multifaceted construct that's equal parts heartfelt, dramatic, verbose, playful and sophisticated. However - while there's an impressive degree of mission variety scattered around, some of which tend to highlight a few frustrating shortcomings in its awkward movement, AI and collisions.