Really fun, but does a lot of annoying things from time to time and has enough bugs to get frustrating.

I'm shelving this because even though I was on the last floor of Chapter 4's story, I lost the entire floor's worth of exploration because some weird bug caused an underflow error on my Kunoichi that was just counting her focus into negative infinity. It happened mid-turn and I couldn't do anything except to kill the game's process and lose my progress.

I'll probably come back to finish it at some point, but it's going to be a bit after it did me dirty like that.

Control scheme is a little weird-feeling at first, but once you get used to it, it's fine. The game is a walking sim at its core, but the interactions at terminals with Kaizen-85 can be very interesting.

In fact, this is probably where the game both excels and fails the most -- Kaizen can either have some very fruitful conversations with you or just sound strangely obtuse when trying to talk about relevant topics.

Not a specific spoiler given the nature of the game, but I was trying to track down a particular item and inadvertently triggered a clue from Kaizen, so I went off to suss out that clue. I remembered seeing the item Kaizen mentioned at one point but not giving it much notice, so I figured I'd go back to try and see what I missed about said item. Found said item, found nothing useful about it. Went back to the specific terminal where Kaizen talked about said item and it mentioned a separate item altogether in the current location.

Went and checked around the current location and it gave me more prompts about other possible locations or options in lieu of my current search. The thing is -- there's nothing wrong with the fact that it did this and remembered the locations where it was offering this advice. The problem was that even if I'd bring up a separate topic during this search that wasn't relevant to said search (but may or may not be relevant to the story/game itself), it just ignored talking to me about said topic and focused more on what it expected me to do to progress the game in that particular instance.

This happened a few other times resulting in some really awkward conversations where I felt like I was talking to an old Interactive Fiction parser more than an "AI", and it kinda took me out of the game.

Additionally, some things did not function quite as intended -- one particular section of the game sees you dealing with an issue under a time crunch and when I made it to the door I needed to open, even though I was standing where the icon suggested the terminal was, the terminal would not activate, so I went elsewhere to try and find a different door and terminal, assuming I had made a mistake. When other possibilities failed, I went back to said door and suddenly the terminal worked properly as if it were never an issue.

The game isn't a polished work, but it's definitely worth your time to check out. Your mileage will likely vary based on your interest in engaging with Kaizen and walking simulators in general. It's definitely not worth the twenty dollar asking price, but if you got it on sale for ten bucks (I believe that's what I got it for), you probably wouldn't feel cheated.

I actually found this game pretty fun and then set it aside so I could clear some backlog and then come back to it and enjoy it some more.

Came back to find that my save file no longer existed (maybe from the most recent update?). So...now it's in limbo again.

Worth checking out, assuming that your save file doesn't randomly vanish like mine did.

Another casualty for my Abandoned list due to save corruption. PS1 did not like keeping saves proper. I got to the final dungeon, saw a save point, was going to quit for the night, decided I'd just walk to the room on the right first and check it out...and BAM! Game freeze. Tried to load the game, no save (this was before responsible me got in the habit of making multiple saves).

Didn't enjoy it as much as the first Wild Arms, but it was definitely a good game outside of that sad experience.

EDIT: Just noting that no updates have come since June of 2021 still, so if you're seeing this review and reading it all the way through, be aware that nothing has changed and on top of that, their website that's supposed to have game details on it (accessible from the "visit the website" link on the Steam store page) takes you to a dead site that says the account for said site has been suspended. Caveat emptor, original review below.

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I know this is currently in Early Access, but just playing this for a short time, there's a lot of issues.

1. Running jumps off ledges in this game are of the kind where you're not completely sure where the game is going to assume you've gone too far and drop you off the ledge instead of letting you jump. These games always feel awkward to me because I end up falling at points where I normally would expect to be able to jump.

2. Although the art style is nice, the style gets in the way of the gameplay at times. Sometimes foreground objects completely obscure your sight to enemies, hazards, and projectiles. Some hazards aren't obvious because the game does little to make them visible -- an example of this is the wooden platforms you find early on that will have spikes rise out of them occasionally.

The spikes rise about half the height of the platform, have no sound effects on rising, and are the same color as the platform itself. You will inevitably land on one simply because you aren't noticing them.

3. Monster behavior for six of the first seven monsters I met has almost zero dependency on the player. Most of them just wander aimlessly, hopefully getting lucky by just accidentally running into you before you can get enough swings in to kill them. The slimes on the ceiling will at least fall if you're close enough, but that's the end of their interest in you. The bees are evil bastards that will shoot perfectly accurate projectiles that will seek you out and usually hit you mid-jump, knocking away most of your progress up a series of ledges that were already difficult to navigate because of the jump mechanic. Haven't reached the first boss, so I can't speculate as to whether this gets better or not.

4. You can't drop through ledges with a down-jump. This isn't a game breaker by any means, but it seems really weird when you can jump up through a ledge to reach the top of it, but have to walk off the side in order to get down to a lower level.

5. I feel like there's no real sound representation in this game. Be it music beyond some ambience, or sounds from creatures to represent their presence or their awareness of you -- it just feels really quiet and empty other than you slashing bushes and other objects.

6. Just a weird observation -- they give you the ability to equip hotkey items to use to heal or buff yourself as needed, but the game pauses while you're in the inventory menu anyway and allows you to eat those healing items there. I mention this because there's a distinct delay where you're stuck in the eating animation before you heal when in the game itself, but eating an item in the inventory menu doesn't penalize you at all, so why would you ever want to eat during actual gameplay?

-- In all, the game has some questionable design choices and it's already one month past the projected release date out of Early Access. The last update came back in June and was just a bugfix for a UI issue. I feel like either the devs might be hitting some walls or outside problems, or this could be a game that's being walked away from with whatever profits can be salvaged. I hope it's not the latter, but I guess we'll see.

If you see it on sale with a deep discount (like I did when I picked it up), check the discussions and dev activity to see whether it's still being updated before you decide on making that purchase.

It seems more interesting plot-wise than Rorona was, but man...coming into this after all the QoL improvements of Rorona DX makes this game feel especially awkward.

No fast travel, sorting is awkward, guidance is practically absent. I appreciate that hiring is free (at least, I think it is?). Wish combat gave me some idea how close I was to leveling, instead of just smashing my face into enemies and waiting for a "Level Up!" notice or going in and physically checking my status for characters.

If I had played this right after the original Rorona, I probably wouldn't have such gripes, but as it is, this just feels too unwieldy for me. From what I've read, Meruru DX is much the same, but I intend to give that a try at some point, as well.