Edit (1/23/2022): I've played more (up to halfway through of the third area, give or take) and while I had more fun than my review originally indicated, I still stand by a lot of my points. I'm writing this about a month after I shelved the game, and I don't remember much of the music in the game except for the second area (which was a banger, to be fair). What I've played of the story was still very piss poor, to the point I hated advancing in the game because that also meant advancing the plot. Apparently you can now turn down the brightness in the game, a feature I apparently never got because every time I checked if I got the 1.2 update it wasn't there.
I can at least say I like the gameplay after spending more time with it. Beating the first major boss allows you to warp to each save point, which is massively helpful (and should have been given to you right from the start, imo). Battle system can be said to be one of Atlus's best, and exploring each of the areas is rewarding, as the Koroks (I can't remember what they're called, but everything in this game is forgettable) of this game give some pretty substantial rewards. Upgrading the Nahobino and your party of demons is fun, too.
It's just such a shame that none of it feels worth it when all you get are just one skippable cutscene after the next.
Original review:
TL;DR: A lot could be improved if there were checkpoints so you don't lose all your progress from a random "difficulty spike" in an otherwise easy game. These are also my first impressions after playing for ~4-5 hours, so I wouldn't consider them a review by any sense of the word.
First impressions: this was an impulse purchase, but it's one I'm finding myself regretting.
I really, really wanted to like this game and keep coming back to it, but I just get the desire to play something else every time I pick it up. This game gets boring in every aspect after about an hour, visually, musically, and in its gameplay.
I thought this game was pretty fun starting out, but after playing on hard for a little while I eventually found out this game is very easy 95% of the time and feigns its difficulty by sending you to your last save when you die, with save points being rather sparse. This is lame, and it also sucks, since it just makes playing the game become a chore when you die to a sudden "difficulty spike" (for lack of a better term - these were the occasional mob fights where they suddenly attacked my Nahobino all at once and also one boss on the verge of defeat). The battle system is like a slightly better version of Octopath Traveler's, so you can see again why I'd say it gets boring so quickly.
The music isn't very good at all, which was unexpected from Atlus. The main battle theme sounds interesting at first, but once you start hearing it more and more the novelty wears off. The song that plays as you explore Da'at (at least the desert portion, if there are other areas at all) does a good job sounding bleak and empty - until again, the novelty wears off and it becomes grating. The scenery of (if there are any other areas) the first area is just generic post apocalyptic desert and not really anything I haven't seen before. Not only that, but the bloom is turned to all the way up to 11 so not only is the world hard to look at aesthetically, but also literally and I found myself having headaches when playing this game (there's also no way to turn down the brightness at all, ffs). This game also runs like ass on the Switch, and low FPS doesn't help when the brightness was already agonizing enough.
The only thing I can really praise Atlus for here are the character designs, but even that's hard when most of the demon designs were lifted from previous MegaTen games, which normally isn't a problem but it just makes things feel worse here. Speaking of characters, there are none! Although I did start off meeting the main cast, they were all extremely one dimensional and not the least bit entertaining. If characters are good enough, they can carry an otherwise boring game, but by the time I gave up on this I only encountered one of the main characters a second time, whose personality trait is that he's actually an undercover government agent. Wow!
You could easily describe this game as one word: "generic", but even then, if making progress was less of a chore, I could get past a lot of the flaws here. But these are just my first impressions. Maybe I'll come back to this game, but man, it's just not my thing, apparently.
I can at least say I like the gameplay after spending more time with it. Beating the first major boss allows you to warp to each save point, which is massively helpful (and should have been given to you right from the start, imo). Battle system can be said to be one of Atlus's best, and exploring each of the areas is rewarding, as the Koroks (I can't remember what they're called, but everything in this game is forgettable) of this game give some pretty substantial rewards. Upgrading the Nahobino and your party of demons is fun, too.
It's just such a shame that none of it feels worth it when all you get are just one skippable cutscene after the next.
Original review:
TL;DR: A lot could be improved if there were checkpoints so you don't lose all your progress from a random "difficulty spike" in an otherwise easy game. These are also my first impressions after playing for ~4-5 hours, so I wouldn't consider them a review by any sense of the word.
First impressions: this was an impulse purchase, but it's one I'm finding myself regretting.
I really, really wanted to like this game and keep coming back to it, but I just get the desire to play something else every time I pick it up. This game gets boring in every aspect after about an hour, visually, musically, and in its gameplay.
I thought this game was pretty fun starting out, but after playing on hard for a little while I eventually found out this game is very easy 95% of the time and feigns its difficulty by sending you to your last save when you die, with save points being rather sparse. This is lame, and it also sucks, since it just makes playing the game become a chore when you die to a sudden "difficulty spike" (for lack of a better term - these were the occasional mob fights where they suddenly attacked my Nahobino all at once and also one boss on the verge of defeat). The battle system is like a slightly better version of Octopath Traveler's, so you can see again why I'd say it gets boring so quickly.
The music isn't very good at all, which was unexpected from Atlus. The main battle theme sounds interesting at first, but once you start hearing it more and more the novelty wears off. The song that plays as you explore Da'at (at least the desert portion, if there are other areas at all) does a good job sounding bleak and empty - until again, the novelty wears off and it becomes grating. The scenery of (if there are any other areas) the first area is just generic post apocalyptic desert and not really anything I haven't seen before. Not only that, but the bloom is turned to all the way up to 11 so not only is the world hard to look at aesthetically, but also literally and I found myself having headaches when playing this game (there's also no way to turn down the brightness at all, ffs). This game also runs like ass on the Switch, and low FPS doesn't help when the brightness was already agonizing enough.
The only thing I can really praise Atlus for here are the character designs, but even that's hard when most of the demon designs were lifted from previous MegaTen games, which normally isn't a problem but it just makes things feel worse here. Speaking of characters, there are none! Although I did start off meeting the main cast, they were all extremely one dimensional and not the least bit entertaining. If characters are good enough, they can carry an otherwise boring game, but by the time I gave up on this I only encountered one of the main characters a second time, whose personality trait is that he's actually an undercover government agent. Wow!
You could easily describe this game as one word: "generic", but even then, if making progress was less of a chore, I could get past a lot of the flaws here. But these are just my first impressions. Maybe I'll come back to this game, but man, it's just not my thing, apparently.