The world and people are cool and creepy. There is a satisfying loop of fishing, dredging for materials to upgrade your ship and finding treasure. However what could have kept me driven was more reveals to the mystery that is this universe. After playing for approximately 5 hours nothing much really happens. Admittedly I'm the type of player that requires some kind of narrative/story drip to be fully captivated. As it stands right now I have 3/5 relics and ostensibly 3 more hours of game time. But I don't think I'll see it through. I still did enjoy my time with it though.

Alright. So I gave up playing this game after 25 hours. Why? I do think it's really good but merely good is not enough for me to keep playing for an additional 30 hours to reach the end.

What I liked? The combat is snappy and satisfying. Breaking enemies' shields by using various attack types adds a minor layer of strategy that makes the combat feel like more than mindlessly taking turns hitting each other. I did enjoy some of the set ups for the character's stories and I liked the trajectory of those stories even if they are a little too anime.

What caused me to stop playing? Well, it's a damn long game and I'm not the type to feel necessitated to "finish what I started." Furthermore the stories, while their premises are good, are a little too anime. What do I mean? I mean the antagonists are laughably evil. Cartoonishly evil. Also, because the game has to tell 8 stories none of them feel as fleshed out as I would like. For example a minor character had a complete 180 in personality that felt incredibly underbaked. I literally laughed. At it. Not with it. And frankly I'd prefer 4 stories as opposed to 8 if it meant they could be fleshed out more. I'd choose Temenos, Throne, Hikari, and Oswald.

All that being said there is still a lot to like here and I sometimes feel the pull to see Temenos' and Throne's stories through to the end. I simply don't think it is worth the time investment to play. So maybe I'll youtube them.

This is so hard up my alley. A cute, short, pixel art, touching story, whimsical, engaging story, with a relationship that is not quite sad dad territory but close enough. I enjoyed my 5 hours playing the game. There is an ending at the 3 hour mark but that's not the full ending.

There is no exploration in this game. You go from screen to screen by choosing it on the map. Also there are basically only boss battles which means you are always as leveled as the developer wants you to be. This is good in concept but I feel the gameplay is a bit underbaked. They don't start doing interesting things by putting little mini games in the battles until near the end. The game uses battles as a way to also deliver story which is great but I feel the battle system in general holds the game back a bit.

Overall a really cool world and touching story. Is it an amazing world and story? I wouldn't go that far but if, like me, this sounds up your alley you'd probably enjoy it.

This is pretty much everything I have wanted in a JRPG. Let us start with the gameplay. After every battle your HP and TP (MP) resets. Meaning, you are incentivized to use all of your skills. I almost never used a simple attack. Furthermore, there is a gauge. You want to be in the green (middle) not in the red. If you are in the red your defense is decreased and your spells cost more TP. You can stay in the green by defending at times or using a specific type of spell, that is randomly decided, that will lower your gauge. Scenario as an example: I want to use a poison skill but if I do I will be in the red, the gauge says if I use a buff my gauge will go down so I use a buff instead. Some won't like this but I think managing your gauge gives the combat an extra layer of strategy.

Also, there is no EXP in the traditional sense. Instead, there are Grimoire shards that will allow you to upgrade your characters (learn a skill, stat boost, or passive skill). 1 shard upgrades all your characters once. You mainly earn these shards by just completing the story events. However, to earn additional shards there is a chart of achievements (like kill 10 wolves in Fiorwoods or explore most of the area) and if you link a chain of achievements, you will get rewarded a Grimoire shard. This negates the need for traditional grinding. There are other things and nuances, but I have spoken too much already.

STORY! In the beginning I was intrigued by the whole grand story, which is largely political but does have a lot of fantastical elements as well. The characters I was less sold on, but I did like the fact that the tone was more adult than other JRPGs. As the story goes on you learn more about the characters and I loved them. Victor, Ba'thraz, Sienna, Lenne and Glen's backstory chef's kiss. The story reveals in this game were amazing. So much so that I tried to think of the simplest way to explain them to my GF because I wanted to share it. She was also shocked or at least pretended to be for my satisfaction. Also, by doing side quests you will fill in story loose ends from the main quest.

The murder mystery game set in the 1500s that spans decades seems very niche but I think it will appeal to anyone who just likes story-driven games. However the pace is very slow especially if you are the type of player that wants to talk to everyone before progressing the story. The game does reward you for talking to everybody and exploring the premises. For instance, without any reason to suspect anything I stumbled into a part of the map and I found some evidence that was instrumental in determining the killer. So that was great. The game also does a great job of showing you generations of people that have lived in this town. People who were children in the beginning are adults by the end and the young adults in the beginning are senior members of the community.
There are 2 murder mysteries in the game, which are the best parts. The last act seems kind of like a very long epilogue that focuses on reminiscing more than moving the story ahead. Of course there is a story conclusion in this act but the act as a whole kind of dragged the game down imo. Still a great game. I do wish it was a little shorter, I think for this kind of game 13 hours is a bit too long.