A lovely little game whose most compelling moments are entirely within its first hour. The game's opening act is nothing short of jaw-dropping—melancholy rests beneath this game's every moment like the underpainting does any well-crafted painting. The characters are grounded, their relationships believable, and their struggles interesting. I wish it had stayed in that sort of bittersweet tone for, if not the whole game, at least a little longer than it did. It hit for me in the same way Night in the Woods does, and considering Night in the Woods is one of my favorite games of all time, that is no small feat. Though I wasn't a fan of the score, the art of this game is unlike anything I've ever seen, pixel art or otherwise. I feel that this game isn't the best at being a JRPG—though I found it charming, it's a bit unwieldy. I was not charmed by its obtuse mechanics and demands of the player's time. Where it fails as a JRPG, however, it succeeds as a piece of art that will definitely stay in my mind for a while. I know I got what I wanted out of it, though I was far from reaching the credits when my playthrough ended.