The mind-bending range built into its Divination Deck mechanics to allow near limitless replayability. The crystal-clear writing that has been demonstrated time and time again by Deconstructeam. The overflowing riches of memorable set-pieces, emotionally draining yet fulfilling stories, and the perfect range of character-building sequences. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood may center around the Luck of the Draw, but make no mistake: this is about as perfect of a narrative-driven story as you will experience.

The process from answering the phone to a completed interview will only take you around 15 minutes and how you conduct yourself will branch you into one of three different endings. Henji’s opportunity to procure stability in a world that is not fit to provide it rests entirely on the morals of your choices and the lengths you’ll go to get the job done. It’s an unnerving feeling taking the time to lie to someone who’s potentially giving you the opportunity to truthfully feel alive again. But what would you rather do? Rest on your morals and hope for the best? Lie and be someone you aren’t, only to revel in the consequences in the future? Or flirt with both sides and ride a morally gray line to greener pastures?

You know what a sign of a good game is? I wanted to go back and pull my scores higher, as well as hit the rest of the optional objectives, because that rush of pulling some serious shenanigans on dirty cultists with a big ole sniper bullet and some revenge-filled ingenuity is a rip-roarin’ way to burn a couple hours. With its syrupy, saturated presentation and some real smart puzzle gunplay, it’s easy to angle our bullet past Children of the Sun’s misfires to combo for a few hours of pure delight.

INDIKA is like nothing you’ve played before. It’s proudly weird but grounded in its reasons to be, laugh-out-loud funny and despairingly somber on the flip of a coin, and just long enough to get its deeply rooted point simultaneously into your heart and your brain. Odd Meter and 11bit studios embrace a topic often left alone, but the glory of Video Games is that you can take concepts as silly, in-depth, depressing, enlightening, eye-opening, and soul-crushing as the ones provided in INDIKA, and with enough heart and tenacity, create a near masterpiece.

As a devout fan of the franchise and a beginner into the mobile scene, I’ve been playing almost daily for a few months now and have enjoyed my time! The graphics are visually appealing, the developers practically give away a deluge of rewards, and there is so much content to chomp into that making your officers feel stronger and beating challenges allows yourself that proverbial self-high-five as you continue to optimize your team.

But as a critic, the mirage of multifolded gameplay mechanics and one-dimensional combat sugar-coated on top of an absolutely repulsive premium Shop can and will deter fans of the franchise and newcomers who aren’t making 6-digit incomes. I understand that this being on a mobile platform is going to hinder opportunities and lower expectations given the commitment needed to reach a quality manageable on smartphones, but to repeat myself once again for this franchise’s countless years among numerous titles: this will be for a select few, and hopefully that’ll be enough.

I wish that the circumstances surrounding the development of Open Roads didn’t overshadow the title, but I feel like the turmoil and churn through their team decidedly did not do the game any favors in where it misfires. That said, I will always fight for games like these because it scratches that itch that AAA games never can: small teams telling stories that they want to make because they want to, not just because it will make millions of dollars. Open Roads is not perfect by any means, but it’s a serviceable short story that never overstays its welcome, and provides a consistently even cook for its players ready to chew another solid piece of indie.