Truly impressed by this gem.
It ticks so many cases and does it well.
The story and writing is good enough to feel invested in it. Characters are good as well, with very different and defining personalities, models are very nice too, especially considering some scenes are animated. Props to making good-looking asian characters too, it's not so easy.
The atmosphere overall is great. I might be biased since I love feudal Japan but the musics, the backgrounds, everything is really well done and immersive. I don't know how much is original and how much is reused assets but it doesn't really matter since it fits perfectly well.
The management side of the game is just right. Not too complex, not too simple. There's enough mechanics going on so that there is some strategy to put into it, but not too much as to not make the game frustrating as some management games can quickly become. In that regard, it feels just right.
The grind was, to me, completely bearable since I felt invested with the characters so I like to see them slowly grow from their innocent side to more... depraved let's say.
The combat feels great, fits the setting nicely with the different stances and is original enough for an RPGM game. Even after the multiple-hours marathon of fights that is the campaign map, I still wished for more.
I will list some of the defaults though to balance it out, and as of now ( 0.10.1B) some events have a very weird way of triggering.
At some point of the story I had a couple of characters leaving the establishment to do their thing, only to have one of their event starting right after that. Which made me spend a day with two characters that weren't even in the city story-wise.
The campaign map, while very good, is very punishing at first if you're not prepared enough.
I basically got softlocked in a battle that I couldn't win, and since there's no way of retreating from the map I was stucked there, had to load a save, gear up and start over. I save every day anyway so it wasn't that punishing and didn't bother me that much but still, I find that a bit rough that this section of the game doesn't let you go back safely to the city ( even if you have to restart the whole map afterwards ) nor even give you any merchant to buy some health and stuff. Some loot nodes can give you some but you have to take the correct routes, and even then it's not guaranteed to be enough depending on your gear and leveling.
So up to you to see it as a balance issue or just a big warning to be well-geared beforehand.
I'm really looking forward to the next updates and will be throwing some bucks at the devs because it's been a while since I had such a good time.
It ticks so many cases and does it well.
The story and writing is good enough to feel invested in it. Characters are good as well, with very different and defining personalities, models are very nice too, especially considering some scenes are animated. Props to making good-looking asian characters too, it's not so easy.
The atmosphere overall is great. I might be biased since I love feudal Japan but the musics, the backgrounds, everything is really well done and immersive. I don't know how much is original and how much is reused assets but it doesn't really matter since it fits perfectly well.
The management side of the game is just right. Not too complex, not too simple. There's enough mechanics going on so that there is some strategy to put into it, but not too much as to not make the game frustrating as some management games can quickly become. In that regard, it feels just right.
The grind was, to me, completely bearable since I felt invested with the characters so I like to see them slowly grow from their innocent side to more... depraved let's say.
The combat feels great, fits the setting nicely with the different stances and is original enough for an RPGM game. Even after the multiple-hours marathon of fights that is the campaign map, I still wished for more.
I will list some of the defaults though to balance it out, and as of now ( 0.10.1B) some events have a very weird way of triggering.
At some point of the story I had a couple of characters leaving the establishment to do their thing, only to have one of their event starting right after that. Which made me spend a day with two characters that weren't even in the city story-wise.
The campaign map, while very good, is very punishing at first if you're not prepared enough.
I basically got softlocked in a battle that I couldn't win, and since there's no way of retreating from the map I was stucked there, had to load a save, gear up and start over. I save every day anyway so it wasn't that punishing and didn't bother me that much but still, I find that a bit rough that this section of the game doesn't let you go back safely to the city ( even if you have to restart the whole map afterwards ) nor even give you any merchant to buy some health and stuff. Some loot nodes can give you some but you have to take the correct routes, and even then it's not guaranteed to be enough depending on your gear and leveling.
So up to you to see it as a balance issue or just a big warning to be well-geared beforehand.
I'm really looking forward to the next updates and will be throwing some bucks at the devs because it's been a while since I had such a good time.